rejection to the qualities of the objective field because they have taken hold of the
unchanging citadel of intrinsic presence.
1.11 PEOPLE IGNORANT OF THE ILLUSORY NATURE OF THEIR OWN UNREAL MIND SPIN AROUND IN
CONFUSION
If all phenomena are primordially and reflexively released without the necessity
of cultivating what is positive or rejecting what is negative, why do sentient beings
wander in samsara? The King of Samadhi Sutra says, “The seed of enlightenment
pervades all beings.” And in the tantra The Secret Core: Illusory Display, it is said,
We may search the four directions,
But we will not find perfect buddha;
The very mind itself is perfect buddha,
So do not search for him anywhere!If the nature of mind is perfect buddha, how then can delusion arise? Discursive
thought in an individual sentient being arises unbidden and, exacerbated by ego-
clinging, projects the universe of samsara. Samsara is therefore a dreamlike self-
envisionment.
Here’s an old story from Japan: Many thousands of years ago, long before the
mirror was known, there lived a farmer and his wife. Every day the farmer went
to his fields to work. As time went by, his wife noticed that he had begun to spend
a long time each day looking down at one place in the field. At the same time, she
heard him repeating a single phrase over and over. Wondering what was so
special about the place that constantly drew his gaze, she quietly followed him one
day to spy on him and saw with amazement that he was looking into a piece of
broken glass. She snatched it from his hand and, looking into it, she found, staring
back at her, the face of a beautiful woman. She became angry and upbraided him.
“Now I know what you have been doing all the time in the field,” she shouted,
“You have found another woman to admire!” “That would be quite wrong,” he
responded. “I am not interested in another woman. It is my deceased father in this
glass that I have been concerned with.” She took the glass and looked into it again,
and again saw the beautiful woman. “Here! Who do you see in this glass?” she
demanded, returning it to him. “It’s my father,” he assured her. She chided him
for his duplicity, for his refusal to admit what was clear to her eye. While they
were quarreling in this way, a yogin happened along and stopped, asking them
what was the matter. The wife answered him, saying, “There is plainly a woman
in this glass, and he is telling me that it’s his father. That’s the issue.” “Let me see,”
said the yogin, taking the glass and looking into it. Seeing a good-looking young
yogin in it, he told them, “There is neither a woman nor an old man in it, but
rather a handsome young yogin. Don’t quarrel! Anyhow, this is something I need,”
he said, and respectfully touching the mirror to the crown of his head, he took it
away with him.
As this anecdote demonstrates, due to our failure to recognize the nature of our