The root cause of suffering in beginningless samsara is the emotional affliction of
desire and aversion. Insofar as we need to rid ourselves of the delusive mental
projections that emerge from those emotions, perhaps the first thing we ought to
do is make a distinction between what is to be extinguished and the healing
antidote. For example, there is the wood that is to be cut, and the axe; there is the
sickness to be cured, and the medicine; and there are the delusive visions of
emotivity, and the antidote that removes them. The antidote is the realization of
egolessness, or primal awareness, wherein dualistic appearances do not arise. But
if we believe that we need to depend upon an antidote in the sense of isolating,
following, and practicing it, we are mistaken. No matter which thoughts of desire
or other emotions arise or which delusory projections appear, they are all the
nature of samsara, complete and perfect in the total sameness of reality,
primordially released, beyond error or fault. Why? Because samsara’s nature is
emptiness. In The King of Samadhi Sutra, it is said,
The bodhisattva undermines materialism,
Because all existence is primordially empty.
The wise do not contend with children,
Or with extremists whose emptiness is a void.Further, in the very moment that samsara appears, it has in actuality no
substantial existence—it is immaculate natural perfection. Dream phenomena and
the mind of the dreamer are one in the mind, just as dualistic appearances, if
examined, are seen to be the magical illusion of relativity. In the same way, both
the ego that turns the wheel and the reified objective field of samsara and nirvana
are the nature of mind because the nature of mind is appearance itself. Nagarjuna,
in The Root Stanzas of the Middle Way, says,
There is not even a fine distinction
Between samsara and nirvana;
There is not the slightest difference between them.With respect to samsara and nirvana, when we understand that all of the notions
of antidote and abandonment, acceptance and rejection, and affirmation and
negation of nirvana and samsara, respectively, are merely elaborated mental
concepts, we realize that all discursive concepts are empty in themselves and are
the sameness of reality itself. There is no view and meditation more profound or
superior to this. In In Union with Buddha, Padmasambhava is recorded as having
said,
If conceptual thought is reality,
The only meditation is upon the dharmadhatu.In a dream, the subjective aspect of dualistic perception mistakes itself for an
objective field; in like manner, mistakenly conceiving the dualistic appearances of