Thursday, October 02, 2014

King Ravana Gets On Board


The Buddha's Lankavataran teaching on the emptiness of all appearances awoke something in King Ravana, for the sutra quotes him as saying, in verse (as we all do at such times):
"Such is the nature of things, the realm of nothing but mind,
This is something the foolish don't know, bewildered by false projections.
There is no seer or anything seen, no speaker or anything spoken,
The appearance of buddhas and also their teachings are merely what we imagine.
Those who view such things as real, they don't see the Buddha
Nor do those who imagine nothing.  Only those who transform their existence."
The sutra goes on to note that with these words, King Ravana "felt an awakening and a transformation of his consciousness, as he realized what appeared before him was nothing but the perceptions of his own mind, and he found himself in a realm free from such projections."  He suddenly gained an understanding of all teachings, the ability to see things as they really are and not as others saw them, and how to examine things with his own wisdom while remaining free of discursive views.

You won't find any of this in the edited version of the D.T. Suzuki translation, but it's covered in great detail in the excellent Red Pine translation. 

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