Cultivating Spirituality: A Modern Shin Buddhist Anthology

Chapter 14: The Mirror of Nothingness

Chapter 14 The Mirror of Nothingness* Yasuda Rijin Translated by Paul Watt That which is called the Complete One, the One Dharmadhåtu1 is the ultimate object of questing of sentient beings as self-aware existences. As long as the problem of sentient beings remains within the bounds of a problem of knowledge or a problem of realism, it is like an object that cannot yet [properly] become a problem. It can be said that everything that is the product of the rational labor of sentient beings limits the meaning of the existence of those sentient beings. Thus, the objective world that is the product of those sentient beings can be thought of as an interpretation at the stage or within the realm of the sentient beings who produced it. Therefore, in accord with the respective perspectives of the quests of sentient beings who are physical and historical existences, the states of their understanding are formed. However, from these perspectives, can sentient beings themselves or the ultimate state of sentient beings be completely understood? Is it possible, at least, from such perspectives, to call into question sentient beings themselves or the ultimate state of sentient beings? That which is called the Complete One, the One Dharmadhåtu is the understanding of the realm of sentient beings as a complete unity or  dharmadhåtu. At this point, we may call [sentient beings]   $        %  ¢  ; £    ;    the limited world of possible limitations, but rather as [beings] who embrace all limitations and who, therefore, are also self aware, as 233 *YRS 1: 128–32; originally published in Købø, May 1931, No. 3. 234 YASUDA RIJIN            %       total structure [of existence]. The reason that sentient beings take on such a quest as their own is nothing other than that they want to become sentient beings in reality. They want to become sentient beings who are self-aware existences. Thus, the interpretation of such a structure is not a mere [matter of] understanding, nor does it stop at mere practice, in as much as one stands within the quest. That is [because] it is a problem of sentient beings as self-aware existences, a problem of the self itself. Until one attains the Complete Dharmadhåtu, a sentient being cannot establish the self itself. That which is called a religious quest, in the end, is summed up in this. And because it concerns the fundamental structure of understanding, it can also be said to be a philosophical quest. That sentient beings can be human beings in reality depends on their basing the self on that which causes the self to be the self, while at the same time transcending the self. However, to base the self on the transcendent is not to form a union between the transcendent and sentient beings. This is because, as long as the transcendent exists over against sentient beings, the union of the two is impossible. Thus, to base [the self on the transcendent] must mean the discovery of the self within the transcendent or the discovery of sentient beings as the selfdetermination of the transcendent. Therefore, the transcendent is the      %         <    of sentient beings in this sense cannot be a substantive existence.¢+ £     %    is, absolute negation. It can be said that that which makes possible all existence is absolute nothingness. If one thinks of existence as      $ ¢ £     makes possible those unique [phenomena] is the emptiness that is the ultimate universal. The world of sentient beings can truly be realized     %     on that sort of absolute negation. It goes without saying that, just as we think that the absolute is not something that stands in opposition to the relative, we cannot think of this sort of emptiness as something that stands in opposition to existence or as emptiness as an actually existing thing. In the fact that negation is absolute negation lies the     #         %     emptiness, because it is empty, encompasses existence. At the same time 236 YASUDA RIJIN that sentient beings are sentient beings through self-negation, emptiness manifests itself as sentient beings through the self-delimitation of   < %    %   manifestation as sentient beings. Emptiness is not an empty, abstract concept; [rather] it can be thought of as a function that empties [all  £ <        realm of sentient beings. The self-manifestation of emptiness is, at the    %  < ¢  £     %      %   |                    The ultimate basis [of things] must be the basis that has no basis. It is precisely because of that, that it is able to provide a foundation for the realm of sentient beings. That we regard ignorance as the last condition for the realization of the realm of sentient beings can be understood to mean that the realm of sentient beings has no ultimate conditions, in other words, that it has the nature of having no basis. But it is in the nature of having no basis that, on the contrary, one      <    %     it is not that the realm of sentient beings is rejected, but rather that its original nature is made manifest. A mirror through its quiescence        %  €        of course not an experiential existence, but the fundamental state of experiential existence. It can be said to be the existent with marks within the nature of emptiness, the worldly truth within the absolute truth. Perhaps it can be said to be movement that has been quieted or purity that has been sullied. That which can encompass the sullied and cause it to exist is itself original purity. The sullied that exists through original purity is truly the originally sullied. A mirror causes all things to exist within itself and manifests all things within it. In that sense, it can be said that a mirror is able to store all things. It is said, “All sentient beings exist within the Tathågata’s wisdom.” Just as the truly absolute encompasses the relative within it, so sentient beings, with respect to their true state, take the Tathågata as the place of realization. “All sentient beings never depart from the state   { <   %           Tathågata’s wisdom; in other words, they are sentient beings that exist as the object of the absolute’s self-realization and the content of the absolute’s self-awareness. Doesn’t the ultimate structure of sentient beings lie in the fact that sentient beings exist within the Tathågata’s womb? Isn’t it too that those whom we call “religious sentient beings”   %        # 237 THE MIRROR OF NOTHINGNESS           don’t we have to imagine something like the self-aware wisdom of   <X †                 %  then the various interpretations of sentient beings can be thought of, as it were, as delimited aspects of the Complete One. Notes 1. These words translate the phrases zen’ichi naru mono, ichihokkai to iwaruru mono 全一なるもの、 一法界といわるゝもの. Both zen’ichi and ichihokkai refer to absolute reality. ...