Bright Mirror With No Stand
Zen and the Art of WTF!
"The world of nature consists of many forms which are reflected in a single mirror — nay, rather, it is a single form, reflected in many mirrors." —Muhyi 'd-Din ibn Arabi
In the nourishing realm of Vajrayana Buddhism, the practice of the Mirror-like Wisdom embodies a profound quest for self-awareness and a clear, comprehensive experience of reality. This Wisdom, a cornerstone of Vajrayana meditation practice, cultivates a state of mind mirroring in consciousness the archetypal essence of the objective world as it truly is, without the interference of subjective biases, interpretations, or judgments.
The Mirror-like Wisdom allows the mind to be fully present in the Now, reflecting upon itself as integral to the irreducible wholeness of experiential reality, transcending subject and object.
Mirrors reflect images without being affected by them, thus the model for this Wisdom. One comes to perceive the world not as an objective reality separate from self, rather as a resonance of one’s own consciousness, or more properly, the self as a nodal isomorphism in the manifest process. This Wisdom is the gateway to the Mandala, which is our luminous awareness manifest through our physiological interface with manifestation.
The Mirror-like Wisdom points to the mind’s inherent bodhi, or Buddha-nature, its primordial purity and perfection that is merely obscured by the defilements of ignorance and affliction, the confusion brought by our ego-consciousness. Realizing this Mirror-Like Wisdom is experiencing one’s true essence and awakening to enlightenment. I think of this as attaining what I term “spiritual proprioceptivity.”
But what exactly is the nature of this inner mirror, and what exactly is mirrored?
Never forget, what you're looking for is what is looking. —Wei Wu Wei
Bright Mirror
The story of Hui Neng, Sixth Chan (Zen) Patriarch is in essence, an insight into the core philosophical distinctions between the gradual and sudden paths to enlightenment within Chan Buddhism, providing a key to my thesis here.
According to the Platform Sutra, the Fifth Patriarch Hong Ren, seeking a successor, challenged his disciples to write a verse demonstrating their comprehension of the enlightened essence of mind. Shen Xiu, the senior disciple, wrote a quatrain comparing the mind to a bright mirror that must be diligently polished to remove the dust of defilements.
Body is a Bodhi Tree
Mind a bright mirror on a stand
Strive to clean it diligently
Do not let dust motes land
—Shen Xiu
Shen Xiu’s verse represents a gradualist approach to enlightenment, suggesting that the mind, like a bright mirror, must be diligently cleaned through spiritual practice to remove the “dust” of ignorance and defilements. Here, the polished mirror is used metaphorically to represent the goal of enlightenment, which is likened to a bodhi tree under which one can attain awakening.
In contrast, the illiterate layman Hui Neng composed a quatrain declaring that since the mind is inherently pure and enlightened, there is no mirror to polish and no dust to remove. Our Buddha-nature is originally pure and complete, unconditioned by illusory “dust motes” of affliction. Hui Neng is asserting that true bodhi or enlightenment has no external form or phenomenon associated with it. His verse expresses his “sudden enlightenment” teaching.
Bodhi really has no tree
No mirror and no stand
Nothing’s there initially
Where then can dust motes land?
—Hui Neng
This event, as recounted by the monk Shen Hui and embellished in the Platform Sutra, established Hui Neng as the Sixth Patriarch and the ancestor of all subsequent Chan lineages, inaugurating the golden age of Chan in the Tang dynasty, and the eventuation of Zen in Japan.
The opposing inflections of these verses captures the essential difference between the Northern School’s gradualist approach and Hui Neng’s Southern School teaching of sudden awakening. Hui Neng’s verse became an influential expression of the Chan/Zen focus on an immediate apprehension of one’s true nature, beyond dualistic comprehension.
Hui Neng points directly to the non-dual, empty nature of mind, which is always originally and inherently enlightened. It is our genetic, mimetic, culturally-imprinted personalities and world views that disuade us from this ultimate reality. Rather than gradual polishing, Hui Neng advocates an immediate recognition of one’s inherent Buddhahood through letting go of all conceptual supports.
So if within there is no mirror and no stand, what is there according to Hui Neng? Only bodhi, the ultimate Buddha-nature itself — the clear, pure, unborn and unceasing awareness that is the true essence of mind. Yet, we cannot speak of the “empty nature” of all phenomena without using concepts and words that naturally become objects of attachment. The Buddha recognized this dilemma, which is why he noted he was only pointing the way, we must traverse Samsara ourselves to the far shore of Nirvana.
While the highest realization of bodhi awakens us to the illusory, empty nature of all phenomena, including the self, we still must operate within the relative world of cause and effect, pleasure and pain, gain and loss.
Some translations of Hui Neng’s saga say “bright mirror has no stand,” implying there is still some luminous self-reflecting singularity experiencing it all. The true mind is not a mirror “thing” that reflects, but the ever-present awareness that is One with all phenomena. The mind is, in essence, clear, requiring only an instantaneous realization of its spotless nature.
OK, nice story.. but where does that get us? In consideration of the crazy Zen mind twists these cogitations incur, we will approach from the “bright mirror with no stand” perspective, so at least we have an ideated conceptuality to hang some ideas on that may elicit transcending cognitive inspirations as we wander our paths forward.
Divine Spark
Autodidactic parallels can be drawn between Hui Neng’s teaching on the void-natured bright mirror and the Gnostic concept of the Divine spark.
The Gnostics knew that within each human being there is a Divine spark, a portion of the supreme Godhead that has fallen into the material realm. This spark is the true self and the ultimate source of spiritual awakening.
Realizing and awakening to this inner divinity is the goal of spiritual practice in both Chan and Gnosticism. For Hui Neng it is seeing one’s bodhi or true self-nature, for the Gnostics it is liberating the divine spark to reunite with the Godhead.
This inner Divine element is intrinsically pure and perfect — it does not need to be improved or transformed, only recognized and directly experienced. The mirror is always bright, the divine spark is inextinguishable.
The Divine spark is perhaps Chan’s emptiness itself — the inconceivable, unborn awareness that is the true nature of the our beingness when seen through the bright mirror of the awakened state. Emptiness is not a blank void, rather, it is the very ground of all emergence, the “void” from which all “occasions of experience” (Whitehead) arise and into which they dissolve, leaving no trace yet making all traces possible.
Alchemy - Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul
Titus Burckhardt describes spiritual alchemy as a process of purifying and perfecting the soul, transmuting consciousness from a base leaden state into a golden one that reflects the Divine spirit. This inner alchemy is a process of “polishing the mirror,” as one undertakes the self-metamorphoses leading to the golden state of the soul. Spiritual alchemical gold represents the soul in its pure, luminous state after the dross of impurities have been burnt away by experiential process. In effect, it becomes the bright mirror with no stand, after polishing.
Goethean Approach and the Bright Mirror
The Mirror-Like Wisdom resonates with the Goethean process of participatory cognition, which emphasizes a deep, embodied, and participatory mode of knowing that unites the observer and the observed. By cultivating Mirror-like Wisdom as componentry of the Goethean approach, one may develop a profound and intimate relationship with the natural world, perceiving it as a dynamic and interconnected whole rather than a collection of isolated objects.
The Goethean process and the Mirror-like Wisdom of Vajrayana Buddhism share this common experience of the interconnectedness of the world and the individual’s experience within it. Just as the Mirror-Like Wisdom points to the empty yet luminous nature of mind that reflects all phenomena without being affected by them, Goethe’s methodology aims to perceive the essential, ideal spiritual forms overarching the diversity of nature. Both approaches emphasize the importance of wholistic and interconnected comprehension, encouraging individuals to actively engage with and observe the world with clarity of the senses.
The Goethean process focuses on the observation of living expressions in the natural world, while the Vajrayana method emphasizes the development of inner wisdom through meditation and visualization practices. Both approaches aim to bring about a fundamental, clear awareness of reality, albeit with different originating focal points and methodologies.
The Mirror-Like Wisdom reflects all phenomena as they are, without distortion or attachment. The Goethean participatory method is a way of knowing that involves a delicate empiricism, a conscious-process-participation, and a focus on the qualitative manifestations of phenomena without subjective interference.
For Goethe, the archetypal plant or animal is not a fixed, eternal form in a Platonic realm of Ideas sense, but rather a dynamic, spiritual template that gives rise to the myriad expressions of living form. These archetypes are not separate from individual phenomena, but immanent within them, like how a mirror’s capacity to reflect is not separate from the reflections themselves.
In this sense, the cognitive mirror in Goethe’s archetypal perception is not a metaphysical entity, but the very clarity and openness of mind that allows the essential forms to be apprehended directly within the sensory world. It is a way of seeing with the eye of the spirit that goes beyond the specific details to grasp the generative principles at work, without imposing abstract concepts onto living reality.
This resonates with Plato’s theory of Forms or Ideas, but with a key difference. For Plato, his Ideas exist in a timeless, transcendent realm, separate from the world of becoming. Goethe’s archetypal realm, in contrast, is immanent and dynamic, unfolding through the metamorphosis of living forms. These are not fixed blueprints, but fluid potentials that manifest in diverse ways. Goethe’s mirror of archetypal perception is thus not a passive reflection of pre-existing Ideas, but an active participation in the creative unfolding of life.
In this way, the Mirror-Like Wisdom and Goethe’s methodology both point to a way of knowing that transcends the duality of subject and object, perceiver and perceived. By attuning to the archetypal dimension within phenomena, the mind becomes a clear mirror, reflecting the essential nature of things without distortion. This is not a detached, abstract knowledge, but an intimate, participatory wisdom that arises from the union of observer and observed.
The Goethean approach and the practicing of the Mirror-Like Wisdom meditation are essentially both “polishing the mirror” practices. Yet, at any point within one may realize the ultimate bodhi nature of manifestation through these practices. They are profound gateways. Even the monks at Hui Neng’s monastery had to practice their meditation. It isn’t like someone points out to us that we’re all enlightened already and we just “get it.”
For me, it’s not about attaining enlightenment, but rather retaining those moments of higher insight we all have in our living flows.
Mirror, mirror, with no stand
So, what do we mirror in consciousness in these meditative and cognitive practices? What are the inner and outer archetypal structures that connect through these practices? The inner is the mandala of the wisdom Buddhas, which is us as experienced through our aggregates of consciousness. The outer is the participatory experience of natural processes through polarity and metamorphosis (Lehrs).
In my article on the Liberal Arts I presented the Trivium, the inner structure of grammar/input, logic/processing, and rhetoric/output; and, the Quadrivium, the outer structure of the universe through the hierarchy of numerical expression.
The Power of Precision Thinking
“Logic is the source of eloquence, through which the wise who understand the … principal sciences and disciplines may discourse upon them more correctly, truly, and elegantly; more correctly, through Grammar; more truly, through Dialectic; more eloquently, through Rhetoric.” —St. Vincent of Beauvais
We can find in the Vajrayana mandala, which is us in our total beingness, the structure and process of the liberal arts.
The Mirror-Like Wisdom is the gateway of the subjective realm to the objective world of the Quadrivium. The subsequent three stages of the mandala are the core process of the Trivium, that which we utilize to assess the outer realm. The symbol of the Mirror-Like Wisdom, the gateway of this process, is the vajra or dorje, showing the inner and outer archetypes perfectly resonating through the bindu/bodhi in the center.
The Error of Seeking Archetypes in the Subsensible Realm
The reductionist science of today, with all it’s many successes and progressions in advancing technological control of civilization, is completely lost in comprehending the irreducible wholeness of manifestation. So it will always ever hold merely a small piece of the puzzle. There are no ultimate answers there.
As seen in research such as Michael Nehl’s Indoctrinated Brain thesis, people’s minds, through their autobiographical neurons, provide us with our sense of self. These can be manipulated to create a state where people identify with propounded authoritarian narratives. In the Goethean process there is no narrative to identify with, it is a higher awareness that can only be pointed to in the hopes that others can follow the pathway of a participatory cognition with natural processes. People like Steiner pointed the way, but their pathways are loaded with what amounts to a deep mysticism to one who hasn’t directly fathomed it, and which whatever validity, deters from the essential focus of attaining enlightenment.
The Goethean approach provides a superior way of knowing and being transcending the narrative-based identity and reductionist science foisted upon an unsuspecting population. The Goethean approach promotes a deeper and more authentic comprehension of ourselves and our place in the world, fostering a more creative and free expression of our individuality, and creating a more harmonious integration into reality.
There are various models for the building blocks of matter. Those that appeal to the materialistic consciousness of our era are what Steiner termed subsensible, beneath matter. Commonly we think of atoms and molecules, or can envision the particle zoo of quarks and leptons, or even down to the so called Planck “constant.” The Planck is a mathematical device, and as it turns out, variable and not a constant.
My recent article goes into detail:
Walking the Planck
“Science progresses one funeral at a time.” —Max Planck (deceased) Planck’s “constant,” a cornerstone of the reductionist science of quantum mechanics, was born out of a crisis in physics known as the Ultraviolet Catastrophe. Scientists, following Kirchhoff’s Law of Thermal Radiation (~1860), predicted from their equations that a black body —
Play your part in the comedy, but don’t identify yourself with your role! —Wei Wu Wei
If your world view is based on the smashing of subatomic particles and the subsequent mathematical considerations, such as scaling up from Planck’s imaginary “constant” as a foundation, when it is neither a constant nor an actual physical thing—certainly never experienceable—then how can the bright mirror of consciousness resonate as a archetypal cognitive organ participating in the eventuation of natural processes as it gains spiritual proprioceptivity?
Synthesis
The Divine spark, the bright mirror, and the vajra are powerful symbols pointing to our innermost Buddha-nature—the Mirror-Like Wisdom that is potentially ever-present, untainted by obscurations. Awakening to this primordial awareness is recognizing our true self and the nature of reality beyond whatever dualistic reifications we may project.
This profound insight unites the essence of alchemical, Gnostic, Chan, and Vajrayana teachings, seen through the Goethean approach, invoking the fundamental luminosity and purity of consciousness. Despite different languages and symbols, these traditions share the liberating wisdom of awakening to our Divine nature through direct, non-conceptual insight.
Gnostic, Buddhist, and alchemical paths all recognize an innermost divine essence within the human being, whether called the Divine spark, Buddha-nature, or Philosophers Stone. Spiritual practice aims to uncover and awaken this primordial nature. The alchemically transformed golden soul reflecting the divine spirit mirrors the luminous nature of mind. Both represent consciousness purified of obscurations, shining with inherent divine radiance.
Awakening to the Divine spark, Mirror-Like Wisdom, or alchemical gold is realizing our fundamental identity with the Absolute—the Gnostic Godhead, Buddhist Dharmakaya, the Philosopher’s Stone. It is the ultimate spiritual attainment and supreme liberation. These diverse traditions point to a common perennial wisdom: there is a Divine essence within us that must be uncovered through diligent practice or perhaps hopefully a sudden awakening, such attainment is the true goal of any pure spiritual path. Attaining spiritual proprioceptivity in this Samsaric mileu of madness we find ourselves immersed within demands nothing less.
Do you realise that when you give a shilling to a beggar you are giving it to yourself? Do you realise that when you help a dog over a stile you yourself are being helped? Do you realise when you kick a man when he is down, you are kicking yourself? Give him another kick, you deserve it! —Wei Wu Wei
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