XXIII. The Ten Unnecessary Things

1. Realization of the empty nature of the mind is attained through yogic mastery of the Doctrine of the Voidness, which shows that Mind, the Sole Reality, is the noumenal source of all phenomena; and, that being non-saṃsāric (i.e. non dependent for its existence upon objective appearances, nor even upon thought-forms or thought-processes), it is the Qualityless, the Attributeless, and, therefore, the Vacuous. Once having arrived at this realization, the yogin no longer needs to listen to or meditate upon religious teachings, for these are merely guides to the great goal of yoga which he has reched.

2. According to The Awakening of Faith, by Ashvaghosha, one of the illustrious expounders of the Mahāyāna, ‘The mind from the beginning is of a pure nature, but since there is the finite aspect of it which is sullied by finite views, there is the sullied aspect of it. Although there is this defilement, yet the original pure nature is eternally unchanged.’ As Ashvaghosha adds, it is only an Enlightened One, Who has realized the unsulliable nature of primordial mind (or intellect), that understands this mystery. (Cf. Timothy Richard’s translation of The Awakening of Faith, Shanghai, 1907; also the translation made by Professor Teitaro Suzuki, published in Chicago in 1900, pp 79-80.)

So for him who knows that the defilements of the world are, like the world, without any reality, being part of the Great Illusion, or Māyā, what need is there for the absolution of sin? Likewise, as the next aphorism teaches, ‘for one who abideth in the State of mental Quiescence’, which is the State of Enlightenment, all such illusory concepts of the finite mind as sin and absolution vanish as morning mist do when the Sun has arisen.

3. Here, again, reference to the Doctrine of the Voidness [of Mind] is essential to right understanding of this aphorism. The State of Non-Cognition, otherwise called the True State [of Mind], is a state of unmodified consciousness, comparable to a calm and infinite ocean. In the modified state of consciousness, inseparable from mind in its microcosmic or finite aspect, this ocean illusorily appears to be ruffled with waves, which are the illusory concepts born of saṃsāric existence.

As Ashvaghosha also tells us in The Awakening of Faith, (Richard’s translation, p.12) ‘We should know that all phenomena are created by the imperfect notions of the finite mind; therefore all existence is like a reflection in a mirror, without substance, only a phantom of the mind. When the finite mind acts, then all kinds of things arise; when finite mind ceases to act, then all kind of things cease.’ Concomitantly with realization of the True State, wherein mind is quiescent and devoid of the thought-processes and concepts of finite mind, the yogin realizes the unreal nature of cognitions, and no longer need to meditate upon the State of Non-Cognition.

4. For according to the Doctrine of Māyā (or Illusion) nothing which has illusory (or phenomenal) existence is real.

5. Consciousness, or mind, being primordially of the Unborn, Uncreated, cannot really be transferred. It is only to consciousness in its finite or microcosmic aspect, as manifested in the Saṃsāra, or Realm of Illusion, that one may apply the term transference.

To the Unborn, in the True State, wherein the Saṃsāra is transcended, time and space, which belong wholly to the Realm of Illusion, have no existence. How then can the Unborn be transferred, since there is no whence or whither to which It can be related? Having realized this, that the noumenal cannot be created as the phenomenal, there is no need to practise the transference of consciousness.

6. Humanity being a unified organism, through which the One Mind finds highest expression on Earth, whatsoever one member of it does to another member of it, be the action good or evil, inevitably affects all members of it. Therefore, in the Christian sense as well, the doing of good to others is the doing of good to oneself.