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Despite the seeming welter of specialized Buddhist terms, there is a golden thread that runs through the Buddha’s teaching which serves to help us decipher much of it. It lies with our understanding of Mind—not mind as thought oriented or sensory consciousness—but Mind as absolute. In The Awakening of Faith, a work attributed to Ashvaghosha, Mind is treated as follows:
"The Mind in terms of the Absolute is the one World of Reality (Dharmadhatu) and the essence of all phases of existence in their totality. That which is called “the essential nature of the Mind” is unborn and is imperishable. It is only through illusions that all things come to be differentiated. If one is freed from illusions, then to him there will be no appearances (lakshana) of objects regarded as absolutely independent existences; therefore all things from the beginning transcend all forms of verbalization, description, and conceptualization and are, in the final analysis, undifferentiated, free from alteration, and indestructible. They are only of the One Mind; hence the name Suchness. All explanations by words are provisional and without validity, for they are merely used in accordance with illusions and are incapable of denoting Suchness. The term Suchness likewise has no attributes, which can be verbally specified. The term Suchness is, so to speak, the limit of verbalization wherein a word is used to put an end to words. But the essence of Suchness itself cannot be put an end to, for all things in their Absolute aspect are real; nor is there anything which needs to be pointed out as real, for all things are equally in the state of Suchness. It should be understood that all things are incapable of being verbally explained or thought of; hence the name Suchness."
In the study of Zen it is important to take Ashvaghosha’s words to heart. It is especially important to understand that the path of Zen involves having a direct intuition of this Mind because without it we are using the commonplace mind to try and ponder the absolute Mind. Such a course only leads to confusion serving even to dispirit us . Nor are we ever able to break free from the commonplace mind that hides the absolute.