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Be, See, Free, We (2 of 10) The Signless Door of Liberation

So, the topic for the beginning of this week-long series of talks is the doors of liberation. The word "doors" implies that there's something to pass through or a clear demarcation to something on the other side. This idea means there's a clear, complete going someplace. It's not partial freedom; it's a full freedom, a full liberation that's possible.

It's said there are three doors to walk through or move through. For different people and for different reasons, different doors open for them as the movement to this more complete experience of liberation happens. For some people, it's the door of the signless, a door that has no sign, no attribute. For other people, it's the door of the wishless, having no desire. And for some people, it's the door of emptiness, where there's no attribution or involvement with self, seeing that things are empty.

Why some people go through one door rather than others, no one really knows, perhaps. At different times, different doors open for people. They are closely related; these are almost like three different perspectives on the same movement of release that's possible. But there are catalysts. It's like certain insights are catalysts for a kind of deep letting go.

So, for today, the topic is the signless. In modern English terms, we would consider what's called a sign in Buddhist language, or Buddhist teaching, to be an attribute that we attribute to something. The mind is attributing things. We are projecting ideas and concepts onto things of what they are.

Sometimes that's quite innocent, and it's also expected that we would do so. If you see a door, and you can see two doors—one has a sign saying "entrance" and one "exit"—that's an attributing of meaning, of purpose, of function to a door, which we've already attributed by looking at it: "That's a door."

I think there was a time in humanity, maybe hundreds of thousands of years ago, when there were no doors. And if someone just propped a door up against a tree, they would have no clue that this was a door. But if a modern person saw a door up against a tree, we basically know what doors look like. So, "Oh, there's a door up against the tree, and that's kind of odd." The "doorness," the attributing of it being a door, is in the mind that does so, and we think it's inherent in the door because our society around us shares in that attribution. But in fact, the mind is involved in doing it. It sees this as a sign or an idea or a concept, a projection: "Oh, that's a door."

That's innocent enough, and with entrance and exit doors, we are expected to cooperate with those kinds of attributions, and it's useful to do so. We don't get bottlenecks around everyone going in and out of the same door. So, it has a usefulness.

It's innocent enough there, but there are all forms of attribution, all forms of projection of ideas onto ourselves, the world around us, to people, that are a source of tremendous suffering. Bias and prejudice, racism, objectifying someone as a sexual object. I mean, what a horrible thing to do. It's a projection, an attribution of something out there that we place on it. And so, in Buddhist language, we're involved in sign-making.

And not only making signs, making attributions, living with them, but it can get quite extreme where there's a lot of fixation and tension involved in these signs and attributes. For some people, their whole mind is constantly involved in the world of aboutness. Thinking about things: thinking about later today, thinking about yesterday, thinking about a friend, thinking about work, thinking about what's for dinner. The mind is usually thinking about something, and whenever the world is about something, we're involved in a world of signifying, of signs, of attributions, of ideas, of projections that actually takes work. The mind is actively involved. And if we're fixated on and attached to these ideas we have, there can be a lot of suffering around them.

As practice quiets, as the mind gets stiller and stiller, and calmer and calmer, there's less and less projection, attribution. This is not a strange thing. People take vacations, they take a day off from work, they go sit in a park and just look at the river going by or the grass growing. Some people just feel the tensions of work, the tensions of the week falling away, and the mind is no longer racing and thinking and worrying about things constantly. It is so nice to just let go of everything. Sitting in the park, ordinary people who don't meditate on a day off can have so much drop away. So much of the signifying and attributing and projecting onto things that happens with work or difficulties at home falls away, and it's so nice to sit in the park and be left alone.

Meditation is to have that experience in a very profound, deep way. This profound letting oneself alone, this profound experiencing of the mind not doing the work of projecting, of signifying, of making attributions on everything, and wanting. We don't pick up the signs; we don't get involved with them.

One way that this operates, one way that this opens up to people, is when in meditation we are profoundly in the present moment, having really found our way to just being here in a very visceral, complete way. The experience of here is felt to be ever-changing, moving and fluxing, rising and passing. There's a constant movement, and we realize that it's the signifying, it's the projection of the mind that sees permanence or constancy. Not eternal permanence, but at least for today or for these next five minutes, we have ideas that this is how things are. But when we see everything moving and changing and fluxing, at some point the mind realizes that its movement to signify, to project, to have a fixed idea of things, is not really accurate in the moment.

It doesn't really land anywhere. Things are constantly shifting in such a way that by the time we have attributed or interpreted something—put a name on it or a label on it—it's already shifted and changed to something else. Our perception, our experience, the constant shifting nature of perception. And this sounds like it's really being very busy, but it's very relaxed. It's like looking at a river going by where the current and the wavelets are constantly moving, and it's the constant movement which is so deeply relaxing.

To have that experience in meditation with a lot of stillness and quiet, at some point, for some people, the mind lets go of its tendency to project, to attribute names, to attribute concepts, to attribute signification to what that flowing, changing nature of phenomena is. And that movement of signifying, of having signs, releases. That feeling of release can be quite compelling for our whole system. Something very deep just lets go. Deep holding, deep attachment. And then a person has gone through the door of the signless.

And that's kind of nice. One of the things that's nice about it is to realize that we don't have to be so constantly involved with our thinking, our signifying, our attributing, our projection. The mind can take care of us quite nicely when the mind is free, without us needing to ride or be intensely fixated on what we're thinking about.

I'll end with this metaphor for this. If you're going for a long hike and you go across a long, flat plateau, maybe miles and miles of flat plateau, and you're thinking about how the edge of the plateau is a steep cliff you have to come to and look over the edge. The whole way over there you're worried about the big cliff. There's no need while you're on the flat plateau to be thinking about what's going to happen at the end. Thinking about how you're going to take care of yourself and worrying about yourself.

But when you eventually come to that cliff after many hours, lo and behold, your psychophysical system knows somehow not to get too close to that edge of the cliff. Stay back five feet, six feet, ten feet, so you're safe. That doesn't have to be thought about so much. The whole system just knows how to do that. And those hours of thinking about the cliff and worrying about it and how you're going to take care of yourself weren't really needed because the psychophysical system to some degree just knew how to take care of itself and not get close to the edge.

I don't know if that's the best example, but maybe it gives you some sense. I'm trying to point to some ability that when the mind is free, when it's no longer actively signifying and projecting, it still operates. And it often operates in a way where we can take care of ourselves that doesn't have to be so self-involved. The liberated mind will know how to take care of itself. But we don't have to be so actively involved as we are when we're fixating on the projections and significations of things.

So, that is the signless. Tomorrow I'll talk about the wishless. Thank you for listening and being here, and I look forward to our time tomorrow.