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No Seer and Nothing Seen

Kim,

I am sorry about not doing much computer work or attending to my emails or writing discourses
lately. I have been too busy driving around the neighbourhood salvaging and scavenging for
tossed out unwanted household timber planks or furniture, pots and other miscellaneous things
that I can use in my pottery garden. I have also been taking cuttings around the neighbourhood to
clone; and hunting for wild saplings that I can cultivate as bonsai. So far, I have made a wooden
shelf for my bonsai, from a discarded wooden hospital food trolley; a garden stool or bangku out
of a discarded high chair with only two and half legs left; and an outdoor aquarium from a
discarded broccoli foam box. I inserted a plastic tap into the aquarium, so that I can discharge the
bottom level of contaminated water, when I do the weekly top up with fresh water. The four comet
goldfish I bought for Annie as pets are doing very well. For water plants I have water cress, that I
took a couple of stems from Jos shopping. I have managed to germinate or should I say to
sprout new plants from tops or roots from carrots, radish, lettuce, onions, choy sum and bak choy
from kitchen rubbish that was meant for the worm farm, which I also made from discarded broccoli
foam boxes. I am currently trying to sprout roots from a pineapple crown that I got from the
greengrocer. I am currently fixing up two discarded wobbly good quality dining chairs that are
otherwise in good shape; other than having to also re-upholster the seats with curtain material that
someone discarded.

You wrote - the disassociation of the seer and the seen which is brought about by the dispersion
of ignorance is the remedy that brings liberation. the unwavering practice of discrimination between
what is real and the unreal brings about the dispersion of ignorance( the 2 paragraph are from
Patanjili yoga sutras). I sort of understand it but..... may be you can explain better!

Whoever wrote that or should I say, translated the original Pali or ancient Sanskrit, must think that
he needs to show that he appears to know everything by using English that nobody understands.
Consequently, he ends up showing that he really knows nothing because, by inference, he still has
the 'Ego' of an 'I'.

What is there to disassociate between the 'Seer' and the 'Seen'? There is no 'Seer' and no 'Seen'!
The author talks like a dog chasing his tail when he says that there can possibly be such a
'disassociation', and that this 'disassociation' will thereby disperse 'ignorance'. What then is this
'ignorance' he is referring to and in what sense? What then conversely is 'knowledge' in this
sense? He is pretending to know about things that are beyond worldly ignorance and knowledge!
How can one transcend spiritually if one is still abiding in this world or in worldly things and
concepts, whether in our mind or in our Self? In fact it is better to be worldly ignorant but
spiritually wise when it comes to spiritual yoga. What spiritual help can you give someone by
telling him to unwaveringly discriminate between the 'real' and the 'unreal'? He might as well teach
you how to build the atom bomb! For Christ sake, whether you are worldly ignorant or worldly
wise, what, tell me is real and/or unreal?

Kim, when the time is ripe the fruit will naturally ripen on its own accord. When the conditions in
the garden are optimal the seeds will germinate. Learning the Koran or the Bible or the Sutras or
any religious text and reciting it or them, all by heart is not going to get you into heaven. It is like a
Buddhist monk chanting meaninglessly under the banyan or coconut tree! Blindly accepting this
highly pompous yoga like the gospel will only make you end up like the man who wrote it. Ho tai
im ho sek! He remained just as ignorant for he is still chasing his tail. The truth is that whether you
are going to be spiritually awakened, as in 'hoi gan (eyes opened), depends on your karmic
fruition. That means the answer is out there by living and learning through the experience of the
ups and downs and the highs and lows of life. Spiritually, you will learn nothing from books and
universities. You spiritually gain only from the hard knocks in real life. What is love unless you
have suffered the despair of a broken heart?


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The Law of Karma is the most important basic lesson in spiritual practice. Good begets good and
bad begets bad, simple as that. But even that is said or expressed incorrectly, because there is
neither 'good' nor 'bad'. Spiritual wisdom unless worldly wisdom bears no judgement. but in the
human world, one man's food is another man's poison! Everything is relative in the human world!
There is no absolute! There is no fixed point in 'time' or anything! Everything is based on an
arbitrary human standard. One should just actually simply, because the law of Karma is absolute
and immutable, that every action has an equal reaction. Or, that you will reap what you sow.
Saying anything further is superfluous. Strictly speaking, when you are spiritually enlightened or
awakened, anything beyond worldly silence is superfluous, because spiritual awakening is beyond
words, beyond human expression. Try telling a virgin what an orgasm is? Spiritual awakening like
orgasm, is beyond human expression! You cannot experience an orgasm from simply reading!
Spiritual awakening cannot therefore be sought by worldly seeking. You have to seek it without
seeking in your worldly self. What this means is that you have to seek it without a 'you' or an 'I'
seeking. There must be no 'Ego' in or doing the seeking. In Chinese we call it 'wu wei' or 'action in
inaction', like the manner of a mother's instinct to feed or wean her baby. It should come like
mother,s love for her newborn, intuitively or instinctively; definitely not by study or through rote!

Practising good karma is like being a good gardener. You have to keep weeds, pests and
diseases away from the garden. You got to know when to sow, prune and fertilise. There are
snakes out there and many beautifully coloured plants, mushrooms and insects are poisonous!
That is why Zen, whether gardening, ikebana and bonsai, calligraphy etc., trains you in patience
and orderliness and discipline. Ultimately, it is about cultivating peace and harmony of the soul.
But there need not be an actual garden. You practise on the garden in the 'mind'. All the
gardening metaphors I have just mentioned apply with equal necessity and fervour. What are the
'weeds' 'pests' and 'diseases' that you have to keep away from your 'spiritual garden' in your
'mind'?

Most of all gardening, whether Zen or other types of gardening, as a spiritual practice, is like a
language of yoga without or beyond words. This is because words are meaningless beyond the
reading, unless there is actual intuitive and instinctive spiritual practice. It is like true love; you do
not have to say anything at all! And human language and words are confusing, because as Alice
found out in Wonderland, a word can mean whatever you want it to mean! And as I mentioned at
the beginning, what is 'ignorance'? What is 'real' or 'unreal'? Who is the 'Seer'? What is the
'Seen'?

Kim, we are not young anymore! Zen practice, by its taking your mind away from worldly matters
that are troubling to say the least, allows you to gradually build up calm and serenity within that
Zen Garden within you. That is how you cultivate peace, harmony and contentment of your soul.
Forget about what your friends tell you about books, food or songs that are good for your soul.
Nothing worldly, not even beauty, money or sex, is good for your soul! Because your soul is spirit!
You must rise up or awaken in your spirit to make your soul any good! Your soul is like a Zen
Garden! You have to be a good gardener! You cannot have a delegate or surrogate! You have to
cultivate your soul or spirit!

When you are lost', or should I say 'happy and contented and reposed, in your Zen Garden, in
your soul, that is like a hologram projected somewhere in the inner consciousness of your mind,
you will know that in that absoluteness and blissfulness of eternity, there is no worldly I; there is
no worldly relativity of 'duality', e.g. 'real' or 'unreal', 'good' or 'bad', 'ugly' or 'beautiful'; and there is
no concept of time, of past, present or future. You will realise that everything has meaning only as
the 'now' or the present' (and even that is beyond our reach and grasp, as I shall explain later),
and that everything is what it is, as a matter of karmic consequence. We are what we are based
on our karmic destiny and our own actions during this lifetime. The sum total of everything 'energy
wise' is still and remains the same. The whole human perception of life and being is an entire
whole karmic totality that is a fixed and unchanging boiling pot; and that is why If we want the
world to change, that is the way it is boiling or the mix, for that matter, we have to start making
the appropriate changes. Let me put it another way. That is the kaleidoscope cannot change in in

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its instrument; only the kaleidoscopic patterns or mix can change. We are caught in a dynamic
web of animated design beyond imagination, the metaphorical kaleidoscopic screen!

If you have been good at science at school, you will already know that without a 'subject' there is
no 'object'. Things are relatively real only because there is an 'object' or a 'subject'. Things get
complicated however when it comes to sensory and other, including mental, perception. In fact it is
really very complicated. We are talking of 4D now; but scientists have now established eleven
dimensions! There could even be a million dimensions. This is a really mind-blowing
kaleidoscopes screen! Remember I said that one man's food is another man's poison? Take the
cow-dung. You and I see 'shit' but the dung beetle sees food'! Who knows what the butterfly or
the cow herself might think? Or what the trees or the breeze blowing past think?

Let us get serious by way of explanation. When you see me, when you hear me, do you think you
really see me or hear me, at the very moment you should have seen me or or heard me? The
simple answer is that you have never seen me or heard me as I am, in my absolute state, at that
very second of time, that you should have seen or heard me! Neither have I seen or heard myself
either i.e. at that absolutely true to point in time! We are all living in the ''past'. Let me explain.
See the stars in the sky. When you see them, they might no longer exist, and if they do, you are
seeing them as they were millions of years ago. The time it takes for your eyes to see and your
ears to hear, when you see or hear me, you are seeing or hearing me from the past!

If we are always living in the 'past' we are, accordingly, living an 'illusion'. That is why in Zen, we
say that we are living in an 'empty' world! It is 'empty' of any permanent entity or thing that exists
and subsists without changing from one billionth of a second to the next! That is the only thing
absolute about the human world, that it is always subject to change, subject to karma, subject to
action and reaction, that beyond the historical experience, it does not exist! This is saying it in
another way from the kaleidoscope example I gave earlier. Because the kaleidoscope is fixed in
its format or arena or instrument, the kaleidoscopic patterns, the expression of dynamic karmic
energy of being, must keep changing! If anything should exist eternally, it is not of this world!
Metaphorically it is outside the kaleidoscopic screen! If we should exist eternally, we must be in
the other world, i.e. outside the kaleidoscopic screen, and quite immutable and unchanging; and
because of that, what we are in this world is only an 'illusion', a 'nightmare' or a 'dream'; even
though it is still very real in its animated experience, just like the kaleidoscopic screen. As we
know our 'dreams' and 'nightmares' are very really real in its experience. If we use our dreams or
nightmares as an example of a kaleidoscopic screen; the same can be said of our worldly being or
existence; the only difference is that we are caught within the virtual reality of our worldly being or
existence. Nonetheless our worldly being or existence is like a dream or an illusion, no matter how
real the reality of the experience!

The Gregorian Calendar, the Greenwich Mean Time, all weights and measures are human
inventions of convenience. We do not really know when Jesus was born or when he actually died!
Time is relative as Einstein proved. When you travel to the end of the Universe and come back to
Earth you will be greeted by your great grand-children! When you wait at the bus-stop for your
boyfriend or girlfriend, five minute are like five hours! When you are finally with your boyfriend or
girlfriend five hours are like five minutes! Notice how a dreams like a few minutes but when you
awake quite a few hours have passed!

There is no 'subject' or object, as we know it conceptually. Take me (Seer) seeing a tree (the
Seen). What you see of me as the Seer or the tree as the Seen, is just the 3D or 4D or 5D image.
You zoom many levels and dimensions down through the molecular structure down to the DNA,
and you start to realise that there is no Seer or the Seen beyond the matrix' of the omagery! In
future you will see that 'cloning' and artificial intelligence will be a reality. Then you will realise that
the Seer and the Seen, that their reality though 'real' in the experience and the perception, is in fact
'unreal' in permanent existence or identity. You and I and all worldly things around us are just
karmic projections or consequences! We are holograms!


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You cannot therefore disassociate the Seer from the Seen i.e the subject from the object. There
is either no subject and no objector or there are a subject and its object! So, the first statement is a
falsehood. Secondly you cannot discriminate the real from the unreal. In the kaleidoscopic
screen what is real is unreal and what is unreal is real. It is part of the boiling karmic mix that
is the nature of the kaleidoscopic screen! If there is no Seer or the Seen, as everything is lived by
an inverted experience in the past, who then is the who that is establishing what is real' or
unreal? Ponder well on this. If the kaleidoscope tube is the absolute and unchanging and the
animated kaleidoscopic screen is the relative duality and everything within it is intertwined and
interdependent, and an illusion; who or what do you think is the eternal dreamer, and what is the
temporal or mortal illusionary and elusive dream?

Vince
28/5/14




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