Part 2 - The refutation of maintaining that appearance is mind

Though phenomena appear within mind, apparent objects are not mind. As for the explanation of this:

Thus all things that appear to be external objects
Appear within the mind, but do not exist as mind.
Nor do they exist as something else than mind.
Though by the force of habitual patterns, there appears
The dualistic appearance of grasping and fixation,
From the very time when they first made their appearance
There has been no duality of grasped and grasper.
This is like a face reflected in a mirror.

When a face is reflected in a mirror, the clear surface of the mirror can support the arising of the reflection. From the condition of its having this power of transmitting the face that arises, when there is an appearance like a face, the reflected face is not really a face. Phenomena other than a face are transmitted. So, when these confused appearances of variety appear while they are nonexistent, conditioned by causes and conditions of the interdependent arising of confusion, this variety of apparent objects, mountains and so on, is not mind. Nor, besides being appearances due to confused habitual patterns of mind, are these appearances also truly existing objects other than ourselves. They are just phenomena of confused appearance. For someone with floaters, hairs seem to trickle in front of the eyes, but nothing like what appears really exists. These are the same.

Now someone may say, “Earth and rocks and so forth, these appearances, if they do not exist as anything either inside or outside, how could that be? How could they be there at all?”

“Attached to establishing things only in terms of dualistic grasping, you are a pig!” So we should reply.

These phenomena, all the dharmas of the phenomenal world of samsara and nirvana, do indeed appear, but from the time they appear, they do not exist as anything external, internal, or in between. Their appearance is said to be like that of the eight examples of illusion. The Shri Samadhiraja Sutra says:

In the surface of a mirror or vessel of oil
As she preens herself, a woman sees her face.
Though her entire face may seem to appear in these,
It is neither existent or non-existent there.
All the dharmas should be known to be like that.

These appearances of things that do not exist are made to arise by the confused grasping and fixation of the one that fixates them. Grasping, zungwa, is the conceptual thought that grasps the thought object arising in the first instant. It is the nature of mind having confused phenomena.^[1]

Fixation, dzinpa is later^[2] analysis, the mind-contents. The Discipline of Avalokiteshvara (spyan ras gzigs brtul zhugs) says:

Grasping, zungwa, is object-grasping mind. Fixation, dzinpa, is mental contents examining that.

This is the proper account of how it should be known. Unlearned, or stupidly common people proudly say, “zungwa, the grasped, is just the object, appearances of mountains and so forth. dzinpa, the grasper is just the subject, our own awareness.”

Well, cowboys, enough of your wrong conceptions! Tell me this--for noble ones who have abandoned zungwa and dzinpa,^[3] do these objects appear or they do not?

If they appear, according to you, dualistic subject and object appear to the noble ones. If the object itself is zungwa and awareness itself is dzinpa, they would have to appear, wouldn’t they?

If they do not appear, what about appearances of the noble ones that are said to be like illusion, or those of the shravaka arhats who see mountains and temples.

What about the buddhas’ measureless awareness of appearances of objects and so forth in the knowledge of extent? Many reasonings and scriptures call the view that these and so forth do not appear a total mistake, let alone its being beyond extremes. Dharmakirti says:

Because wrong paths are endless,
These should not be traveled.

Maintaining that appearance is mind has already been refuted. Nevertheless, when these mountains and so forth have been made into objects, the mental apprehension that first grasps this is said to be “appearance.” True, at this point, appearance and the object that appears are not being distinguished. That apprehension of these mental motions is to that extent wise. But then by its becoming attached to a wrong or exaggerated meaning as truly existing, it becomes fixated.

The object that appears is also not mind. This is because mind exists even if nothing is in it, and because when mind goes into having self and other, it does not go outward, and because the object that appears appears with color and shape. If the object that appears is one’s mind, it must certainly go and return with oneself. if oneself exists, mind exists, and the apparent object exists. If oneself does not exist, then the apparent object cannot exist either. As mind is without color and shape, the object that appears would be so too etc., as explained before.

As for the true ascertainment of appearance and non-appearance, since it is mental,^[4] classifying mere appearance as mental is indeed permitted, but those who grasp the exaggerated conception that objects that appear are mind are exponents of a truly serious illogic.