Investigating The Nature of Reality
Understanding the true nature of reality is crucial as it is our perception of reality that lies at the heart of how we relate to the world. However, reality here means not just the immediate facts of our experience and environment but the entire expanse of reality because many of our thoughts and emotions arise not only as a result of the immediate physical environment but also out of abstract ideas.
Therefore, in the Buddha's teaching, we find a great deal of discussion on the nature of reality in terms of eighteen constituents, the twelve sources, the five aggregates and so forth and how it relates to the practitioner's quest for enlightenment. If the Buddhist path were simply a matter of faith and cultivating deep devotion to the Buddha, there would have been no need for him to explain the nature of reality in such technical and complex terms. From this perspective, then the Buddha's teaching can be described as an exploration of the nature of reality.
Just as scientific discipline place tremendous emphasis on the need for objectivity on the part of the scientist. Buddhism emphasis the importance of examining the nature of reality from an objective stance. You cannot maintain a point of view simply because you like it or because it accords with your preset metaphysical or emotional prejudices. If your view of reality is based simply on fantasy or conjecture, there will be no possibility of you being able to cultivate that view to an infinite level.
When you are engaged in the Buddhist path of the exploration of the nature of reality, there are principally two faculties at work in your mind. One is the faculty of investigation which subjects reality to analysis. In Buddhist term, this is described as "wisdom" or "insight". Then there is the faculty of "method" or "skillful means", which is the faculty that allows you to deepen your courage and tolerance an generates the powerful motivational force that sustains you in your spiritual quest.
Question: Venerable Sir, you said all phenomena are subject to impermanence. Is the pure unobstructed nature of mind also subject to impermanence? Does this nature of mind have a birth and death?
The Venerable: When we speak about the nature of mind in a Buddhist context, we have to understand that it can be understood on two different levels, the ultimate level of reality, where the nature of mind is understood in terms of its emptiness of inherent existence and the relative, or conventional level, which refers to the mere quality of luminosity, knowing and experience.
If your question relates to the mind's conventional nature, then just as the mind itself goes through a process of change and flux, so does the nature of mind. This already indicates that the nature of mind is an impermanent phenomenon. However, if you are asking about the mind's emptiness, then we need to consider that even though the mind's emptiness is not a transient phenomenon, that is not subject to causes and conditions, it cannot be posited independent of a given object.
In other words, the emptiness of mind cannot exist independently of mind itself. The emptiness of mind is nothing other that its utter lack of intrinsic or inherent, existence. Therefore, as different states of mind come and go, new instances of emptiness of mind also occur.
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