‘Method’ wrote Immanuel Kant, is ‘Procedure according to Principle’.
In the ‘Diamond-Cutter’ Sūtra [See front page] Yājñavalkya’s Algorithm was given a practical turn with the Sūtra‘s central directive: ‘A Bodhisattva should develop a mind which alights upon no thing whatsoever; and so should he establish it.‘
Or in its best remembered concatenation, the seminal rule: ‘Arouse The Mind With No Abiding-Place‘. To get stuck in ‘An Abiding Place’ is to be stopped at an improperly investigated Binary-Truth, confounding it as a foundational truth.
The method has remained largely unchanged over the centuries. Here is Takuan Soho [1573-1645], 1,000 years later, arguably the most influential Zen Scholar/Teacher of modern Japan, summarizing his Teaching:
‘Not Stopping the Mind is Object and Essence’. This: ‘Engendering the mind with no place to abide‘ is the authentic: ‘Mind of Zen’. In counterpoint, a ‘Stopped Mind’ is ‘the affliction of the Abiding Place‘. In his words: ‘Delusion’. [A ‘Stopped-Mind’ is one stuck on a high binary-truth.]
Not-Two is a direct descendents of Yājñavalkya’s Algorithm [See Post] and the convergent terminus of the rounded rule as extended in the ‘Diamond-Cutter’ Sūtra. The: ‘Not-This’ of the Upaniṣad; the: ‘No Abiding Place’ of the Sūtra.
There is no binary-ground to be found that can be settled-in, no ground that you can alight on as foundational truth. There is nothing to cling to nor is there a need to cling to anything.
This condition is the seed that in time results in the creation of a unique construct, the Symbol ‘0’ in the Dharmic Tradition. [See later Post: The Symbol ‘0’]
Not-Two 