‘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.]
The Symbol ‘0’ is a direct descendent of Yājñavalkya’s Algorithm [See Post] as made practical and achievable in the ‘Diamond-Cutter’ Sūtra. The rounded: ‘Not-This’ of the Upaniṣad; the: ‘No Abiding Place’ of the Sūtra. It is: ‘Found by not being found’; Zen’: ‘Gateless Gate’.
There is no ground to be found that can be settled-in, no foundational binary truth to be revealed. There is nothing to cling to nor is there a need to cling to anything. The Symbol ‘0’ is complete in itself.
Continue at Post: ‘Modus Indorum’
The Symbol '0' 