Contemplate all phenomena as devoid of inherent nature.

The same is true of their arising and cessation.

False  designations are merely used to describe them.

All phenomena do not come into being; all phenomena do not cease to exist.

If we understand in this way, all the Buddhas appear before us.

Avatamsaka Sutra

i. What does this mean to me?

So far in this scripture we’ve come to understand from the previous lines that all our experience of phenomena is an internal mental representation. We can see this if we imagine things that are not in the so-called real world. For instance, if we think of a pink and white striped elephant, the mind will immediately ‘create’ an image. The mind is very accommodating that way.

When we look at the lines of scripture we’re contemplating today, they are merely describing our experience of ‘reality’. Let’s go back to the striped elephant. Can we say the elephant came into being? No. It’s simply a thought we made up. Can the elephant cease to exist? No. Because the only existence the striped elephant has is as an internal mental representation. The moment we turn our attention to something else –poof!—it’s gone. An internal mental representation can neither be said to “come into being” nor “cease to exist”.

Striped elephants are one thing. But what about our day-to-day existence? How is that different? Our experience of the world is the same coming and going of internal mental representations. After all, do we go around and think ‘I have to hold on to this image so that…” No. There’s no realistic end to that thought. We have to hold on to the thought so that…what? A striped elephant is going to come through the door just because we keep thinking about it? Literally, the only place that happens is in a dream. Why is that? It’s because, like a dream, the elephant is a mere transformation of consciousness, which is to say it’s an internal mental representation.

ii. How would I explain this to someone else?

There’s a story my teacher, the Venerable Tashi Nyima, first told me. It’s the story of the snake and the rope. If you go into a dark shadowy place and a rope is coiled up in the shadows, it can look very much like a big, coiled snake. All sorts of things happen if we experience this. The heart rate goes up, adrenaline is released, the fight or flight instinct kicks in. Before you know it, you’ve run from the dangerous coiled snake, feeling lucky to escape with your life.

Now comes the daytime, bright and sunny, and you go to the same place. There you find a harmlessly coiled rope in the corner. So where did the snake come from? The same place as the elephant. It was an internal mental representation caused by the mind misunderstanding reality.

Can we say that the snake came into being? Or that it ceased to exist? No. The snake was only happening in the mind. Most importantly here, notice that the snake didn’t come out of thin air. There was an actual rope there. The mind simply misinterpreted reality based on our limited senses. Buddhism does not claim that there is nothing there. Rather, the thought is that some ultimate reality (like the rope) is there, but with our limited senses in a limited body, we misinterpret what is actually there

iii. How do I bring this into my life?

I bring this teaching into my life by realizing that absolutely nothing is as it appears. That’s not the same as saying there’s nothing there. It means I’m not understanding what’s there. The mind is simply projecting and superimposing my thoughts on ultimate reality.

When I’m feeling stressed at work, I take a step back and take a couple deep breaths. And for a quick moment, I ask myself is there really anything to be stressed about? We all have Buddha Nature, it’s just covered over by samsara and lifetimes of habit. We will all realize liberation and enlightenment eventually.

Samsara tricks us into believing that everything we see is real. It deludes us into thinking that everything has an arising, and everything sooner or later ceases to exist. This is not true. Existence is an unceasing ebb and flow. The mind chops this flow into pieces like days, years, months, even lifetimes.

When I take a few moments at work (or whenever I’m stressed) I slowly become aware that all I experience is a superimposition of my own mind’s internal mental representations onto ultimate reality. When we can understand phenomena and ultimate reality this way, “…all the Buddhas appear before us”. If we can notice the relationship between our thoughts and ultimate reality, we can realize we are all awake, we are all Buddhas.