Why do we need to search?
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Soh Wei Yu shared a link.Awakening to Reality

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Why do we need to search?
Those who hold the neo advaitin view will usually say things like “there is nothing to search, just drop the search, there is nothing to achieve, there is no need to practice, you are already complete” and so on. I understand their perspective but respectively disagree.

This post is made of three parts:
1. On why searching is necessary before liberation
2. What the scriptures say about the role of desire for reaching the end of desire (nirvana)
3. What did the famous Dzogchen master, Longchenpa, and the famous Zen Master Dogen say about the role of practice?
On why searching is necessary before liberation:

Conversation — 2007

Thusness: A person should be really serious in being no-one and be thoroughly clear of what is "self," and stop talking about "nothing needs to be done."

AEN: "Nothing needs to be done" as in those Neo-Advaita kind of statements?

Thusness: Yeah. You can say treat it as if you never existed and experience the happening... You can talk about how conditioning fools us into believing that there is a "self," how the entire process comes about. You can talk about there is no one way towards it. In fact, saying "don't search" is meaningless; that is just half the story. It should be: search until you truly understand the meaning of non-searching. Then it is complete. For to understand non-searching, searching is the condition.

AEN: What makes experience turn into duality? Karmic propensity?

Thusness: Self. I hear. I see. That is separation. The "I" separates. When seeing, there is just the seen; there is no separation. Then one must know the emptiness nature of the one life.

AEN: Emptiness nature of one life as in realizing non-locality?

Thusness: It is best not to talk about non-locality. Even non-duality will take one many lives to understand.

AEN: But you said one must know the emptiness nature of non-duality also.

Thusness: Be without a center in all experiences. When Adyashanti said all is the One... is sound the same as sight?

AEN: I think so... oh, sound and sight... hm.

Thusness: Is a song the same as the sky?

AEN: No...?

Thusness: Is the current moment of thought the same as the next moment of thought? Is "now" ever the same at all? Where is the One? He is right in saying we have to stop and thinking is the one that is causing the confusion. Confusion is the One. Being lost is the one. Yet I have no confusion at all—that the five aggregates are already non-dual, and the eighteen dhatus are also non-dual. And the "in between" is what is causing the confusion.

AEN: How come "One" is confusion?

Thusness: What are the factors? The "how" of getting towards it. Did you watch the video?

AEN: Yeah.

Thusness: Didn't you hear what he said?

AEN: Oh, the "one" as in the thinker, etc.

Thusness: Or... no, the One as the One reality. Our Buddha Nature.

AEN: Oh, I see. Okay, I get it. Yeah, I remember.

Thusness: He must have deeper realization of what is meant by "self." When you stand up, is there intention? When you brush your teeth, is there intention?

AEN: I think so.

Thusness: Yes. Is there a problem?

AEN: No.

Thusness: So why is there a problem when you search?

AEN: So you mean searching is like the condition for realization.

Thusness: Yes.

AEN: And it's okay. Like the intention and the brushing teeth.

Thusness: When you search, you begin to understand what is non-searching. If you start by non-searching, you think that you are not searching, but in reality, you are mistaken. That sort of non-searching is not the sort of non-searching after realization from searching. So when a person says the problem is with searching, he only knows half the story. He does not know the condition that leads to non-searching.

AEN: What sort of conditions lead to non-searching?

Thusness: Searching. Because I know, then there is no confusion. I am perfectly fine and contented. I have no problem with sitting meditation and searching, and yet I have experienced the non-dual. This is discernment. If you were to tell a person "non-searching" from the start, he has no idea what you are talking about. And even when you tell him that, it is wrong. Only when a person has searched sufficiently is he equipped. He knows because he knows what is searching. He knows what is effort. He knows the problems of efforting. He sees how it reacts. He "sees" and the "eye" is open. The entire process is setting up all the necessary conditions for non-searching to arise. Get it?

AEN: I see.

Thusness: Without it, the non-searching is incomplete. And it is not the non-searching all sages are talking about.

AEN: So you mean there has to be the experience of searching and discerning what is searching, then one can stop searching.

Thusness: Yes.

AEN: Then people like Tony Parsons, they are encouraging non-searching? Or have I misunderstood?

Thusness: Have you seen anyone born who does not search and yet knows the entire full meaning of non-searching?

AEN: Hmm, no.

Thusness: Then why do you doubt? Have you witnessed, or has Buddha taught or said, anyone has done that before?

AEN: But actually, what sort of searching would lead to non-searching... Hmm, no.

Thusness: Now have you witnessed great sages, after going through cycles of searching of what is truth, come to understand what is the true meaning of non-searching?

AEN: Yeah.

Thusness: Has anyone not gone through that process?

AEN: Don't think so.

Thusness: So within your knowledge, including Buddha, none has indeed succeeded in that.

AEN: I see... yeah.

Thusness: Isn't that sufficient to tell you that searching is necessary?

AEN: Searching as in practicing the teachings?

Thusness: So for one that focuses and over-emphasizes that non-searching, is again fooled by his own thinking conditioning. Yet not knowing it. Therefore propensities are subtle. Even the non-dual experiencers are not spared from it. So what is the difference between the non-searching at the beginning and the non-searching at the end? What is the entire process about?

AEN: One is no insight, one has got insight.

Thusness: And how then can a person try to understand non-searching? Insight of what?

AEN: Searching?

Thusness: Why can't a person from the start know what is non-searching? Why must he go through searching?

AEN: Because if he doesn't even know what is searching, then he can't understand what is effort and the problems of effort?

Thusness: What is effort?

AEN: Intentions?

Thusness: No good. You have not understood what I said. Because you need to be no-self in order to understand non-searching. And the understanding must be very, very thorough. A person from the start has absolutely no idea of what is no-self and what is self. Get it? All actions are full of self.

AEN: Yeah.

Thusness: When a person sits and is not doing anything: one is without center, the other has a center.

AEN: Toni Packer also said something, she said, "Unless effortlessness prevails, you cannot help making an effort," and said it's the way our constitution and conditioning work. When talking about effortlessness, it's either a concept or we're really in that state of no effort, just openness without "me."

Thusness: You can say so. But one has to go through a process of stability. And the key is in dropping. That is why the second door is very important. And it is dropping the entirety of the self. As if you never existed. That is why the second door is very important after non-dual experience. One must put in all effort in dropping until as if the "I" never existed.

AEN: It is like nothing stays at all, nothing exists, so everything is dropped?

Thusness: That is the effect. It is absolutely no center. No "I" at all. You will find it very hard to understand now because there is no clarity of what exactly constitutes the "I." But for one that understands and realizes what the "I" is all about, then he is very comfortable. Then he will know that what you said is the effect. As if painting on a pond like what I have posted. That is, I don't attempt or try not to hold on to anything, but I understand deeply and eliminate the whole notion of it and naturally I do not hold at all. Whole notion of "I," I mean. Giving up entirely the center. No center at all. Then there is no holding. As if I never existed. Like what Jeff described. He must be so comfortable with no center. Practice until it stabilizes. Requires a few years.


…..

What the scriptures say about the role of desire for reaching the end of desire (nirvana)
To Uṇṇābha the Brahman�Brahmaṇa Sutta (SN 51:15)
NAVIGATIONSuttas/SN/51:15
I have heard that on one occasion Ven. Ānanda was staying near Kosambī at Ghosita’s monastery. Then Uṇṇābha the brahman went to Ven. Ānanda and on arrival greeted him courteously. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there, he said to Ven. Ānanda: “Master Ānanda, what is the aim of this holy life lived under Gotama the contemplative?”
“Brahman, the holy life is lived under the Blessed One with the aim of abandoning desire.”
“Is there a path, is there a practice, for the abandoning of that desire?”
“Yes, there is a path, there is a practice, for the abandoning of that desire.”
“What is the path, the practice, for the abandoning of that desire?”
“Brahman, there is the case where a monk develops the base of power endowed with concentration founded on desire & the fabrications of exertion. He develops the base of power endowed with concentration founded on persistence… concentration founded on intent… concentration founded on discrimination & the fabrications of exertion. This, brahman, is the path, this is the practice for the abandoning of that desire.”
“If that’s so, Master Ānanda, then it’s an endless path, and not one with an end, for it’s impossible that one could abandon desire by means of desire.”
“In that case, brahman, let me cross-question you on this matter. Answer as you see fit. What do you think? Didn’t you first have desire, thinking, ‘I’ll go to the monastery,’ and then when you reached the monastery, wasn’t that particular desire allayed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t you first have persistence, thinking, ‘I’ll go to the monastery,’ and then when you reached the monastery, wasn’t that particular persistence allayed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t you first have the intent, thinking, ‘I’ll go to the monastery,’ and then when you reached the monastery, wasn’t that particular intent allayed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Didn’t you first have (an act of) discrimination, thinking, ‘I’ll go to the monastery,’ and then when you reached the monastery, wasn’t that particular act of discrimination allayed?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So it is with an arahant whose effluents are ended, who has reached fulfillment, done the task, laid down the burden, attained the true goal, totally destroyed the fetter of becoming, and who is released through right gnosis. Whatever desire he first had for the attainment of arahantship, on attaining arahantship that particular desire is allayed. Whatever persistence he first had for the attainment of arahantship, on attaining arahantship that particular persistence is allayed. Whatever intent he first had for the attainment of arahantship, on attaining arahantship that particular intent is allayed. Whatever discrimination he first had for the attainment of arahantship, on attaining arahantship that particular discrimination is allayed. So what do you think, brahman? Is this an endless path, or one with an end?”
“You’re right, Master Ānanda. This is a path with an end, and not an endless one. Magnificent, Master Ānanda! Magnificent! Just as if he were to place upright what was overturned, to reveal what was hidden, to show the way to one who was lost, or to carry a lamp into the dark so that those with eyes could see forms, in the same way has Master Ānanda—through many lines of reasoning—made the Dhamma clear. I go to Master Gotama for refuge, to the Dhamma, and to the Saṅgha of monks. May Master Ānanda remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge, from this day forward, for life.”

….


What did the famous Dzogchen master, Longchenpa, and the famous Zen Master Dogen say about the role of practice?

We have to be careful about “nothing to achieve” and “are empty”. The path is empty but not non existent. Many people mistook emptiness as implying non existence, this is an incorrect understanding as explained in http://www.awakeningtoreality.com/.../how-experiential...

And Longchenpa puts it very nicely:
Longchenpa on Nihilism
From Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind.
Those who scorn the law of karmic cause and fruit
Are students of the nihilist view outside the Dharma.
They rely on the thought that all is void;
They fall in the extreme of nothingness
And go from higher to lower states.
They have embarked on an evil path
And from the evil destinies will have no freedom,
Casting happy states of being far away.
”The law of karmic cause and fruit,
Compassion and the gathering of merit -
All this is but provisional teaching fit for children:
Enlightenment will not be gained thereby.
Great yogis should remain without intentional action.
They should meditate upon reality that is like space.
Such is the definitive instruction.”
The view of those who speak like this
Of all views is the most nihilist:
They have embraced the lowest of all paths.
How strange is this!
They want a fruit but have annulled its cause.
If reality is but a space-like void,
What need is there to meditate?
And if it is not so, then even if one meditates
Such efforts are to no avail.
If meditation on mere voidness leads to liberation,
Even those with minds completely blank
Attain enlightenment!
But since those people have asserted meditation,
Cause and its result they thus establish!
Throw far away such faulty paths as these!
The true, authentic path asserts
The arising in dependence of both cause and fruit,
The natural union of skillful means and wisdom.
Through the causality of nonexistent but appearing acts,
Through meditation on the nonexistent but appearing path,
The fruit is gained, appearing and yet nonexistent;
And for the sake of nonexistent but appearing beings,
Enlightened acts, appearing and yet nonexistent, manifest.
Such is pure causality’s profound interdependence.
This is the essential pith
Of all the Sutra texts whose meaning is definitive
And indeed of all the tantras.
Through the joining of the two accumulations,
The generation and completion stages,
Perfect buddhahood is swiftly gained.
Thus all the causal processes
Whereby samsara is contrived should be abandoned,
And all acts that are the cause of liberation
Should be earnestly performed.
High position in samsara
And the final excellence of buddhahood
Will speedily be gained.
- Finding Rest in the Nature of Mind (vol 1)

--------------------

Also by Longchenpa:
"To reject practice by saying, ‘it is conceptual!’ is the path of fools. A tendency of the inexperienced and something to be avoided.”
— Longchenpa

…..

Excerpt from Zen Master Dogen here
The way is originally perfect and all-pervading. How could it be contingent on practice and realization? The true vehicle is self-sufficient. What need is there for special effort? Indeed, the whole body is free from dust. Who could believe in a means to brush it clean? It is never apart from this very place; what is the use of traveling around to practice? And yet, if there is a hairsbreadth deviation, it is like the gap between heaven and earth. If the least like or dislike arises, the mind is lost in confusion. Suppose you are confident in your understanding and rich in enlightenment, gaining the wisdom that knows at a glance, attaining the Way and clarifying the mind, arousing an aspiration to reach for the heavens. You are playing in the entranceway, but you are still short of the vital path of emancipation.
Consider the Buddha: although he was wise at birth, the traces of his six years of upright sitting can yet be seen. As for Bodhidharma, although he had received the mind-seal, his nine years of facing a wall is celebrated still. If even the ancient sages were like this, how can we today dispense with wholehearted practice?
Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will manifest. If you want to realize such, get to work on such right now.
(Continued in url)
To reject practice is the path of fools - Longchenpa
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