SECOND DOOR OF LIBERATION

In Buddhism, the Second Door of Liberation is signlessness / animata.  As we defined in the previous Sign Page, sign means an appearance of an object that is in our perception.  An object that we perceive is a sign.  An object or building depicted in Representational Spacetime is a sign.  That is because representation yields for us an appearance.  This appearance is not truth.

“Signs are instruments for our use, but they are not absolute truth, and they can mislead us.  The Diamond Sutra says, ‘Wherever there is a sign, there is deception, illusion.'”  p138.

Signs are not truth because they do not show reality.  So in Buddhist terms, Transparent Drawing is nothing more than getting beyond signs.

“When we free ourselves from signs, we can enter the heart of reality.”  p139

We draw the heart of reality.  In this light, this striving for truth, this getting close to reality is part of a tradition nearly 2600 years old.   It is easy to get caught in signs.  When we draw a pretty picture of a building or a scene, we have the cultural disposition to say to ourselves, this is the way it looks;  this is an accurate drawing.  However, without seeing everything, without showing on the paper the complete object, there is deceit.  Yet when we depict Universe, we draw very close to the truth.

We are taught to believe that a “realistic” representational drawing is, for lack of a better term, real.  A pretty picture, when seen in this light, might be viewed as the most abstract drawing possible.  It is the most abstract, or it is the strongest sign, exactly because it does not show reality and instead stands for reality.  While a pretty picture can represent reality for us, reality, the natural world, cannot be represented in a picture.  So while the pretty picture is a very powerful sign, it is not reality.  A drawing or painting in representational spacetime is the same type of sign.  It requires an immense amount of cultural knowledge to interpret the flat opaque blobs of paint that are arranged on the flat canvas.

“The appellation ‘Buddha’ comes from the root of the verb budh – which means to wake up, to understand, to know what is happening in a very deep way.  In knowing, understanding and waking up to reality, there is mindfulness, because mindfulness means seeing and knowing what is happening.”  p 175

The representational drawing stands for /is a sign for the complete knowledge.  Yet it does not show the complete knowledge.  So in this light, the truth, the knowledge is right in front of you.  The knowledge is within you.  You do not have to look any farther than yourself.

1.  Hanh, Thich Nhat. The Heart Of the Buddha’s Teaching. Parallax Press; Berkeley. 1998.

I selected the drawing above for this page as it operates between signs and signlessness.  Because it is from the House Dress series, there is the gable form, which, when depicted representationally, is a sign for a house.  Yet the intervention, the dress, is signless.