Five Element Training
5. Genuine Insight
Genuine insight is the revealing of the divine nature within us. Through this insight we realize the immortal truth of pure, receptive consciousness at the center of all sentient beings. As a consequence of this direct experience any sincere practitioner sees clearly the contrast between the true nature of spirit and the transitory nature of ego. Once this view is known, we spontaneously intuit an internal awareness of freedom, no matter what thoughts, emotions, or feelings arise in ordinary consciousness. If the insight is genuine the practitioner of Hollow Bones Zen also experiences a subtle and highly unreasonable sense of joy that flows from this pure receptive consciousness throughout his or her heart, mind, and body.
Before we experience genuine insight we look out with our physical eyes and believe the world is only as we think it to be. Obsessed with ego consciousness and the seemingly endless cycles of concepts and emotional reactions produced by this form of knowledge, we perceive nothing extraordinary about the world. Our awareness is unable to pierce the veil of ego, and so we might feel autonomous, but also alone, a part of the surrounding world, yet somehow alienated from it. In a futile attempt to overcome our deep sense of doubt, anxiety, and fear, we shift from one unfulfilling belief system to the next.
Once we have honestly experienced genuine insight we look out through these same physical eyes, but we are now aware of the pure, silent nature of consciousness within. Our anxiety, fear and doubt slowly fall away, supplanted by unreasonable delight and joy. We experience others as our ourselves, feeling connected and in communion with all sentient beings. We still notice the hope, fears and delusions of the ego without being governed by these misguided forces. All of this occurs-- not in some abstract idealistic fashion-- but in a simple, direct and undeniable form of knowledge. This is the process of awakening to our inherent nature, what we call “Buddha mind.”
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