Now, I will talk about “signlessness”. According to the Buddhist scriptures, there are ten types of “signs” in the world:
1. Sign of forms: The sign of all dharmas in the Human Realm. “Forms” represents the physical appearance of everything in the world, not the image of males and females.
2. Sign of sounds: Every sound you hear, which also have shapes and images. For example, when you call someone on the phone and hear their voice, you know whether they are male or female.
3. Sign of smells: What your nose can smell, which forms an image. For example, when you smell the fragrance of flowers, flowers will appear in your mind.
4. Sign of tastes: When you put something in your mouth, your tongue senses the taste and an image is created within your mind. For example, when you eat chocolate with your eyes closed, you will immediately get images of chocolate in your mind.
5. Sign of tangible objects: You can feel when you touch something. For example, when a blind person touches something, the contact will create an image in their mind so they can tell what they are touching. If they touch a person, the image of a person will appear. If they touch an object, the image of that object will appear.
6. Sign of formation: Your appearance when you were born.
7. Sign of abiding: This refers to dwelling, such as the appearance of the place one is staying in, what direction it is facing, and so on.
8. Sign of dissolution: A term that is used when we talk about objects going through the state of decay and then emptiness.
9. Sign of male: Used to describe someone who looks masculine. However, sometimes we see men who look and think like women.
10. Sign of female: Used to describe someone who looks feminine. However, sometimes we see women who look and think like men.
“Signlessness” is devoid of “signs”. In other words, all the signs – even the appearance of all objects – that we see in the Human Realm are in fact “signless”. They are unreal. People often say, “Life is like a dream.” Indeed, life itself is signless. When everything comes to an end, it’s like being woken up from a dream. Is there a sign? You can’t see anything – everything is unreal. Once you wake up from your dream, you return to your world.
Those who suffer will continue to suffer, and those who enjoy their lives will continue to do so. There is nothing in a dream that you can take away with you. This is signlessness in the Human Realm. For every sign in the Human Realm, with a beginning there will also be an end. When it ends, nothing is left. That is what signlessness is about. On the surface, it seems that everything has a sign, but when they end, it’s in fact signless.
If you can control your perception and see the true signless nature of an object, which means to understand the beginning and the end of this world, then you are, essentially, awakened. Life – from our birth right up until our death – is just like a dream. When the dream ends, it becomes signless. There’s also a saying that “life is like a drama”. Every drama has a beginning and an end – and when it ends, does it continue to have a sign? It’s that simple.
Another example: When you give away something as a donation, but you don’t say a word about it, that is “practising generosity without attachment to the notion of signs”. But if you say something about it, that’s “practising generosity with attachment to the notion of signs”.
“Awakening of life” – we live to awaken our lives. If we can attain signlessness, we are getting close to awakening. So how do you awaken your life? The answer is to adopt signlessness. Treat everything in life as though it doesn’t exist. Or, in other words, treat it lightly. “Anything would do. I can give anything away.” Then you are closer to awakening.
Let me share this with you: Often, spend time contemplating that everything comes and goes naturally. Whatever you encounter, whether it’s disaster, hardship, joy or good times, if it comes, it comes. It all comes naturally; but when it leaves, it will also leave naturally. That’s signlessness.
A friend of mine no longer got along with his wife. I said to his wife: “Imagine that your husband goes on stage each and every day to perform, and you are among the audience. You can watch him indifferently as he performs. The show will end anyway, so why do you jump onto the stage and act with him too?
Why are you so keen to regard all of that fake stuff on the stage as something real by fighting and arguing with him? In the end, you’re just as foolish as he is. He is unreal, and so are you. Do you think you can get something real out of this? In fact, you are merely taking the fake stuff and covering up the real part of you. In other words, when false is taken as true, true becomes false.”
On the surface, the awakening of life sounds like “I have awakened”. But if someone says to me, “Master, I have awakened”, that statement is false. People who have truly awakened will not say those words. If they do, they haven’t awakened. That’s because the symbol of the awakening of life cannot be recognised as having completely awakened. There is the symbol of life, and the symbol of the world – which are, after all, symbols.
Therefore, the awakening of life itself is empty by nature. Once you truly comprehend such emptiness, are you still going to say: “I’ve done research and found that everything in it is empty”? In the end, there’s no need for research, as it’s inherently empty anyway. If you recognise this potential for awakening, and feel that you’ve awakened, then you haven’t truly awakened at all.
The reality of the Human Realm is that it is just a dream – a drama. It is all empty, and everything is illusory. When you pass away, none of it exists anymore. Awakening itself is the elevation of one’s level of spirituality. During the Shakyamuni Buddha’s time, he sat under the Bodhi tree and awakened to these insights.
But the enlightenment of the Buddha absolutely cannot be compared to the awakening of us mortals. His potential for enlightenment is at the level of Buddha and Bodhisattvas, and what he is enlightened to is the inherent nature. Meanwhile, the awakening that us mortals experience is only a superficial phenomenon. For example: “I now realise why that person treated me so badly – it was because I used to talk behind their back.”
The Buddha-dharma is profound, but that doesn’t mean profound things cannot be explained in the simplest way. Just like the Buddha-dharma, what I am teaching is profound, but I use the simplest and most easily accessible way to guide and teach you how to cultivate. Like physics and mathematics, once you have studied up to a certain level, you can simply make use of the mathematical equations and formulas to get the answer. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel by studying what other people have done before, or to deconstruct the well-established formulas or theories to complicate things further.
“A fool’s mind is kept in their mouth, while a wise person’s mind is kept within.” To explain: A foolish person likes to talk recklessly about what they think, whereas a wise person keeps what’s in their mind to themselves without speaking carelessly about it.
If you buy too many unnecessary items and squander your money, eventually you won’t be able to afford what you really need. Let me elaborate: If you spend most of your time reading books that serve no practical purpose, you won’t be able to read books that are truly beneficial to you. Moreover, if you read the kind of books that you should not, then how can you have the necessary attention for books on Right Dharma? If you listen to too much nonsense or pay regard to the superstitious, you will not be able to listen to and absorb the true Buddha-dharma.
The longer we think about and cling to the misfortunes of life, the more harm they are going to inflict upon us. If you continue to be preoccupied with all the unfortunate things you shouldn’t even think about, the harm they inflict upon you will become even more forceful.
When a person has awakened to a small degree, they must read more literature that can continue to guide their awakening – like Master’s teachings to disciples. After you have awakened, you will no longer get lost when reading the scriptures of the Bodhisattvas or all other literature. Then, you will be truly awakened. This is also known as “corresponding awakening”.
It is the sentient beings that I am aiming to help and awaken. The Buddhist teachings that I impart are something common people can all accept. They are concise and clear. As long as you follow the Buddhist practice and cultivate diligently, you will most certainly change your outlook on life. Read more of the content of my Dharma talk of the past. Corresponding to the circumstances you are in, every sentence in the text will help add to your awakening. Once you have awakened, every sentence you read along the path of your Buddhist practice can make you more awakened, and everything you see in this world will become wonderful.
