' Alaya: Not One, Not Two '...

In order to understand this difficult situation in which Alaya is one dynamic whole and yet two, let us remember the example of a mirror and its reflections. We could consider Alaya in its eternal
mode as the mirror, and Alaya in its manifest, evolving mode as the reflections, which are constantly coming and going. The mirror is immutable, stable, "eternal," the reflections are always changing. Yet in practice we see the mirror and reflections as one undivided
whole.

A favorite question of Zen masters is "Where are you from?" If see myself as "a reflection," then I come and go, I am one reflection relative to all other reflections. But if I see myself as the mirror, coming or going does not apply-the mirror has no relation to any particular reflection; it is just one immutable whole. As Zen Master Hakuin says in his verse In Praise of Zazen, "Coming and
going we never leave home."

A saying of Dagen's sums all this up. "Though not identical, they are not different; though not different, they are not one; though not one, they are not two." We shall come across the "one
not two" concept repeatedly while discussing the Lankavatara.



-Zen and the Sutras - Albert Low