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The Great Way The words love and hate, but the pairs of opposites in general. When they are both absent, there is no one and the other. Everything becomes clear and undisguised. Verse 2 Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. Bob says, look into that one and you will see that the heaven, which is the sky, and the earth are not apart. They never were apart. You can't separate them. Only conceptual. When you say this is earth, this is heaven, there's only a belief that this is a part. But try and separate them if you can. Verse 3 If you wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything.
And Bob says So, you don't get into the pairs of opposites of for or against. It doesn't say have no opinions, it says hold no opinions. Because opinions will come up, but if they are not held onto, then neither of them are binding. Unless they are related to some reference point and clung to, then there is a problem. Verse 4 There is dis-ease of the mind. Is that right Bob? Test it out and see. Test it out and see. That's right, proof of the pudding. Verse 5 When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind's essential peace is disturbed to no avail. Bob says The essential nature of mind is peace.
The peace that passes all understanding. But it's not grasped or divided by a concept. So that essential peace is disturbed by not understanding what things actually mean. What they actually are and what they are actually saying. Verse 6 Just as it is. Verse 7 The nature is that they are indivisible And when you look into that you see that there is no choice really There is no separate entity that can choose to either accept or reject Verse 8 Live neither in the entanglements of outer things nor in the inner feelings of emptiness. Bob says So you are not taking a stance in either one. You are not taking a stance in the conflict that's going on, or in the idea that it is totally empty, neither into one nor the other.
Then where must you be? You must be somewhere in the middle, in that equilibrium, where neither one is better than the other. Verse 9 Be serene in the oneness of things. That's where the serenity is, where there's no division. Everything is seen as it is. And such erroneous views will disappear by themselves. So they don't have to be cast out, got rid of, or stomped on, or hidden under something. They will disappear by themselves when they are left in their oneness. Verse 11 When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity, your very effort fills you with activity. Bob says, if there is any trying going on, that's an activity.
So, it is pointless trying to achieve passivity when that activity is going on. Verse 12 As long as you remain in one extreme or the other, you will never know oneness. Bob says, it is pointing out continually that whatever you are looking for in the mind that divides constantly in the interrelated opposites, you will never know oneness from that point of view. Verse 13 These are in either one or the other. Verse 14 To deny the reality of things is to miss their reality. To assert the emptiness of things is to miss their reality. Bob says To deny the reality of things, to say that they are all false, is to miss their reality.
To assert the emptiness of things, to say that everything is empty, is to miss their reality. So they are real in essence, but not how they appear. So you can't say they're real or unreal, because in their essence they are real. In their appearance they are unreal. Verse 15 The more you talk and think about it, the further astray you wander from the truth. So the talking, thinking and discussing and trying to work it out is our problem. It pulls you away from the very recognition and understanding of what you are. Verse 16 Stop talking and thinking and there is nothing that you will not be able to know.
B. Without talking and thinking about it, what is necessary to be known in the moment will happen. It will be there, recognized, registered. Verse 17 To return to the root is to find the meaning Bob says when you come back to the base it not a matter of coming back even When you recognize the base, the root of it all, you will find the actual meaning of it. Verse 18 Verse 19 Verse 21 Verse 22 So when there is a recognition of your true nature, you are beyond the thought. You are prior to thought. You are that pure and natural awareness which is pure knowing.
Not knowing this or that, but just pure knowing. Beyond appearance and emptiness, they are concepts. Verse 20. The changes that appear to occur In the empty world we call real only because of our ignorance. Bob says, so as it's pointing out there, it's an empty world, an empty cosmos. The changes that appear to occur, the shapes and forms are only appearance. They seem to appear in the empty world. They are called real because of our ignorance. We are not recognizing the truth, the nature of it all. Verse 21 Do not search for the truth. Only cease to cherish opinions. Bop says, We pointed that out before, when we said hold no opinions for or against anything.
Don't hang on to those opinions and cherish them. The belief that these opinions have some substance. Verse 22, Do not remain in a dualistic state. Avoid such pursuits carefully. Verse 23. If there is even a trace of this or that of right and wrong, the mind essence will be lost in confusion. Bob says, so once you move away from the essence of the mind into the thinking, the way it is patterning or shaping or forming, there is confusion there because it is vibrating dualistically. Verse 24 Verse 25 When the mind exists undisturbed in the way, Bob says, a recognition of its natural emptiness, when it is not disturbed by thoughts, feelings and emotions that are peering on it, it's understood what they are.
Nothing in the world can offend When you are not separating or taking delivery of something can that essence itself be offended by anything at all when you realize there is nothing that it is all appearance Verse 27 It can't be believed in. It ceases to exist. It disappears. You enjoying it my darling? No. You do enjoy it. Verse 28 When no discriminating thoughts arise, the old mind ceases to exist. And Bob says So the old way of thinking is no longer binding when the thoughts are no longer being discriminated against. Is this that good or bad? Verse 29 When thought objects vanish, the thinking subject vanishes.
When they are not being thought of as an object, and the object is seen to have no self-entity, who are they appearing to? What can they appear to? Who is the subject they can relate to? Verse 30. As when the mind vanishes, objects vanish. Bob says, if you pause a thought now, what can you say about it? Doesn't mean to say that you're not seeing things. Things appear to be so, but they're not being related as this, that or anything at all. They're just pure seeing. You haven't differentiated from the seeing. So how can you say they're objects without putting a label on them? Verse 31 Things are objects because of the subject, mind.
Bob says, Without the mind there is a pure awareness. Is there an object? It's just being seen, registered. But you can't say or discriminate that it is some object or this or that. Verse 32 And the mind is because of things . Bob says, there can't be one without the other. They are both concepts. Verse 33 Understand the relativity of the two and the basic reality, the unity of emptiness. So in that emptiness there is no relativity at all. Verse 34 In this emptiness the two are indistinguishable. Bob says, you can't separate or divide it in that emptiness. Verse 35, and each contains in itself the whole world.
Bob says, so the whole world is in that objectivity, and the whole world is in the subject. So each contains within itself the whole world. You can't separate them. Verse 36 If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine, you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion. Bob says, so if that discriminating mind is not dividing up, are you going to be prejudiced against anything? To live in the
The great way is neither easy nor difficult, but those with limited views are fearful and irresolute. Bob says, naturally, if you have a limited view, there will be a bitter resistance there, a bitter fear, anxiety and stress, because the totality is not being recognized.
There is a confused point of view. Verse 38. The faster they hurry, the slower they go. And clinging, attachment, cannot be limited. And Bob says, so even though we think we are limiting something by attaching to it, It can't be limited to because it is going to break away sooner or later and change. Verse 39 Even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment is to go astray. Bob says, Any idea of becoming is to move away from it. Verse 40 Just let things be in their own way, and there will be neither coming nor going. Obey the nature of things, your own nature. Bob says, your own nature is pure unconditional cognizing emptiness.
Verse 41, obey the nature of things, your own nature, and you will walk freely and undisturbed. Bob says, the world will go on all around you and you go along So these things will come up, but is that essence going to be disturbed? Is there any bondage in that at all? Verse 42 You notice that if you are ever in conflict with anything, there is weariness, unhappiness, and all other concepts and divisions. Verse 43 What benefits can be derived from distinctions and separations? Bop says, see how real that is. What benefit have you got from separating and distinguishing things? You have been doing that all your life.
What benefit have you got from it? Verse 44 If you wish to move in the one way, do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas. Indeed, to accept them fully is identical with enlightenment. And Bob says, when everything is seen as it is, in other words, without liking or disliking, If it's all seen just as it is, not even accepting or rejecting, but just left as it is, is identical to true enlightenment. Verse 45. The wise man strives to know goals. He lets things be just as they are. But the foolish man fetters himself. He gets into bondage as either or the other.
The other. Verse 47. There is but one Dharma, not many. Distinctions arise from the clinging needs of the ignorant. Bob says When you say don cling or attach to anything not ignoring our true nature Bob says, so if it's not being ignored, there is no ignorance, just left as it is. Ignorance is a clinging to one thing and discriminating against the other. Verse 48 To seek mind with a discriminating mind is the greatest of all mistakes, Bob says. So that's what happens. We try to find mind with the mind and it can't. How can it ever happen? It's like the eye trying to see itself.
Verse 49. Rest and unrest derived from illusion. Bob says. Maya or illusion. Rest and unrest, the conflict again, arise from that illusion. Verse 50 With enlightenment there is no liking or disliking. Bob says, when you're not in either the pairs of opposites, just as it is. Verse 51 All dualities come from ignorant reference. They are like dreams or flowers in the air, foolish to try and grasp them. Bob says, you don't try and grab hold of a dream or the idea that there are flowers in the air or a rainbow. Are you going to try and grasp it? Instead of trying to hang on to one duality against another, You recognize that they are just appearances, just divisions, mental divisions.
Verse 52 Gain and loss, right and wrong, such thoughts must finally be abolished at once. Bob says, just pause a thought right now. Good old pause a thought, hey Bob? Is there right or wrong, good or bad, unless you are thinking? Simply in that pausation of a thought, it is abolished at once. Verse 53 If the eye never sleeps, all dreams will naturally cease. Bob says, How many dreams do you have when you are awake? When you realize that you are that wakefulness all the time, you are going to recognize the dream as a dream. See the everyday livingness for what it is, an illusion, an appearance.
Verse 54 If the mind makes no discriminations, the ten thousand things are as they are, of single essence. Bob says, so as we say, go back to the start. When heaven and earth are set infinitely apart, all these so-called 10,000 things appear in space. Space is not divided, not discriminated. Verse 55. To understand the mystery of this one essence is to be released from all entanglements. Just left as this one essence. Verse 56 When all things are seen equally, the timeless self-essence is revealed. Timeless self-essence. Verse 57 No comparisons or analogies are possible in this causeless, relationless state. Bob says. No cause, no relationship, no relativity.
So no comparisons are possible in that state. Verse 58 Consider the movement stationary and the stationary in motion Bob says so where does the movement come from It comes out of the stationary out of the stillness And where does the motion appear? Doesn't it appear in the stationary? Verse 59. Both movement and rest disappear. Again, when they are not separated. Verse 60 When such duality cease to exist, oneness itself cannot exist. Bob says, when they say one without a second, they put that on because even the idea of one implies that there could be other than one. So, they are pointing out that actually there is nothing, not even one.
Verse 61 To this ultimate finality no law or description applies. Bob says, so no authority, no law, no description. It's just as it is. Whatever you put on it, and these things will be put on it, but you know what they are. They are just dualistic appearances. Verse 62 Where is the self-centre in that? Verse 63 Doubts and irresolutions vanish, and life in true faith is possible. Bob says, So, without any doubts, such as thoughts, ideas or concepts, there is no self-centred striving to alter, modify or correct it. To get back on board what you think is real. Verse 64 With a single stroke we are freed from bondage, nothing to cling to us, and we hold to nothing.
So once again, Bob says, go back to hold no opinions, The clinging knees of the ignorant, as said earlier in the piece. No clinging or taking on any stance anywhere. Verse 65 All is empty, clear, self-illuminating, with no exertion of the mind's power. Bob says, The self-illuminating is the light or energy of intelligence itself through which you are seeing. Nothing has to go there and light it up. Just like the sun shines of itself, it is self-shining. Nobody has to light the sun up, just self-shining. So the self-illuminating presence-awareness is there with no exertion of the mind's power. It is there naturally. Verse 66 Here thought, feeling and knowledge and imagination are of no value.
Verse 67 In this world of suchness there is neither self nor other than self. And to both of these, Bob says Even the idea of self and the other disappear. When you are back in the suchness or immediacy which you never left anyway. Verse 68 To come directly into harmony with this reality, just say when doubt arises, Not too In this not too nothing is separate nothing is excluded And no matter where or where enlightenment means entering this truth And this truth is beyond extension or diminution of time in time and space. Bob says, you can't add to it, you can't take anything away from it.
It's just that, not-too. Verse 69 In it a single thought is ten thousand years. Time disappears in that. Verse 69 In it a single thought is ten thousand years. Bob says, time disappears in that. Verse 70. Emptiness here, emptiness there. But the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Bob says. So in that emptiness, the things that are seen are emptiness also. The infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large, infinitely small. You see the vastness of it and you see the smallness of it too. Verse 71. No difference, for definitions have vanished. Bob says, we are not defining one as large and one as small.
Verse 72. And no boundaries are seen. If you are not putting the word or label on it, you aren't putting any boundaries or limitations on it. So too with being and non-being. Don't waste time in doubts and arguments. They have nothing to do with this. The doubts and arguments all take place in conceptualizing and the vibrating thought patterns. One thing, all things, move along and intermingle without distinction. So you see, everything in all this manifestation is moving and intermingling. And though it is registered as this, that and the other, there is no deliberate distinction whereby you say that this is better and this is worse.
Verse 75 And he says, everything is perfectly resolved in the unborn. Bob loves banking, don't you Bob? Verse 76 To live in this faith is the road to nonduality, because the nondual is one with the trusting mind. So, there is no separation. Verse 77 Words The way is beyond language, for in it there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, no today. Bob says it's beyond any words, any description or any ideas. The end. Did you enjoy it my darling? Yes, it's alright. Yeah, but thank you for the wonderful job you did transcribing that commentary. It is precious.