Unurthed

Cover art from D. T. Suzuki‘s Mysticism: Christian and Buddhist, 1957 (Collier Books edition). We see the eight-spoked Buddhist Dharma wheel, the Christian crucifixion cross, and, before both symbols, an eye: Eckhart‘s eye, a prajna-eye, the eye of wisdom.

“It is not enough to ‘know’ as the term is ordinarily understood… Whatever knowledge the philosopher may have, it must come out of his experience, and this experience is seeing. Buddha has always emphasized this. He couples knowing (nana, jnana) with seeing (passa, pasya) for without seeing, knowing has no depths, cannot understand the realities of life. Therefore, the first item of the Eightfold Noble Path is sammadassana, right seeing, and sammasankappa, right knowing, comes next. Seeing is experiencing, seeing things in their state of suchness (tathata) or is-ness” (p34).

“Seeing is not just an ordinary seeing by means of relative knowledge; it is the seeing by means of a prajna-eye which is a special kind of intuition enabling us to penetrate right into the bedrock of Reality itself” (p35).

“…which is no other than Eckhart’s eye: ‘The eye wherein I see God is the same eye wherein God sees me: my eye and God’s eye are one eye, one vision, one knowing, one love'” (p43).