TATHAGATE : Moving On
Introduction to The Dragonfly Sutra
The text and talk on this page serves as an introduction of The Dragonfly Sutra (DFS), its origin, ritual, exposition, and then some.
Above is a photo of a sheet of paper from the recording station of the navigator’s room in Gaucin, Andalucia. It displays a list of the Mahayana sutras which the nav selected for special attention during the GNE. It may be taken for a suggested reading list. The sutras named have the special and outstanding character of demonstrating mind-to-mind transmission, as occurred in several instances with individuals close to the historical Buddha. Or better said, as may be assumed to have occurred. More considerations about this selection come up here and there in exposition of the DFS.
In March 2014, at the conclusion of the GNE with last briefing (In the Beauty of Anthropic Dreaming), the nav had a moment of — let’s say, profound relief, like a sigh rising from deep in his bones. With the responsibility of the GNE completed, the effort required to sustain that immense orchestration comes to its conclusion. That moment of alleviation opened a clearing where the deep sigh arose, and in the clearing the Nav spontaneously picked up a pencil and without giving it a thought jotted the note seen here on the yellow post-it.
Zufania Dracontis The Dragonfly Sutra
At that moment it was a cosmic certainty that something called The Dragonfly Sutra would come into the world, in some manner, at some undetermined time. Let it be recorded in the Annals of Planetary Tantra that the event that announced itself in this way in March 2014 did indeed happen in July 2019, about sixty-four months later.
Moving On
The leading meme for The Dragonfly Sutra is the made-up word Tathagate: Tah-TAH-gah-TAY.. In Sanskrit the h of th is silent. Note that this word resembles Sophianic baby-talk. The Sutra opens with this word which is pronounced at the start of every recitation. The first of the eleven lines is:
Tathagate, the beat of wings
Tathagate means “what moves on, and causes to move on.” Tat in Sanskrit translates directly to the English that. It occurs in the famous Vedic formula of “self-realization,” Tat Tvam Asi. “Thou are that.” To be technically correct, Tathagate translates as “that which moves on, and causes to move on.” Tat = that which is. But the option to say what rather than that is significant, as exposition of the Sutra reveals. In fact, it points directly to a seminal instruction of the Sutra: namely, the mind is a mechanism better described as what than that.
Your mind is what operates on its own allowing you to be aware that you have a mind. The way it operates can be compared to breathing. You can breathe in two ways: automatically or involuntarily, as you do most of the time, or by intention, as you do when taking a deep breath or doing breath exercises. Likewise, your mind works automatically, without you intending it to do anything, and you can work it intentionally, you can apply it to some action such as reasoning, forming a concept, communicating in words, etc.
“What moves on, and causes to move on” is the inceptive formula for TDS. Consider what moves in your mind, namely, the stream of contents including ideas and memories, and what causes it to move so. That simple consideration is the “zero preset” for practice with TDS. You can return to that consideration as many times as you like. Doing so, you do not seek an answer but remain hovering with the question. What moves in your mind and what causes it to move? Look at your mind to see without straining for an answer, an intellectual proposition.
The Dragonfly Sutra Introduction Audio: addressing some posts in the Member’s Forum thread, “The non-attainment of the DFS”
Talk added 11 November 2019 (Remembrance Day): Releasing The Dragonfly Sutra
By a secondary implication, “moving on” (exact wording which occurs in the Sutra, by the way) refers to moving on from Buddhism in its received form, and especially moving on from the prescribed definition of enlightenment. For instance, Buddhism routinely ascribes to the attainment of enlightenment certain properties or traits such as serenity, bliss, and compassion. You are asked to take it on faith that anyone who is enlightened will acquire and exhibit these properties. Maitreya Challenge (see below) refutes and overturns that assumption. It asks you to consider that this enlightenment “in the Kaliesque style” does not automatically grant any of those attributes. Nor does it require them.
Direct Pointing
The zero setting is the preset of an attitude of contemplation. You simply contemplate your mind and watch how it works, the way it naturally operates both when you actively use it and when you just let it run by itself. The Dragonfly Sutra is completely novel and original, standing beyond any previous Buddhist teachings, but it nevertheless allows and includes certain points that can be found as trace-elements in Buddhist tradition. Mainly, it resonates to the Ch’an and Zen schools of Buddhism, and it has some affinities with Taoism as well. The basic method of practice with TDS is contemplation, not meditation. There is no meditation practice whatsoever entailed here. Contemplation is an accurate rendering of the Sanskrit word dhyana which slurs into Ch’an in Chinese and Zen in Japanese.
Screen painting illustrating Chinese poem “River Snow”: “In a lone boat, rain cloak and hat of reeds, / an old man’s fishing the cold river snow” (trans. David Hinton). “Spectators with backgrounds in Chinese art and poetics will naturally come up with this association and experience an excitement of thinking through seeing.” Practice with TDS is a simple routine of thinking through seeing — more exactly, thinking in the immediate process of seeing how the mechanism of mind works. In some measure, you exercise the mind, you think, but in another measure you don’t think at all, you merely observe how the mind/your mind works on its own. The Sutra enhances and guides this exercise.
Dhyana, contemplation, is closely related to dharana, concentration. However, unfortunately, dhyana is usually assumed to mean meditation. But meditation is an effort of the mind, not its natural function. In practice with The Dragonfly Sutra, there is no meditation to undertake and none worth a second of your time. You simply concentrate on observing how your mind or the mind works, you contemplate its operations, period. You do no meditation on anything. The preference of contemplation over meditation was established early on by such Taoist sages as Chuang Tzu, and has even been reaffirmed in a certain manner by Dzogchen teachers who insist on the primary of contemplation.
According to the widely accepted definition of D. T. Suzuki, Zen is “direct pointing to the mind.” TDS practice is direct looking at the mind. You just watch it. Lightly. Without imposing on it. Without forcing intellectual views about it. Without interpreting it. The Sutra itself prompts the interpretations that induce the lucidity of enlightenment. The Sutra guides you to observe how the mind works.
In and of itself, The Dragonfly Sutra does not contain any language or concept that refers to the human mind! It simply describes how a dragonfly flies. Period. The power of the Sutra to instruct and guide in observing the mind comes from the unique apposition it presents: the flight of the dragonfly and the operations of the mind are apposite. The Sutra refers to the operations of the mind by apposition — parallelism or mirroring, if you will — in such a way that the more you contemplate how a dragonfly flies, the more lucidity accrues in your observation of the mind/your mind.
At the outset, the mind is assumed to be your mind. Fine, but how do you know it is yours? Yours alone? Different from anyone else’s? This practice assumes that the mind which you claim as yours is the same for everyone. It is an innate mechanism possessed by every human animal. Although it works in an ingenious way, the mind is not intelligent. The assertion that the mind is not intelligent is primary to TDS practice, but it is not taken on faith. By contemplation of how the mind works you can see immediately that it is not intelligent, and simultaneously you see that it is a tool of intelligence. You already know all this.
Compare the mind to a tool like a Swiss army knife with various working attachments such as blade, awl, screwdriver, scissors. It can perform various actions when handled by an intelligent animal. But the knife itself is not intelligent. Neither is your mind.
The possession of the mechanism of mind defines the human animal as distinct from other animals, other intelligent creatures. This truth has been known since time beyond reckoning. The word man derives from the PIE root man-, to think, to have and use mind. The human creature (mankind) possesses the mechanism of mind in its make-up, in the factory setting of the organism. Other animals are intelligent, and indeed may have extraordinary faculties of conation and discernment, but lack this specific mechanism.
The assertion that the mind is mechanical and non-intelligent has been raised in certain schools of Vedic and Vedantic philosophy where it is called manas. It has been a touchy point of controversy over centuries, involving many complex arguments. In the practice with TDS that arises at the close of Kali Yuga, there is nothing more to argue about. You can see for yourself that the mind/your mind is merely a mechanical device by looking directly at how it operates. The Sutra guides and prompts this observation.
Concluding points (in development):
zero preset
the mind / your mind
mind is not intelligence
enlightenment is accrued lucidity
non-attained realization
count to one