To See God, To See the Buddha: An Exploration of Seeing Spirituality with Meister Eckhart, Nagarjuna, and Huang Bo

All religions are, by nature, traditions based on words and ideas. In this respect, spirituality recognized in religion is spirituality mediated by words and concepts. However, there is also a spirituality that consciously rejects words or ideas - "seeing spirituality," as opposed to thinking (or believing) spirituality. To See God, To See the Buddha explores and elucidates this seeing spirituality. The book's introduction presents a distinction between the thinking mind and the seeing mind, exploring seeing spirituality first in Meister Eckhart's teaching of "empty soul," as well as in the Mahayana teaching of sunyata (emptiness) as presented in the Diamond Sutra and Nagarjuna's Verses on the Middle Way, and, finally, in the Zen master Huang Bo's Transmission of Mind. The focus throughout is on the presentation and explanation of seeing spirituality as the immediate awareness of the present, free of all concepts. The discussion centers around specific texts, focusing on the working of the seeing mind, rather than through an abstract or metaphysical explanation. The author's elucidation - of sunyata, in terms of the distinction between the thinking mind and the seeing mind, and likewise the juxtaposition of Meister Eckhart and Huang Bo, far apart in their traditions as they are in time and space - is unique and is a major contribution to religious and philosophical scholarship. In addition, the work contains a new translation of major sections of Huang Bo's Dharma talks, the first in English since 1958.