[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by free Buddhist audio, the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you, and happy listening. Now for Vimalakirti's silence. This silence has, of course, a tremendous significance. But we can't understand that significance fully. Can't even begin to understand it without reference to the last reply through Vimalakirti's original question. That is to say, Manjushri's reply. What does he say in reply to the other bodhisattvas when in their turn they put Vimalakirti's question to him? He says, you may remember, good sirs, you have all spoken well. Nevertheless, all your explanations are themselves dualistic. To know no one teaching. To express nothing, to say nothing, to explain nothing, to announce nothing, to indicate nothing, and to designate nothing. That is the entrance into non-duality. All your explanations are themselves dualistic. This is what he tells them. So why does Manjushri say this? Why are the bodhisattvas explanations all dualistic? They're dualistic because they are expressed in terms of concepts. Concepts are essentially dualistic. We can't therefore explain the bodhisattvas entry into non-duality by means of concepts. If we want truly to explain it, we have to abstain from concept altogether. After abstain from speech altogether, have to remain silent. However, in order to explain all of this, Manjushri himself has to make use of concepts. He has to speak. He has to say that silence is the bodhisattvas entry into non-duality. So there's a contradiction here. Manjushri's explanation itself is not entirely free from non-duality. There is still one more step to be taken, and this step is taken by Vimalakirti. When Manjushri asks him for his explanation, what does he do? He remains completely silent. He puts into actual practice what Manjushri has only expressed in terms of concepts. But here a question arises. Is not Vimalakirti's reply also dualistic? Speech and silence are opposites. So to explain the bodhisattvas entry into non-duality in terms of silence is surely as dualistic as explaining it in terms of speech, in terms of concepts. What is the entry into non-duality here? Well, the answer is that Vimalakirti does not have a concept of silence. He acts spontaneously according to the circumstances. That is why his silence is meaningful. In chapters 3 and 4, the other parts of Vimalakirti were reduced to silence when they encountered Vimalakirti. But theirs was the silence of stupid factually. Vimalakirti is the silence of understanding, the silence of enlightenment. Vimalakirti uses silence, not that he has any concept of using it, of course. He uses it as a means to an end. He uses it in order to communicate. But he also uses speech whenever necessary. He does not stick to silence. After all, he does speak quite a lot in the course of Vimalakirti. And not only that, speech and silence are not his only means of communication by any means. He communicates also by means of marvelous magical displays. The means of communication are in fact infinite. We should be going into this a little next week when our theme will be the mystery of human communication. Meanwhile, this week, what have we seen? We've seen the danger of getting sidetracked. We've seen what is meant by Dharma Doha. We've seen how the Bodhisattva enters the Dharma Doha of non-duality. The Bodhisattva enters the Dharma Doha of non-duality when he uses speech to transcend speech. Silence to transcend silence. Duality to transcend duality. Duality can be used to transcend duality. It can be used as a means to non-duality because the duality between duality and non-duality is not absolute. And this is the way of the Bodhisattvas. This is the way of Manju Sri. This is the way of Vimalakirti. This is the way of non-duality. We hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. And thank you. [ Silence ]
