Turning the light around


Turning the light around, also translated as "tracing back the radiance," or "counter-illumination," is a Zen Buddhist expression referring to turning attention from outward phenomena to awareness itself. In Mahayana Buddhism, the true nature of awareness is related to concepts such as luminous mind, Buddha-nature, and emptiness.

Etymology

The term fǎn zhào is derived from the following Chinese characters:
  • 返 fǎn, return, reverse, in an opposite direction
  • 照 zhào, illuminate, light up, shine, reflect, to mirror
  • * 返照, fǎn zhào, "to shine in the opposite direction," "to light up the source" .
A longer variation of the phrase in Chinese is 回光返照, "turning the light around and shining back." The additional characters, huí guāng, mean:
  • 回 huí, return, go back
  • 光 guāng, light, ray, beam
  • * 回光, huí guāng, "returning light."
The phrase huí guāng fǎn zhào can also mean "final radiance of setting sun," as when the sun sets but still lights up the clouds from beneath; and "dying flash," the moment shortly before dying when the life-force is fully expressed and one glows.

Origins and meaning

The idea that the mind is "luminous" and "shines" goes back to a famous passage in an early Buddhist scriptural collection called the Aṅguttara-nikāya, in which the Buddha declares, "Luminous, monks, is the mind." In Chan Buddhism, this idea is related to the concept of numinous awareness which refers to the ground of sentience, or the mind-ground. As Buswell observes, numinous awareness, as the fundamental quality of sentience, "not so figuratively, 'shines' on sense-objects, illuminating them and allowing them to be cognized." As one turns the mind away from attachment to sense-objects and back toward its fundamental source, one "traces back the radiance" or "turns the light around", as the Korean Sŏn adept Yŏndam Yuil says:
By tracing back the radiance, one uncovers one's fundamental nature as numinous awareness, which, as the inherent capacity for enlightenment, is both the fundamental quality of mind realized in meditation, as well as the faculty which makes meditation through tracing back the radiance possible. What's more, Buswell says this natural luminosity doesn't merely shine on sense-objects, but with meditation, "it comes virtually to shine through sense-objects, rendering them transparent and exposing their inherent voidness."

Usage and examples

Turning one's light around is mentioned in many Chan sources. The Xinxin Ming, attributed to the third Chan patriarch Sengcan, says:
One moment of reversing the light
Is greater than the previous emptiness.
The previous emptiness is transformed;
It was all a product of deluded views.

Similarly, counter-illumination occurs in the Jueguan lun of the Oxhead School, which contains a dialogue in which the student, called Conditionality, experiences awakening at the hands of his teacher, Enlightenment. Where Enlightenment's teaching relies extensively on negation, Conditionality's awakening is described in positive terms as the counter-illumination of the "mysterious brilliance" of pure wisdom.
The Platform Sutra, a key Zen scripture attributed to the semi-legendary Huineng, connects it with seeing one's "original face." The Chan master Shitou Xiqian also says:
In his sermons, Mazu Daoyi says, "When within a single thought one reflects and illuminates within, then everything is the Holy Mind."
The phrase "turning the luminosity towards the mind's source" appears in the Dunhuang text, the Dunwu dacheng zhenglijue, a text said to record the teachings of Heshang Moheyan, a Chinese Chan master active in Tibet during the late 8th century:
question: What do you mean when you speak of "contemplating the mind"?
Reply: To turn the light towards the mind's source, that is contemplating the mind. one does not reflect on or observe whether thoughts are in movement or not, whether they are pure or not, whether they are empty or not. It is also not to reflect on non-reflection. This is why the Vimalakīrti Sūtra explains: "Non-observation is enlightenment."

According to Carmen Meinert, "this method is meant to be an immediate return to mind's source itself and might even be seen as a face-to-face recognition of the nature of mind." Meinert points out that the term fan yuan, "return to the source," also appears in the Dunwu dacheng zhenglijue, in a quotation from the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.
The term 返照 occurs in Zongmi's Sub-commentary to the Sutra of Perfect Enlightenment, where it refers to recognizing original enlightenment.
Linji Yixuan, a key figure in the Linji school of Zen, states that all that is needed to obtain the Dharma is to "turn your own light in upon yourselves and never seek elsewhere." Linji further connects this "turning one's light around" with non-doing. When one stops seeking and turns one's own light in upon oneself, Linji tells us, on that very instant one will have "nothing to do". However, "turning one's light around" does not necessarily imply anything like staring at the mind or concentrating within. Linji quotes Shenhui's well-known criticism of such things as arresting the mind, staring at silence, summoning the mind to focus it on externals, controlling the mind to make it clear within, and concentrating the mind to enter into meditation. Moreover, Linji says that looking for something within is just as wrong as seeking externally, since there's nothing within that can be grasped. He says: "Outside the mind there is no Dharma, and even inside the mind it can't be grasped. So what is there to seek for?"
Yuanwu Keqin said: "The most important thing is for people of great faculties and sharp wisdom to turn the light of mind around and shine back and clearly awaken to this mind before a single thought is born."
Hongzhi Zhengjue, the famous master of the Caodong school, well known for his practice of silent illumination, says, "...you must take the backward step and directly reach the middle of the circle from where light issues forth."
Chinul's Secrets of Cultivating the Mind states:
The Japanese Zen master Dōgen describes it as follows: "You should stop the intellectual practice of pursuing words and learn the 'stepping back' of 'turning the light around and shining back' ; mind and body will naturally 'drop off,' and the 'original face' will appear." According to Joseph Markowski, quoting, for Dōgen, directing our awareness upon "awareness" itself reveals a "mirroring" of phenomena "which reflects things as they show themselves without distortion". Thus, the practice of mirroring via non-thinking is to be "totally engaged in the vicissitudes of life with all its ups and downs on the basis of impartial compassion, rather than on the basis of egoistic craving and loathing".
Lanxi Daolong says: "The knowing mind is the light, errant thoughts are shadows; the light illumining things is called shining, and when the mind and thoughts do not range over things but are turned toward the original nature, this is called 'turning the light around to shine back.' It is also called 'panoramic illumination'; illumining the whole of the immediate substance, it is where neither delusion nor enlightenment have ever appeared."
The following appears in the final entry of the Jingde Chuandeng lu, and was appended to the text in the Yuan dynasty: "If unable to have faith, you will forever sink into a deep pit in an ocean of faults, but if you can turn the light around, then in one instant heart and thoughts are put to rest; at this time confusions, afflictions and foolish sentiments suddenly vanish, all karmic limitations turn into the sweet dew of the finest gee, to peace and happiness in the nation."
Bassui Tokushō said: "When you turn the light directly within and see clearly, the pure magnificent Dharma body of the self will manifest, and there will be nothing other than you."
According to contemporary teacher Jeff Shore, the phrase "describes the essence of Zen practice." According to Shore, it "jump directly into the heart of the matter short circuit, in one fell swoop, the endless regression of ordinary consciousness."
Regarding the meaning of biguan, or "wall contemplation," a practice famously attributed to Bodhidharma, Yanagida Seizan writes, "At the same time, 'wall contemplation' includes the idea of 'turning back the brilliance in counter illumination', the wonderfully bright radiance of the setting sun. Or the inconceivable function of the mirror, which illuminates each and every thing in existence." Jeffrey Broughton also points out that where Bodhidharma's teachings appear in Tibetan translation among the Dunhuang manuscripts, the Chinese phrase "in a coagulated state abides in wall-examining" is replaced in Tibetan with "rejects discrimination and abides in brightness".

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