mtshan ma med pa

mtshan ma med pa

Also translated here as "without mental images."

In ultimate reality, there is no sign, as a sign signals or signifies something to someone and hence is inextricably involved with the relative world. We are so conditioned by signs that they seem to speak to us as if they had a voice of their own. The letter "A" seems to pronounce itself to us as we see it, and the stop-sign fairly shouts at us. However, the configuration of two slanted lines with a crossbar has in itself nothing whatsoever to do with the phenomenon made with the mouth and throat in the open position, when expulsion of breath makes the vocal cords resonate "ah." By extending such analysis to all signs, we may get an inkling of what is meant by "signlessness," which is essentially equivalent to voidness, and to "wishlessness" (see entry). Voidness, signlessness, and wishlessness form the "Three Doors of Liberation."

Meditative concentration which views the five aggregates, the basis for the conception of a self, as faulty; the second of the three doors of liberation.

The absence of the conceptual identification of perceptions. Knowing that the true nature has no attributes, such as color, shape, etc. One of the three doorways to liberation.

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