The Zen of Advaita - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

Neither are, as in a sequence intime, higher, lower or better thanNeither are, period.In this way, three Zen sayings areimmediately revealed:“The monkey grasps at thereflections of the moon in alake.”“The empty mirror.”“One moon many reflections.”In the first, the monkey is ametaphor for the mind, and thereflections are the world. In thesecond, the world is an emptymirror, as its object is empty ofthingness.Or as the Buddha said, “there isno fundamental reality.”“One moon many reflections” speaksto not only the two mirrors, butthe “unity” of the emptinessconsciousness-world,appearing asthe multiplicity of the world.94