One day as Manjusri stood outside the temple gate, the Buddha called to him, “Manjusri, Manjusri, why do you not enter?” Manjusri replied, “I do not see myself as outside, why enter?”
This is a wonderful teaching, one that I personally return to again and again. It tells of a kind of mythic encounter between the Buddha and Manjushri, the embodiment of wisdom. When Manjushri says, “I do not see myself as outside, why enter?” he is coming from the unified field of awareness. He is coming from a place of belonging. We could say that the goal of the entire yoga journey is to feel this sense of belonging and to be at peace wherever you are. However, many feel they do not belong to this world– to their family of origin, to their gender of origin, or their religion by birth. Many today feel they do not belong to this fast paced world of technology. All too often, we resist being where we are thinking that it must be better somewhere else. We may harbor feelings of rejection—rejecting ourselves or the world around us.
Thus when Manjushri says, “I do not see myself as outside, why enter?”, he speaks to having resolved a fundamental split inside. He has realized an essential unity, a totality, that does not have an outside or an inside, an up or a down, a self or other. It is a state that is not dependent on outside circumstance. It is like the sun radiating everywhere without discrimination. He has realized a place of undivided, non-judgmental awareness. By not needing to go anywhere other than where he is, he has arrived at a place of profound peace and acceptance.
Manjushri is always depicted holding up the sword of discriminating wisdom. This is the sword that cuts through the confused belief that yoga is “out there” ahead of us somewhere in the future and that we must make progress to get there. And when the Buddha calls Manjushri into the temple, it is a pointless question, for he is already “inside” and one with the Buddha.
