Thank you, David, for your response.
My effort in presenting this meditation support, and techniques that use it, isn’t a claim that this is the only way to reach enlightenment. The focus of the sentence you quoted is on “fully and completely,” not the imputed “only” that you took away. And the “fully and completely” is continuing on from the assertion of a lack of dependency upon any doctrinal system for using this support in the preceding sentence — which is then reinforced in the sentence following the one you quoted which says that the unique characteristic of this support is that it can bring one to full enlightenment without any doctrinal teachings.
The importance of this is that rather than it being the equivalent of a modern day marketing pitch that is trying to place one’s own product or service above that of all your competitors, it is an explanation for the elephant-in-the-room question of just how an individual reaches full enlightenment in the absence of any uncorrupted dharma teachings, such as happens at the beginning of every spiritual and religious tradition that accretes onto the enlightenment of some one particular individual being. Guatama Buddha did not study Buddhism, so how did he become a Buddha? In the absence of any Buddhist doctrine, in his case, how did he reach full enlightenment? Through the use of the inner spontaneous sounds.
Now, to be clear, these aren’t my assertions, rather, as the title suggests, these are the Bodhisattva Manjushri’s assertions in the Surangama Sutra. There is a point in that sutra where Manjushri, at the request of the Buddha, selects 25 bodhisattvas and arhats to explain the practice, and support, that brought each of them to full enlightenment. After each speaks, Manjushri recapitulates what they said, ending with the practice of Avalokitesvara, and then he points out that all these practices were effective in bringing the practitioner to full enlightenment. But, he adds, only the one used by “He Who Hears the Cries of the World” (Avalokitesvara) is better than all the others because it is independent of the need for any teachings. I quoted the text of his speech from the sutra in this article.
Now, you could be questioning my gullibility, rather than any particular belief that I may or may not have, with your question, so I’ll add a bit on how I came to accept this assertion.
To truly use this as support for your meditation, you have to come to a definitive understanding of it or you will be forever questioning what you are doing, indeed even your sanity. Initially, when all that is apparent to you is a high-pitched tone, it is easy to question whether or not that is just some physical malady occurring — an unfortunate state of affairs for hundreds of thousands of gullible sufferers of “tinnitus,” who suffer through an ineffective lifetime of treatments.
But, if you continue the practice and you discover deeper and more subtle layers of these sounds, it becomes harder and harder to accept any possible physical cause. In fact, what happens instead, and this gets to your point, is that you see through the whole objective materialist understanding of reality — which is the definition of enlightenment. Why is this? Because you either have to accept that you are nuts simply because there is no place in science for such shit (locution for effect), or you accept the incompatibility of objective materialism as an explanatory device for the whole of reality, and that motivates you to go even further — working it all out for yourself, rather than gullibly accepting anyone’s beliefs.
Furthermore, since these sounds are always present when you turn your attention towards them (explained in the practices), they are obviously the only certainty in your life — to wit: if you are actually looking for some kind of “self” to pin you identity on, these inner spontaneous sounds are the closest you can ever come. They still aren’t a “self,” but they are, as reputed in all traditions, resonances of your very naturing/manifestation/being, so they are the only impeccable support for meditation.
Any question about the importance of these sounds that you — as the practitioner — may have, just evaporates in the face of the facts of your own imperiences.
This support is not a contingent or compounded evanescent phenomenon. This is why all Buddhas reach enlightenment through this technique alone — in the absence of any true, uncorrupted Dharma, how could anyone reach enlightenment using any technique that is dependent upon the availability of instruction and explanation for them to be fully effective? Given this technique’s self-supporting character, what tradition should be built upon it? What teacher would be in demand to teach it, beyond a brief introduction? In other words, there is truly nothing to sell. (But scarcity of knowledge creates demand)
