The Lice-Picking Monkey of Kensho

So you've practiced trying to find the physical, spatial location of Awareness. It's become evident to you beyond any words that Awareness cannot be found, yet it's "who" or "what" experiences anything at all. It's also become clear that no object -- not even your own brain, body, fingers, hand, nostrils, or any of your senses or all of them together -- add up to that mysterious "self-born" naked Awareness Padmasambhava pointed to in his exhilarating and direct instructions on gaining freedom. What's more, movement from A-B does not seem to apply to Awareness. It is simply everywhere at once if it is anywhere at all. Master Huang-Po, for the sake of convenience, called it "the One-mind." Others have refused to name it, since naming leads to the idea that It is somehow a "thing."

You've had a glimpse of how your body and mind "use" Awareness and ultimately appear to "you" nowhere but in Awareness! Amazing. How wonderful. How mysterious it all is! It appears that Prajna, which is the self-generated ability within Awareness to give rise to and cognize a "universe" of the "ten thousand things," like a monkey's fingers cannot scratch the original ancient face of Awareness, though it can still pick lice from its own shaggy and stupid head!