Below are extracts from the Lankavatara Sutra that are related to naïve realism, information theoretic metaphysics and self-realisation.

All that is seen in the world is devoid of effort and action because all things in the world are like a dream, or like an image miraculously projected. This is not comprehended by philosophers and the ignorant, but those who thus see things, see them truthfully. Those who see things otherwise walk in discrimination, they cling to dualism. The world as seen by discrimination is like seeing ones own image reflected in a mirror, or ones shadow, or the moon reflected in water, or an echo heard in a valley.

People grasping their own shadows of discrimination become attached to this thing and that thing and failing to abandon dualism they go on forever discriminating and thus never attain tranquillity. By tranquillity is meant Oneness, and Oneness gives birth to the highest Samadhi which is gained by entering into the realm of Noble Wisdom that is realisable only within ones inmost consciousness...

Noble Wisdom is beyond the path and usage of philosophers; is devoid of all predicates such as being and non-being, oneness and otherness, bothness and non-bothness, existence and non-existence, eternity and non-eternity; has nothing to do with individuality and generality, nor false imagination, nor any illusion arising from the mind itself; but which manifests itself as the Truth of Highest Reality...

The ignorant and simple-minded, not knowing that the world is only something seen of the mind itself, cling to multitudinousness of external objects, cling to the notions of being and non-being, oneness and otherness, bothness and non-bothness, existence and non-existence, eternity and non-eternity, and think that they have a self-nature of their own, and all of which arises from the discriminations of the mind and is perpetuated by habit energy, and from which they are given over to false imagination.

It is all like a mirage in which springs of water are seen as if they were real. They are thus imagined by animals who, made thirsty by the heat of the season, run after them. Animals not knowing that the springs are an hallucination of their own minds, do not realise that there are no such springs. In the same way, the ignorant and simple-minded, their minds burning with the fires of greed, anger and folly, finding delight in a world of multitudinous forms, their thoughts obsessed with ideas of birth, growth and destruction, not well understanding what is meant by existence and non-existence, and being impressed by erroneous discriminations and speculations since beginningless time, fall into the habit of grasping this and that and thereby become attached to them...

Clinging to the memory of erroneous speculations and doctrines accumulated since beginningless time, they hold fast to such ideas as oneness and otherness, being and non-being, and their thoughts are not at all clear as to what after all is only seen of the mind...

The ignorant and simple-minded who are favourably influenced by the erroneous views of the philosophers do not recognise that the views that are influencing them are only dreamlike ideas originating in the mind itself, and consequently they are held fast by their notions of oneness and otherness, of being and non-being. It is like a painters canvas on which the ignorant imagine they see the elevations and depressions of mountains and valleys...

It is neither an entity nor a non-entity, for it has both been seen and has not been seen... It is like a wheel of fire made by a revolving firebrand which is no wheel but which is imagined to be one by the ignorant...

It is like a mirror reflecting colours and images as determined by conditions but without any partiality. It is like the echo of the wind that gives the sound of a human voice. It is like a mirage of moving water seen in a desert. In the same way the discriminating mind of the ignorant which has been heated by false imaginings and speculations is stirred into mirage like waves by the winds of birth, growth and destruction...

The ignorant and the simple-minded, committing themselves to erroneous philosophical views become thoroughly devoted to the ideas of oneness and otherness, but their confidence is not well grounded. For this reason, you should cast off all discriminations leading to notions of birth, abiding and destruction, of oneness and otherness, of bothness and non-bothness, of being and non-being and thus getting free of the bondage of habit-energy become able to attain reality realisable within yourselves as Noble Wisdom...

The ignorant are given up to discrimination and the wise are not because the ignorant cling to names, signs and ideas; as their minds move along these channels they feed on multiplicities of objects and fall into the notion of an ego-soul and what belongs to it; they make discriminations of good and bad among appearances and cling to the agreeable. As they thus cling there is a reversion to ignorance, and karma born of greed, anger and folly, is accumulated. As the accumulation of karma goes on they become imprisoned in a cocoon of discrimination and are thenceforth unable to free themselves from the round of birth and death. Because of folly they do not understand that all things are like maya, like the reflection of the moon in water, that there is no self-substance to be imagined as an ego-soul and its belongings, and that all their definite ideas rise from their false discriminations of what exists only as it is seen of the mind itself. They do not realise that things have nothing to do with quality and qualifying, nor with the course of birth, abiding and destruction, and instead they assert that they are born of a creator, of time, of atoms, of some celestial spirit. It is because the ignorant are given up to discrimination that they move along with the stream of appearances, but it is not so with the wise...

The error in these erroneous teachings that are generally held by the philosophers lies in this: they do not recognise that the objective world arises from the mind itself; they do not understand that the whole mind-system also arises from the mind itself; but depending upon these manifestations of the mind as being real they go on discriminating them, like the simple-minded ones that they are, cherishing the dualism of this and that, of being and non-being, ignorant of the fact that there is but one common Essence...

Why? Because they have not attained an intuitive understanding of Truth itself and therefore they have no clear insight into the fundamentals of things... Their views are based upon erroneous discriminations of the objective world; they are not based upon true conceptions...

As long as these scholars remain on their philosophical ground their demonstration must conform to logic and their textbooks, and the memory habit of erroneous intellection will ever cling to them. To make the matter worse, the simple-minded ones, poisoned by these erroneous views, will declare this incorrect way of thinking taught by the ignorant, to be the same as that presented by the All-knowing One...

Objects in themselves are neither in existence nor in non-existence and are quite devoid of the alternatives of being and non-being; and should only be thought of as one thinks of the horns of a hare, a horse or a camel, which never existed. Objects are discriminated by the ignorant who are addicted to assertion and negation, because their intelligence has not been acute enough to penetrate into the truth that there is nothing but what is seen of the mind itself...

The assertion of philosophical views concerning the elements that make up the personality and its environing world that are non-existent, assume the existence of an ego, a being, a soul, a living being, a nourisher, or a spirit. This is an example of philosophical views that are not true. It is this combination of discrimination of imaginary marks of individuality, grouping them and giving them a name and becoming attached to them as objects, by reason of habit-energy that has been accumulated since beginningless time, that one builds up erroneous views whose only basis is false imaginations...

Word-discrimination goes on by the co-ordination of brain, chest, nose, throat, palate, tongue, teeth and lips. Words are neither different nor non-different from discrimination... Words are an artificial creation... The validity of things is independent of the validity of words.

Neither words nor sentences can exactly express meanings, for words are only sweet sounds that are arbitrarily chosen to represent things, they are not the things themselves, which in turn are only manifestations of mind. Discrimination of meaning is based upon false-imagination that these sweet sounds which we call words and which are dependent upon whatever subjects they are supposed to stand for, and which subjects are supposed to be self-existent, all of which is based on error. Disciples should be on their guard against the seductions of words and sentences and their elusive meanings, for by them the ignorant and dull-witted become entangled and helpless as an elephant floundering about in the deep mud.

Words and sentences are produced by the law of causation and are mutually conditioning, they cannot express highest Reality. Moreover, in highest Reality there are no differentiations to be discriminated and there is nothing to be predicated in regards to it. Highest Reality is an exalted state of bliss, it is not a state of word discrimination and it cannot be entered into by mere statements concerning it. The Tathagatas have a better way of teaching, namely, through self-realisation of Noble Wisdom...

When ideas of body, property, and abode are seen, discriminated and cherished in what after all is nothing but what is conceived of the mind itself, and external world is perceived under the aspect of individuality and generality which, however, are not realities and, therefore, neither a gradual nor a spontaneous rising of things is possible. It is only when the mind-system comes into activity and discriminates the manifestations of mind that existence can be said to come into view...

So long as people do not understand the true nature of the objective world, they fall into the dualistic view of things. They imagine the multiplicity of external objects to be real and become attached to them and are nourished by their habit energy. Because of this system of mentation, mind and what belongs to it is discriminated and is thought of as real; this leads to the assertion of an ego-soul and its belongings, and thus the mind-system goes on functioning. Depending upon and attaching itself to the dualistic habit of mind, they accept the views of the philosophers founded upon these erroneous distinctions, of being and non-being, existence and non-existence, and there evolves what we call false-imaginations.

But discrimination does not evolve nor is it put away because, when all that is seen is truly recognised to be nothing but the manifestation of mind, how can discrimination as regards being and non-being evolve? It is for the sake of the ignorant who are addicted to the discriminations of the multiplicity of things which are of their own mind, that it is said that discrimination takes rise owing to attachment to the aspect of multiplicity which is characteristic of objects. How otherwise the ignorant and simple minded recognise that there is nothing but what is seen of the mind itself, and how otherwise can they gain an insight into the true nature of mind and be able to free themselves from wrong conceptions of cause and effect? How otherwise can they gain a clear conception of the Bodhisattva stages, and attain a “turning about” in the deepest seat of their consciousness, and finally attain an inner self-realisation of Noble Wisdom which transcends the five Dharmas, the three Self-natures, and the whole idea of a discriminated Reality?

For this reason it is said that discriminations take rise from the mind becoming attached to the multiplicities of things which in themselves are not real, and that emancipation comes from thoroughly understanding the meaning of Reality as it truly is.

False-imaginations rise from the consideration of appearances; things are discriminated as to form, signs and shape; as to having colour, warmth, humidity, mobility or rigidity. False-imagination consists of becoming attached to these appearances and their names. By attachment to objects is meant, the getting attached to inner and outer things as if they were real. By attachment to names is meant, the recognition in these inner and outer things of the marks of individuation and generality, and to regard them as definitely belonging to the names of the objects.

False-imagination teaches that because all things are bound up with causes and conditions of habit-energy that has been accumulating since beginningless time by not recognising that the external world is of the mind itself, all things are comprehensible under the aspects of individuality and generality. By reason of clinging to these false-imaginations there is multitudinousness of appearances which are imagined to be real but which are only imaginary...

Based upon the notion of relativity, false-imagination perceives a variety of appearances which the discriminating mind then proceeds to objectify and name and become attached to, and memory and habit-energy perpetuate. Here is all that is necessary to constitute the self-nature of false-imagination.

The various features of false imaginations can be distinguished as follows: as regards to words, meaning, individual marks, property, self-nature, cause, philosophical views, reasoning, birth, no-birth, dependance, bondage and emancipation.

Discrimination of words is the becoming attached to various sounds carrying familiar meanings. Discrimination of meaning comes when one imagines that words rise depending on whatever subjects they express, and which subjects are regarded as self-existent. Discrimination of individual marks is to imagine that whatever is denoted in words concerning the multiplicities of individual marks (which in themselves are like a mirage) is true, and clinging tenaciously to them, they discriminate all things according to such categories as warmth, fluidity, motility and solidity. Discrimination of property is to desire a state of wealth, such as gold, silver and various precious stones.

Discrimination of self-nature is to make discriminations according to the views of the philosophers in reference to the self-nature of all things which they imagine and stoutly maintain to be true, saying: “This is just what it is and it cannot be otherwise.” Discrimination of cause is to distinguish the notion of causation in reference to being and non-being and to imagine that there are such things as “cause-signs”. Discrimination of philosophical views means considering different views relating to the notions of being and non-being, oneness and otherness, bothness and not-bothness, existence and non-existence, all of which are erroneous, and becoming attached to particular views. Discrimination of reasoning means the teaching whose reasoning is based on the grasping at the notion of ego-substance and what belongs to it. Discrimination of birth means getting attached to the notion that things come into existence and pass out of existence by reason of causation. Discrimination of no-birth is to see that causeless substances which were not, come into existence by means of causation. Discrimination of dependance means the mutual dependance of gold and the filaments made up of it. Discrimination of bondage and imagination is like imagining that there is something binding, as in the case of a man who ties a knot and then loosens one.

These are the various features of false-imagination to which all the ignorant and simple minded cling. Those attached to the notions of relativity are attached to the notions of the multitudinousness of things which arises from false-imagination. It is like seeing varieties of objects depending on maya, but these varieties thus revealing themselves are discriminated by the ignorant as something other than maya itself, according to their way of thinking.

Now the truth is, maya and varieties of objects are neither different nor not different, for the very good reason; they are the one thing... Error is like maya also, and as maya is incapable of producing other maya, so error itself cannot produce error; it is discrimination and attachment that produce evil thoughts and faults. Moreover, maya has no power of discrimination in itself... Error has in itself no habit-energy; habit-energy only rises from discrimination and attachment. Error in itself has no faults; faults are due to the confused discriminations fondly cherished by the ignorant concerning ego-soul and its mind. The wise have nothing to do with either maya or error.

Maya however is not an unreality because it only has the appearance of reality; all things have the nature of maya. It is not because all things are imagined and clung to because of the multitudinousness of individual signs, that they are like maya; it is because they are alike unreal and as quickly appearing and disappearing. Being attached to erroneous thoughts they confuse and contradict themselves and others. As they do not clearly grasp the fact that the world is no more than mind itself, they imagine and cling to causation, work, birth and individual signs, and their thoughts are characterised by error and false imaginations. The teaching that all things are characterised by the self-nature of maya and a dream is meant to make the ignorant and simple minded cast aside the idea of self-nature in anything.

False imagination teaches that such things as light and shade, long and short, black and white are different and are too be discriminated; but they are not independent of each other; they are only different aspects of the same thing, they are terms of relation and not of reality. Conditions of existence are not of a mutually exclusive character; in essence things are not two but one. Even Nirvana and Samsara’s world of life and death are aspects of the same thing, for there is no Nirvana except where there is Samsara, and Samsara except where is Nirvana. All duality is falsely imagined.

You and all Bodhisattvas should discipline yourselves in the realisation and patient acceptance of the truths of the emptiness, un-bornness, no self-naturedness, and the non-duality of all things. This teaching is found in all the sutras of all the Buddhas and is presented to meet the varied dispositions of beings, but it is not the Truth itself. These teachings are only a finger pointing towards Noble Wisdom. They are like a mirage with its springs of water which the deer take to be real and chase after. So with the teachings in all the sutras. They are intended for the consideration and guidance of the discriminating minds of all people, but they are not the Truth itself, which can only be self-realised within ones deepest consciousness... You and all the Bodhisattvas must seek for this inner self-realisation of Noble Wisdom, and not be captivated by word-teachings...

What is emptiness indeed! It is a term whose very self-nature is false-imagination, but because of ones attachment to false-imagination we are obliged to talk of emptiness, no-birth, and no self-nature.

All things have no distinguishing marks of individuality and generality. Because of mutual relations and interactions things are superficially discriminated but when they are further and more carefully investigated and analysed they are seen to be non-existent and nothing as to individuality and generality can be predicated of them. Thus when individual marks can no longer be seen, ideas of self, otherness and bothness, no longer hold good. So it must be said that all things are empty of self-marks.

All things in their self-nature are un-born; therefore, it is said that things are empty as to self-nature... The aggregate of elements that makes up personality and its external world is Nirvana itself and from the beginning there is no activity in them, therefore one speaks of the emptiness of no-work... The aggregate being devoid of an ego and its belongings, goes on functioning automatically as there is mutual conjunction of causes and conditions, thus one speaks of the emptiness of work... As the very self-nature of false-imagination is inexpressible, so all things are unpredictable, and therefore are empty in that sense... In the attainment of inner self-realisation of Noble Wisdom there is no trace of habit-energy generated by erroneous conceptions, thus one speaks of the highest emptiness of Ultimate Reality.

When things are examined by right-knowledge there are no signs obtainable which could characterise them with marks of individuality and generality, therefore they are said to have no self-nature. Because these signs of individuality and generality are both seen as existing and yet are known to be non-existent, they are seen as going out and yet are known not to be going out, they are never annihilated. Why is this true? For this reason; because individual signs that should make up the self-nature of all things are non-existent. Again in their self-nature things are both eternal and non-eternal...

Further, besides understanding the emptiness of all things both in regard to substance and self-nature, it is necessary for Bodhisattvas to clearly understand that all things are un-born. It is not asserted that things are not born in a superficial sense, but that in a deep sense they are not born of themselves. All that can be said is this, that relatively speaking, there is a constant stream of becoming, a momentary and uninterrupted change from one state of appearance to another. When it is recognised that the world as it presents itself is no more than an manifestation of mind, then birth is seen as no-birth, and all existing objects, concerning which discrimination asserts that they are and are not, are non-existent and therefore unborn; being devoid of agent and action things are un-born... Things are not born of being and non-being, but are simply manifestations of mind itself, they have no reality, no self-nature...

When it is clearly understood that there is nothing in the world but what is seen of the mind itself, discrimination no more rises, and the wise are established in their true abode which is the realm of quietude. The ignorant discriminate and work trying to adjust themselves to external conditions, and are constantly perturbed in mind; unrealities are imagined and discriminated, while realities are not seen and ignored. It is not so with the wise...

The five Dharmas are: appearance, name, discrimination, right-knowledge, and Reality. By appearance is meant that which reveals itself to the senses and to the discriminating-mind and is perceived as form, sound, odour, taste and touch. Out of these appearances ideas are formed, such as clay, water, jar etc., by which one says: this is such and such a thing and no other, this is its name. When appearances are contrasted and names compared, as when we say; this is an elephant, this is a horse, a cart, a pedestrian, a man, a woman, or this is mind and what belongs to it, the things thus named are said to be discriminated. As these discriminations come to be seen as they truly are, that is, as manifestations of the mind itself, this is right-knowledge. By it the wise cease to regard appearances and names as realities.

When appearances and names are put away and all discrimination ceases, that which remains is the true and essential nature of things and, as nothing can be predicated as to the nature of essence, it is called the “Suchness” of Reality. This universal, undifferentiated, inscrutable “Suchness” is the only Reality but it is variously characterised by Truth, Mind-essence, Transcendental Intelligence, Noble Wisdom etc. This Dharma of the Imagelessness of the Essence-nature of Ultimate Reality is the Dharma which has been proclaimed by all the Buddhas, and when all things are understood in full agreement with it, one is in possession of Perfect Knowledge, and is on his way to the attainment of the Transcendental Intelligence of the Tathagatas.