In his review of Introduction to Emptiness by Guy Newland, Tricycle contributing editor Andrew Merz says:

Emptiness, alongside “life is suffering,” the full-lotus position, and a seeming obsession with death, sits high on the list of misunderstood principles associated with Buddhism that bring the uninitiated to label it a “depressing” tradition. (“The Greatest Lack; Explaining Emptiness” by Andrew Merz, Tricycle, Winter 2008, pp. 92-95)

Merz, a master’s student at Harvard Divinity School goes on to offer one of the most succinct and positive interpretations of this difficult concept that I have seen:

We can think of emptiness as like the clear, blue sky – a transparent space that is wide open. In that way our empty natures mean that there is no limit to what we can become. We are not blocked, obstructed, or tied down…Inevitably we face difficulties – sometimes great difficulties…But the obstacles are not insurmountable because they are not intrinsic to the structure of reality. Fundamentally, all things are empty – and so we are empty – of any intrinsic nature. This is why the reality of emptiness, properly understood, is a tremendous wellspring of hope and inspiration. Only because we are empty, the possibilities for what we can become are wide open. Ibid, p. 93.

Like most westerners, I guess, I’ve always had trouble with the concept because the word “emptiness” so often implies barrenness, lack, the empty carton in the “got milk” commercials. But in a few brief words, Merz gave me a new image to consider – the emptiness of the cosmic womb, from which all things, including our own awakening, can emerge.

Gassho,

Danaeah

]]> http://SkillfulMeans.lotusbell.com/2008/12/14/emptiness-part-deux/feed/ 1 http://SkillfulMeans.lotusbell.com/2008/10/21/some-study-resources/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=some-study-resources http://SkillfulMeans.lotusbell.com/2008/10/21/some-study-resources/#comments Tue, 21 Oct 2008 20:53:13 +0000 danaeahb http://skillfulmeans.wordpress.com/?p=2026 As we start to discuss Jack Kornfield’s book, A Path With a Heart, there is a wealth of material on the website for Spirit Rock, the Meditation Center where Jack teaches and of which he is a co-founder: http://www.spiritrock.org/ Follow the links to Vipassana 101, and the audio resources for a number of recorded talks. [...]]]>

As we start to discuss Jack Kornfield’s book, A Path With a Heart, there is a wealth of material on the website for Spirit Rock, the Meditation Center where Jack teaches and of which he is a co-founder: http://www.spiritrock.org/ Follow the links to Vipassana 101, and the audio resources for a number of recorded talks. You can also open the article Kornfield published in Shambala Sun, “Doing the Buddha’s Practice,” which describes Vipassana (Insight Meditation), and locates it within the Buddhist tradition

It seems like most of us in the discussion group have a working concept of many key Buddhist terms. We kind of get “impermanence,” whether we want to or not. And the classic inquiry, “Who am I?” can spark an experience of “no-self,” because every answer is dwarfed by the unknowable awareness that holds it. In time I may realize that “what I am” can never be named or grasped. But one term remains elusive for me, and that is “emptiness.”

Thich Nhat Hahn describes it as meaning “empty of a separate existence,” and gives examples of how everything is entwined together. Part of “what I am” is the sun and rain that grew the wheat that made the cheerios I ate for breakfast – “I” am not separate from anything else. I get what he’s saying – sort of – but I’m still not satisfied.

A big hint for me was Pema’s comment that many Buddhist’s believe physical death is like waking from a dream. This leads to an obvious question; just how “real” was last night’s dream? Where are the father and mother, the child and the lover, the shadow and villain and even the dream-ego now? They were never as solid or real as they seemed when they drove me to laughter or tears. Even the “I” that laughed or cried has vanished. There is just that unfathomable awareness from which they rose and to which they returned. Could that be what “emptiness” means? Not that the dream was unreal, but that its reality was that of a morning mist?

Is this how Awareness will view my current life when it’s over?

“What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes (James 4:14).

Back in more new-agey days, I tried some past-life regressions. While most of the impressions were muddled, one was so vivid I wrote a rather haunting poem about it. It was as “real” as anything in my dream journals, but now that “I” has vanished too, along with the people it loved and the way it died (I saw that too).

A while ago I had a spontaneous “lucid dream.” I became aware I was dreaming in the dream. It was a very realistic but ordinary dream of being at work, yet the knowledge that I was awake made everything marvelous. I could act with a kind of joyous confidence, born of the certainty that there was nothing to worry about.

Is that a decent analogy to the kind of “awakening” we pursue through meditation? Maybe “emptiness” is the best description those people who are awake to the dream nature of “real life” are able to give us.

(Incidentally, in my lucid dream, I started toward an outside courtyard, thinking to observe some arrangement of stones or twigs in a pattern my daytime self could look for in the morning. Unfortunately, I woke before I got there.)

Gassho, Danaeah

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I spent Saturday on an all day retreat with Anam Thubten Rinpoche, the teacher I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Some fifty people gathered in the social hall of a church to listen to this man, whose core theme (as reflected in the title of his book, No Self, No Problem), has meant so much to me. Unfortunately the book is out of print at this time.

The retreat format was very simple; a half hour of meditation, followed by recitation of the Heart Sutra, a dharma talk, and then a break. We repeated this throughout the day. The instructions for meditation were simple as well – attend to the breath until attention is stable, then expand awareness to include all of the senses. Simply relax into the present moment. Let thoughts and emotions go. When they carry attention away, return to the breath.

The day was warm – over 100 in the afternoon, and the air conditioning was broken. Ceiling fans kept the air moving, but I had to stand and drink black tea at one point in the afternoon to stay awake – the heat, of course, was one of those never-ending opportunities to observe how I react when life hands me something I do not like.

Here are some of the points I remember from Anam Thubten’s talks:

“Life is the most precious gift the universe can bestow. In simplest terms, our spiritual task is to celebrate life. We need to ask ourselves what we are doing here, why we are here. What is the meaning of our lives? We’re not looking for sophisticated, coffee shop answers, but something deeper that satisfies our heart and gut. People often seek meaning in one of three ways. There is the way of attainment – seeking success in a ‘dog-eat-dog’ world. The social way – seeking meaning in relationships, friends, and family. And the spiritual way – which can also be full of illusions – fantasies of exotic teachings, wise gurus, and so on.”

“Scratch the surface and you will find a great anguish in almost everyone, for no condition in this world will give us the lasting happiness and peace we crave.”

[Anam Thubten gazes at those who are gathered]

“You don’t find too many young people in Buddhist sanghas. Usually when we are young we don’t realize that youth is one of the first things life takes away. Of course in the ultimate sense, there is no such thing. Youth and age are just concepts. Look in the face of a child in grade school. They haven’t yet learned they are young. In the west we worship youth. In Tibet they worship age, which equates to wisdom. In Tibet everyone wants to be old.”

[he shrugs and everyone laughs].

“In Buddhism we often say that when the universe seems to smile on us, it’s a very dangerous time. When we are prosperous, young, with satisfying relationships, if we ignore spiritual practice, it’s like being asleep in a house that’s on fire. The Buddha sent his students into the forest, into the cities and into cremation grounds at night. He insisted they witness the full range of what life will bring us. Sometimes suffering can be a very wise guru.”

“What the Buddha called ‘Mara,’ the devil, is purely inside us. It’s the only devil there is. There is something within us that works against our own liberation. Its weapon is illusion. The pervasive illusion that somehow we’ll find conditions in this impermanent world that will satisfy our longings. There are lots of spiritual illusions too.”

Unknown to Anam Thubten, the announcement for this retreat listed his topic as “Living with an Open Heart.” When he heard this, he was delighted, saying an open heart was one of his favorite themes. A heart that is wide enough to embrace all of life and all sentient beings brings us to the place of no-self, for that kind of love and compassion melts the illusion of separation of self and others. We were asked to work with a partner during a guided meditation that gave a taste of this feeling.

The afternoon talks focused on ways of developing this ‘open heart,’ or more correctly, letting go of all that obscures what is already there. Some of the teachings echo Pema Chodron, when she asks us to face, accept and even embrace all the conditions of life. There was also a guided meditation aimed at “touching” the six major hindrances to developing Boddhichitta, this “big hearted love” – hatred, jealousy, dullness, desire, envy and pride.

Toward the end of the day, Anam Thubten said, “The path of mindfulness is not ‘fun’ – it’s an acquired taste. It’s for people courageous enough to aim for the highest enlightenment and opening of the heart. At first it seems like we’re going to loose everything – and we are! We’re going to loose our stories, our illusions, our identities and our attachments. Later we will understand that all we really lost are the things that cause us sorrow.”

Give an introverted, book-loving, spiritual seeker like myself a few decades and she’ll collect more ideas and theories than anyone possibly needs. I’m sorry if these notes seem more of the same – cerebral stuff that doesn’t really satisfy. It’s very hard to capture the presence of Anam Thubten by quoting his words.

One of the things I’ve noticed around those few “spiritual” people who have something I want is, how much I laugh, how good it feels just to be near them. Anam Thubten’s humor and joy are contagious. In a very real sense, his words were an extra – it would have been enough just to sit with him. But I’m sure he knew we’d soon fall asleep, so he cast a net of peace over the sangha, and used his words to encourage us in this practice which can carry us to the place of an open and joyous heart.

Gassho, Danaeah

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A friend’s recent visit to the Pacific northwest reminded me of one of my favorite poems which seems very pertinent to our effort and our discussion here. It was written by David Wagoner, and echoes instructions northwest Native American elders gave their children, on what to do if they became lost in the forest.

Lost

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you

Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,

And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,

Must ask permission to know it and be known.

The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,

I have made this place around you,

If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.

No two trees are the same to Raven,

No two branches are the same to Wren.

If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,

You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows

Where you are. You must let it find you.

David Wagoner, cited in The Heart Aroused by David Whyte, ISBN 0385484186

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I’ve always found solitude nourishing and over the last ten years have tried to take annual personal retreats at an abbey in northern California. Excitement mounts as the time draws near. Even though I know better, I always anticipate calm and serenity.

It never works out quite like that. A lot of good happens, but only, it seems, after working through things like loneliness or boredom, that are waiting for me when I check in. This past weekend it was a little more humorous; it was my vanity that took a beating.

I made excellent time going up highway 5, with cars in the slow lane doing 75. I pulled into a rest area in a eucalyptus grove, north of the town of Willows.

A heavyset woman passed me on the sidewalk and said, “Are you a trucker?”

“No,” I answered, startled out of my reverie.

“Aren’t you glad?” she asked and walked away.

I hurried to the rest room to check the mirror. Had to be the sweatshirt, and shades – right?

The ironic thing is, back in the day, when my husband and I were travelling in a Volkswagen van, we used to joke about getting an eighteen-wheeler. Pedal to the metal (to the tune of “Born to be Wild,” of course). And “10-4, good buddy.” We were going to be cute truckers!

Cute is harder to pull off these days. That evening I put on a long cotton dress with lace at the neckline and hem. “So what?” said one of my inner voices. “Even truckers dress up.”

It could have been much worse. The last time I stayed at the abbey I was facing surgery – minor surgery, but still scary. And someone I knew was dying of cancer.

Sickness, old age and death were three of the inevitables that sent the Buddha searching for the roots of human suffering. We read about suffering in spiritual books, and hear about “awakening.” That suggests it’s something like waking from a nightmare. Whew, the bogey man wasn’t real.

But what do we do in the meantime, when the things that threaten us seem so real? People who die of cancer are gone, whatever we may believe about afterlives.

Some teachers suggest we don’t need to learn more doing, but to stop doing things that never have worked. The teacher I spoke of last time, Anam Thubten, has written a book, with a title that sums up his teaching, No Self, No Problem, (Dharmata Press, Point Richmond, CA, 2006, ISBN-10: 0-9788608-0-2). I’d like to give an extended quote that presents his reasons for meditating:

…this I is a fictitious entity that is always ready to whither away the moment you stop sustaining it…As you begin to rest and pay attention…you see that the self has no basis or solidity. It is a complete mental fabrication. You also realize that everything you believe to be true about your life is nothing but stories…”I am an American. I am thirty years old. I am a teacher, a taxi driver, a lawyer…whatever.” All of these ideas or identities are stories that never really happened in the realm of your true nature. And watching the dissolution of these individual stories is not painful…It is not like watching your house burn down…spiritual dissolution is not like that because what is being destroyed is nothing but this sense of false identities. They were never real in the first place.

Try this. Pay attention to your breath in silence. Look at your mind. Immediately you see that thoughts are popping up. Don’t react to them. Just keep watching your mind. Notice that there is a space between…the last thought…and the next one. In this space there is no I or me. That’s it!

Fine, but so what? Well, next he describes an inquiry we can make, after we’ve had a bit of this meditative experience. In my previous post I described a time when this question simply “happened” to me, so I know its potential power.

You might like to apply this simple inquiry whenever problems arise. If you feel angry or disappointed, simply ask who is the one being angry or disappointed. In such inquiry, effortlessly inner serenity can manifest.

It won’t work right off the bat for cancer or surgery, but with practice it can take the sting out of things like parking tickets and burned casseroles – and even hearing that you look like a trucker. That’s not a bad beginning!

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I first experienced the release and joy hidden behind the concept of “no self” one Thanksgiving night, not because I was feeling especially thankful but because I tend to feel blue after the guests have gone home.

I discovered eastern spirituality during my teenage years. Then and now it has been my spiritual homeland, but I shied away from Buddhism. Its core doctrine of no self seemed rather harsh to a good little Presbyterian girl. You mean “I” don’t really exist and I don’t have a soul?

Fast forward a few decades. I’d learned a lot of theory and a lot of practices. I was incrementally happier and a nicer person – most of the time – I guess. During one of those “adrift” times, I picked up a copy of Philip Kaplow’s Three Pillars of Zen. Later that year I attended a Zen sesshin (a period of intense meditation), led by (spiritual mutt that I am) a Catholic priest. I began to explore Buddhist thought and practice, not with youthful exuberance, but with awakened curiosity and the intuition that something I had previously missed was there.

A classic tactic of non-dual paths is asking, “Who am I?” – or more precisely, “What am I?” It’s not hard to rule out the stuff on the driver’s license – even a little consideration shows how impermanent all that is. But what of “my” thoughts and feelings, where “I” truly seem to reside? Over time, mindfulness practice reveals how the contents of consciousness come and go. Even my deepest beliefs and loves have shifted over a lifetime. Yet even if I come around to accept the concept that nothing is permanent but consciousness itself – how do I turn that concept into experience?

As one teacher put it, “moments of illumination are accidents, but meditation makes us accident-prone.” A few years ago I had a happy accident.

It was Thanksgiving night. The last of the guests were on their way home. The dishwasher was running. I stood with a cup of tea watching the sun go down. My thoughts returned to our aging dog, asleep under the table, and to an ailing parent. Odds were one or both of them would not be here the following year. Suddenly the weight of a lifetime of losses – all the dear ones of past Thanksgivings who were gone; all the wrong choices I’d made; all the unfulfilled longings – everything that the setting sun can evoke – hit me like a sucker punch. In tears I made my way to the meditation room, thinking to light a candle and try to pray the hurt away.

But something happened as I sit down. In the instant before my butt hit the cushion, a thought filled my awareness – “Who is sad?” I didn’t pose the question, it simply appeared; “Who is sad?” AND NO ONE WAS THERE. In that instant, the sadness was gone! There was no sadness because there wasn’t anyone there to be sad! I sat with wonder in my heart and a smile on my face. I rejoined my husband to watch a football game I couldn’t care less about. Why not? There was nothing I lacked, no place else I wanted to be, and nothing else I wanted to do.

After decades of study and spiritual seeking, I had finally learned one thing from experience; the poor little finite wave is destined to suffer until it becomes aware of its true nature as ocean.

Last December I attended a day long retreat with a Tibetan teacher, Anam Thubten Rinpoche, who spoke directly to what I experienced that night. I invite you to read the transcript of a talk he gave, “Witnessing the Ecstatic Dissolution of the Self.” I’m planning to attend another retreat with him soon, and will post any notes I take when I do.

http://www.dharmata.org/puja50529.htm

Gasho! - Danaeah