Becoming Nobody
Mark Medweth
Department of Psychology
Simon Fraser University
medweth@sfu.ca

Whether we experience confusion, frustration, or enjoyment, such experiences take place through the mind. Thus, whether our interests are psychological, scientific, or religious in nature, it would seem important for us to understand the workings of the brain. If the ego or "self" (interchangeable words in Buddhist philosophy) plays a role in these experiences as well as abnormal development, as some psychologies would propose, we should more carefully examine what part they play in our psychological well being. An examination of some basic tenets concerning the ego, "self," or "I" from a Buddhist perspective reveals a very different view from traditional Western personality theories.

The Western Self
The importance of the ego or "self" which emanates from Western psychology is explicitly extensive. Ego Psychology, typified by Freud, emphasizes the development of the capabilities of the ego (Muzika, 1990). Cognitive-behavioural therapy deals, in part, with inappropriate self-ideas and fosters changes in attitudes we hold about the "self" (Muzika, 1990). Allport lists a strong ego identity as a descriptor of maturity while Erikson adds ego-integrity to his psychosocial stages of the life cycle (Goleman, 1981). Generally speaking, a wide-spread Western assumption suggests that the ego, "self," or "I" is thought of as a separate system, apart from such aspects as the body, spirit, or even matter in some cases (Welwood, 1976).
While Eastern perspectives of psychology may agree with some Western views of development and treatment (De Silva, 1985), there is a fundamental disagreement as to whether the ego is necessary for normal psychological functioning (Nitis, 1989). In fact, in regarding the conception of "self" as the main source of all suffering, putting an end to the "self" is a key focus of Buddhist psychology. While there are more than 200 varieties of psychotherapy, few of these would suggest that the "self" is an illusion (Muzika, 1990). Most would, in fact, attempt to strengthen such aspects of the person, making them more capable of bearing the pain of one's experience. Since Western traditions would highlight the disappearance of self-other boundaries in major psychoses and borderline cases, it is understandable that the idea of transcending the "self" or ego might be dismissed as regressive psychopathology (Walsh, 1988). However, some of the greatest Buddhist scholars maintain that Western science has yet to learn enough about the brain to appreciate the Eastern understanding of the mind and its implications (Komito, 1983). An examination of general Buddhist views of the "self" leaves the West with much to think about.

An Eastern View of Self
Some Eastern scholars would agree with Freud and others that ego formation is an essential process for the self preservation and protection of the developing organism initially (Nitis, 1989). However, one of the most perniciously false views which is explicitly criticized by Buddhism has been the belief in a fixed-self or ego (Goleman, 1981). Buddhists would suggest that as the ego begins to turn back on itself, exploring its own creation, it provides the intellect with the capacity to identify and classify, thus initiating the attempt to establish itself as a real and solid entity (Nitis, 1989). In other words, the ego or "self" is nothing more than a process of self-deception attempting to provide a basis for security. As a result we begin to use words like "self," and "I." Buddhists would warn us, however, that such words do not actually refer to something concrete but are simply grammatical devices (Giles, 1993).
The Dalai Lama, among others, suggests two kinds of truths for consideration: conventional and ultimate. The words "self" and "I" are used by convention and are necessary in building a strong sense-of-self initially so we can function properly in the world, but these words are not grounded in ultimate reality (Rahula, 1974; Komito, 1984). It is the exaggeration of the conventional designations which is the cause of pain and suffering (Kalff, 1983). The exaggeration of importance results in our trying to make ourselves real; if the sense-of-self is simply a construct, it can try to make itself real by objectifying itself in some fashion, but leads to a perpetual failure and underlying sense of lack in the end (Loy, 1992b). Why do we refrain from examining this possibility?
Intellectually, nondifferentiation seems much too painful to accept, so a state of ignorance is activated, thus causing people to neglect their original state of egolessness or selflessness. Yet Buddhists would suggest we transcend conventional designations and explore our true nature, for the personal "self" or "I" is considered pathological (Muzika, 1990).
According to Buddhist theory, a person is simply an aggregation of five elements: physical form, perceptions, feelings, motives, and consciousness (Giles, 1993). Yet none of these elements when considered separately or in combination can be identified with the "self." Since the inherently existing "self" can neither be found as one with the aggregates or different from them, it cannot logically exist (Kalff, 1983). Thus the illusion of having a self arises because we do not examine our experience closely enough. Instead we look only superficially at our feelings, desires, and beliefs, and become identified with them by convention (Muzika, 1990). Walsh (1988) suggests a closer examination reveals that our continuous sense-of-self is selectively constructed from a myriad of mental contents. In fact the experience of "I" is a constantly changing impersonal process and is seen to be increasingly insubstantial the more closely we look at it (Epstein, 1988). This examination reveals an ongoing, overlapping sequence of different mind-moments, as though they were objects in an environment. Looking closely, it becomes clear that each differentiated moment of perception or thought takes on its specific nature or quality by virtue of the spaces that surround them (Welwood, 1976). Thus, distinct thoughts can be isolated as separate moments, as though they are figures against the ground of some larger mind-landscape, fragmenting the notion of a continuous "self." The human personality could therefore be described as "a river that keeps a constant form, seemingly a single identity, though not a single drop is the same as a moment ago" (Hall & Lindzey, 1978, p. 359). The trouble with overlooking these open spaces within the mind-environment and equating thought-events with a "self" is the anxiety that is connected with the defenses of these beliefs. In addition to this error, a sense of consistency in interpersonal interactions and recognition by others of temporal and interpersonal consistency confirms falsely for us that we remain the same (Engler, 1984).
One concept related to the above argument is dependent origination. The "self" that is refuted above is one that is seen as permanent and independent, as most Westerners would posit. However, this notion of self is negated by virtue of the fact that all phenomena arise together in dependence and are thus void of independent existence. This interdependence is referred to as dependent origination (Kalff, 1983). Just as Hume implied that diversity means no identity can exist (Giles, 1993), Buddhists would suggest that the interdependent diversity of elements that make up a person point to no existing "self." Interdependent factors diametrically oppose the Western conception of autonomous, self-grounded consciousness (Loy, 1992b).
A second related concept is the Buddhist notion of emptiness. Emptiness has been a term used to describe many psychological states in the West including the confusing numbness of the psychotic, incomplete feelings of the personality disorders, identity diffusion and existential meaninglessness (Epstein, 1989). Buddhists, however, refer to emptiness as ultimate reality. Emptiness assumes a defining role in the notion of "self"; it is the experience of emptiness that destroys the idea of a continuous, independent individual nature. Unlike many Western misconceptions, emptiness is not an end in itself nor is emptiness considered real in a concrete sense but merely a specific negative of inherent existence (Epstein, 1988). While the ordinary consciousness perceives things as permanent and independent, Buddhists would counter that perceived phenomena are interdependent and thus empty of permanence and without an identity based on their own assumed nature (Komito, 1984). In relation to the sense-of-self, emptiness does not imply (as Westerners have often interpreted) the abandonment or annihilation of the ego, "self," or "I" but simply a recognition that this "self" actually never existed at all (Epstein, 1989).
Buddhism is not an escape from the world but simply a refusal to extend or exaggerate the importance of conventional reality. In so doing, the mind becomes empty of struggle, allowing us to see things as they are in an ultimate sense. Thus, in Buddhist psychology, the empty quality of the mind is regarded as the true nature of a person. To continue to ignore such propositions in the West, however, can have far reaching and possibly deleterious effects.

Implications of Having a Self
The implications of believing in and thus defending a "self" are wide and far reaching. The suffering, pain, discomfort, and frustration we experience from day to day is a result of our delusive sense-of-self (Loy, 1992b). Buddhist psychology has long insisted that the result of the illusive ego necessarily is fear, jealousy, desire, and despair (Nitis, 1989). One basic difficulty we face is the inevitable insecurity we experience: as long as people are convinced they are separate, self-existing, or autonomous, the more uncomfortable they will feel in the world since separation is an insecure position (Loy, 1992b). These experiences of suffering are maintained by the sense of self we entertain. This does not suggest that the feelings of frustration, fear, or discomfort are not real, but that they are born out of, and are held in place by, the false "self" (Tulku, 1974). It is proposed by some psychologies in the East that such problems as self-esteem, depression, fragmentation, worthlessness, and loneliness, are all considered subsets of the more enveloping problem of having this "self" when examined as a clinical condition (Muzika, 1990). Essentially our constant clinging to this false sense-of-self opposes a universe in which all things are in constant flux, where events last no more than a brief moment.
The belief that we have a "self," according to Loy (1992a), can explain several twentieth century obsessions that, while widely accepted in our society, are merely attempts to real-ize the ego, "self," or "I." The first obsession is fame. It seems the "real" world has been captured more and more by newspapers, television and other forms of mass media. Having been conditioned by others that we are real, the tendency to reassure our "being" by capturing the attention of others will escalate. It has been suggested that many people seek fame as an end in itself because of some reality they believe it confers, a reality they somehow lack (Loy, 1992a).
Another pursuit is monetary gain. While money is an effective and necessary medium of exchange, the excessive and relentless pursuit of wealth witnessed in modern times may actually reduce the quality of life one experiences (Loy, 1992a). It seems that money has become the most popular way of accumulating the feeling of being real. Loy states that people used to go to temples and churches to real-ize themselves but with the decline of religious influence over the past several decades, people now real-ize themselves with such substitutes as wealth. A similar argument can be made for technological advancement. Technological achievements appears to be an attempt to create the ultimate security, but is necessarily doomed to failure in a world that ceaselessly changes (Loy, 1992a). The paradox of all of these pursuits surfaces when one considers that the attempt to "get away from something" is disguised as an attempt to "get to somewhere." A consciousness which attempts to make itself real by fixating on, or objectifying, something is subject to constant dissatisfaction, for it is an underlying sense of lack (or wanting) which cannot be fulfilled which propels us (Loy, 1992b).
The Buddhist solution, what some may consider a radical resolution, to all psychological illnesses is bringing an end to the source of suffering. In other words, bringing an end to the "self" and expanding one's consciousness toward a greater, interdependent identification with reality eliminates the suffering brought about by a sense of lack (Muzika, 1990). For such experiences as pride, embarrassment, envy, etc., which are easily brought about by clinging to an illusive "self," cannot occur when one is selfless, so to speak: how can I feel pride if there is no "I" (Giles, 1993)? The correct position then is to see things as they are in an objective fashion without mental projections, to see that no "self" can be identified with the five aggregates, to recognize the reality of emptiness, and lose one's being in the dependent origination of life (Rahula, 1974). To achieve such a state requires the practice of mindfulness meditation.

The Buddhist Theory of Cure
One can only develop excessive attachments or the need to cling to other things and people if one has misinterpreted their own nature. Thus knowledge of one's true nature would serve as an antidote for this misinterpretation. The true nature of impermanence, emptiness, and dependent origination can be realized through meditation, the Buddhist approach to cure. Mindfulness meditation is simply a continuous attempt to retrain attention (Goleman, 1981). Some have described meditation as the path to forgetting the sense-of-self, thereby becoming nothing (Loy, 1992a). The ultimate purpose of Buddhist meditation is not withdrawal from the illusion of "self" but simply a recognition of one's conditioned and erroneous interpretation (Epstein, 1989). In so doing, the influence of the false belief is weakened.
In meditation, we are investigating the "I" which is felt to be permanent and seems to be self-sufficient. Through examining the natural process of the mind, the inherent existence of the "I" is eventually exposed as a delusion (Epstein, 1989). With careful introspection, each successive mental state is seen to be interspersed with innumerable other feelings, all separated by gaps of space, sometimes described as brief flashes of non-personal awareness or spaces without self-interest (Welwood, 1976).
In meditation there is no appeal to some mystical, other world but merely a need to come out from behind the delusion of the "self" which is the root of our trouble. In the end, the result of meditation is a negation of the belief of a permanent individual nature, rather than attachment to emptiness as though it were something in itself (a view the West often assumes) (Epstein, 1989). The "self" is finally seen for what it really is - a collection of fleeting elements (Giles, 1993). Meditation is a necessary response to the bipolar dualism of the "self" being either real or not real. To resolve this dualism, according to Buddhist psychology, one must become nothing if nothing is what the sense-of-self fears (Loy, 1992b). What one fears cannot be resolved if it is not explored.
As you begin to explore this fear through meditation, you begin to see there are discrete units, these very small chunks of consciousness, and you begin to see that they're always changing. Perceiving these units reveals three basic insights of Buddhism...that everything is impermanent...that there's no abiding self...that seeking and clinging to satisfaction is actually the source of suffering (Goleman, 1981, p. 131).
In an ideal situation then, meditation allows the practitioner to experience these three cognitive insights. With continual practice of meditation, we sufficiently refine our attention process so we can observe our true nature, overcoming our previous inability to perceive the more microscopic level of mind-events (Engler, 1988). This refined attention reveals a continuously changing flux of images, thoughts, and emotions; the mind is deconstructed (Walsh, 1988). There is, however, one warning that accompanies the practice of meditation.
What the Buddhist system at the outset presupposes is a fairly intact or "normal" ego in the individual (Engler, 1984). Thus there are many for whom meditation may not be a viable practice, including schizophrenics, psychotics, borderline, and other personality disorder patients. Aside from this, it can be simply stated that Buddhism assumes the usual sense-of-self which people harbour is an illusion and that this claim can be tested directly by any person who diligently and minutely examines mental processes through meditative practices.

Conclusion
It would seem, in studying Buddhist literature, that there is little concern with the every day problems which lead many people to seek psychotherapy (Muzika, 1990). Buddhism lacks a developmental theory of self and seldom dwells on such symptoms as depression, shame, worthlessness, loneliness, hypochondria and more. The one exception to this disregard for feelings is the deep concern that Buddhism has for the general pain associated with becoming attached to other people and objects. Western science must examine more carefully the role that the ego, "self," or "I" plays in psychopathology, something Buddhism has done for more than 2000 years with the long standing conclusion that the desire to become somebody may not be as important as the wisdom of becoming nobody.

References
De Silva, P. (1985). Early Buddhist and modern behavioral strategies for the control of unwanted intrusive cognitions. The Psychological Record, 35, 437-443.
Engler, J. (1984). Therapeutic aims in psychotherapy and meditation: Developmental stages in the representation of self. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 16(1), 25-61.
Epstein, M. (1988). The deconstruction of the self: Ego and "egolessness" in Buddhist insight meditation. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 20(1), 61-69.
Epstein, M. (1989). Forms of emptiness: Psychodynamic, meditative and clinical perspectives. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 21(1), 61-71.
Giles, J. (1993). The no-self theory: Hume, Buddhism, and personal identity. Philosophy East and West, 43(2), 175-200.
Goleman, D. (1981). Buddhist and Western psychology: Some commonalities and differences. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 13(2), 125-136. Hall, C. S., and Lindzey, G. (1978). Theories of Personality (3rd edition). Toronto: John Wiley & Sons.
Kalff, M. (1983). The negation of ego in Tibetan Buddhism and Jungian psychology. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 15(2), 103-124.
Komito, D. R. (1983). Tibetan Buddhism and psychotherapy: A conversation with the Dalai Lama. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 15(1), 1-11.
Komito, D. R. (1984). Tibetan Buddhism and psychotherapy: Further conversations with the Dalai Lama. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 16(1), 1-24.
Loy, D. (1992a). Trying to become real: A Buddhist critique of some secular heresies. International Philosophical Quarterly, 32(4), 403-425.
Loy, D. (1992b). Avoiding the void: The lack of self in psychotherapy and Buddhism. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 24(2), 151-180.
Muzika, E. G.. (1990). Object relations theory, Buddhism, and the self: Synthesis of Eastern and Western approaches. International Philosophical Quarterly, 30(4), 59-74.
Nitis, T. (1989). Ego differentiation: Eastern and Western perspectives. The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 49(4), 339-346.
Rahula, W. (1974). What the Buddha Taught. New York: Grove Press.
Tulku, T. (1974). The self-image. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 6(2), 175- 180.
Walsh, R. (1988). Two Asian psychologies and their implications for Western psychotherapists. American Journal of Psychotherapy, 42(4), 543-560.
Welwood, J. (1976). Exploring mind: Form, emptiness, and beyond. The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 8(2), 89-99.

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Radical Buddhism
Leonard Price
Bodhi Leaves No. B 92
Buddhist Publication Society, Sri Lanka

Buddhism comes West as a vast body of teaching, and we who receive it are often awed by its abundance, its complexity, and its subtlety. Where is the center, the real thing we should fix on? Or is there a real thing at all to be apprehended? History shows that Buddhism can and will accommodate itself to new cultures, and will flourish according to the perceptiveness and energy of its new adherents. Now in the West our perceptiveness and energy are put to the test to grasp the "real thing" by which this religion lives -- its radicalism.
The Buddhas only point the way, and the way they point is a difficult one through the perfection of morality, concentration, and wisdom to the freedom from suffering called Nibbana. It is a way of action. A path is useless without the will to follow it, and good intentions alone are futile. To make the journey, the roots of mental defilement must be torn out entirely; the old illusions we live by must be shattered; the mind must seek the light. It is a radical way, because the Buddha enjoins us to give up what is before, give up what is behind, and give up what is in between. Then and only then will the wheel of birth-and-death be knocked from its axis.
Those of us in the jaded and desperate West who hear the resonance of truth in the teachings of the Buddha must hear also that urging to //act//, to start an inner rebellion against our ancient sloth and stupidity. Yet the more we ponder the more we recognize the enormity of the task, and an understandable reaction is to set about re-defining just what has to be done and just how prudent it might be to fling ourselves into action. The danger here -- so typical in our comfortable and seductive society -- is to forget the radical imperative of suffering and try to make over Buddhism into a tame amalgam of platitudes suitable for pleasant contemplation --praising it in order to avoid practicing it. Indeed, Buddhism is rational, patient, deep in wisdom, but should we then just bask in its reflected light?
Complacency is death. If, out of custom and timidity, Western Buddhists turn their religion into a museum piece, or worse, a hobby, they lose the essence. It is easy enough to settle for an undemanding status quo, a modicum of calm, a pleasant sense of harmonious living, and it is easy enough to postpone or forget any effort to break the shackles of old delusion, believing that one need not strain when the road will likely be long. But in accommodating too much to personal or societal expediency we cheapen our ideals and slide further from the disturbing implications of the Noble Truth of Suffering. We may even take the Buddhist vision of kamma as an indication that "everything is as it should be." But everything is //not// as it should be. Everything is in fact miserable. If we are complacent we blind ourselves, and there is no safety in blindness.
In the radical view of the Buddha, Samsara is no cosmic merry-go-round, but a terrible juggernaut of birth and death dragging beings through endless cycles of woe. "Free yourselves!" says the Buddha. All lives and events are variations on the theme of suffering. All are without substance, endurance, permanence -- merely a web of emptiness, void upon void. The "self" that everyone spends so much time defending and nurturing is pure fiction. Dismiss it, says the Buddha. The world will not conform to our wishes and to presume otherwise is folly; the disciple must cease clinging to it and proceed along the path to the end of suffering. The root problem is craving, and the radical solution is the destruction of craving through wisdom.
The sober truths taught by the Buddha, squarely faced, present us with problems and choices. Are we to assume that every Buddhist ought to be off grunting in a cave, sweating his way toward enlightenment? Is this the radical conclusion? Actually, the dilemma is not so formidable. The Buddha taught //gradually//, according to the capacity of his hearers to understand and practice. Every person should devote himself to the teaching as far as he is able. The goal is ultimately the same for all, though progress along the path depends on the individual. The Dhamma of the Buddha will lead us to the safety of Nibbana, and it will also sustain us along the way. What matters is always to bear in mind where we are and where we are headed.
The radicalism of the Buddha is probably no more difficult for Westerners to comprehend than for anyone else, yet we are especially concerned with it now, because the teaching is only just now settling into our culture and its future direction is uncertain. It is a critical time for the religion. The fundamental teachings must not be neglected, lest we take to wearing our religion like warm slippers and doze into mediocrity. Understood rightly, the Noble Truths are profoundly disturbing. They compel us to act, to pursue the ideal of emancipation no matter how difficult the journey appears. Buddhism truly goes against the stream of the world and demands an uncommon vigor of the disciple. How well we respond depends on individual choice and ability, but what matters most is the recognition that a response is called for, that a path does exist, and that the goal //can// be achieved.
Understanding the basic teachings, Western Buddhists should be wary of tendencies to turn Buddhism into an instrument of secular reform, or a philosophical playground, or an esoteric hobby. Before all else, there is suffering and the path to the end of suffering. There is no safety in faddishness, complacency, or the compulsive intellectualism that hungers for truth but eats the menu instead of the dinner.
To reach the truth, to reach deliverance, we are told to give up what is before, give up what is behind, and give up what is in between. The essence of Buddhism is to let go of everything, to cease clinging desperately to transient, woeful, empty phenomena. The disciple who acts on this breathtaking advice may find the bottom dropping out of this fictitious world. So be it! Thus begins the journey.

The Baited Hook
Though seldom stated in so many words, a cherished belief of all human beings is that happiness lies in the satisfaction of our desires. All our actions are usually predicated on this seemingly self-evident fact. We are devoted to obtaining the objects of our desire; we consider it our right, our duty, and indeed our highest aspiration to get what we want, to obtain what we think will bring us enjoyment, satisfaction, or "fulfillment." We are accustomed to asking one another, "What do you want out of life?" believing that if we can settle on some clear vision of happiness, and go after it, then all will be well.
Unfortunately, experience has a way of overturning our theories. Those manifold objects we yearn for prove troublesome to capture; when captured they yield less pleasure than expected; when held onto they decay and cause us grief. Then we are driven to turn for relief toward other enticements and thereby renew the cycle. Somehow we believe that if only this search for gratification is conducted correctly, if only the right objects are selected, if only we can have a little luck to add to our efforts, then we can certainly attain that permanent happiness that now eludes us. Badly thumped by fortune, we doggedly tell ourselves, "Yes, it's worth all the pain," and turn a swollen eye toward fresh delights.
But is it worth all the pain? Consider a succulent worm bobbing just below the surface of a pond, attracting the attention of a hungry fish. In a flash the fish swallows the worm, only to discover the hidden hook, the barb that rips into its innards and causes it terror, suffering, and ultimately death. The worm is attractive, but it delivers little satisfaction to the fish. Such is the nature of sense-pleasures. Those objects of eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind that we find so alluring are more likely to cause us misery than happiness, and the surprising truth is that it is not so much our choice of objects that is at fault, but the mere act of choosing in the first place, since all phenomena of this world are in reality flawed, connected to suffering, and unreliable.
According to the Buddha, true happiness is not to be found in the deceptive sense-pleasures of the world -- not in wine or wealth or roses. No matter how hard we try, we can never reach security as long as we persist in wrong views of the desirability of this or that sensual object. Without a clear understanding of the nature of phenomena our search is doomed from the outset. Our first task must be to confront the facts that the universe does not exist for our amusement and that such pleasures as we customarily derive from it are false, impermanent, and unworthy of our interest. While the Buddha does not deny the existence of enjoyment in world, he points out that all worldly pleasure is bound up with suffering, inseparable from suffering, and sure to give way to suffering. Therefore in embracing the pleasant we cannot help but embrace the unpleasant. Our craving prevents us from realizing these facts by continually projecting a false appearance on the world, convincing us that the tempting objects around us can actually be possessed and squeezed dry of some satisfying essence. Without the intervention of wisdom, craving will keep us running from one disappointment to another. Though we have many times taken the bait of sense-pleasure and suffered the inevitable pull of the hook, each new worm that comes wiggling through the water excites the heedless man.
The Buddha teaches that the solution to the terrible union of pleasure and pain is not to struggle hopelessly to split them apart, but to view the whole contaminated mass with detachment. All phenomena share the same characteristics of impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and unsubstantiality, so it is futile to single out some objects for liking and others for loathing. The whole cast of mind that sees things in terms of liking-and-loathing must be abandoned in favor of the detached observation called "mindfulness." Clearly, if the bait hides a hook we do best to curb our appetites.
Forsaking attachment to sense-pleasures is a logical application of the Four Noble Truths, yet even among those who subscribe to the teachings of the Buddha there can be found a deep-seated reluctance to move from theory to practice. The hold which craving has over our minds is so tenacious that we tend to straddle the abyss between truth arid illusion, hoping to live in both with some fast philosophical footwork. For example, may we not propose that sense-pleasures are not in themselves harmful and may therefore be enjoyed in moderation? We may propose it, but we are apt to justify thereby any craving that enters our heads. As long as one regards any experience as personal or desirable, one remains mired in ignorance. There are pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings arising in the mind; they come and they go; they are to be observed, not sought after, because it is such seeking or craving that sustains the round of suffering. Another common notion is that Buddhism may be employed to beautify life by making the individual more appreciative of the "harmony" of the universe. This is false on two counts. The Buddha did not aim to put a pleasing, comforting face on things, but to educate the individual to the ultimate worthlessness of suffering-dominated, conditioned existence. Also, the only "harmony" discernible here and now is the implacable and impersonal law of cause and effect -- not the blissful oneness beloved of poets.
A third erroneous notion is that sense-pleasures may be pursued full speed if they are part of worthy efforts and worthy goals. This is a self-serving rationalization. While mundane aspirations may be quite wholesome in conception, as long as they provide a surreptitious vehicle for craving they are flawed. For the proper development of insight one needs to get rid of the idea of an an ego or self that enjoys, possesses, and appropriates. The noble-minded man is detached from both ego and world. He acts for the welfare of himself and others without thought of reward or gratification. He is indifferent to results; he is not swayed by the pleasant and the unpleasant..
In considering the lure and danger of sense-pleasures, it is not difficult to see that most of us will ultimately defend our indulgences, not from logic but from the blind urge, "I //want//." What harm, we reason, can there be in a little innocent delight? To clarify: the harm lies not in the //sensation// but in the deluded //mind// that fastens onto the sensation and clings to it obsessively. What behooves the diligent Buddhist is to get beyond the whole idea of liking and disliking, to set it aside, to cease entertaining it -- in order to advance to the fruitful fields of direct insight.
Suppose then, that we acknowledge the danger of the baited hook and agree that the restless, craving mind is a source of suffering. What do we do about it? Often we complain, "I can't help myself! I know it's dangerous but I can't help it." Anyone who has tried to oppose his own ravenous appetites for pleasure, amusement, or gratification knows this sense of helplessness. A mind long accustomed to grasping is not dissuaded by mere rational arguments; it goes its own way, chewing up one experience after another in a hopeless search for happiness. So what is to be done? The trouble here, as is so often the case, is one of self-deception. Although we may say we understand the danger of sensual obsession and the advantage of restraint, our weakness shows that in fact we do not. Wisdom is simply incompatible with defilement. As long as we are willing to compromise with our obsessions we have not fully understood the Buddha's teaching about the nature of reality. We may-recognize intellectually that craving and clinging lead to suffering, but we have not penetrated to a direct experience of the truth. Much work remains to be done: we can't simply throw up our hands and plead weakness.
If we truly recognize the hazards of succumbing to the baited hook, we must resist its enticements. Yet the Buddha does not recommend a stubborn, stoical self-abnegation. The disciple must deal with the problem intelligently. Escape from suffering does not depend on obliterating or denying sense-pleasures but on seeing them for what they are through the systematic practice of mindfulness. In ordinary life we are generally too caught up in gaining and losing to give sufficient attention to the elements and dynamics or the process. We are borne along on these ancient waves only because of compulsive habit. To stop our headlong career it is essential to develop and apply mindfulness, to cultivate scrupulous attention toward even the most mundane habits and desires. Steady mindfulness, intensified in meditation, reveals that the mind is a ceaseless torrent of thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and mental impressions -- never still for an instant, never stable enough to be considered substantial or enduring. What we loosely term the "external" world is likewise a blur of evanescent phenomena, all changing with incredible speed, arising and vanishing with no beginning or end in sight. Where then is the object that is truly desirable? Gone! Lost to view in the instant. Where is the one who desires? Gone! Thought succeeds thought, effect succeeds cause in a tumble of empty foam, with a desiring "self" nowhere to be found. Mindfulness discerns these truths directly, examining and breaking down experience until the "permanent" is understood as impermanent, until the "pleasant" is understood as unsatisfactory, until the "self" is understood as empty and unreal.
As with all of the truths taught by the Buddha, these three characteristics of existence must be realized through direct insight -- not just through the ruminations of the intellect. The practice of mindfulness can lead us to such insight if we undertake the task with patience and impartiality. One who luxuriates in craving will remain twisting between misunderstood suffering and imagined pleasure, but one who recognizes danger will shun the baited hook and seek the bare facts of reality beneath the dazzling magic show of the senses.
By avoiding the baited hook of sense-pleasures we do not, as is sometimes maintained, rob life of all its joy. On the contrary, we abandon false satisfaction and approach the true happiness that is born of freedom. We take worldly enjoyment in moderation keeping it in perspective. The wise disciple does not dwell in gloom and try to see the bad side of every experience. If it is pleasant, he notes it as pleasant; if it is unpleasant, he notes it as unpleasant; if it is neutral, he notes it as neutral. Whatever its appearance, he regards it with mindfulness and does not cling to it. He enjoys life simply as he finds it. In so doing, he escapes the peril of hook and line and sails freely toward the end of suffering.
Again and again the Buddha exhorts his followers to be mindful, because the world is burning with greed, hatred, and delusion. Freedom can be won, but not by the careless, infatuated person. The one who attains freedom will be the one who has mindfulness, energy, and the courage to see the canker in the rose.

Meeting the Buddha, Alone, on the Empty Shore
A veneer of credulity and feeble optimism covers the dark preoccupations of our lives. In an age marked everywhere with signs of spiritual decay, we somehow remain ever entranced by new toys, ever receptive to the latest balderdash from noisy charlatans, and ever ready to abandon the present moment for the lure of the next. Let it be rumored that "self-fulfillment" has been glimpsed in somebody's book or therapy or religion, and immediately a cloud of dust obscures the sun as we stampede into the new territory -- only to find ourselves, puzzlingly, still in the same dull company. Do we really want happiness, or only titillation? It's hard to say, because we rarely sit still long enough to examine the matter. Suspecting dimly that life is treacherous, we keep moving fast to avoid calamity.
If we are credulous, we are no less skeptical. We are quick to believe but find belief intolerable. We topple today's idols and from their fragments eagerly assemble tomorrow's. We pace up and down the shores of doubt, rousing one another with shouts of encouragement, but stepping into the river we find the water cold, and promptly conclude there's a better crossing further down.
The water is always cold. Somebody sees a vision over the horizon, and the chilled troops waste no more time at //this// spot. In our solitary reflections we may notice our inconstancy and regretfully wonder, "Has it always been thus?" If we are Buddhists we are bound to answer, "Yes." This endlessly mutable landscape of disappointment, this lurch and halt of conviction, is called Samsara.
We are accustomed to regarding the "cycle of birth" and death as a remote, cosmic scheme of creation and dissolution. In fact, Samsara whirls with cyclonic force here in the prosaic moment, here in the wavering and furtive mind. If //this// is, //that// is. Out of ignorance rises craving; out of craving rises the whole mass of anxiety and suffering. We deceive ourselves even in our desire for happiness. Our pursuit of pleasure or "self-fulfillment" is also a flight from despair. Uneasy with the deteriorating present, we leap with unseemly greed toward the future, which, fictitious creature that it is, soon fails us and leaves us exactly where we were. The great wheel turns, and has turned, and will turn again.
Freedom from Samsara does not spring from finding the right teacher or the right temple or the right style of meditations. We must instead begin by discarding false expedients, brief enthusiasms, fashions, platitudes, and most of all, excuses. Self-excuse is just grease for the wheel. Ah, we sigh, if only we had met the Buddha in person! Vain foolishness, this. The Buddha was never to be found in six feet of flesh. In his time and in ours he is only seen in the destruction of the defilements, in the giving up of excuses, evasions, and willful blindness. If we earnestly strive to distinguish between the false and the true, the shallow and the profound, the path of the Buddha takes shape before us.
But after so many years of quick credulity and quicker doubt, of lukewarm and ambivalent effort, how can we make it across that cold, lonely river of ignorance? If we divest ourselves of false and trivial comforts shall we not be left naked? Indeed we shall. And it is in precisely that condition that we may encounter the Buddha. Buddhism is, after all, a religion of renunciation -- renunciation of wrong thoughts, wrong speech, and wrong deeds. When we give up our shabby illusions and the manifold hiding places of the mind we find ourselves naked and ready for the first time to see the world without distortion. Whereas before we may have nominally accepted the reality of impermanence, suffering, and non-self, now we may begin to discern these truths directly and realize our predicament. The old cliche, "The Buddhas only point the way," strikes us with fresh significance. Buddhism demands that we help ourselves, and here on the long, empty shore where we have so often wandered we may at last appreciate the task ahead.
The world around us may be crass and wicked, but not so crass and wicked as our own deluded minds. We feast on the bones of cynicism and are not satisfied. We give new names to iniquity and pursue it in shadows. We mistake the pleasant for the good and perennially follow the easiest course. Then in our accidental nights of fear we stare in bafflement at the four walls and ask ourselves, "Haven't I tried?" Silence replies with silence, and there's nothing left for us but to blunder after a new ghost of happiness, and thereby give the wheel of Samsara another spin.
Credulity is not faith, nor is skepticism wisdom. The noble follower of the Buddha proceeds with a balanced mind, considering the world as he finds it, shunning the harmful and welcoming the useful. He crosses the flood of Samsara on the raft of Dhamma, knowing that nobody will make the effort for him. What distinguishes such a person from; his fellows is not necessarily brilliance of mind, but plain and simple perseverance, the resolve to follow the true course no matter how long it may take. We can do likewise if we set ourselves firmly on the path.
Delay is the luxury of ignorance. We commonly suppose Nibbana, the ultimate purity and freedom, to be something infinitely far away and terrifically difficult to reach. We think of the Buddha as long departed. But Nibbana is near for those who would have it near, and the Buddha is as close as true Dhamma truly observed. What is required of us is to let go of our crumbling, mortal toys and to come down, alone, to the long shore of renunciation. In that exhilarating solitude we may meet the Buddha, whose body is wisdom, whose face is compassion, and whose hand points out the waypoints directly to the deep and hidden purity in our hearts.

April and November
Early spring is a fitting time to consider death, though few of us, alas, appreciate this healthy practice. When the first crocuses and skunk cabbage blunder into the sunshine the conventional mind waxes bold and brave and salutes the regeneration of the world. We have won through once more, we've got another chance, we shall dawdle barefooted in gardens. Gone is the dark time, the emphatically dead winter of land and heart. We are, surely, about to participate in the general leafiness of things. The gurgling pigeons in the park -- formerly wretched pests -- excite our fine feelings of sympathy. We are magnanimous at seventy degrees. We have great expectations.
Legions of us swarm the sidewalks with uplifted chins, celebrating what we had no part in making. But there's a certain self-deception here. If the sun burns more beneficently these days is it any of our doing? If it shut down altogether would we be consulted? We may fancy ourselves philosophers improvising on the rhapsody of spring, but we display, in the main, scarcely more independence than the pigeons. We are seduced by the flowers April throws our way and esteem ourselves wise for having noted they are pretty. We find in the loveliness of the season not a theme for true reflection but only a license for yearning. We indulge without compunction, believing that we are in accord with the sacred law of the moment, when really we continue to //flee// the present moment and lust for the unborn fixture -- some garden of promise yet to bloom.
Better we should turn our minds to dissolution and death -- right now in the brilliant season. Any fellow of sound faculties can stroll through late November and remark the transience of vital forces. Ah, withered grass, leaden skies, brief span of happiness! He is moved -- having, as he thinks, come to terms with mortality. The same fellow, come the daffodils, is warbling about youth and beauty. But where is the brave heart who sees deeply in spring the bud dying to the flower, the flower to the fruit? Where is he who at close of the year regards the snow-bitten rose and is not cast down? Where is he who lives serenely in fair times and foul? All things shall pass not only in black November but in pastel April as well -- a lapsing without pause, a continual perishing of the dear, the unlovely, and the indifferent. Nature suffers no moratorium on decay; it unrolls itself in seasons that, we, with our predilections for warmth and light, habitually misunderstand, finding gloom this month and gaiety in that.
To dote on April is to despise November. We are caught up in liking and disliking, taking a sip of truth when we can't avoid it and spitting it out at the first opportunity, living tentatively like wine-tasters. We ride the seasons on and ever on to the sweet, cruel music of hope, while the world burns because of //us//, because we've lit it with the torch of delusion. Should we not now starve the fire to coolness and let be the race of forms we call our life? Change sweeps all forms away, and no one can find peace in his time who does not attend to this universal moving-on.
So then, it is spring and the bluebirds are twittering. Shall we pick our scabs and visit graveyards? Of course not. Let us go on breathing; if the air is sweet, why then, it is sweet. If the rain blows off and the sun slants warm through the willow tree, so be it. Let us sit on the porch and be alive. No need to scourge ourselves or sleep on gravel. No need to curse winter or praise spring. They come and go independently of us: dead grass, dragonflies, thunderstorms, and snow -- what scene should we prefer when all are flowing? Reality cannot be seized; it arises when the mind stops grasping. He who lets go is he who is established. He lives in all seasons but serves none.
Leonard Price
Bodhi Leaves No. B 92
Buddhist Publication Society, Sri Lanka

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Selections by No Ajahn Chah
from Reflections, Compiled and Edited by Dhamma Garden

A visiting Zen student asked Ajahn Chah, "How old are you? Do you live here all year round?" "I live nowhere," he replied. "There is no place you can find me. I have no age. To have age, you must exist, and to think you exist is already a problem. Don't make problems; then the world has none either. Don't make a self. There's nothing more to say."

Once there was a layman who came to Ajahn Chah and asked him who Ajahn Chah was. Ajahn Chah, seeing that the spiritual development of the individual was not very advanced, pointed to himself and said, "This, this is Ajahn Chah."

On another occasion, Ajahn Chah was asked the same question by someone else. This time, however, seeing that the questioner's capacity to understand the Dhamma was higher, Ajahn Chah answered by saying, "Ajahn Chah? There is NO Ajahn Chah."

The "One Who Knows" clearly knows that all conditioned phenomena are unsubstantial. So this "One Who Knows" does not become happy or sad, for it does not follow changing conditions. To become glad is to be born; to become dejected is to die. Having died, we are born again; having been born, we die again. This birth and death from one moment to the next is the endless spinning wheel of samsara.

Conditions don't belong to us. They follow their own natural course. We can't do anything about the way the body is. We can beautify it a little, make it look attractive and clean for a while, like the young girls who paint their lips and let their nails grow long, but when old age arrives, everyone is in the same boat. That is the way the body is. We can't make it any other way. But, what we can improve and beautify is the mind.

If your mind is happy, then you are happy anywhere you go. When wisdom awakens within you, you will see Truth wherever you look. Truth is all there is. It's like when you've learned how to read - you can then read anywhere you go.

Because people don't see themselves, they can commit all sorts of bad deeds. They don't look at their own minds. When people are going to do something bad, they have to look around first to see if anyone is looking: "Will my mother see me?" "Will my husband see me?" "Will the children see me?" Will my wife see me?' If there's no one watching, then they go right ahead and do it. This is insulting themselves. They say no one is watching, so they quickly finish their bad deed before anyone will see. And what about themselves? Aren't they a "somebody" watching?

Strengthening the mind is not done by making it move around as is done to strengthen the body, but by bringing the mind to a halt, bringing it to rest.

Where does rain come from? It comes from all the dirty water that evaporates from the earth, like urine and the water you throw out after washing your feet. Isn't it wonderful how the sky can take that dirty water and change it into pure, clean water? Your mind can do the same with your defilements if you let it.

Any speech which ignores uncertainty is not the speech of a sage.

If you really see uncertainty clearly, you will see that which is certain. The certainty is that things must inevitably be uncertain and that they cannot be otherwise. Do you understand? Knowing just this much, you can know the Buddha, you can rightly do reverence to him.

If your mind tries to tell you it has already attained the level of sotapanna, go and bow to a sotapanna. He'll tell you himself it's all uncertain. If you meet a sakadagami, go and pay respects to him. When he sees you, he'll simply say, "Not a sure thing!" If there's an anagami, go and bow to him. He'll tell you only one thing. "Uncertain!" If you meet even an arahant, go and bow to him. He'll tell you even more firmly, "It's all even more uncertain!" You'll hear the words of the Noble Ones: "Everything is uncertain. Don't cling to anything!"

Sometimes I'd go to see old religious sites with ancient temples. In some places they would be cracked. Maybe one of my friends would remark, "Such a shame, isn't it? It's cracked." I'd answer, "If they weren't cracked there'd be no such thing as the Buddha. There'd be no Dhamma. It's cracked like this because it's perfectly in line with the Buddha's teaching."

Some of you have come from thousands of miles away, from Europe and America and other far-off places, to listen to the Dhamma here at Nong Pah Pong Monastery. To think that you've come from so far and gone through so much trouble to get here. Then we have these people who live just outside the wall of the monastery but who have yet to enter through its gate. It makes you appreciate good kamma more, doesn't it?

Don't think that only sitting with the eyes closed is practice. If you do think this way, then quickly change your thinking. Steady practice is keeping mindful in every posture, whether sitting, walking, standing or lying down. When coming out of sitting, don't think that you're coming out of meditation, but that you are only changing postures. If you reflect in this way, you will have peace. Wherever you are, you will have this attitude of practice with you constantly. You will have a steady awareness within yourself.

I went all over looking for places to meditate. I didn't realize it was already there, in my heart. All the meditation is right there inside you. Birth, old age, sickness, and death are right there within you. I travelled all over until I was ready to drop dead from exhaustion. Only then, when I stopped, did I find what I was looking for ... inside me.

Whatever we do, we should see ourselves. Reading books doesn't ever give rise to anything. The days pass by, but we don't see ourselves. Knowing about practice is practicing in order to know.

The basics in our practice should be first, to be honest and upright; second, to be wary of wrongdoing; and third, to be humble within one's heart, to be aloof and content with little. If we are content with little in regards to speech and in all other things, we will see ourselves, we won't be distracted. The mind will have a foundation of virtue, concentration, and wisdom.

Of course there are dozens of meditation techniques, but it all comes down to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. Why not give it a try?

Regardless of time and place, the whole practice of Dhamma comes to completion at the place where there is nothing. It's the place of surrender, of emptiness, of laying down the burden. This is the finish.

The Dhamma is not far away. It's right with us. The Dhamma isn't about angels in the sky or anything like that. It's simply about us, about what we are doing right now. Observe yourself. Sometimes there is happiness, sometimes suffering, sometimes comfort, sometimes pain... this is Dhamma. Do you see it? To know this Dhamma, you have to read your experiences.

The Buddha taught us that whatever makes the mind distressed in our practice hits home. Defilements are distressed. It's not that the mind is distressed! We don't know what our mind and defilements are. Whatever we aren't satisfied with, we just don't want anything to do with. Our way of life is not difficult. What's difficult is not being satisfied, not agreeing with it. Our defilements are the difficulty.

We don't become monks or nuns to eat well, sleep well, and be very comfortable, but to know suffering: -how to accept it...-how to get rid of it... -how not to cause it. So don't do that which causes suffering, like indulging in greed, or it will never leave you.

People have suffering in one place, so they go somewhere else. When suffering arises there, they run off again. They think they're running away from suffering, but they're not. Suffering goes with them. They carry suffering around without knowing it. If we don't know suffering then we can't know the cause of suffering. If we don't know the cause of suffering then we can't know the cessation of suffering. There's no way we can escape it.

Some people get bored, fed up, tired of the practice and lazy. They can't seem to keep the Dhamma in mind. Yet, if you go and scold them, they'll never forget that. Some may remember it for the rest of their lives and never forgive you for it. But when it comes to the Buddha's teaching, telling us to practise conscientiously, why do they keep forgetting these things? Why don't people take these things to heart?

It was Christmas and the foreign monks had decided to celebrate it. They invited some laypeople as well as Ajahn Chah to join them. The laypeople were generally upset and skeptical. Why, they asked, were Buddhists celebrating Christmas? Ajahn Chah then gave a talk on religion in which he said, "As far as I understand, Christianity teaches people to do good and avoid evil, just as Buddhism does, so what is the problem? However, if people are upset by the idea of celebrating Christmas, that can be easily remedied. We won't call it Christmas. Let's call it 'Christ-Buddhamas.' Anything that inspires us to see what is true and do what is good is proper practice. You may call it any name you like."

Once you understand non-self, then the burden of life is gone. You'll be at peace with the world. When we see beyond self, we no longer cling to happiness and we can truly be happy. Learn to let go without struggle, simply let go, to be just as you are - no holding on, no attachment, free.

All bodies are composed of the four elements of earth, water, wind and fire. When they come together and form a body we say it's a male, a female, give it names, and so on, so that we can identify each other more easily. But actually there isn't anyone there - only earth, water, wind and fire. Don't get excited over it or infatuated by it. If you really look into it, you will not find anyone there.

Peace is within oneself to be found in the same place as agitation and suffering. It is not found in a forest or on a hilltop, nor is it given by a teacher. Where you experience suffering, you can also find freedom from suffering. Trying to run away from suffering is actually to run toward it.

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will have complete peace.

Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but the Buddha taught us that sort of home is not our real home. It's a home in the world and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace.

Virtue, concentration, and wisdom together make up the Path. But this Path is not yet the true teaching, not merely the Path that will take you there. For example, say you traveled the road from Bangkok to Wat Pah Pong; the road was necessary for your journey, but you were seeking Wat Pah Pong, the monastery, not the road. In the same way we can say that virtue, concentration, and wisdom are outside the truth of the Buddha but are the road that leads to this truth. When you have developed these three factors, the result is the most wonderful peace.

Someone once asked Ajahn Chah about the way he taught meditation: "Do you use the method of daily interviewing to examine the mind-state of a person?" Ajahn Chah responded by saying, "Here I teach disciples to examine their own mind-states, to interview themselves. Maybe a monk is angry today, or maybe he has some desire in his mind. I don't know it but he should. He doesn't have to come and ask me about it, does he?"

A devout elderly lady from a nearby province came on a pilgrimage to Wat Pah Pong. She told Ajahn Chah she could stay only a short time, as she had to return to take care of her grandchildren, and since she was an old lady, she asked if he could please give her a brief dhamma talk. Ajahn Chah replied with great force, "Hey, listen! There's no one here, just this! No owner, no one to be old, to be young, to be good or bad, weak or strong. Just this, that's all - just various elements of nature going their own way, all empty. No one born and no one to die! Those who speak of birth and death are speaking the language of ignorant children. In the language of the heart, of Dhamma, there are no such things as birth and death."

The heart of the path is quite easy. There's no need to explain anything at length. Let go of love and hate and let things be. That's all that I do in my own practice.

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Sunyata
Presented by:
...the Wanderling

Sunyata is another one of those chronically misunderstood and misinterpreted words that shows up so often in Buddhism and things-Zen. The primary reason is because Sunyata is so intertwined in both Mahayana and the generally accepted Buddhist concept of the "middle way" it is taken to mean the "middle way." There is as well, the word Samsara which is taken to mean, and I borrow a direct quote from the paper on Te Shan, "the typical run-in-the-mill everyday garden variety type general population living in Samsara person" as meaning just that...the day-to-day world of those whose attainment is unrealized. It is taken to be directly opposite of Nirvana, or the considered by some, Enlightened state. As the "middle way" Sunyata is thus taken as being in the middle, half-way between the two because it is the "middle way." Sunyata ends up being pictured, for example, like the fulcrum in the middle of say a teeter-totter, with everyday common Samsara balanced at one end, Sunyata in the middle, and Enlightened Nirvana on the other end. The problem with such an anology, besides being patently not so, is that it creates a dualism that isn't there...Samsara being at one end, Nirvana at the other. Sunyata is NOT the fulcrum balancing both equally, Sunyata is the WHOLE, encompassing, encompassed and THE encompassing. Enlightenment is NOT Nirvana, Nirvana is NOT Enlightenment. Sunyata, on the other one hand clapping, is...is what? Well read on:
Whatever can be conceptualized is therefore relative, and whatever is relative is Sunya, empty. Since absolute inconceivable truth is also Sunya, Sunyata or the void is shared by both Samsara and Nirvana. Ultimately, Nirvana truly realized is Samsara properly understood.
Nagarjuna
I.Sunyata, an Overview
Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Buddha was able to realize "Emptiness" (s. sunyata). By doing so he freed himself from unsatisfactoriness (s. dukkha). From the standpoint of Enlightenment, Sunyata is the reality of all worldly existences (s. dharma). It is the realization of Bodhi - Prajna. From the standpoint of liberation, Sunyata is the skilful means that disentangle oneself from defilement and unsatisfactoriness. The realization of Sunyata leads one to no attachment and clinging. It is the skilful means towards Enlightenment and also the fruit of Enlightenment.
There are two ways for us to understand this concept of Sunyata in the Mahayana context. One way is to try to understand the explanation about its true nature. The other way is the realization through practice. What we are going to discuss now is about its true nature.
Mahayana teachings have always considered that the understanding of Sunyata is an attainment which is extremely difficult and extraordinarily profound.
For example, in the Prajna Sutra it says "That which is profound, has Sunyata and non-attachment as its significance. No form nor deeds, no rising nor falling, are its implications."
Again in the Dvadasanikaya Sastra (composed by Nagarjuna, translated to Chinese by Kumarajiva, A.D. 408) it says: "The greatest wisdom is the so-called Sunyata."
This Sunyata, no creation, calmness and extinction (s. nirvana) is of a profound significance in the Mahayana teachings. Why do we see it as the most profound teaching? This is because there is no worldly knowledge, be it general studies, science or philosophy, that can lead to the attainment of the state of Sunyata. The only path to its realization is via the supreme wisdom of an impassionate and discriminating mind. It is beyond the common worldly understanding.
II. The Significance of Sunyata and Cessation
The Buddha always used the terms void, no rising and falling, calmness and extinction to explain the profound meaning of Sunyata and cessation. The teachings of the Buddha that were described in words are generally common to worldly understandings. If one interprets the teachings superficially from the words and languages used, one will only gain worldly knowledge and not the deeper implication of the teachings. For more in a similar vein see David Hume, who said knowledge is not attained by reasoning a priori, but arises ENTIRELY from experience, when we find that any particular objects (or phenomenon) are constantly conjoined with each other. The teachings of the Buddha and What the Buddha Said have their supra-mundane contexts that are beyond the worldly knowledge.
For example, Sunyata and the state of Nirvana where there is no rising nor falling, are interpreted by most people as a state of non-existence and gloom. They fail to realize that quite the opposite, Sunyata is of substantial and positive significance.

The sutras often use the word "great void" to explain the significance of Sunyata. In general, we understand the "great void" as something that contains absolutely nothing. However, from a Buddhist perspective, the nature of the "great void" implies something which does not obstruct other things, in which all matters perform their own functions. Materials are form, which by their nature, imply obstruction. The special characteristic of the "great void" is non-obstruction. The "great void" therefore, does not serve as an obstacle to them. Since the "great void" exhibits no obstructive tendencies, it serves as the foundation for matter to function. In other words, if there was no "great void" nor characteristic of non-obstruction, it would be impossible for the material world to exist and function.
The "great void" is not separated from the material world. The latter depends on the former. We can state that the profound significance of Sunyata and the nature of Sunyata in Buddhism highlights the "great void's" non-obstructive nature.
Sunyata does not imply the "great void". Instead, it is the foundation of all phenomena (form and mind). It is the true nature of all phenomena, and it is the basic principle of all existence. In other words, if the universe's existence was not empty nor impermanent, then all resulting phenomena could not have arisen due to the co-existence of various causes and there would be no rising nor falling. The nature of Sunyata is of positive significance!
Calmness and extinction are the opposite of rising and falling. They are another way to express that there is no rising and falling. Rising and falling are the common characteristics of worldly existence. All phenomena are always in the cycle of rising and falling. However, most people concentrate on living (rising). They think that the universe and life are the reality of a continuous existence.
Buddhism on the other hand, promotes the value of a continuous cessation (falling). This cessation does not imply that it ceases to exist altogether. Instead, it is just a state in the continuous process of phenomena. In this material world, or what we may call this "state of existence", everything eventually ceases to exist. Cessation is definitely the home of all existences. Since cessation is the calm state of existence and the eventual refuge of all phenomena, it is also the foundation for all activities and functions.
The Amitabha Buddha who was, and is, revered and praised by Buddhists around the world, radiates indefinite light and life from this "state of cessation". This state is a continuous process of calmness. It will be the eventual refuge for us all. If we think carefully about the definitions of calmness and extinction, then we can deduce that they are the true natural end-points of rising and falling. The true nature of the cycle of rising and falling is calmness and extinction. Because of this nature, all chaos and conflicts in the state of rising and falling will eventually cease. This is attainable by the realisation of prajna.
III. Contemplating the Implications of Sunyata and Stillness (Nirvana) by Observing Worldly Phenomena
All existences exhibit Void-nature and Nirvana-nature. These natures are the reality of all existence. To realise the truth, we have to contemplate and observe our worldly existence. We cannot realize the former without observing the latter. Consider this Heart Sutra extract, "Only when Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva practised the deep course of wisdom of Prajna Paramita did he come to realise that the five skandhas (aggregates, and material and mental objects) were void."
Profound wisdom leads us to the realization that all existences are of void-nature. The sutras demonstrate that the profound principle can be understood by contemplating and observing the five skandhas. We cannot realise the truth by seeking something beyond the material and mental world. The Buddha, using his perfect wisdom, observed worldly existence from various implications and aspects, and came to understand all existences.
In summary, there are three paths to this observation:
a) We should observe the preceding state and the current state of conditions. i.e., Observation according to the concept of time.
b) We should observe existences according to their interrelationships. i.e., Observation via the concept of space (either two or three-dimensions).
c) We should observe the true nature of all myriad beings. This is like observing the worldly existences of a point, a line and an area. Those with supreme wisdom understand the true nature of all worldly existences by observing vertically the relationships between the preceding and current conditions, and horizontally the interrelationships. Then we can understand the true meaning of void-nature and Nirvana-nature.
III.1 By observing the preceding-stage and the current-stage conditions, we can verify the Law of Impermanence of all worldly existences. All existences, be they material or mental, be they the material world, or the physical or mental states of sentient beings, are subject to continuous change.
The world may have certain states of beings where they stay static or are in equilibrium on a temporary basis (for example hibernation). But when we observe them with supreme wisdom, we will find that not only do they keep changing on a yearly basis, but also that this change applies to even every briefest moment. After the current state of conditions have ceased to exist, the newly-formed state materialises. This is the state of rising and falling. The rising and falling of each small moment reveals that all existences are ever-moving and ever-changing.
Conventional scholars have a very good explanation of these ever-changing worldly conditions. However they, including the practitioners of Dharma, try to make sense of the reality from the ever-changing worldly existences. That is, they are fooled by the material existences and are not able to understand the deeper truth of all existences.
Only those with the supreme wisdom of the Buddha and Mahabodhisattvas realize and understand that all existences are illusions. They understand that existences are not real from the observation of the flow of changing existences. The numerous illusionary existences may well be diverse and confusing, arising and decaying. But when we look into their true nature, we will find them void and of Nirvana-nature.
On the other hand, since all existences are of Nirvana-nature, they appear from the perspective of time, to be ever-changing. They never stay the same even for the briefest moment. Impermanence implies existences do not have a permanent entity. This is another implication of the nature of Sunyata and stillness.

III.2 From observations of existence via inter-relationships, we can conclude that nothing is independent of the Law of Causation, and that everything is without ego. For example, the Buddha explains that the individual sentient being is composed of physical, physiological and psychological phenomena. The so called ego is a deluded illusion which does not exist in reality. The dissipation of that deluded illusion is conjectured forth as the Death of the Ego. Its existence depends on the combination of both physical and mental factors. It is a union of organic phenomena. Thus we call it the empirical ego. It is a mistake to cling to it as an infatuated ego.
The Indian concept of the supreme spirit implies someone who rules. The spirit is the ruler who is independent of is self-dependent and all causes. In other words, the spirit is the one who is free from all primary and secondary causes (for physical and mental aspects). The spirit is the one who has the soul of his own body and mind. This is the ego or supreme spirit that the theologists cling to. From their view point, the only way to avoid physical and mental decay is to be self-determined and self-sovereign. In this way, the supreme being can stay permanent in the cycle of reincarnation, and return to the absolute reality by liberating himself from life and death.
But from the profound contemplation and wisdom of the Buddha and Mahabodhisattvas, we know there is no such reality. Instead, egolessness (Anatta, the Concept of No-self in Buddhism) is the only path to understand the reality of the deluded life. All existences are subject to the Law of Causes and Conditions. These include the smallest particles, the relationship between the particles, the planets, and the relationship between them, up to and including the whole universe! From the smallest particles to the biggest matter, there exists no absolute independent identity.
Egolessness (non-self) implies the void characteristics of all existence. Egolessness (non-self) signifies the non-existence of permanent identity for self and existence (Dharma). Sunyata stresses the voidness characteristic of self and existence (Dharma). Sunyata and egolessness possess similar attributes. As we have discussed before, we can observe the profound significance of Sunyata from the perspective of inter-dependent relationships. Considering Dharma-nature and the condition of Nirvana, all existences are immaterial and of a Void-nature. Then we see each existence as independent of each other. But then we cannot find any material that does exist independent of everything else. So egolessness also implies Void-nature!
III.3 From the observation of all existences, we can infer the theory of Nirvana and the complete cessation of all phenomena. From the viewpoint of phenomena, all existences are so different from each other, that they may contradict each other. They are so Chaotic (Hun-Tun). In reality, their existence is illusionary and arises from conditional causation. They seem to exist on one hand, and yet do not exist on the other. They seem to be united, but yet they are so different to one another. They seem to exist and yet they do cease! Ultimately everything will return to harmony and complete calmness. This is the nature of all existence. It is the final resting place for all. If we can understand this reality and remove our illusions, we can find this state of harmony and complete calmness.
All our contradictions, impediments and confusion will be converted to equanimity. Free from illusion, complete calmness will be the result of attaining Nirvana. The Buddha emphasized the significance of this attainment and encouraged the direct and profound contemplation on Void-nature. He said, "Since there is no absolute self-nature thus every existence exhibits Void-nature. Because it is void, there is no rising nor falling. Since there is no rising nor falling, thus everything was originally in complete calmness. Its self-nature is nirvana."
From the viewpoint of time and space, we can surmise that all existences are impermanent, all existences have no permanent self, and Nirvana is the result of the cessation of all existences - the Three Universal Characteristics. But there are not three different truths. Instead, they are the characteristics of the only absolute truth and the ultimate reality. This is the explanation of Dharma-nature and the condition of Nirvana. The three characteristics are the one characteristic, and vice versa!
We may cultivate our meditation, contemplating the impersonality of all existences. This will lead us to Enlightenment via the path of voidness. Contemplating Nirvana and complete calmness leads to Enlightenment by the path of immaterial form. Contemplating the impermanence of all existences, leads us to Enlightenment by the path of inactivity (no desire).
The Three Universal Characteristics are the other implications of Dharma-nature and Nirvana. The paths to Enlightenment are also the same cause of absolute reality. All of them return to the Dharma-nature and the condition of Nirvana. In short, the teachings of the Buddha start from the observation and contemplation of all worldly phenomena. They are like thousands of streams of water competing with each other, and flowing from the top of the mountains to the bottom. Eventually, all of them return to the ocean of voidness and Nirvana.
IV. Sunyata and Cessation is the Truth (Nature) of All Existences.
All existences that are recognised by worldly understanding, whether materially, spiritually or intellectually, have always been misunderstood by us. We cling to them as real, physically existing and permanent. Actually, they are only unreal names.
The more precise meaning of the term "unreal name" is "assumption" or "hypothesis". It is an empirical name. It is formed by the combination of various causes and effects. (These include the effects of mental consciousness.) It does not exist by itself. Everything exists relatively. Thus, what is the ultimate truth? If we investigate existence further, we realize that all existences are empty. This is the fundamental characteristic and reality of all existence. It is ultimate and absolute. But we should not think that empty means nothing. It implies the disentanglement from the worldly misunderstanding of the existence of self, identity, and the realization of the absolute.
In the Sutras and Abhidharma, the worldly understandings are sometimes referred to as all phenomena (Dharma). Sunyata is referred to as "Dharma-nature", and hence there is a distinction between "phenomena" and "Dhamma-nature". However, this is only an expedient explanation that helps us to realize the truth of Sunyata through the phenomena of all existences.
We should not think that "existence" and "nature"; or the "phenomena of Dharma" and "Dharma-nature" are something contradictory. They are just concepts needed to understand the implication of Sunyata.
We may analyze the expedient explanation of "existence" and the "nature (voidness)" from two aspects:
a) The truth of Sunyata is the nature of each individual existence. Each step we make in understanding that each minor form has a nature that is not describable by words, are steps to the realisation of the truth of Sunyata. The Sunyata of Dharma nature is the same for all, it is non distinguishable. However, from our deluded viewpoint, we assume that it is the nature of each individual existence and not an abstract common nature.
b) Dharma-nature is best described as the characteristic of equanimity of Sunyata. It cannot be described as many or one and absolute. (One is relative to many!) We cannot say that the Dharma-nature is different to existence. But at the same time, we cannot say that it is equal to existence. All in all, Sunyata is the nature of existence. Although the realization of supreme wisdom may seem to be abstract superficially, it embodies very substantial and compelling ideas.
V. The Relationship between Phenomena and the Sunyata of Dharma-nature.
From our discussions above, it is very clear that existence and nature cannot be described as the same or different. In the Mahayana teaching, the theory of "not the same nor different" is indisputable. However, in order to adapt to the different spiritual foundations and thinking, the ancient great practitioners have different explanations.
a) The Dharmalaksana Sects emphasise the "phenomena or characteristics of things". Their theory is, "the appearance of karmic seeds nurtures the rising of things and vice versa." The Law of Dependent Origination of karmic seeds explains all worldly (mundane) and out-worldly (supramundane) Dharma. When this sect explains impermanence and the rising and falling of all existence, they omit to mention its relationship with the Dharma nature that is not rising nor falling.
According to them, under the definitions of impermanence and rising and falling, "karmic seeds" appear and nurture the rising of things and in return, can be formed. Therefore, the nature of "no rising nor falling" cannot be the foundation of any existence.
This school is famous for its detail and careful observation. However, there is a tendency to misunderstand the theory of no-rising nor falling (the eternal Dharma-nature) and the theory of rising and falling (the causative Dharma) as two separate identities.
This is definitely not the intention of the scholars of the Dharmalaksana Sect. This is because as we detach ourselves from the illusion of rising and falling, and the Law of Cause and Effect, we will see the truth of Dharma-nature. We will realize that the Dharma and Dharma-nature are neither the same nor different. This is nature of the individual existence that is beyond description. It has no difference from the Dharma. To differentiate the Dharma from aspects of rising and falling, is to emphasize the difference between "nature" and "phenomena" only.
b) The schools of Tien Tai, Xian Shou and Chan (Zen) emphasize the Dharma-nature. They call themselves the "School of Nature" and the perfect intercommunion of all things is their emphasis. In respect of the equanimity of Dharma-nature, the phenomena of all things are embodied in Dharma-nature. The phenomena of Dharma that is pure or deluded arises from Dharma-nature.
The scholars of Tien Tai called it the "Embodied nature". (This is the Buddha-nature that includes both good and evil.) The scholars of Xian Shou say, "It is arising from primal nature", and the scholars of Chan (Zen) say, "It is nature that causes the rising of things". All Dharma is Dharma-nature. It is not different from Dharma-nature. Dharma and Dharma-nature are not two separate identities, "Phenomena" and "nature" are also not distinguishable either. In other words, there is no difference between principle (absolute) and practice (relative).
This also implies that there is no differences among practices. The schools that emphasize Dharma-nature do not emphasize differences. However, scholars who misunderstood its implication, always became attached to the principles (an absolute), and neglect the practice (a relative). This is definitely not the aim of the schools of "Dharma-nature".
c) The School of Madhyamika, which is also called the "School of Sunyata", explains the truth directly. They say that existence and Sunyata are neither the same nor different. According to the School of Sunyata, all Dharma arises from causes and conditions. Therefore the nature of all Dharma is empty. Because of its empty nature, it has to rely on causes and conditions in order to arise.
In other words, all Dharma arises from causes and conditions, and all Dharma is empty in nature. The Law of Dependent Origination (existence) and the nature of emptiness is neither the same nor different. They exist mutually. The truth of "Sunyata" and "existence", and "nature" and "phenomena" are not in conflict with each other. Unlike the scholars of the Dharmalaksana Sect who explain the Dharma only from the aspect of Dependent Origination, or the scholars of Dharma-nature that explain the existence of Dharma only from the aspect of Dharma-nature, the scholars of Madhyamika explain the truth of the Dharma from both aspects. Hence this is called the Middle Path which does not incline to either side.
These are the three main schools in Mahayana teaching. The Dharma and Dharma-nature resemble worldly phenomena and entity, but they are not identical. In Mahayana teaching, the Dharma-nature is the nature of each individual Dharma. There is no entity that causes the appearance of things. Although Dharma (existences) and Dharma-nature are not identical, they are also not beyond Dharma (existences). We should not think that these concepts are too deep beneath or too high above us. By realising the Dharma and Dharma nature from the existence (Dharma) around us, then can the real and profound implications of Sunyata be portrayed.

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Pounding Rice, Sweeping Leaves
By I. M. Oderberg

What we do each day should benefit all others. -- Hui-neng, Sixth Patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism
Every people in history has contributed something of value to human advancement, adding a distinctive quality to the sum of mankind. Ancient China's offering is a large one stressing character and the self-controlled man, but also covering many aspects of endeavor. One of these creations is Ch'an Buddhism, a system of enlightenment with nonintellectual or rather intuitive as well as intellectual facets. An Indian monk known as Bodhidharma brought it to China in the early part of the 6th century, and his successors were known as the Chinese patriarchs. He transmitted to them the "Dharma-knowledge" symbolized by his robe and bowl, but what was passed on was not really a tangible thing at all but something spiritual, beautiful and unnamable.
The sixth and last patriarch was Hui-neng, who gave Ch'an (A Chinese adaptation of the Sanskrit word dhyana, signifying concentration or meditation) a particularly Chinese cast without Indian coloration, and he is a luminous instance of the practical outlook of his people on daily problems and even metaphysical questions. His life and method of presenting ideas show a catalytic power still capable of affecting people in search of their 'real nature' or essence. There is no wonder that his work influenced not only Ch'an Buddhism ever after-ward, but also spread to Japan where his name became Eno and his insights transformed into Zen. He left behind him a single scripture of surpassing excellence and simplicity known either as The Platform Sutra or The Altar Sutra (according to which of the few surviving versions is taken up). It provides a brief autobiography as well as his instructions, and contrasts with the later flamboyant exaggerations and additions that encumber the original like a filigree, and today go by the Japanese name "Zen," but that also affected even the Chinese form "Ch'an" of centuries after his. Hui-neng was the religious or "Dharma" -- name assumed in adult life by the only son of an official surnamed Lu who had been demoted and exiled. He was three years old when his father died, and his mother took him to a small town near Canton where they lived in great poverty. As a consequence, he received no education and was illiterate even in maturity. He carried a meager living selling firewood in the city.
On one occasion, he heard a man reciting a verse from the Buddhist classic known as the Diamond Cutter Sutra, and the line -- "Thought should spring from a state of non-attachment" moved him deeply. Introduced into a new thought-world, he asked for the source of such ideas. (There are several variations, one giving the passage as "No mind, no abode, and here works the mind.) The man said he had received the text from its famous commentator Hung-jen, the Fifth Patriarch who was abbot of a monastery at Huang-mei, five hundred miles to the north. Not long afterward, Huineng received a sum of money from a benevolent acquaintance and he settled it upon his mother to assure her an income. He then traveled north and after varied experiences, such as expounding to a Buddhist nun a text she had chanted, he reached the monastery.
The abbot asked him who he was and what he wanted, and Huineng told him he wished to attain buddha-insight. Hung-jen replied, "How can you, a barbarian from the south, expect to receive enlightenment?" Hui-neng said that all human beings are intrinsically the same in their buddha-nature; the only difference is in their physical appearance. Hung-jen appears to have recognized his innate wisdom, but set him to work in the kitchen where he pounded rice for eight months.
One day, Hung-jen announced the time had come for him to pass on the "Dharma-inheritance" derived from Bodhidharma. He asked each monk to write a stanza upon the theme of his self-nature: Why does it obscure the gateway to understanding the world of birth and death? Whoever caught the basic idea would be designated his successor. The monks felt that Shen-hsiu, a disciple of Hung-jen's for thirty years and regarded as standing next to him, would certainly be chosen. He was a spiritual man, modest, and possessed considerable erudition and high intelligence. The others felt so convinced of the outcome they decided not to submit their own responses. Shen-hsiu himself, however, felt doubts of his worthiness, seesawing in his mind until late at night when he decided to write an unsigned verse upon a corridor wall being readied for a painting --
The body is the bodhi tree,
The mind is like a clear mirror.
At all times we must strive to polish it,
And must not let the dust collect.*
*There are several versions of both Shen-hsiu's stanza and Hui-neng's reply. One Chinese variation gives "bright mirror stand." H. P. Blavatsky gives the essence of the thought in The Voice of the Silence: "The mind is like a mirror. It gathers dust while it reflects."
He felt that although it did not carry his name, if it struck the right note the Patriarch would know its author. The next day the monks acclaimed it as a verse of great perception, and Hung-en then inspected it. He suggested the brethren should reflect deeply upon its meaning.
Later, Hui-neng heard of the abbot's announcement and the chatter about Shen-hsiu's stanza. He requested an acolyte to take him to the wall. Turning to a monk standing there, a former petty official, he explained that he could not read and asked him to chant the text. The monk was astounded, but complied. Then Hui-neng requested the monk to write under it his response, which read --
By no means is bodhi a kind of tree,
Nor is the bright reflecting mind a mirror.
Since mind is emptiness,*
Where can dust collect?
*The word in Sanskrit is sunyata, the void or voidness, the "non-substantial and non-self nature of beings, and a pointer indicating the state of absolute nonattachment and freedom." This definition is from the study of sunyata, by Sengchao, but the philosophy behind the term is better expounded by G. de Purucker in discussing the fullness of the seeming void (see Fountain-Source of Occultism).
Alternative readings in the Tun-huang and Hsi-hsia versions are --
Bodhi originally has no tree,
The mirror has no stand.
Buddha-nature is always clean and pure,
Where is there room for dust?
The Fifth Patriarch recognized that acceptance of Hui-neng would be unwelcome to the monks who not only were northerners but also looked down upon Hui-neng as a lay-brother. So he told them: "This is still not complete understanding" and rubbed out the writing from the wall. But that night he visited Hui-neng in the kitchen, later taking him into the hall where he expounded the Diamond Cutter Sutra. When he reached the sentence: "One should use one's mind in such a way that it will be free from any attachment," Hui-neng said: ". . . who would have thought that all things are the manifestation of the Essence of Mind?" The Fifth Patriarch then "handed the Dharma-knowledge" on to him "flashed direct from the Heart of Buddha."
After that he also warned him that he was in grave danger from the monks of the monastery and that he should leave immediately, in the darkness of the night. So Hui-neng departed, accompanied by Hung-jen who saw him safely to a boat and then returned to the monastery. After several days the monks asked Hung-jen about the Dharma-successorship only to learn that it had already passed to the south. They raised a hue and cry, but Hui-neng had safely escaped into wooded country where he lived for fifteen years. It was possibly this period of his life that inspired a Zen artist of Japan to depict him sweeping leaves from the path before his hut while he looked across his shoulder as though to the "Essence of Mind," which has also been symbolized in Buddhist art as the "other shore" or nirvana. (Hui-neng has provided the motif for Ch'an and Zen paintings. One depicts the six patriarchs, others various themes from his life-story and sutra. I-shan's study in calligraphy entitled Gatha of the Sixth Patriarch contains only the following eight-character passage from the Diamond Cutter Sutra -- "The Enlightenment of the Dharma rests in no finite place, it is born in the heart.") After this period Hui-neng took up public teaching, his presentation being plain, understandable, outspoken, and matter-of-fact.
Were Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng bitter opponents, then? Not at all. Each established schools that became famous and endured for a considerable time. The former's was known as the "gradual school" leading toward enlightenment, and the latter's as the "sudden school." Hui-neng himself used warm terms of Shen-hsiu in his sutra, and when the Dowager Empress Wu Tse-t'ien invited Hui-neng to the court to instruct it, the move had been suggested by Shen-hsiu who referred to him as the Sixth Patriarch, the legitimate inheritor of the Dharma-knowledge and the one most able to impart it. The ill-feeling between the schools originated in later times with those followers who identified themselves with a school rather than its message. This development is not unique to Ch'an, but can be seen in the history of other movements that begin as bearers of a spiritual teaching then decline into personality or other cults.
Hui-neng embodied the meaning of his religious name, hui standing for "the bestowal of kindness and Dharma on living beings" and neng, "ability to do the Buddha-work." He made the vow to save all sentient beings, but then explained that each individual must save himself. What did he imply by this paradox?
Perhaps the answer is to be found in the bodhisattva vow ascribed to Kwan-yin --
Never will I seek or receive private, individual salvation. Never win I enter final peace alone, but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the redemption of every creature throughout the world.
Be that as it may, from hulling grains of rice to sweeping leaves, the importance of practical living while reflecting upon the nature of being and the major issues of the human condition is exemplified by Hui-neng himself. He enjoined upon all to be compassionate . . . "What we do each day should benefit all others." In his Sutra he tells us in effect that "every human being is capable of the highest truth because the Buddha-nature is in everyone." Hui-ming asked him for additional "esoteric teachings" after Hui-neng had pointed him to look within to his "real nature," and in reply he was told: "If you turn your light inwardly you will find what is esoteric within you." On another occasion he told his listeners --
If one wishes to follow certain practices in order to
seek the Buddha [outside],
I do not know where he can expect to find the real Buddha.
If one can in his own mind see the real Buddha,
That will bring about his realization of Buddhahood. He who does not seek the real Buddha in himself but seeks Him outside,
Is surely a man of great delusion.
This was said to his disciples and lay followers just before he died. He directed again that they should spread the concept that all beings have buddha-essence in themselves and that only they can work out their liberation. The Dharma-inheritance devolved upon everyone, there would not be a seventh Patriarch.
Buddha-seeds latent in our mind,
Will sprout upon the Corning of the all-pervading rain.
The 'Flower' of the doctrine having been intuitively grasped, One is bound to reap the fruit of Enlightenment.

NOTE: Of the many versions of The Platform Sutra consulted, I am most indebted to the editions of Philip B. Yampolsky, which weighed many of the ancient texts, and Wing-tsit Chan; both have the Chinese characters as well as translations. Of considerable help were the translation and commentary of the Zen Roshi, Zenkei Shibayama in his work Zen Commentaries on the Mumonkan; Lu Ku'an Yu's excellent translation and exposition in his Ch'an and Zen Teaching, Third Series; Chang Chen-Chi's The Practice of Zen, and Wong Mou-lam's translation which gives the Cantonese rendering of some of the names.
For the background material, reference must be made to Professor Chou Hsiang Kuang's informative but quaintly Englished Dhyana Buddhism in China -- Its History and Teaching; The Records of the Transmission of the Lamp (of the dharma); The Hekigan Roku, a Japanese text translated as The Blue Cliff Records, and finally, The Golden Age of Zen by Dr. John C. H. Wu, with some valuable quotations of texts. I have also consulted Zen: Painting and Calligraphy, and Chao Lun, The Treatises of Sen-chao, translated by Walter Liebenthal, Ph.D.
(From Sunrise magazine, October 1975. Copyright © 1975 by Theosophical University Press)

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Love and Forgiveness

This year we've been studying and practicing the teachings on Bodhicitta-the luminous heart of the Dharma, the awakened heart-mind-according to the Seven Points of Mind Training of Atisha. What I want to talk about tonight is a subject we don't hear much about in Buddhist circles. It is the real meaning of Bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is said to have two sides: the conventional side-selfless or unselfish altruism, aspiration to relieve the suffering of all, compassion, services, and so on-and the ultimate side, which is wisdom itself, sunyata, appreciation of the infinite openness. Still, if we bring all that together, if we talk about it in English today, if we really think about what it all means, I think it is all about love. We hear the word compassion a lot these days; it's become a buzzword. But I think it is about what we used to call in English before we heard about Buddhism, love.
The Christian notion of love means unconditional love, acceptance, forgiveness, openness, oneness with all, treating others as you yourself would be treated. But let's go deeper and look into what it really means to love, to learn to love. What comes up for us when we first hear the word love. Do we think of Prince Charming or Princess Charming? Do we think of our child, our parents, our pet? What? Do we think of nature, our garden, the lake we live near? What do we think of when we think of love? Our ex-wife or ex-husband? Maybe not!
When we talk about Dharma or truth or love, it all really comes down to the same thing: an appreciation of something, someone, or a certain moment in life. An appreciation of something that is perhaps beautiful or at least beautiful to us. Like the quality of our relationship. That's really what we love, isn't it? How we feel in that moment. We might say we love the other person, but if we really look into it, what are we really loving? We probably love how we feel with them.
So if we look more deeply into what this Bodhicitta, this luminous heart of the spirituality, is, I think it comes down to love. And love really is more a matter of openness, which includes things like acceptance and forgiveness. It's almost like an equanimity that appreciates things now matter how they fluctuate, rather than an attachment like "I love how I feel when I'm with you-most of the time." So what does that mean? That you don't love the person when they don't give you a good buzz. Or, "I love my work, but I can't wait until I retire." Love is not an expedient to get to retirement. Love is much deeper than that. It is where we come from, not just what we are going towards. It's like how we are when we were children. That child-like quality of wonder and appreciation that is open to everything. That's why I called it equanimity. It is appreciating everything, because everything is new. We perceive things with fresh eyes and ears. Everything is new and therefore miraculous, marvelous. We love it.
So how can we take off the veils, the obscurations that tarnish our eyes and ears and heart and mind? How can we learn to love, to be open to things as they are, which is truth according to Buddha's definition: things as they are. How can we learn to love not just our mate or ourselves or our work? How can we learn to appreciate all beings, to appreciate everything as it is? To being open to learning to love through whatever experience we have? That would be a spiritual life, a way of awakening; not just a religious thing, but a way of awakening, to learn from everything that happens. That would be to love life and to love the world. I think that is the luminous heart of the Dharma, beyond Buddhism, beyond Dharma, beyond heart and mind or body or even soul.
When we talk about love we are talking about something that is very soulful, not very abstract. Not just, "Ah, emptiness! The infinite!" Do we love ourselves well enough to give us space to be? We are all involved in all kinds of self-improvement programs. Is that love for ourselves or not? Are we doing the best by ourselves as we are trying to change for the better? Or is that just one more symptom of self-hate, of low self-esteem, or non-self-acceptance? If we don't love ourselves, how can we love others and love our life?
When we enter into the heart of the Dharma, I think it comes down to some sort of love, to speak English. It is something we can really explore and actualize, to bring out from within. Not just find love, seek love. But practice loving, be open to love. Receive love. We hear about radiating love and loving-kindness. But what about receiving it? Are we open to receiving it? How open are each of us to receiving it? We all like the idea of it, but when it comes, doesn't it make us a little nervous? Isn't it a little scary? "What does this mean? Does she really love me? Does he love me for my good looks? What does she want? Can I love equally well in return?" So many neurotic thoughts.We all have these same thoughts. We are all just junior Woody Allens. As Woody likes to say, "I am two with everything."
Even when we practice loving-kindness meditation, I feel like sometimes we are focusing on loving, fixing, solving something, but not on appreciating everything, on opening, on forgiveness. We don't hear much about forgiveness in Buddhist circles, do we? Has anybody heard any Buddhist teacher talking about forgiveness? How is that possible? And yet, it is a fact.
Forgiveness is a big part of acceptance. Can we accept, can we forgive? Not just forgiving others, but can we forgive ourselves? Aren't we all carrying around some neurosis, some guilt, some inadequacy, some feeling of failure from something in our life? I think that from the point of view of Bodhicitta, we should think about working on forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves. And notice what that brings up. Last time I said this I was in Jerusalem. You can imagine what an earful I got, about the people that we shouldn't forgive. But think about that. Who is hurting whom by carrying this unforgivingness around all the time? How much does it cost oneself? Rabbi Kushner said that if after two days you still haven't forgiven something, now it has become your problem. You are paying everyday. If you can't let go of it in two days, you should really take care. And he was talking about the most grievous things, not just about that someone cutting you off in traffic or something.
So I would like you to think about forgiveness. Forgiveness of others and forgiveness of yourself. Even of those who wronged us, abused us, victimized us. But we are still carrying all that. Let's see if we can loosen some of that burden. It doesn't mean to exonerate the others. Actually, it is their karma, whatever they did. But after two days it becomes our karma if we are still carrying it, if we haven't let it go. Then we are victimizing ourselves. In a way, life is about learning to love, to love others, to love ourselves, and to love life itself; to dance with it, to play with it, to be one with it, even with those you hate and those you think are unforgiveable.
There is a way we can recognize that we abhor someone's actions, but we don't abhor the person. We judge the action, not the person. Then we can drop some of our burden, which is just weighing ourself down. The burden of anger, of bitterness, of resentment, perhaps towards our parents. But when you become a parent, it changes your perspective on parents, doesn't it, as you see what happens to your kids and what you inflict on them, no matter how hard you try to be a great parent. You realize that your own parents are just human too, poor things! It's a circle. We are all being recycled continuously.
I myself have been looking into this a lot, feeling that I have been suffering from those things. And feeling that these Bodhicitta teachings have helped me to lighten my heart about that. I think it is a very important practice when things are difficult. We talked about the practice of tonglen, of putting yourself in the other's shoes, exchanging self and others. That's a great practice for when things are difficult. To stay in there, not to reject, not to run away, not to withdraw. To be with it a little longer, to learn from it. And sense it holistically, not just the part that's pushing your buttons. What about the rest of it? There's a lot more to any person than that action that pushes your button. I want to recommend a book by Ani Pema Chodron: It's called When Things Fall Apart. She's an expert on the subject. Check it out if you like to read books.
And do consider forgiveness and equanimity and putting down that burden. And when you reflect on this in your own time, notice what comes up in your mind, in your heart, in your psyche. Who or what comes up. It might be illuminating to see what one is still harboring. What grudges, what vendetta, what prejudices we are still carrying. It doesn't mean we have to feel guilty about those things. The bogeymen go away in the light of awareness. Let's give them a good look. What stays unconscious still drives us and afflicts us.
Does anyone have any questions or anything they want to say tonight?
My Christian heritage asks me to love my neighbor, to love a total stranger, to love unconditionally, but in my life I see that love turn to hatred so quickly. It seems like such an all-consuming emotion. Now I just want to respect and accept and be compassionate in a less overwhelming way towards those I encounter.
That's a good strategy. But I don't think anything is really all-consuming. You might see what isn't consumed by those things we are so afraid of being consumed by. Anger is a great fire, it burns us, but there is still something remaining. So maybe we don't have to be so afraid of being consumed by it. Maybe we can even look at it in another way and say "May it consume us." Then only the immutable will remain. Maybe it will consume all the dross. That is more of a tantric approach, rather than avoiding it or trying to tamp it all down so you don't get so passionate about it.
But yes, love turns to hatred very quickly. They are very connected. There is also a lot of fear around love, isn't there, just as there is fear around the negative emotions like anger and hatred. Fear of getting consumed by love, giving yourself away, losing yourself, being vulnerable. There is a great book called Love Is Letting Go of Fear. It goes into how much love we are and we have and how we are afraid to express it. That we might put ourselves out too much, too nakedly, get burned and I don't know what. We don't know what, but we're afraid. So fear is a big barrier to love. Let's see what we are afraid of. We are afraid of being seen as we are, so we put up a persona, false behavior; we tell stories about ourselves and to ourselves. That comes out of fear.
If we love ourselves, we can afford to be who we are. What's the problem? We're OK. Who cares? We are old enough. Who are we kidding at this point? No more report cards. Let's not make Dharma or karma into one more report-card situation.
I read something by Dogen about dropping your body and mind and also dropping the body and mind of others.
So drop it.
It is easy for me to see the transparency of my own thoughts and energy, but it is very difficult to see the transparency of other people's thoughts and energy.
What's the difference between yours and theirs? The difference is ego-involvement. More ego-involvement on one side than the other. Once we even that out, things change. That's why the practice of putting yourself in the other's shoes evens things out. Yes Dogen said drop body and mind, but that's a pretty big statement. That's like saying die to yourself. Who can do that just by saying it. It doesn't mean to kill yourself. It means die to yourself, let go totally, lose yourself and find your true being.
Really check into your relationships, to whomever you are close to: What is really the difference between your thoughts and theirs? When you are close, aren't you really on the same team? They don't want to be sick any more than you do. And if you really love them, you don't want them to be sick, in almost exactly the same amount that you don't want you to be sick. Some people love someone so much-maybe their child-that they would rather themselves be sick than have their child sick. So there is something to learn there about love. And not just from Dogen who lived a thousand years ago.
Do you know how Dogen first had that realization? When he first dropped off body and mind? Do you remember the story? I think it was when his parents died when he was a kid. It was at the funeral. Isn't that the story? He was about nine or ten years old at his parents funeral. I don't know. I'll just tell the story. Who knows if is true.
His parents both died together or maybe it was the funeral of his last surviving parent. Dogen was a kid. And he saw the incense burning at the head of the coffin as the priests did their blessings. The incense burned down but the ash was still standing. Then the ash fell over and Dogen's body and mind dropped off. It had to do with the intense love, the loss of a parent. It comes back to something very human in a way. It had his total attention. His loss of a parent is connected to his first awakening.
So maybe some loss or letting go can cause something to shift. So it is an interesting place to be. It comes back to the tantric principle: Why avoid the passionate thing? Get in the place where that life and death cusp is, where things can shift. Where you are really consumed enough that POW! something can shift.
I'm glad you mentioned forgiveness, because it seems to me that it is one way to transition from our normal restricted, focused kind of love to a much more liberating, understanding love. I read today about this new rage in Japan: virtual pets. You can buy (for lots of money) a little computer-based 3D display of a "pet" that you wear on your wrist. And this pet needs to be fed and given water. You feed it by pushing buttons. And if the pet is not fed and given water every day, it "dies." And these things are amazingly popular in Japan; they can't keep them in the stores. I guess this shows the strong innate need we all have to love, to nurture.
Maybe we could have virtual mates or lovers! Virtual children. You get to love and nurture them, but they don't talk back or ever leave us! But can we handle real love, where things aren't so predictable? Where things can turn out bad.
You talked about focused, restricted love, sometimes called attached love. It seems that that is the tip of the iceberg of the bigger love, divine love, universal love. But its being the tip of the iceberg means that it is ice, it is true love. It is not something different. If we can push it to the point of absurdity and say love all beings, it can become very abstract. So actually we don't even feel that warm, losing yourself love ever because it is so dispersed. Like a virtual pet. All beings becomes like a virtual being. So we need to keep the human element, the tantric teaching that includes the sacred and the profane and includes our bodies and our feelings and realizes the spiritual through that. That's all love and it functions on a personal level. Like nuns who never married and never had children. They love Baby Jesus. Isn't that a pretty human kind of divine love? It's using the human tendency, which is part of the iceberg. The human feeling-including the negative feeling-is part of the iceberg. It is the tip of the divine. And it is the way in for us.
In practices like compassion and loving-kindness meditation-and this is where I think Buddhism has its genius, because it contains exercises that can actually make it happen-you start generating this feeling with the person or thing you love the most. It could be anything. It could be a pet or a dead person or an image. Then you expand it to the thing you love the next most. So it's not that hard to jump all the way from someone you love to your hated enemy next to you. But we don't start by trying to love all our enemies. It sounds good, but it's very diffuse. So we start with someone we love the most and go out from that. You broaden it. Then you start to do it with people you are indifferent to. Then to your enemies or someone who plays the role of enemy. They did something to you. They abused you maybe or insulted you. See if we can send out love and good wishes to them, honestly. That's how we expand to the whole iceberg, to the whole salty sea. It is a challenge. It is the work of life.
But let's not idealize that we are a failure until we get to the whole salty sea. That's another way of hating ourselves. It's aggressive and it's delusional. "Oh I'm not good enough. I don't really love until I love like God loves." Who loves like God loves?
I think one of the dangers in the spiritual life is totalizing things. Love all beings! Impartial love! Christ-like love! Unconditional love! Love everybody like you love your child! It is very idealistic. Maybe too idealistic. It disempowers us. It makes us feel like we are not good enough. It's putting ourselves down. It's inverted ego. Instead of putting ourselves up, we put ourselves down. It's ego. It's separateness. It's delusional.
I have a question about consort practice. I read an article recently by June Campbell, who was a translator for Kalu Rinpoche. She wrote that she had a sexual relationship with Kalu Rinpoche at the time he was ostensibly a celibate monk. And she was sworn to secrecy. She was told by attendants not to reveal the relationship. If she did, there would be dire karmic consequences. So my question is, can consort practice be sexual abuse?
If it's abusive, then it's not consort practice; it's just sex. It's not practice and it's not a consort.
Could you comment on this particular case?
What do you care about that, actually? What's your real question?
I have a lot of trouble with the kind of faith and devotion that is required for Guru Yoga. And it seems like incidents like this are not isolated.
Right. There are plenty. Too many. So why do we put people on pedestals and hand ourselves over so easily? That's our responsibility.
There are examples in the church and in the Dharma, in politics and in all kinds of positions of power. It is something we should be very aware of in our own minds, so we don't perpetrate that ourselves.
But Guru Yoga, like consort practice, is a different matter. Devotion is a very powerful way of going beyond yourself. If you are a devoted type, it can be useful. If you have an authentic relationship with a guru, it can be liberating. But not everybody is in a practice path that uses devotion or gurus. There's the do-it-yourself path. There are plenty of other ways if you don't think you're into devotion and the guru path.
Authentic Buddhism comes from one place and one place only: From the experience of enlightenment. That's the touchstone. Buddhism comes from Buddha's enlightenment under the tree. Our Dharma practice comes out of our relation to the actual lived experience of something. We participate in that. That's authentic Buddhism.
The Vajrayana has its approach, the Theravada has its approach, and other schools have their approaches. It is important to find something that is compelling for you, that is authentic spiritual life. And we should keep our eyes peeled. Not disempower ourselves and give ourselves away too soon.
Cambridge, January 27, 1997

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"The Answer is 'There Is Nothing' "

I remember one of the teachings Ajahn Chah gave me personally. He used to come to our monastery at Wat Nanachat every week because we had built a sauna for him there. He found the sauna beneficial as his health was failing at this stage. When he came it was great because he would give us a talk as well. That day he'd come to give a talk. We had fired up the sauna, and as soon as it was ready a few monks went to help him. I would help; him sometimes; other times I let other people help.
This time, after giving a very inspiring talk to all the Western monks, he went off to the sauna, and I let some other monks look after him. I went to the back of the hall, sat outside, and had a deep, peaceful meditation. After coming out of my meditation I thought I would check out how Ajahn Chah was to see if I could help him. Walking from the hall to the sauna, I saw he had already finished and was walking in the opposite direction with some Thai lay people.
Ajahn Chah took one look at me, saw that I'd been in a deep meditation, and he said, "Brahmavamso, why?"
I was completely surprised and confused, and replied, "I don't know."
Afterwards he said, "If anyone ever asks you that question again, the correct answer is, 'There is nothing.' Do you understand?"
"Yes," I said.
"No you don't," he replied.
So if you've been asking that question, "Why? Why? Why?," I've given you the answer now. It's straight from a great meditation master, Ajahn Chah. The answer to the question "Why?" is, "There is nothing."
He was really great, Ajahn Chah, and he was correct. That will always remain with me, "There is nothing." This is emptiness. There is no doer. There is no knower, it's completely empty! To be able to get to that emptiness, encourage yourself by knowing that if you do find that emptiness, it's wonderful! All the Enlightened Ones that I have known have always been happy; they haven't regretted finding out that there's nothing there. No one has said to me, "I wish I hadn't found this out." It's liberating when you see there is nothing there. There is nothing to hold onto, and when you don't hold onto anything there's no suffering anymore.
All of the craving, all of the attachment, and all of the pain that arises because of those cravings and attachments, all have their origin in the illusion of self. That illusion of self creates a sense of "me" and a sense of amine," all that I want, all the praise and blame, the "I am" conceit (asmimana): aI am as good as the next person"; "I am better"; aI am worse." How many of you are still suffering because of comparing yourselves to someone else? You don't have to compare yourself to anybody. You're not there!
There is no more comparison anymore once you can give the "self" away. You don't even need to worry about what people think about you: because there is no one there to think about. How much suffering comes from worrying about what you think other people think about you, especially what I think about you because I'm the teacher here! What do I think about you? I don't think anything about you; because you are just not there!

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The Buddha referred to himself as a doctor, treating the spiritual illnesses of his students. This metaphor is useful to keep in mind as we discuss the basic categories of right view: The Four Noble Truths. Many people have charged Buddhism with being pessimistic because the four truths start out with stress and suffering (dukkha), but this charge misses the fact that the first truth is part of a strategy of diagnosis and therapy focusing on the basic problems in life so as to offer a solution to it. This is the sense in which the Buddha was like a doctor; focusing on the disease he wanted to cure. The total cure he promised as a result of his course of therapy shows that, in actuality, he was much less pessimistic than the vast majority of the world, for whom wisdom means accepting the bad things in life with the good, assuming that there is no chance in this life for unalloyed happiness. The Buddha was an extremely demanding person, unwilling to bend to this supposed wisdom or to rest with anything less than absolute happiness. We are fortunate that he was so demanding and succeeded in his aim, for otherwise we would have to undertake the uncertain task of tying to discover the way to that happiness ourselves.
Once the problem of stress and suffering is solved, he said, there are no more problems. This is why he limited his teaching to this issue, even though his own Awakening encompassed much more. The vicious cycle that operates between suffering and ignorance-- with ignorance underlying the craving that causes suffering, and suffering causing the bewilderment that leads people to act in ignorant and unskillful ways--can be broken down only when one focuses on understanding suffering and stress and the causal network that surrounds them. Most people are so bewildered by the complexities of suffering and stress that they do not even know what the true problem is. Thus they may deny t