Teachings
The Emptiness of all things
The Spiritual Life
Not Self
The Emptiness of all Things
"Clinging is to insist on being
someone; not to cling is to be free to be no one."
Nagarjuna.
Emptiness is an understanding of the inherent movement and fluidity of all phenomena, a way of looking at experience without adding to or taking away from the pure experience of what is arising.
When we say all things are empty of a solid separate existence, what does this mean? The Buddha used the example of a cart but maybe it is more appropriate these days to look at the car. If we remove each component piece by piece and say is this wheel a car or is this engine a car obviously the answer is no, it is whatever component we have removed. Eventually there will be nothing left that we can identify as a car therefore a car is only a combination of myriad parts; looking further we can see that this applies to everything.
Also we can see that everything depends on everything else for its existence. Nothing can be created or maintained in isolation therefore it is empty of any innate separate existence.
If we apply this to our own sense of self, we begin to undermine our very foundation and identity.
Where is the "I" or sense of separate self to be found and how is it constructed?
Thought claims ownership over all experience consolidating and confirming the self.
Where is the self?
Who controls thoughts and emotions? Who controls our body, who decides how we feel and who can stop the aging process?
The truth is we are an ever changing flow of experience. The self is not static or separate but part of the impermanent nature of existence.
When we try to control or stop the impermanent flow of life we only succeed in creating friction and suffering. There are no inherent separate things only the continuous interaction, the endless process of events. These events or movements of phenomena are all contingent and continually dependent upon all other phenomena. Normally we don’t see the world or our self in this way. Our universe is usually divided into two distinctly separate entities of me and the world. However with understanding we see that we are just phenomena that arises and ceases dependent on conditions, and that apart from these conditions we have no separate or independent reality.
In Emptiness there is an incredible freedom from any fixed identity; no one to pin down, to define or to enlighten. It is an absence of clinging to the sense of a separate self and of what belongs to this self. It is a free flowing existence with no hindrance or obstruction to the natural flow of life. No interference, interpretation or distortion of our life experience. Emptiness is free of the conceit of I and mine.
Emptiness is free of limitations; it is the world of experience flowing freely through the sense doors, free of interpretation and judgment. It is a clear response to life; free of self justification or aggrandizement.
Emptiness is our natural state; we are always empty. Although the mind tries to fill the emptiness with constructs and a belief in someone, who has ownership over our experience, it still remains empty.
An understanding of emptiness frees one from the need to attain or acquire any state or knowledge in order to feel fulfilled.
Emptiness is an understanding not a place or state. It is the inherent nature of things as they are, not bounded by time or space.
Emptiness is full of freedom.
As Nagarjuna said, "All things are empty, even emptiness is empty".
Emptiness is not an excuse for abdicating responsibility or for failing to respond appropriately to suffering as it arises. Emptiness expresses itself through love and compassion; these naturally arise when the "I" subsides. When I am not obsessed with my own wants then I am naturally concerned with the welfare of others.
Out of the awareness of the emptiness of all things flows a life of freedom, wisdom, creativity, compassion and a deep appreciation for all life.
May all beings realize the inherent emptiness of all things.
"The spiritual life does not have
gain, honour, and renown for its benefit,
or the attainment of virtues for its
benefit,
or the attainment of concentration
for its benefit,
or knowledge and vision for its
benefit.
But it is this unshakeable
deliverance of mind
That is the goal of the spiritual
life, its heartwood, and its end."
This is a quote from the Heartwood sutta where the Buddha explains
just
what is at the very core of Dharma practice.
Dharma practice is not concerned with any form of personal gain, it is
not a practice of self help or self indulgence. Dharma practice is
only
concerned with freedom of being, freedom from all past habitual
patterns of mind, from all reactions, from clinging to personal views
and opinions and to any imagined fears of the future.
At the heart of Dharma practice is this unshakeable deliverance of
mind.
When looking at our minds we may not be able to recognize this
unshakeable quality just a scattered and confused quality. A quality
of
mind that is easily disturbed and affected by the world around us, a
mind so easily attached to and affected by what the Buddha called the
eight worldly conditions, gain and loss, success and failure, praise
and blame and pleasure and pain.
These conditions all revolve around the concept or construction
of self, or who I think I am. This self with all its ownership, its
problems, its worries, its failures, its accomplishments and its
sorrows is continuously and subtly guiding our daily decision making.
It brings great freedom to see through the obsessive culture of
success, to drop out of that mind stream that defines itself by how
much money it has, what possessions it acquires, what job it holds,
how
much it knows or even how aware it is.
As the Buddha says the spiritual life does not have gain or attainment
as its benefit so the question arises how is this unshakeable
deliverance of mind to be achieved.
Dharma practice is the path that cultivates the environment that
enables the natural letting go of all constrictions, all tension, all
stress and all suffering. However clinging to or giving too much
importance to these techniques or practices undermines any possibility
of freedom arising. Meditation cannot be attained; it doesn’t exist in
the world of achievement, comparison or division.
Sitting, standing, walking, working or playing, every moment, every
experience and every action can be an opportunity for meditation.
As Krishnamurti said;
"Meditation is that light in the
mind
which lights the way for action; and without that light there is no
love."
When the self that is constantly judging, comparing and
commentating on the world, falls away and recedes into the background
then the mind is open, like a room on a hot summer’s day, the sense
doors and windows are wide open allowing a cool breeze to flow through
and life is free to unfold naturally.
Meditation has a taste of stillness and silence and in this sense of
spaciousness freedom and love blossom.
All addictions, be they habitual patterns of thought or emotional
reactions or modes of behaviour, consumerism or addiction to
substances
enslave and bind us. We need freedom from our dilemmas and freedom
from
relying on any conditions for our happiness.
This unshakeable deliverance of mind is not dependent on any
conditions
or constructions. It is what remains when all forms of clinging are
abandoned.
The goal of the spiritual life, this unshakeable deliverance of mind
is
to be realized and the Buddha described the expression of this mind as
having the qualities of the divine abodes.
Loving Kindness, Compassion, Appreciative Joy and Equanimity
So let us recognize these qualities in ourselves and in each other and
in so doing express this unshakeable deliverance of mind.
May we all taste this unshakeable deliverance of mind.
Not Self
This teaching of not self or anatta is difficult to understand, it is
not as some people think a teaching of no self but the teaching of the
emptiness of self. In other words there is no innate separate
substance
or permanence to the self. This is seeing into the ever-flowing
changing phenomena of self.
This seeing allows for a great freedom to enter our lives, we don’t
need to take ourselves so seriously. It allows for more spaciousness
and lightness of being.
Life as the Buddha said is uncertain and all things are impermanent
(Anicca).
He described life as "like a dew drop on the tip of a leaf on a
summer’s morning", and "like a line drawn on water”.
The idea of a fixed self is unnatural due to its rigidity and sense of
permanence. When we understand the impermanent, constructed
nature of self then we begin to get a sense of not self (anatta) or a
self that is empty of the fascination with I and mine.
In meditation we get a sense of the emptiness and insubstantiality of
the self. We can rest in the spaciousness of being, just allowing all
phenomena to arise and pass away.
Also in moments of creativity or in making love or in nature we
experience a falling away of the identification with self. This brings
us in touch with the immeasurable nature of not self, the natural joy,
creative energy, love and compassion.
The self is a captive of time but by not clinging to the idea of self
there arises a freedom from any limitation of time, free from any
becoming. Awakening and freedom have absolutely nothing to do with
becoming.
Letting go of the construction of self opens the doorways of the
heart,
and with the opening of the heart the duality of self and other begins
to dissolve. We feel a deep connection with life; realizing the
interconnection and interdependence of all things.
We then embrace the paradox; on the one hand the miracle of this
conventional, conditioned self, this unique being, a one off, never to
be repeated in the history of the universe and on the other hand its
boundless empty nature, intimately connected to all beings.
"Above, below and everywhere
released.
One not observing, "I am this"
Has crossed the flood not crossed
before."
Freed with no renewal of being or
becoming.” (Buddha).
So with a letting go of clinging to I and mine comes the possibility
to
live in a radically different way, to live free of the
past, free of self-obsession and free of living in reaction to life.
Then we have the chance to touch that which is not constructed, the
immeasurable, timeless nature of this unfolding life. That which the
Buddha called the Deathless
"View the world, as empty — the
Buddha said,
Always being mindful to drop any
view
or idea about self.
This way one is above & beyond
death."
By not clinging to the construction of self and other, and by seeing
into the empty nature of not self the doorway to freedom and true
liberation opens.
So may your self be always empty and your heart filled with wonder and
mystery