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‘I am not, I will not be.
I have not, I will not have.
This frightens all children,
And kills fear in the wise.’
Nagarjuna

CONVENTIONAL AND ULTIMATE WISDOM

Although Albert Einstein was certainly not a Buddhist, these statements sound much like it:

“A human being is part of a whole, called by us the ‘universe’, a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest
- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affectation for a few people near us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

From Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh:

“Enlightenment for a wave in the ocean is the moment the wave realises that it is water.”

Wisdom in Buddhism can refer to two types of insight: conventional wisdom and ultimate wisdom:

Conventional wisdom relates to understanding the conventional world, or the world as we know it. Traditionally it refers to understanding the way in which karma functions; to understand which actions bring us happiness and which bring us suffering. Conventional wisdom covers all understanding of the world as it functions, including science, with the exception of ultimate wisdom.

Ultimate wisdom (jñana in Sanskrit) refers to a direct realisation which is non-dualistic, and contradicts the way in which we ordinarily perceive the world. The experience of ultimate truth or emptiness is beyond duality.
It is important to remember that emptiness here does not refer to nothingness or some kind of nihilistic view. Emptiness refers to the fact that ultimately, our day-to-day experience of reality is wrong, and is ‘empty’ of many qualities that we normally assign to it.
Describing this non-dual experience in words is not really possible, as language is based on duality and contrasts. Trying to explain this experience – which contradicts our normal perception – is a bit like explaining colors to someone who is born blind; difficult to say the least.

WHY TRYING TO UNDERSTAND IT?

“…I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion, and elimination of ignorance, selfishness, and greed…”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama

If it can not really be explained in words, why bother?
According to the Buddha, as long as we do not realise emptiness directly – especially of our idea of how our “I” or ’self’ exists – we do not properly understand how the world functions and we will continue to create causes for our own misery.

“How much suffering and fear, and
How many harmful things are in existence?
If all arises from clinging to the “I”,
What should I do with this great demon?”
Shantideva

Merely starting to doubt our perception of the world is invaluable if we ever hope to break the bondage to uncontrolled cyclic existence and suffering. In order to familiarise ourselves with this all-important experience, we can try to familiarise ourselves with it on an intellectual level. When we would experience emptiness, we would then be able to recognise it. Instead of believing we have suddenly gone mad, recognition would encourage us to enhance the experience and achieve liberation from suffering.

INTERDEPENDENCE

The wisdom of emptiness refers to a lack of something: ‘inherent existence’. ‘Inherent existence’ means that things appear to exist independently, in- and out of themselves, from the side of the object, by way of its’ own character, self-powered, autonomous. Ultimately however, things exist in dependence upon causes and conditions. For example, a human being ceases to exist in a vacuum, we would instantly die when all conditions for life are suddenly gone. On another level, a human being needs to come into existence by the combination of a sperm from the father joining an egg from the mother and all the right conditions to grow into an embryo. So, considering ourselves as independently existing, fully autonomous is a mere illusion and does not accord with ultimate reality.

Ultimate wisdom can be compared to eco-thinking in biology: a century ago, biology focused mainly on categorising species of animals and plants and describing their specific aspects. Plants and animals were cut to ever smaller pieces to analyse how they function.
However, nature also functions at a completely different level; as relations and processes between living beings. Ecology appeared as a new branch of biology, more dealing with relations, cycles and interdependence of animals, plants and surroundings. This is somewhat similar to the view of emptiness. Instead of focusing on differences and individuality, the realisation of emptiness is about realising that nothing exists by itself alone, but depends on other things. Just as all living beings rely on other living beings – at least their ancestors, so do even inanimate objects depend on other objects, conditions, parts and processes to arise and disappear.

The fact that we normally do not realise emptiness and the relatedness of things is directly related to our perception. As soon as we perceive something in the outside world, it feels different from our own body or mind. We feel as if other things are “out there”, separate from “my self”, which is “in here”.
But are they really separate? To begin with, if the outer object would not somehow “relate” to us in the form of sound, smell, light etc., we would be unable to perceive it. So our perception of objects depends on interaction, rather than the fact that we are separate. To put it simple, our perception of the world is only possible because of interaction, interrelation, dependence and exchange of information.

From the Avatamsaka Sutra:

“Far away, in the heavenly abode of the great god Indra, there is a wonderful net which has been hung by some cunning artificer in such a manner that it stretches out infinitely in all directions. In accordance with the extravagant tastes of deities, the artificer has hung a single glittering jewel in each eye of the net, and since the net itself is infinite in dimension, the jewels are infinite in number.
There hang the jewels, glittering like stars of the first magnitude, a wonderful sight to behold. If we now look closely at any one of the jewels for inspection, we will discover that in its polished surface are reflected all the other jewels in the net, infinite in number. Not only that, but each of the jewels reflected in this one jewel is reflecting all the other jewels, so that there is an infinite reflection process occuring.
This symbolises our world where every sentient being (and thing) is inter-related to one another.”

His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, from The Compassionate Life:

“All events and incidents in life are so intimately linked with the fate of others that a single person on his or her own cannot even begin to act. Many ordinary human activities, both positive and negative, cannot even be conceived of apart from the existence of other people. Even the committing of harmful actions depends on the existence of others. Because of others, we have the opportunity to earn money if that is what we desire in life. Similarly, in reliance upon the existence of others it becomes possible for the media to create fame or disrepute for someone. On your own you cannot create any fame or disrepute no matter how loud you might shout. The closest you can get is to create an echo of your own voice.

Thus interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Not only higher forms of life but also many of the smallest insects are social beings who, without any religion, law, or education, survive by mutual cooperation based on an innate recognition of their interconnectedness. The most subtle level of material phenomena is also governed by interdependence. All phenomena, from the planet we inhabit to the oceans, clouds, forests, and flowers that surround us, arise in dependence upon subtle patterns of energy. Without their proper interaction, they dissolve and decay.”

PERCEPTION AND OBJECTIVITY

When we perceive an object, we automatically tend to label it (like nice, bad, wet, dry, light, dark, etc.). As soon as our mind puts a label on an object, the label takes the place of the actual object in our mental processes. As our mental image or label can never represent all the different qualities and characteristics of any object, it is always just a simplified, usually exaggerated, subjective snap shot. However, our mind reacts on the basis of our own mental label of an object. No wonder we tend to react simplistic, exaggerated and subjective in many situations. All perceived objects are conditioned by our senses and our own mind.
This leads to the dramatic conclusion that we are not and by definition can never be objective!

Or, as the famous physicist Werner Heisenberg said,

“What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning”….

SEPARATENESS

Our labelling leads to problems like anger and attachment, but also to the more basic problem that we think we are somehow separate from the outside world. But are we separate from the outside world?
When we see something – for example a table – it appears to be separate from the rest of the world, just standing there by itself, but is that correct? How could the table stand there without the ground supporting it? How could the table exist without a carpenter making it from pieces of wood? The pieces of wood come from a tree, which comes from a seed, water, soil, air, the sun and its nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms etcetera…. Every object needs causes and conditions to exist, just like we need our parents, food, air, clothes and many more things to exist. Apart from that, our perception of an object is strongly coloured by our own senses, mental state and memories. In this way, it becomes impossible to maintain that ‘I’ am separate from the outside world, however much it feels that way.

“Monks, we who look at the whole and not just the part, know that we too are systems of interdependence, of feelings, perceptions, thoughts, and consciousness all interconnected. Investigating in this way, we come to realize that there is no me or mine in any one part, just as a sound does not belong to any one part of the lute.”
-Samyutta Nikaya, from “Buddha Speaks”

“It is important to remember always that the principle of egolessness does not mean that there was an ego in the first place, and the Buddhists did away with it. On the contrary, it means there was never any ego at all to begin with. To realize that is called ‘egolessness’.”
Sogyal Rinpoche

THE PHILOSOPHY OF EMPTINESS

Buddhism teaches that things are:

1. Dependent on their parts
2. Interrelated, not isolated
3. Merely labelled

To prevent misunderstanding, we must avoid the “two extremes”, that is, believing that:

1. Things are permanent, independent of their parts, and independent of our labelling
2. Things do not exist at all (nihilism).

HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO ME?

This view has consequences when it is applied to whatever I call “I” and “mine”:

• I am not isolated from my surroundings and other living beings.
• I “create” the world with my own concepts and ideas.
• The world is like an illusion: how I see the world depends on my own ideas/projections.
• This world is “my” film, “my” projection, I run the show, so I can change my experience of the world.
• I can change the world, if I start with my own mind.
• I can change, as “I” is only a concept, impermanent and dependent on causes and conditions, just like all phenomena (even emptiness itself).
• Although I can understand this intellectually, I don’t perceive the world that way until I directly realise emptiness!

“Sometimes, the thought of “I” suddenly arises with great force….The situation is like that of a rock or a tree seen protruding up from the peak of a hill on the horizon: From afar it may be mistaken for a human being. Yet the existence of a human in that rock or tree is only an illusion. On deeper investigation, no human being can be found in any of the individual pieces of the protruding entity, nor in its collection of parts, nor in any other aspect of it. Nothing in the protrusion can be said to be a valid basis for the name “human being.”
Likewise, the solid “I” which seems to exist somewhere within the body and mind is merely an imputation. The body and mind are no more represented by the sense of “I” than is the protruding rock represented by the word “human.” This “I” cannot be located anywhere within any individual piece of the body and mind, nor is it found within the body and mind as a collection, nor is there a place outside of these that could be considered to be a substantial basis of the object referred to by the name “I”.”
The Second Dalai Lama (1475-1542), in Samuel Bercholz’s ‘Entering the Stream‘.

…when we talk about the notion of self in Buddhism, it is important to bear in mind that there are different degrees or types. There are some types of sense of self which are not only to be cultivated but also to be reinforced and enhanced. For instance, in order to have a strong determination to seek Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings, one needs a very strong sense of confidence, which is based upon a sense of commitment and courage. This requires a strong sense of self. Unless one has that identity or sense of self, one will not be able to develop the confidence and courage to strongly seek this aim. In addition, the doctrine of Buddha-nature gives us a lot of encouragement and confidence because we realize that there is this potential within us which will allow us to attain the perfection that we are seeking. However, there are different types of sense of self which are rooted in a belief in a permanent, solid, indivisible entity called “self” or “I.” There is the belief that there is something very concrete or objective about this entity. This is a false notion of self which must be overcome.
From Healing Anger by His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Please do take 5 minutes to look at this enjoyable video on YouTube with smooth music from Sakya Mipham, that has a remarkable message – think about it!

HOW TO INTEGRATE EMPTINESS INTO DAILY LIFE
By Lama Thubten Yeshe

What is emptiness? Emptiness (shunyata) is the reality of the existence of ourselves, and all the phenomena around us. According to the Buddhist point of view, seeking reality and seeking liberation amount to the same thing. The person who doesn’t want to seek reality doesn’t really want to seek liberation, and is just confused.
If you seek reality and you think that it has to be taught to you by a Tibetan Lama, that you have to look for it outside yourself, in another place – maybe Shangrila! – then you are mistaken. You cannot seek reality outside yourself because you are reality. Perhaps you think that your life, your reality was made by society, by your friends? If you think that way you are far from reality. if you think that your existence, your life was made by somebody else it means that you are not taking the responsibility to understand reality.
You have to see that your attitudes, your view of the world, of your experiences, of your girlfriend or boyfriend, of your own self, are all the interpretation of your own mind, your own imagination. They are your own projection, your mind literally made them up. If you don’t understand this then you have very little chance of understanding emptiness.
This is not just the Buddhist view but also the experience of Western physicists and philosophers – they have researched into reality too. Physicists look and look and look and they simply cannot find one entity that exists in a permanent, stable way: this is the Western experience of emptiness.
If you can imagine that then you will not have any concrete concepts; if you understand this experience of physicists then you will let go of your worldly problems – but you don’t want to understand.
It seems to me that we twentieth century people are against nature, against reality, the very opposite of reality. Each moment we build up our artificial, polluted ego; we cover ourselves with heavy ego blankets – one, two, ten, one hundred blankets against nature, against reality. Modern life is the product of the intellectual mind, and we create it. The intellectual mind is superstition. We don’t understand reality, and the intellectual life that we lead keeps us far from reality.
So we don’t accept who we are. We are always looking to cover ourselves with thick blankets and say “this is me”. We hide our own reality and run away from natural beauty, completely neglecting it. By not touching our reality, our modern life becomes so complicated and we create problems with our superstition. We are like a spider spinning his web, climbing on his thread then falling down; climbing up again and falling down again. In the same way we build our own intellectual web, a way of life, that is so complicated, that doesn’t touch reality, that is so difficult to live in. This construction arises from our own mind and does not arise from anything else.
If I told you that you are nothing, you are zero, that you are nothing that you think you are, then you would be shocked. “What is this monk saying?” But what if I say that it is the truth! In fact you are non duality, non self existence. You do not exist, relatively or absolutely, as you think you do. If you really understood this then you would become more realistic and you would really gain satisfaction and peace. But as long as you hold on to the fantasy, concrete conception of yourself and project this wrong conception onto your environment, then no way will you understand reality.
In Western cities nowadays, you can see, the older you are the more problems you have. When we are young, not so many problems, but then there are drugs and sex, and eventually they become dissatisfying, then more depression, more depression. So, as your body becomes bigger and your brain becomes wider, you have more and more problems and become more and more depressed. The more money you have the more problems come. You can see this.
You only take care of your body, you never take care of your mind, and the result of this imbalance is depression. For most western people this is the case: only the body is reality and they don’t care about the existence of the mind, the soul, the consciousness. They don’t believe they can change their minds. They can change their nose through an operation, but they don’t believe they can change their mind. And when you believe this, then no way can you resolve your depression.
Our thoughts, our mind or consciousness are mental energy and cannot be localised in the body. It cannot be touched; it has no form and does not travel in time and space. We cannot touch it or grasp it.
What is important to understand is that the view you have of yourself and the view you have of your environment are based on your own mind; they are the projection of your mind and that is why they are not reality.
I will give you a good example. When a western man or woman looks for a girl or boyfriend, there is this research energy from both sides and when suddenly they see each other they make up an incredible story. “Oh, so beautiful! Nothing wrong inside or outside”. They build up a perfect myth. They push and push., the mind makes it all up. If they are Christian they say, “Oh, he looks just like Jesus. She looks just like an angel. So nice, so pure”. Actually, they are just projecting their own fantasies onto each other.
If she is Hindu, then he would say, “Oh, she looks like Kali, like Mother Earth, like my universal mother”…and if you are Buddhist you fold your hands and say, “Oh, she is a dakini and she is showing me the true nature of all things”. You understand? “When I am near her she gives me energy, energy. Before, I was so lazy, I couldn’t move, I was like a dead person. But now whenever I go near her I can’t believe my energy!” I tell you all this is superstitious interpretation. You think that she is your spiritual friend and all she does is really perfect, even her kaka and pee pee are so pure! Excuse me, perhaps I shouldn’t talk like this – I am a Buddhist monk! But when we speak about Buddhism, about reality then we have to speak practically, from daily life, about what is earthy, what we can touch and see, not just get caught up in concepts.
What I mean is this: you should recognise how every appearance in your daily lift is in fact a false projection of your own mind. Your own mind makes it up and becomes an obstacle to touching reality. This is why, our entire life, no matter what kind of life we have, it is a disaster. If you have a rich life, your life is a disaster. If you have a middle class life, your life is a disaster. If you have a poor life, your life is even more of a disaster! You become a monk and your life is a disaster. If you become a Christian your life is a disaster. A Buddhist, disaster… Be honest. Be honest with yourself.
In fact reality is very simple. The simplicity of the mind can touch reality, and meditation is something that goes beyond the intellect and brings the mind into its natural state. We have the pure nature already, this reality exists in us now, it is born with us… The essence of your consciousness, your truth, your soul is not absolutely negative, it does not have an essentially negative character. Our mind is like the sky and our problems of ego grasping and self pity are like clouds. Eventually they all pass and disappear. You should not believe, “I am my ego, I am my problems, therefore I cannot solve my problems”. Wrong. You can see. Sometimes we are so clear in our life we are almost radiating. We can have this experience right now. Now!
So it is wrong to think that we are always a disaster. Sometimes we are clean clear, sometimes we are a disaster. So, stay in meditation, just keep in that clean clear state as much as possible. All of us can have that clean clear state of mind.
Actually, maybe this is the moment to meditate. My feeling is to meditate now. So, close your eyes, don’t think, “I am meditating”, just close your eyes and whatever view is there, whatever view is there in your mind, just be aware. Don’t interpret good, bad. Just be like a light – light doesn’t think “I like this, I like that”. It is just a light. Whatever is in your consciousness, whatever experience, just be aware. That is all.
Whatever your experience at the moment, whatever your colour, whatever appearance is there, just stay aware. Be aware. If it’s black energy, then that black energy is clean clear. If it’s white energy, just feel that clean clear state. Be aware of whatever is happening. No interpretation … Don’t try to hold onto something or to reject something.
Excerpt from Lama Yeshe’s talk at VajraYogini Institute, France, September 5, 1983.

HOW TO PRACTISE?

To realise emptiness, externally we need a qualified teacher, and internally we need enough merit (or karma), purification, practice of ethics, keeping our vows and generating single-pointed concentration.
In the Tibetan tradition: first one tries to intellectually understand it, then later the realisation can ripen in the well-prepared field of our mind.

It is advised to analyse the “I” first, and then later one analyses other phenomena in the same way, for example using the “fourfold analysis”:

1. Identify object of negation: inherently existent “I”
2. Determine possibilities of how the “I” exists: is it the body, the mind, both or different? (We can say, “I have have a body and a mind”, which would indicate that the “I” is something different from the body and the mind, but is that possible?)
3. Is the “I” same as body and/or mind?
4. Is the “I” other than body and mind?

“While you are meditating there is an “I” (representing the Self) which appears to exist from its own side. Right on top of that think, ‘the I is merely labelled’. Just meditate on the meaning of the I being merely labelled. I is a name; a name does not exist from its own side, a name is given, imputed by the mind. We can completely agree with that. This I is merely labelled; concentrate on just that. Try to feel that. This automatically eliminates eternalism, the view of a truly existent I.”
Lama Zopa Rinpoche

“The real glory of meditation lies not in any method but in its continual living experience of presence, in its bliss, clarity, peace, and most important of all, complete absence of grasping. The diminishing of grasping in yourself is a sign that you are becoming freer of yourself. And the more you experience this freedom, the clearer the sign that the ego and the hopes and fears that keep it alive are dissolving, and the closer you will come to the infinitely generous “wisdom of egolessness.” When you live in the wisdom home, you’ll no longer find a barrier between “I” and “you,” “this” and “that,” “inside” and “outside;” you’ll have come, finally, to your true home, the state of non-duality.”
Sogyal Rinpoche

“Intelligent Practice always deals with just one thing: the fear at the base of human existence, the fear that I am not. And of course I am not, but the last thing I want to know is that. I am impermanence itself in a rapidly changing human form that appears solid. I fear to see what I am: an ever-changing energy field. I don’t want to be that. So good practice is about fear. Fear takes the form of constantly thinking, speculating, analyzing, fantasizing. With all that activity we create a cloud to keep ourselves safe in make-believe practice. True practice is not safe; it’s anything but safe. But we don’t like that, so we obsess with our feverish efforts to achieve our version of the personal dream. Such obsessive practice is itself just another cloud between ourselves and reality. The only thing that matters is seeing with an impersonal spotlight: seeing things as they really are. When the personal barrier drops away, why do we have to call it anything? We just live our lives. And when we die, we just die. No problem anywhere.”
Charlotte Joko Beck, in ‘Everyday Zen‘

“Our exaggerated sense of self and our compulsion to find happiness for this larger-than-life self we have fabricated cause us to ignore, neglect and harm others. Of course, it is our right to love and take care of ourselves, but not at the expense of others. While “As long as I’m alright” is our motto, we have no hesitation in acting with total disregard for others.”
From: The Three Principal Aspects of the Path: An Oral Teaching by Geshe Sonam Rinchen

For a funny practical teaching; click on the Snowman to download this self-extracting Flash file (it is 256kB, so may take a couple of minutes to download).

TO THINK OR NOT TO THINK?

One issue which can create much confusion is about our dualistic mind. Normally, our mind functions on a very dualistic level, which means that we continuously make distinctions, like black and white, good and bad, hard and soft. This level of mind reasons and is the basis for our ability to think logical using concepts. However, the goal of the teachings on emptiness is to lead to a non-dualistic experience (realisation) of emptiness. Different schools may approach this problem differently; for example, the Zen schools tend to emphasise first achieving a non-dualistic state of mind in meditation, the Tibetan schools first emphasise proper dualistic, inferential, logical understanding of the subject, and then meditating on it to achieve the direct realisation.

A question was put to to His Holiness Dalai Lama:

“How does one go from inferential knowledge to nonconceptual knowledge? Since analysis is used to arrive at total inferential knowledge any more analysis would still be inferential.”

His Holiness’ answer:

“Among meditations there are many different types and in special situations such as certain levels of Highest Yoga Tantra for example, analysis is discouraged. The general mode of procedure on the Buddhist path is that through constant reflection on the knowledge which is initially inferential, through various stages of familiarisation, reflection and contemplation, that knowledge which is initially inferential could eventually become nonconceptual. The engagement of that knowledge in relation to the object becomes subtler and subtler, eventually the knowledge becomes direct and unveiled.
Generally speaking it is very true that there must be a correlation between cause and its effects. Any cause can not give rise to any effect. There must be some causal relationship and connection but that does not mean that every effect must have completely similar causes. Take for instance the omnisicent mind of the Buddha; if we insist that its cause must be completely similar in characteristics with its effect which is omniscient mind, then we will have to maintain that within us we possess the seed for attaining Buddha’s omniscient mind and wisdom. Then we must possess within us, even to a slight degree some form of Buddha’s omniscient mind which cannot be maintained. As far as non-conceptual awareness or wisdom of Arya beings is concerned, the causes need not be such high states of realisation. Therefore regarding the non-dualistic awareness or wisdom of Arya beings, their causes can be said to exist even within ordinary beings.
If we examine our mind, as long as we remain in an ordinary state of existence, our mind is characterized by dualistic perceptions, dualistic experiences. Within this dualistic experience and perception we must be able to seek some kind of seed which would give rise to non-dual wisdom and awareness. Therefore in the initial stage of knowledge, it is inferential, dualistic and characterized by duality between subject and object. As you train your mind and constantly reflect and cultivate your familiarity with that object, then that subject and object duality will gradually diminish in its intensity. Gradually it will lead you to realization. Your knowledge of the object becomes direct, intuitive and non-conceptual.
When we talk of non-dual awareness in the context of dualistic appearances or dualism, one must bear in mind that there are many different meanings of the term. Dualistic experience could be understood in terms of a multitude of ways: conventional appearance as dualistic appearance, subject and object duality or separateness as being dualistic appearance; or as a generated image through which we can conceive as object, that image can be seen as dualistic appearance. Similarly when we come across the term non-conceptuality we do not have the notion that there is only a single meaning which is universal in every single context. Non-conceptuality will have different meanings in different contexts.”

WISDOM AND COMPASSION

With this explanation, you may be tempted to think that emptiness is all about playing with words and doing complicated mind games. However, it is said that realising emptiness directly can solve all our problems, as all our problems are caused by our misunderstanding of the world. As all our communication is based on words which cannot express the ultimate truth, please try to discover the real meaning behind the words for yourself!

Another thing that should be kept in mind is that when one directly experiences emptiness, the mind cannot perceive anything dualistic, meaning it cannot perceive anything of the “normal” world. That does not mean there is no perception at all, but we would perceive the world very different. Perhaps comparable as if everyone would have an eye-defect and see all things as blue. When a medicine becomes available to cure this defect, nothing would look familiar, as the colors all appear to unfamiliar and strange. This is why discussions on emptiness often tend to go astray and may have an “otherworldly” feel to them, from the ultimate view of emptiness, all our normal perception and thinking about reality is flawed. It is said that only a fully realised Buddha can experience emptiness and ordinary existence simultaneously.

Now a few words on the combination of wisdom and compassion. In Tibetan Buddhism, these are considered the two most important aspects of practice. Just like a bird needs two wings to fly; a very compassionate person without wisdom is only a likeable fool, and a person with wisdom and no compassion is like a lonely hermit in an ivory tower… Both will reinforce each other: once we realise how interrelated we all are, it is hard not to feel some level of compassion, and once we feel compassionate to others we realise our interrelatedness.

“Recently I am emphasizing that due to the modern economy, and also due to information and education, the world is now heavily interdependent, interconnected. Under such circumstances, the concept of ‘we’ and ‘they’ is gone: harming your neighbor is actually harming yourself. If you do negative things towards your neighbor, that is actually creating your own suffering. And helping them, showing concern about others’ welfare — actually these are the major factors of your own happiness. If you want a community full of joy, full of friendship, you should create that possibility. If you remain negative, and meantime want more smiles and friendship from your neighbors, that’s illogical. If you want a more friendly neighbor, you must create the atmosphere. They they will respond.”
His Holiness the Dalai Lama (from an interview in the November issue of the Shambala Sun)

“The one thing to be attained is essentially void and compassionate. Let me explain.
The realisation of voidness is the absolute spirit of enlightenment; it is seeing that all things are unborn.
Compassion is the relative spirit of enlightenment; it is reaching out in love to all beings who have yet to realise that they are unborn.
Those who follow the Mahayana path should develop these two forms of the spirit of enlightenment.”
Drom Tonpa

“The supreme goal of the teachings is the emptiness whose nature is compassion.”
Atisha

“Know emptiness, be compassionate.”
Milarepa

Samadhi Raja Sutra

Know all things to be like this:
A mirage, a cloud castle,
A dream, an apparition,
Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

Know all things to be like this:
As the moon in a bright sky
In some clear lake reflected,
Though to that lake the moon has never moved.

Know all things to be like this:
As an echo that derives
From music, sounds, and weeping,
Yet in that echo is no melody.

Know all things to be like this:
As a magician makes illusions
Of horses, oxen, carts and other things,
Nothing is as it appears.
The Buddha

Taken from: http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/wisdom_emptiness.html

Dhammapada – The Just
“The true master lives in truth,
In goodness and restraint,
Nonviolence, moderation and purity.”

Today we are going to focus on the word “restraint.”
Lets see what the dictionary says about this word.
Restrain – keep under control; keep in check; the act of controlling; to close within bounds, limit or hold back from movement.

The true master practices restraint. First lets understand who is the master? The master is you. The master is your true self, the true self is the real you, your Buddha Nature, your Christ Nature, the Likeness of God, Atman, no-self, whatever you want to call it. The master is the pure divine nature that you have once experienced when you were a child. This nature is also described to be your child-like nature. It is the same nature a person experiences when they get enlightened. This nature is also called God. We are pieces of the Divine, that is why in Judaism and Christianity it is said we are made in the image of God and that mage is the nature of God, the likeness, the character, the attributes of God, the Pureness, the Light.

And this nature is always threatened by the ego. Ego wants to conquer and dethrone the true self. How can the true self be dethroned? By having desire, passion and all the false selfish characteristics and attributes of mara, the devil, darkness, the ego, the false self, what ever you want to call it. This false nature lives inside of us all. It’s like the sun and moon, we experience them both everyday. Light and darkness, good and bad, ying and yang, God and Devil, the list goes on, there is many names to this. But it depends on us, who we want to be King, Lord, Teacher, Master to sit on the throne of our hearts. In this teaching, we are talking about the true self, which means we are talking about the person who is seeking enlightenment, who is walking the path of purity, the person who is practicing restraint, who has denounced the desires of the false self.

When the false self penetrates the mind, it is when it dethrones the true self. Have you ever heard the phrase, “Have you lost your mind?” That is when your true nature is dethroned by false self and you start to become a bitter, self-centered person, one without happiness, one that is reacts to the thoughts of mara. The person that has given into the desires and lies of the false self has lost its mind. When the mind has been lost, the mind has been high jacked by deception. When the Buddha mentioned the word “restraint” in the above verse, he knew this is a very important word. Restraining is self-control. Self-control is one of the fruits of the Spirit in Christianity. Practicing restraint or self-control means we are restraining from the angry thought that comes into our mind when someone cuts us off when we are driving or talking, when someone curses us out, when we lose our job or anything we love, when our feelings are hurt. Practicing restraint is controlling our emotions. And if you notice the word restraint, it has the letters “re,” which stems from the action of repeating something. Lets do a little word play and look at some words that use the letters “re.” Repeat, recall, remember, remind, reenter, retake, reconnect, reevaluate and the list can go on. These words are things that describe things that repeat, things that we do again. Lets look at the word strain and its meaning: sift: separate by passing through a sieve or other straining device to separate out coarser elements; or filter: remove by passing through a filter; “filter out the impurities.” Therefore, just like a traffic police we need to direct the traffic of our mind. By noticing each thought we can filter or sift out thoughts that come into the mind. This process is an everyday thing because it is an on-going process until the day we die. But the good news is the notions and thoughts that rise into the mind become less and less effective and influential when we get deeper into our daily practice. That means we are meditating and studying the Dharma on a daily basis.

In the Heart Sutra, the Bodhisattva of Compassion discovers that to remove all suffering we need to recognize and understand emptiness. Emptiness is the key to remove the potential of allowing mara to have access to our minds and hearts. When we empty our life and detach from everything, from our ideas, our concepts, our beliefs, our thoughts, then we will realize that there is no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. No color, sound, smell, taste, touch, object of thought. When we fully understand this, then we go beyond, way beyond, into an awakening. We know what this emptiness feels like because we have experienced it when we were in the womb of our mother. We had no object of thought. There was no meaning of anything. Our minds were completely still, in complete peace, because we were empty. Can you remember when you were in your mother’s womb? I don’t think so. You had no thought in the womb. Since you didn’t have any thought when you were in the womb, you had no suffering. And since there was no thought in the womb, you were empty, there was no self, and you didn’t have any notion. When there is no-self, then is no suffering. When it is removed, the notions and thoughts that rise into the mind cannot grasp or cling to anything, because there is nothing to grasp, there is only emptiness, there is nothing to settle on, no one is home, your house is empty.

In the Heart Sutra, the Bodhisattva clearly saw and understood about emptiness when he was practicing deep prajna paramita, in other words, when he was meditating deeply on Perfection of Wisdom. This is the perfection of wisdom of the heart. The Buddha said in the Dhammapada – Impurity, “The Way is not in the sky, the Way is in the heart.” In Judaism Old Testament in Proverbs 4:23, it says “Keep your heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.” So in this verse we see it talks about mindfulness. Keep your heart; protect your heart, practice restraint. The Way and the issues of Life are within you and you can only see this when you go within and meditate deeply. And once you know your true self, then you can say, “I AM, that I AM.” You are not what your parents named you; you are not what you have defined yourself to be. Peel off everything you have learned and adapted to and empty yourself and look within, into the heart. Know your true self.

In Christianity, Jesus Christ died on the cross, which was symbolic to what we need to do to the false self. We need to crucify it on the cross; we need to let it die. The death on the cross also means “emptiness.” Jesus didn’t live for himself; He didn’t live a selfish life, He lived in emptiness, there was no self. He lived for the cause, to liberate mankind from suffering. Jesus said, “Me and the Father are One.” He didn’t live for himself, He lived for God, He emptied himself. And the resurrection of Jesus is symbolic to the awaking to a glorious body, to enlightenment, to the true self, the pure nature. So when we empty ourselves from all selfishness, we awakening or resurrect our true self, our Christ Nature, our Divine Nature, our Buddha Nature.

You have this pure nature already. You have emptiness already. But you need to rediscover it. You need to reconnect to it. You have purity, you have courage, you have peace, you have love, you have joy. You can also say “I am peace, I am love, I am joy, I am confidence, I AM FREE!” Free yourself from guilt, free yourself from all suffering and let go and smile because you are free!

It’s like in the movie Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow wanted a brain, the lion wanted courage, and the tin man wanted a heart. They didn’t know and understand they had these things within themselves already. They needed the Wizard to point this out to them and give them something tangible so they can believe they had these things.

Summary:
The Buddha teaches us that we need to stop the stream of thought and direct them. Everything that comes to the mind is not true, but you need to know what is true is true and what is false is false. We need to become a traffic police for the mind. We need to direct the traffic of our thoughts. Directing the traffic of our thoughts means we are becoming vigilant of our thoughts. This is called Awareness, being mindful, watching, and guarding our mind. Do not let the negative thoughts infiltrate and gain access to the mind. The main goal of the false self is to gain access to your mind, and then gain access to your heart and then eventually blossom into an action which will result into suffering.
And most of all know your true nature and empty yourself from all of the misconceptions you may have of yourself. Detach from your ego, let it die, and awaken your true nature. Let go of all things!

Keep on practicing restraint and being mindful. Suffering ends when you empty yourself, you can do this.

I hope this has helped you as it helped me. If you have any questions, please send me an email or write a comment. Take care and be well!

Yours truly,
Your Internet Friend.

Namaste!

Thoughts are compared to a delivery man that knocks on the door trying to deliver a package, but no one opens the door because no one lives in it.

The delivery man never gives up, he will come again and again hoping that someone opens the door.

When “no self” is present, then that means no one lives in the house, it is completely empty.

But if “self” is present, the door will be quickly opened and “self” will accept the package from the delivery man. And then it will receive another package, and another package until the house is full with packages. Since there are a lot of packages coming in, “self” leaves the door open so that it can be easier to receives packages. As the doors stays open day and night, a cat walks in, a dog walks in, people from the street starts to walk in, and then a party breaks out. Eventually there was so much noise with people dancing, talking, yelling, smoking, drinking and fighting. Suddenly a fire breaks out and everyone starts to run out, and the house slowly starts to burn down.

If “self” wasn’t present, the door would’ve never been open and invite all these things to fill the house and eventually burn it down.

When the house is empty, no one can ruin it. The house just remains clean, with sunshine glimmering through the windows, and nothing but sweet quietness. The house is safe when it is empty with nothing in it.

Don’t open the door when the delivery man (false self) comes to deliver a package to you. Usually the package is judgment, greed, pride, lust, hatred, jealousy, fear, anger etc.. Don’t open the door. Stay in deep meditation and let nothing distract you. Stay focus and calm. Remain in peace. The knocks at the door will eventually die out, and you will not hear them anymore, just focus and stay quiet.

Namaste, be well!
Your Internet Friend.

What is emptiness? What is non-self? Thich Nhat Hanh explains the meaning of this word in this classic dhamma talk (about 20 years ago).

The wisdom of emptiness is the ultimate teaching in Buddhism; its main tenet is that our suffering is caused by our inability to perceive the true nature of reality.

These teachings on emptiness are very subtle, profound and deeply transforming, Yet with correct understanding, we can shift our experience of the world.

In this course, we’ll begin to explore these ideas through meditation, understanding the process of attaining the wisdom understanding emptiness and practice some of the purification techniques to clear the obstacles to realization of emptiness.

Although there is no required pre-requisite for this class, it’s best if students have attended at least one other Discovering Buddhism class or the equivalent.

Beginner/Intermediate.

A very direct guidance to the emptiness of being

Abe Masao (b. 1915) is a disciple of both Hisamatsu Shin’ichi and Nishitani Keiji, and maintained a close contact with D. T. Suzuki during the last ten years of his life.
After studying law, philosophy, and comparative religion at Japanese universities, Abe attended Columbia University and Union Theological Seminary on a Rockefeller Research Fellowship. He was lecturer at Otani University, Kyoto University, and Hanazono Zen College and a full professor of philosophy at Nara University of Education. He has held numerous visiting professorships, among others at Columbia University, the University of Chicago, Carleton College, Claremont Graduate School, Princeton University, etc., and was appointed full professor at Claremont College. He has lectured with exceptional frequency in Japan and the United States, including such important lectureships as the Berry Lecture at the University of Hawaii and the Stewart Lecture in World Religion at Princeton University.
The Japan Foundation sponsored his study trips to England, the European continent, India, etc., where he also presented noted papers at innumerable conferences and symposia. Professor Abe is a prolific writer whose essays appear frequently in such learned journals as The Eastern Buddhist, Japanese Religions, Japan Studies, Indian Philosophy and Culture, Young Buddhist, International Philosophical Quarterly, Religious Studies, Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Theologische Zeitschrift, etc., and he contributed chapters to many books as well as articles in Japanese.
Abe Masao has also translated classics like Dogen and works by Nishida and Hisamatsu into English.
His professorship at Claremont College may well be seen as a first bridgehead of the Kyoto School on the American continent.
A Zen master said, “Wash out your mouth after you utter the word ‘Buddha.’ ” Another master said, “There is one word I do not like to
hear, and that is ‘Buddha.’” Wu-tsu Fa-yen (Jap.: H¿en, d. 1104), a Chinese Zen master of the Sung dynasty, said, “Buddhas and Patriarchs are your deadly enemies; satori is nothing but dust on the mind. Rather be a man who does nothing, just leisurely passing the time. Be like a deaf-mute in the world of sounds and colors.” At the close of his life, Dait¿ (1282-1338) of the Kamakura era of Japan left the following death verse:
I have cut off Buddhas and Patriarchs;
The Blown Hair (Sword) is always burnished;
When the wheel turns,
The empty void gnashes its teeth.
Or in Kobori Nanrei’s translation:
Kill Buddhas and Patriarchs;
I have been sharpening the sword Suimo;
When the wheel turns [the moment of death],
ÿ¥nyatþ gnashes its teeth.
Chao-chou (Jap.: J¿sh¥, 778-897), a distinguished Zen master of T’ang China, while passing through the main hall of his temple, saw a monk who was bowing reverently before Buddha. Chao-chou immediately slapped the monk. The latter said, “Is it not a laudable thing to pay respect to Buddha?”
“Yes,” answered the master, “but it is better to go without even a laudable thing.”
What is the reason for this antagonistic attitude toward Buddhas and Patriarchs among the followers of Zen? Are not Buddhas enlightened ones? Is not Sakyamuni Buddha their Lord? Are not the Patriarchs great masters who awakened to Buddhist truth? What do Zen followers mean by “doing nothing” and “empty void”?
There is even the following severe statement in the Lin-chi lu (Jap.: Rinzairoku), one of the most famous Zen records of China.
Encountering a Buddha, killing the Buddha;
Encountering a Patriarch, killing the Patriarch;
Encountering an Arhat, killing the Arhat;
Encountering mother or father, killing mother or father;
Encountering a relative, killing the relative,
Only thus does one attain liberation and disentanglement
from all things, thereby becoming completely unfettered and free.
These words may remind some readers of the madman described in Nietzsche’s Die Fröhliche Wissenschaft who shouts, “God is dead! God stays dead! And we have killed Him.” Are Zen followers who kill Buddhas to attain liberation madmen such as Nietzsche described? Are they radical nihilists in Nietzsche’s sense? Are they atheists who not only reject Scriptures but also deny the existence of God? What do they mean by the “liberation” that is attained only by killing Buddhas and Patriarchs?
To answer these questions properly and to understand Zen’s position precisely, let me call your attention to some more Zen sayings.
A Zen master once said: “Let a man’s ideal rise as high as the crown of Vairocana Buddha (highest divinity), but let his life be so full of humility as to be prostrate even at the feet of a baby.”
In the “Verses of the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures,” Kuo-an Chi-yuan (Jap.: Kakuan), a Zen master of the Sung dynasty, said:
Worldly passions fallen away,
Empty of all holy intent
I linger not where Buddha is, and
Hasten by where there is no Buddha.
What do all these examples mean? When a Zen master said, “Cleanse the mouth thoroughly after you utter the word ‘Buddha,’” or “There is one word I do not like to hear, and that is ‘Buddha,’” he sounds like a recent Christian theologian who, by means of linguistic analysis, insists that the word “God” is theologically meaningless. The ancient Chinese Zen master, though unfamiliar with the discipline of linguistic analysis, must have found something odious about the word “Buddha.” The Christian theologian who emphasizes the inadequacy of the word “God” still points to the ultimate meaning realized in the Gospel. In other words, he seems to conclude that not God but the word “God” is dead. Zen’s position, however, is more radical. Statements such as “Buddhas and Patriarchs are your deadly enemies” and “I have cut off Buddhas and Patriarchs,” and emphasis on “doing nothing” and the “empty void” take us beyond the Death-of-God theologians. This seems especially
to be true of Lin-chi’s above-mentioned saying: “Encountering a Buddha, killing the Buddha.”
What is the real meaning of these frightful words? The fourth and fifth lines of Lin-chi’s saying, about encountering mother or father or a relative and killing them, remind me of Jesus’ words:
If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother
and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his
own life, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26).
With these words Jesus asked his followers to follow him even if this meant opposing earthly obligations.
Lin-chi’s words (“Encountering mother or father or relative, kill them”) mean much the same as Jesus’ words—though Lin-chi’s expression is more extreme. The renunciation of the worldly life and the hatred for even one’s own life are necessary conditions among all the higher religions for entering into the religious life. Thus Jesus said:
Truly, I say to you, there is no man who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not receive manifold more in this time, and in the age to come eternal life (Luke 18:29, 30).
In contrast to Jesus’ emphasis on doing things “for the sake of the kingdom of God,” Lin-chi says that by “encountering a Buddha, killing the Buddha,” and so on, “only thus does one attain liberation.” This is simply because for Lin-chi to attain real liberation it is necessary not only to transcend worldly morality but also to rid oneself of religious pietism. Zen does not teach that we come to the Ultimate Reality through encountering and believing in Buddha. For even then we are not altogether liberated from a dichotomy between the object and the subject of faith. In other words, if we believed in Buddha, Buddha would become more or less objectified. And an objectified Buddha cannot be the Ultimate Reality. To attain Ultimate Reality and liberation, Zen insists, one must transcend even religious transcendent realities such as Buddhas, Patriarchs, and so forth. Only when both worldly morality and religious pietism, both the secular and the holy, both immanence and transcendence, are completely left behind, does one come to Ultimate Reality and attain real liberation.
The fundamental aim of Buddhism is to attain emancipation from all bondage arising from the duality of birth and death.

Another word for this is samsþra, which is also linked with the dualities of right and wrong, good and evil, etc. Emancipation from samsþra by transcending the duality of birth and death is called nirvþna, the goal of the Buddhist life.
Throughout its long history, Mahþyþna Buddhism has emphasized: “Do not abide in samsþra, nor abide in nirvþna.” If one abides in so-called nirvþna by transcending samsþra, one is not yet free from attachment, namely, attachment to nirvþna itself. Being confined by the discrimination between nirvþna and samsþra, one is still selfishly concerned with his own salvation, forgetting the suffering of others in samsþra. In nirvþna one may be liberated from the dualities of birth and death, right and wrong, good and evil, etc. But even then one is not liberated from a higher-level duality, i.e., the duality of samsþra and nirvþna, or the duality of the secular and the sacred. To attain thorough emancipation one must also be liberated from this higher-level duality. The Bodhisattva idea is essential to Mahþyþna Buddhism. Not clinging to his own salvation, the Bodhisattva is one who devotes himself to saving others who suffer from various attachments—attachments to nirvþna as well as to samsþra—by negating or transcending the so-called nirvþna which is attained simply by transcending samsþra.
Therefore, nirvþna in the Mahþyþna sense, while transcending samsþra, is simply the realization of samsþra as really samsþra,no more, no less, by a thoroughgoing return to samsþra itself. This is why, in Mahþyþna Buddhism, it is often said of true nirvþna that “samsþra-as-it-is is nirvþna.” This paradoxical statement is based on the dialectical character of the true nirvþna, which is, logically speaking, the negation of negation; that is, absolute affirmation, or the transcendence of transcendence; that is, absolute immanence. This negation of negation is no less than the affirmation of affirmation. The transcendence of transcendence is nothing other than the immanence of immanence. These are verbal expressions of Ultimate Reality, because Ultimate Reality is neither negative nor affirmative, neither immanent nor transcendent in the relative sense of those terms. It is beyond these dualities. Nirvþna in Mahþyþna Buddhism is expressed as “samsþra-as-it-is is nirvþna,” and “nirvþna-as-it-is is samsþra.” This is simply the Buddhist way of expressing Ultimate Reality. Since nirvþna is nothing but Ultimate Reality, to attain nirvþna in the above sense means to attain liberation from every sort of duality.

Zen takes this Mahþyþna position in its characteristically radical way. “Killing a Buddha” and “killing a Patriarch” are Zen expressions for “not abiding in nirvþna.”
Now we can see what Lin-chi meant when he said, “Encountering a Buddha, killing the Buddha; encountering a Patriarch, killing the Patriarch. . . . Only thus does one attain liberation and disentanglement from all things.” In this way, Zen radically tries to transcend religious transcendence itself to attain thoroughgoing freedom. Therefore the words and acts of the Zen masters mentioned earlier, though they seem to be extremely antireligious and blasphemous, are rather to be regarded as paradoxical expressions of the ultimate truth of religion.
Since the ultimate truth of religion for Zen is entirely beyond duality, Zen prefers to express it in a negative way. When Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty asked Bodhidharma, “What is the ultimate principle of the holy truth?” the First Patriarch replied: “Emptiness, no holiness.”
In his “Song of Enlightenment” Yung-chia (Jap.: Y¿ka, 665-713) said:
In clear seeing, there is not one single thing:
There is neither man nor Buddha.
On the other hand, in Christianity, when Jesus emphasized action for the sake of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God is not simply transcendent. Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, Jesus answered them, “Behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” With this answer Jesus declared that God’s rule is a new spiritual principle already operative in the lives of men, and perhaps referred to his own presence in the midst of his followers. We might say, therefore, that the kingdom of God is both immanent and transcendent. This may be especially true when we remind ourselves of the Christian belief that the kingdom is within only because it has first entered this world in Jesus, who was the incarnation of God. Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God may be said to be a symbol of “transcending even the religious transcendence.” In the well-known passage of the Letter to the Philippians, Saint Paul said:
Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who,
though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God
a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross (2:5-8).
As clearly shown in this passage, Jesus Christ is God who became flesh by emptying or abnegating himself, even unto death. It is really through this kenotic negation that flesh and spirit, the secular and the sacred, the immanent and the transcendent became identical in Jesus Christ. Indeed, Jesus Christ may be said to be the Christian symbol of Ultimate Reality. So far, this Christian idea of the kenotic Christ is close to Zen’s idea of “neither man nor Buddha.” At least it may be said that Christianity and Zen equally represent Ultimate Reality, where the immanent and the transcendent, the secular and the sacred, are paradoxically one.
In Christianity, however, Ultimate Reality as paradoxical oneness was realized in history only in Jesus Christ as the incarnation of God. Indeed, Jesus Christ is the Mediator between God and man, the Redeemer of man’s sin against God, and the only historical event through which man encounters God. Accordingly, it is through faith in Jesus as the Christ that one can participate in Ultimate Reality.
In this sense, being the Ultimate Reality, Jesus Christ is somewhat transcendent to man. He is the object, not the subject, of faith. Therefore, the relation between Christ and his believer is dualistic. A kind of objectification still remains. In this respect Zen parts company with Christianity.
Of course, as Paul admirably stated: “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal. 2:20). Christian faith has a mystical aspect which emphasizes the identification of the faithful with Christ.
Further, as Paul said, “we are . . . always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” (2 Cor. 4:10). Paul died Jesus’ death and lived Jesus’ life. And this, for Paul, meant being “baptized into Christ,” “putting on Christ” (Gal. 3:27), and “being changed into his likeness” through the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).
Being “in Christ” in this way, i.e., identifying with Christ as Ultimate Reality is, if I am not wrong, the quintessence of Christian
faith. The essence of Zen, however, is not identification with Christ or with Buddha, but identification with emptiness. For Zen, identification—to use this term—with an Ultimate Reality that is substantial is not the true realization of Ultimate Reality. Hence Zen’s emphasis on “emptiness, no holiness,” and “neither man nor Buddha.”
So far Zen is much closer to the via negativa or negative theology of Medieval Christianity than to the more orthodox form of the Christian faith. For instance, in his Mystical Theology, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite wrote about God as follows:
Ascending higher, we say . . .
not definable,
not nameable,
not knowable,
not dark, not light,
not untrue, not true,
not affirmable, not deniable,
for
while we affirm or deny of those orders of beings
that are akin to Him
we neither affirm nor deny Him
that is beyond
all affirmation as unique universal Cause and
all negation as simple preeminent Cause,
free of all and
to all transcendent.1
This is strikingly similar to Zen’s expressions of the Buddha-nature or mind.
In Pseudo-Dionysius, identification or union with God means that man enters the godhead by getting rid of what is man—a process called theosis, i.e., deification. This position of Pseudo-Dionysius became the basis of subsequent Christian mysticism. It may not be wrong to say that for him the Godhead in which one is united is the “emptiness” of the indefinable One. The words “nothing, nothing, nothing” fill the pages of The Dark Night of the Soul, written by Saint John of the Cross. For him nothingness meant “sweeping away of images and thoughts of God to meet Him in the darkness and obscurity of pure faith which is above all concepts.”
Despite the great similarity between Zen and Christian mysticism we should not overlook an essential difference between them. In the above-quoted passage, Pseudo-Dionysius calls that which is beyond all affirmation and all negation by the term him. Many Christian mystics call God “Thou.” In Zen, however, what is beyond all affirmation and all negation—that is, Ultimate Reality—should not be “him” or “thou” but “self’ or one’s “true self.”
I am not concerned here with verbal expressions but with the reality behind the words. If Ultimate Reality, while being taken as nothingness or emptiness, should be called “him” or “thou,” it is, from the Zen point of view, no longer ultimate.
For in this case “nothingness” or “emptiness” is still taken as something outside of oneself; in other words, it is still more or less objectified. “Nothingness” or “emptiness” therefore becomes something merely named “nothingness” or “emptiness.” It is not true nothingness or true emptiness. True emptiness is never an object found outside of oneself. It is what is really nonobjectifiable. Precisely for this reason, it is the ground of true subjectivity. In Christian mysticism, it is true that God is often called nothingness or the unknowable. However, if this is taken as the ultimate, or the object of the soul’s longing, it is not the same as true nothingness in Zen. In Zen, this is found only by negating “nothingness” as the end, and “emptiness” as the object of one’s spiritual quest.
To reach the Zen position, one must be reconverted or turned back from “nothingness” as the end to “nothingness” as the ground, from “emptiness” as the object to “emptiness” as the true subject. Ultimate Reality is not something far away, over there. It is right here, right now. Everything starts from the here and now. Otherwise everything loses its reality.
Consequently, while Zen emphasizes emptiness, it rejects mere attachment to emptiness. While Zen insists on killing the Buddha, it does not cling to what is non-Buddha. As quoted earlier, Kuo-an said in his “Verses of the Ten Ox-Herding Pictures”:
Worldly passions fallen away,
Empty of all holy intent.
Here both worldly passions and holy intent are left behind.
I linger not where Buddha is, and
Hasten by where there is no Buddha.
With these words Kuo-an tried to show that if one takes what is non-Buddha as the ultimate, what is non-Buddha turns into a

Buddha. Real emptiness, which is called in Buddhism ý¥nyatþ, is not a nihilistic position that simply negates religious values. Overcoming nihilism within itself, it is the existential ground of liberation or freedom in which one finds for himself liberation even from what is non-Buddha, liberation even from a rigid view of emptiness.
Zen’s strong criticism of attachment to emptiness or non-Buddhaness is seen in the following stories:
A monk asked Chao-chou, “When I bring nothing at all with me, what do you say?”
Chao-chou said, “Throw it away!”
“But,” protested the monk, “I said I bring nothing at all; what do you say I should throw away?”
“Then carry it off,” was the retort of Chao-chou.
In commenting on this D. T. Suzuki says: “J¿sh¥ (Chao-chou) has thus plainly exposed the fruitlessness of a nihilistic philosophy. To reach the goal of Zen, even the idea of ‘having nothing’ ought to be done away with. Buddha reveals himself when he is no more asserted; that is, for Buddha’s sake, Buddha is to be given up. This is the only way to come to the realization of the truth of Zen.”
Huang-po (Jap.: šbaku, d. 850) was bowing low before a figure of Buddha in the sanctuary, when a fellow disciple saw him and asked: “It is said in Zen ‘Seek nothing from the Buddha, nor from the Dharma, nor from the samgha.’ What do you seek by bowing?”
“Seeking nothing from the Buddha, the Dharma, or the samgha is the way in which I always bow,” replied Huang-po.
But his fellow disciple persisted: “For what purpose do you bow?” Huang-po slapped his face. “Rude fellow!” exclaimed the other.
To this Huang-po said, “Where do you think you are, talking of rudeness and politeness!” and slapped him again.
In this way, Huang-po tried to make his companion get rid of his negative view of non-Buddhaness. He was anxious to communicate the truth of Zen in spite of his apparent brusqueness. While behaving and speaking in a rude and negative way, the spirit of what he says is affirmative.4
As these stories clearly show, the standpoint of emptiness or ý¥nyatþ in Zen is not a negative but an affirmative one. Zen affirms the ground of complete liberation—liberation from both the secular and the holy, from both morality and religion, from both theistic
religion and atheistic nihilism.

Since the Zen position regarding true emptiness (ý¥nyatþ) transcends both the secular and the sacred (through a negation of negation), it is itself neither secular nor sacred. And yet, at the same time, it is both secular and sacred. The secular and the sacred are paradoxically identical, coming together as a dynamic whole outside of which there is nothing.
I, myself, who am now writing about the dynamic whole as the true emptiness, do not stand outside of, but within this dynamic whole. Of course, the same is true of those who read what I am writing.
When you see a Zen master, he may ask you, “Where are you from?” “I am from Chicago,” you may reply. “From where did you come to Chicago?” the master may ask.
“I was born in Chicago. Chicago is my hometown,” may be your answer.
“Where did you come from, to your birth in Chicago?” the master may still ask. Then what will you answer?
Some of you may reply, “I was born of my parents. And their background is Scotland,” and so forth.
Others, falling back upon the theory of evolution, may answer, “My origin may be traced back to the anthropoid apes and from them back to the amoeba, or a single cell of some sort.”
At this point, I do hope the master is not so unkind as not to slap your face. Anyhow, he will not be satisfied with your answers.
Science can answer the question, “How did I get here?” but it cannot answer the question “Why am I here?” It can explain the cause of a fact but not the meaning, or ground of a fact.
Socrates’ philosophy started from the oracle’s admonition: “Know thyself?” and King David once asked, “But who am I, and what is my people?” (1 Chron. 29:14)
Zen is also deeply concerned with the question, “What am I?” asking it in a way peculiar to Zen, that is: “What is your original face before you were born?” Science seeks for the origins of our existence in a temporal and horizontal sense—a dimension which can be pushed back endlessly. To find a definite answer to the question of our origin we must go beyond the horizontal dimension and turn to the vertical dimension, i.e., the eternal and religious dimension.
Saint Paul once said, “For in him [the Son of God] all things were created . . . and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17). In

Christianity it is through creation, as the eternal work of the only God, that all things hold together. Zen, however, raises a further question. It asks, “After all things are reduced to oneness, to what must the One be reduced?” ÿ¥nyatþ or nothingness in Zen is not a “nothing” out of which all things were created by God, but a “nothing” from which God himself emerged. According to Zen, we are not creatures of God, but manifestations of emptiness. The ground of my existence can and should not be found in the temporal dimension, nor even in God. Although this groundlessness is deep enough to include even God, it is by no means something objectively observable. On the contrary, groundlessness, realized subjectively, is the only real ground of our existence. It is the ground to which we are “reconverted” or turned back by a negation of negation.
In the Lin-chi lu, the story is told of Yajñadatta, a very handsome young man who used to look in a mirror every morning and smile at his image. One morning, for some reason, his face was not reflected in the mirror. In his surprise, he thought his head was lost. Thrown into consternation, he searched about everywhere for it, but with no success. Finally, he came to realize that the head for which he was searching was the very thing that was doing the searching. The fact was that being a careless fellow, he had looked at the back of the mirror. Since his head had never been lost, the more he searched for it outside of himself, the more frustrated he became. The point of this story is that that which is sought is simply that which is seeking. Yajñadatta had searched for his head with his head. Our real head, however, is by no means something to be sought for in front of us, but is something that always exists for each of us here and now. Being at the center of one’s searching, it can never be objectified.
You can see my head. When you see my head from where you are, it has a particular form and color; it is indeed something. But can you see your own head? Unless you objectify your head in a mirror you cannot see it by yourself. So, to you, your head has no particular form and color. It is not something which can be seen objectively by you. It is in this sense formless and colorless to yourselves. We call such a thing mu or “nothing” because it is not something objective. It is called “nothing” not because, in the present case, our heads are missing, but because our heads are now functioning as the living heads. As such they are nonobjectifiable.

The same is true of our “self.” We often ask ourselves, “What am I?” and get used to searching for an answer somewhere outside of ourselves. Yet the answer to the question, “What am I?” lies in the question itself. The answer to the question can only be found in this here and now where I am—and which I am fundamentally.
The ground of our existence is nothingness, ý¥nyatþ, because it can never be objectified. This ý¥nyatþ is deep enough to encompass even God, the “object” of mystical union as well as the object of faith. For ý¥nyatþ is the nothingness from which God himself emerged. ÿ¥nyatþ is the very ground of the self and thereby the ground of everything to which we are related. The realization of ÿ¥nyatþ-as-such is precisely what is meant by the self-awakening of Dharma. ÿ¥nyatþ as the nonobjectifiable ground of our existence expands endlessly into all directions. The same is true of “awakening in the Dharma.” Can we talk about the relationship between ourselves and the world without being, ourselves, in the expanding awakening of the self which embraces the relationship itself? Can we even talk about the divine-human relationship without a still deeper ground which makes this relationship possible? And is not the still deeper ground for the divine-human relationship the endlessly expanding ý¥nyatþ or self-awakening?
All I-Thou relationships among men and between man and God are possible only within an endlessly expanding self-awakening. Zen calls this our “Original Face,” the face we have before we are born. “Before we are born” does not refer to “before” in its temporal sense, but in its ontological sense. The discovery of one’s prenatal face—in its ontological sense—places us within an endlessly expanding self-awakening.
To the extent that we are men, whether from the East or from the West, this is equally true of all of us. We should not think that we will come to our awakening at some future time and place and will then be awakened. On the contrary, we are originally—right here and now—in the expanding of self-awakening that spreads endlessly into all directions. This is why we can talk about relationships with the world and about an I-Thou relationship with God. Nevertheless, just as Yajñadatta looked for his head outside of himself, we are used to looking for our true self outside of ourselves. This is our basic illusion, which Buddhism calls mþyþ or avidyþ, i.e., ignorance. When we realize this basic illusion for what it is, we immediately find that, in our depths, we are grounded in endlessly expanding self-awakening.

The “Song of Zazen” by Hakuin, an outstanding Zen master of the middle Tokugawa era of Japan, expresses the point well:
Sentient beings are really Buddha.
Like water and ice—
Apart from water, no ice;
Outside of sentient beings, no Buddha.
Not knowing it is near
They seek for it afar!
Just like being in water—
But crying for thirst!
Taking as form the formless form
Going or coming you are always there
Taking as thought the thoughtless thought
Singing and dancing are Dharma’s voice.
How vast the boundless sky of samþdhi,
How bright the moon of Fourfold Wisdom.
What now is there to seek?
With nirvþna revealed before you,
This very place is the Lotus Land,
This very body is Buddha.
NOTES
1.
Elmer O’Brien, Varieties of Mystical Experience (New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1964), pp. 86-88.
2.
William Johnston, “Zen and Christian Mysticism,” The Japanese Missionary Bulletin XX (1966): 612-13.
3. D. T. Suzuki, An Introduction to Zen Buddhism (London: Rider, 1969), pp. 5455.
4. Ibid., pp. 52-53.
68

From the World Wisdom online library: www. worldwisdom.com/public/library/default.aspx

Emptiness is a key concept in Buddhist philosophy, or more precisely, in the ontology of Mahayana Buddhism. The phrase “form is emptiness; emptiness is form” is perhaps the most celebrated paradox associated with Buddhist philosophy. It is the supreme mantra. The expression originates from the Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra, commonly known as the Heart Sutra, which contains the philosophical essence of about six hundred scrolls making up the Maha Prajna Paramita. The Heart Sutra is the shortest text in this collection. It belongs to the oldest Mahayana texts and presumably originated in India around the time of Jesus Christ.

The Heart Sutra.
Translation by Edward Conze

Homage to the Perfection of Wisdom, the Lovely, the Holy!

Avalokita, The Holy Lord and Bodhisattva, was moving in the deep course of the Wisdom which has gone beyond. He looked down from on high, He beheld but five heaps, and he saw that in their own-being they were empty.

Here, Sariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.

Here, Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness; they are not produced or stopped, not defiled or immaculate, not deficient or complete.

Therefore, Sariputra, in emptiness there is no form, nor feeling, nor perception, nor impulse, nor consciousness; No eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind; No forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touchables or objects of mind; No sight-organ element, and so forth, until we come to: No mind-consciousness element; There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so forth, until we come to: there is no decay and death, no extinction of decay and death. There is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path. There is no cognition, no attainment and non-attainment.

Therefore, Sariputra, it is because of his non-attainment that a Bodhisattva, through having relied on the Perfection of Wisdom, dwells without thought-coverings. In the absence of thought-coverings he has not been made to tremble, he has overcome what can upset, and in the end he attains to Nirvana.

All those who appear as Buddhas in the three periods of time fully awake to the utmost, right and perfect Enlightenment because they have relied on the Perfection of Wisdom.Therefore one should know the prajnaparamita as the great spell, the spell of great knowledge, the utmost spell, the unequalled spell, allayer of all suffering, in truth – for what could go wrong? By the prajnaparamita has this spell been delivered. It runs like this:

Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, O what an awakening, all-hail!

Taken from: http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html

Body is nothing more than emptiness,
emptiness is nothing more than body.
The body is exactly empty,
and emptiness is exactly body.
The other four aspects of human existence —
feeling, thought, will, and consciousness —
are likewise nothing more than emptiness,
and emptiness nothing more than they.

All things are empty:
Nothing is born, nothing dies,
nothing is pure, nothing is stained,
nothing increases and nothing decreases.

So, in emptiness, there is no body,
no feeling, no thought,
no will, no consciousness.
There are no eyes, no ears,
no nose, no tongue,
no body, no mind.
There is no seeing, no hearing,
no smelling, no tasting,
no touching, no imagining.
There is nothing seen, nor heard,
nor smelled, nor tasted,
nor touched, nor imagined.

There is no ignorance,
and no end to ignorance.
There is no old age and death,
and no end to old age and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,
no end to suffering, no path to follow.
There is no attainment of wisdom,
and no wisdom to attain.

The Bodhisattvas rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and so with no delusions,
they feel no fear,
and have Nirvana here and now.

All the Buddhas,
past, present, and future,
rely on the Perfection of Wisdom,
and live in full enlightenment.

The Perfection of Wisdom is the greatest mantra.
It is the clearest mantra,
the highest mantra,
the mantra that removes all suffering.

This is truth that cannot be doubted.
Say it so:

Gaté,
gaté,
paragaté,
parasamgaté.
Bodhi!
Svaha!
Which means…
Gone,
gone,
gone over,
gone fully over.
Awakened!
So be it!

Just like silver and gold it shall pass through the fire to be refined, the Master will be tested.  You will have good days and you will have bad days, that is just how life is when you seek the way of perfection, the good path.

Our biggest opponent is the opponent that walks and sleeps with us, OUR MIND.  Sometimes, we observe the thoughts, but sometimes, we listen and pay attention to the thoughts.  Thoughts are like a fiery dart, that if you allow it to stay and burn, it will slowly start to burn the house down.   The fire must be put out immediately.  

In Christianity, the New Testament says:
James 4-7
“Submit yourselves, then, to God.
Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. …”

The devil is the thoughts of your mind, your ego, the self.  It likes to remind you of certain things or memories, to awaken certain desires or emotions.  Observe the thought and do not feed into it but submit to the truth, because those thoughts are not you, it is not truth, its lies that the voices behind the gate, the army of illusion is spitting to you so you can believe and react to it.  Its not a spirit, but your mind that is playing the game of reminding. Empty out the mind.

Thoughts first hit the mind, then if you accept it, it will hit the heart, if you allow it to hit the heart, the next place it will hit, is the action.  If you commit the action you will have to immediately pull away and resubmit yourself to the truth and go and meditate to quiet the mind.   Detach from the thoughts projected by the army of illusion, the mind.  Submit to emptiness, practice it daily, learn what is emptiness, so that you want nothing.

Dhammpada – The Just 19
And yet it is not good conduct
That helps you upon the way,
Nor ritual, nor book learning,
Nor withdrawal into self,
Nor deep meditation.
None of these confers mastery of joy.

O seeker!
Rely on nothing
Until you want nothing.”

The way to perfection is not easy, but it is attainable.  Only because you are following the path of goodness, the path of God, it doesn’t mean you are exempt form problems.  Everyone receives the same weather, rain or sunshine, but it all depends how you receive it and how you react to it.  Master the mind and practice emptiness. All virtue lies in detachment. 

In other words you cannot give up, this world needs you, not everyone wants to seek the good path, because its not easy.  The road to the good path is narrow, but the road to perdition is wide and spacious, and that is the path the majority of people want to walk on, because its easier, no rules, no laws.  But the sad thing is that Karma is more real than we think. What goes around, comes around. Karma is real, but our motovation should not be fear of karma.  Our motovation should be to love the path of purity, love and peace.  There is nothing like this path and the feeling can only be describe by people who are actually walking on it.  Every person that seeks the good path of purity, delivers positive energy into this world.  Too many people are lost in the path of destruction and people like you and I, are needed to continue to walk the good path so we can give the message of peace and hope.  Let us be mouth pieces for peace and love, for God, for truth, for the sake of this world.

Stay encouraged, stay blessed, keep seeking and walking in the path of purity and goodness.

Here is a song that helped in my time of testing, I hope you enjoy it.
Its from Trevor Hall – Parachutes.

Sandals and a Glass of Water - Symbolic to Purity During Meditation

In Judaism, in the Old Testament, Moses went to the mountain of Sinai which means the mountain of God.  In the mountain of God Moses saw a burning bush which was God revealing himself to Moses.  God told Moses to remove his sandals because the floor he walks on is holy ground.  Holy means to be set-apart, to be separate from evil, to be empty from ego.  The mountain of God, the state of complete peaceful bliss, pure consciousness,  is the place where we want to be, which we can only get there through meditation.  The mountain  of God is where “self” doesn’t exist,  when you are totally empty of ego.  When you are in complete emptiness, you enter the mountain of God, the mountain of Nirvana, Enlightenment, the mountain of the Absolute, the mountain of OM, or what ever you want to call it, its all the same.   In order to enter that holy, peaceful and pure ground, you must be separate of self, of ego, in total emptiness, which means you must remove your sandals.

The glass of water in this photo symbolizes the living water you will drink when you remove your sandals or deny the ego.

In Christianity, in the New Testament,
Christ said:
“Whoever drinks this water will get thirsty again;
But anyone who drinks the water that I shall give
will never be thirsty again: The water that I shall give
will turn into a spring inside welling up to eternal life.”

There are two streams of water, one stream of water is what the self offers, what the passion of ego offers, what the world offers, and this stream of water cannot quench the thirst.   Every that is offered in this stream of water offers a temporary fix, like alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, sex, trips, movies, shopping;  anything that offers to take your mind away from your current suffering or stress.  When I mention things like trips and movies etc.. they are not bad things, but most people do these activities to get their mind off things and when they arrive back to their home, the thoughts or desires are still there.  The fix has to be done internally not externally.

The other stream of water which Christ mentioned  is only found in the mountain of God, or in other words, the path of purity, the good path, which all spiritual teachers talked about.  Buddha, Jesus, Tao, Krishna, Muhammad etc. talked about this path of truth, the path of pureness.  The living water is offered to everyone within this path.

Dhammapada – Desire 24
“Do your thoughts trouble you? Does passion disturb you?
Beware of thirstiness
“Lest your wishes become desires
And desires binds you.

Quieten your mind.
Reflect.
Watch.
Nothing binds you.  You are free.”

Beware of thirstiness, if you are thirsty, you will seek and seek for water and drink from where ever you can find water.  The worldly stream of water, or the stream of water from the passions of ego, will give you temporary comfort.  Some say, I am stressed, I need a cigarette, or I need a drink, (or even a glass of wine because deep inside of you, your “self” says, its good for the heart anyways”) and then after that, the issues are still there, and you become dependent on a substance to give you temporary comfort.  Some say, whats wrong with wine?  There is nothing with wine, its the reason behind drinking wine is the problem.  Are you drinking wine to relax and get a quick fix or are you really drinking it to help your heart?  Here is a truth test that will help you discover if you are dependent or addictive to wine: stop drinking wine for a month and see if you are addicted to the effects of wine.  Remember, you need to be honest with yourself.  It is better to not be addictive to any substance, because the true comfort comes from within.  The issues in your life is like an elephant  in the room.  You can choose to ignore the elephant or deal with the elephant and get it out.  Because if you do not deal with the elephant in the room, it will eventually destroy everything that’s inside the house.  The house is your life, and if your desires are not dealt, with your life, work, friendships, marriage, health, and mind is in jeopardy.   The elephant be many things like: anger, pride, lust, selfishness, addictions, impatience, jealousy, deceit, anything that is self-centered is the elephant that you need to deal with and get out of the house.

Bottom line: Remove your sandals of ego, enter the path of enlightenment, the path of purity and drink the living waters of joy, peace and happiness, it will flow internally and eternally within you.  This living waters is good for your mind, body and soul, plus you live longer, its not rocket science; you can do this!