Emptiness In Practice, Part 3

Emptiness In Practice, Part 3

Myoki Sensei

The mountain filled with leafless trees

Crisp and clear on this autumn night;

The full moon floating gently above the cluster of roofs,

Having nothing to depend on,

And not clinging to any place;

Free, like the steam rising from a full bowl of rice,

Effortless, as a fish swimming and splashing back and forth,

Like drifting clouds or flowing water.

Eihei Dogen

Over the past few weeks we’ve been exploring ways in which we can practice the theory of emptiness. We considered the concept that everything always is in constant flux and arises from causes and conditions that themselves are constantly changing, without own being and connected to everything else. We practice emptiness by bringing awareness to our default tendency to divide all experience into dualities which gives rise to judgments, positions, opinions, attraction to this, aversion to that, and consequently we suffer and can cause others to suffer.

Last week we practiced emptiness with Nagarjuna’s tetra lemma to challenge our certainties and those concepts we reify and grasp onto as if they make a statement about what we call reality. Our beliefs that arise from self-clinging are often emotionally charged, and practicing with the tetra lemma is an opportunity to rationally investigate what we say we believe. Some of us noticed the liberating quality of dropping a belief that was grasped. We cited Nagarjuna’s admonition: “To believe in emptiness is the biggest mistake of all” and briefly mentioned Joshu’s teaching in Case 2 of The Blue Cliff Record: “I do not abide in clarity.”

You might remember that in August I shared Uchiyama Roshi’s statement: “There is no other person” and this Zen story: A student pleads with her teacher: Please free me! The teacher responds by asking: Who has bound you?

This very short teaching offers us another way to practice emptiness by considering how our tightly held beliefs and assumptions bind us. When I recognize that what I hold as true is simply an assumption that I have fabricated, I can also recognize that I am the person who binds me or who frees me. When I become aware of, really feel how grasping, attachment and aversion, resistance to what is binds me, I can practice emptiness by turning the light inward and acknowledging that the experience I’m experiencing is the five skandhas (body and mind together) seeing the five skandhas (body and mind together). No other person but this entity I call me: ever-changing, not fixed, empty of permanent inherent selfhood. When I recognize that I bind myself, only I can let go of a me I think I am and open to bodhichitta, the intention to practice the precepts and vows for the benefit of all being. Then instead of carrying the self forward, life realizes me in miraculous myriad forms and I respond with love.

Kosho Uchiyama Roshi teaches: “Each individual constructs his own world and lives in the universe he himself has created.” Shunryu Suzuki expresses this same idea when he says in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (p. 34): “Nothing comes from outside your mind.”

Nothing comes from outside your mind. The body-mind speaking now is the manifestation in this moment of causes and conditions distinct to this particular life that are not the causes and conditions that any other body-mind has experienced. There is no other person. I have intimate memories of two people I call my mother and my father. I can see their faces; can you? Can you see the house where I grew up that am seeing right now in my mind? These pictures and memories are unique to me—they are particular to these particular five skandhas that are different from your particular form, feelings, perceptions, internal formations, consciousnesses. My husband was driving us home from the grocery store, and I was looking out the passenger window when we passed a garden on a hill. Eye consciousness produced a memory in mind consciousness: I am in Phyllis’ garden, sitting next to her talking and looking at her flowers. I hear Phyllis’ voice and feel her presence. If you had passed the same spot on Long Ridge Road, you might not even have noticed the garden and you certainly wouldn’t remember Phyllis. That entire moment was my world and the universe created by causes and conditions unique to me.

In How to Cook Your Life and other writings, Uchiyama teaches:

“…we assume that there exists a world which you and I experience in common with all other human beings, that this world existed prior to our births, and that it will continue to exist even after our deaths. …this is nothing more than an idea….Not only that, we wind up thinking that we live and die within this world of fabrication. This is an utterly inverted way of looking at one’s life.”

He expresses the interwoven experience of simultaneously recognizing that I fabricate a world I call real, and at the same time, when I practice emptiness, I recognize that this fabrication has been formed by myriad dharmas. When I experience deeply the no fixed self and impermanence I take to be me, in other words when I practice emptiness, I understand that I am not separate and isolated in a prison of my own unique experience. What I perceive through my personal discriminating consciousnesses also and simultaneously comes to these particular consciousnesses from a vast and unknowable web of interconnection, the entire world that all beings share. This is another way to consider the teaching: There is no other person. The life I experience arises due to all beings with whom I have interacted, every place I have walked through, every encounter I have had with human and non-human animals, with grasses, tiles, walls and pebbles, in Dogen’s words. And when I practice this emptiness I realize that each person is who he is and simultaneously not a fixed self, just as I am who I am and simultaneously not a fixed self.

Each and every being is a unique and special treasure. The beautiful image of Indra’s Net expresses how all these unique and special treasures are connected. A vast net stretches infinitely in all directions. A shining jewel sits at every knot in the net. The jewels are individual beings, human, nonhuman, sentient, insentient, all being in the vast universe. Each jewel reflects every other jewel in the net. Whatever affects one jewel affects all the jewels in the net. Nothing is separate and all phenomena interpenetrates. Each individual thing is its own thing and simultaneously everything is everything else.

From the mind

of a single, long vine,

One hundred opening lives.

Chiyo-ni (1703-1775)

Practicing emptiness is remembering this reality over and over again, dropping the tendency to gauge reality from the limited perspective of duality. Self/other, good/bad, this/that, etc. Practicing emptiness gives rise to wisdom or intuitive knowing which in turn gives rise to compassionate action as we enact the precepts and vows off the cushion, understanding that everything I think, say, or do radiates out into the vast world of all being. We also come to experience that our individual perspective is simultaneously made from the fabric of the collective mind. We human animals mirror each other, so thought forms reflect a collective mind; what are we adding to this collective mind, aka buddha nature, when we speak and act?

In The Heart Sutra we chant: “With nothing to attain the bodhisattva depends on prajna paramita and the mind is no hindrance.” In keeping with this exploration of emptiness in practice, the mind is a hindrance and can bind us when we grasp our views as if they reflect reality rather than recognize that these views are fabrications of the five skandhas. The Heart Sutra continues: “Without any hindrance no fears exist; far apart from every inverted view the bodhisattva dwells in nirvana.” When we recognize that we bind ourselves in tightly held perspectives, we open the hand of thought and let go of the mind that clings to inverted views, dwelling in nirvana. The word nirvana means "extinguishing" or "blowing out,” In the same way we blow out the flame of a candle, practicing emptiness over and over and over again, we extinguish our views, we extinguish the three mental poisons of greed, hate, and delusion and depend on prajna paramita, acting appropriately rather than fighting what is and chasing our desires.

We say that there is no other person and at the same time all beings inter-are. Uchiyama says that: “Ultimately, being born, living, and dying, we are inside this one grand living force. …Every one of us is a part of this life that enfolds the entire universe, the life that constitutes all sentient beings.” We are simultaneously separate entities and completely and entirely intertwined. We are one grand living force.

Uchiyama’s dharma heir Shohaku Okumura expresses this in a clear shorthand. When we cling to our self-centered view, we are the individual karmic self facing what we perceive to be other people and things. He represents this reality with the number 1. Simultaneously the individual-self is a collection of impermanent, constantly shifting elements. He represents this reality with the symbol 0. Because individual-self 1 is empty, not a fixed, permanent entity, 0, we are connected and interpenetrated with all beings and non-beings, that is the entirety of the network of interdependent origination. He represents this with the infinity sign (∞).

So we return to Dogen’s poem that I shared at the beginning of this talk:

The mountain filled with leafless trees

Crisp and clear on this autumn night;

The full moon floating gently above the cluster of roofs,

Having nothing to depend on,

And not clinging to any place;

Free, like the steam rising from a full bowl of rice,

Effortless, as a fish swimming and splashing back and forth,

Like drifting clouds or flowing water.

Emptiness In Practice, Part 2

Emptiness In Practice, Part 2

Myoki Sensei

I’ll begin by sharing this story from the Blue Cliff Record, Case 2—a concise and forthright teaching on emptiness in practice.

Joshu teaching the assembly, said, “The Ultimate Path is without difficulty; just avoid picking and choosing. As soon as there are words spoken, ‘this is picking and choosing,’ ‘this is clarity.’ This old monk does not abide within clarity; do you still preserve anything or not?”

At that time a certain monk asked, “Since you do not abide within clarity, what do you preserve?”

Joshu replied, “I don’t know either.”

The monk said, “Since you don’t know, Teacher, why do you nevertheless say that you do not abide within clarity?”

Joshu said, “It is enough to ask about the matter; bow and withdraw.”

Last week we talked about practicing emptiness by opening the hand of thought, challenging our certainties (another way of saying not abiding in clarity), recognizing when we grasp opinions, judgments, and viewpoints so that we can step back from them and open and empty ourselves enough to experience and respond to the present moment just as it is. Practicing emptiness is remembering that nothing is fixed, permanent or independent, that everything always is in constant flux and arises from causes and conditions that themselves are constantly changing, without own being and connected to everything else. Practicing emptiness, we investigate and simultaneously avoid holding tightly to or reifying our ideas about things. We notice the mind that seeks to know and pin down a “truth,” and we drop our preconceptions (conceptions that exist prior to the moment we are living), pre-judgments (judgments and opinions that we hold inviolate regardless of the moment we are living) and to respond to the reality of the moment we are living.

I today’s talk I will share a way to practice emptiness by focusing on Nagarjuna’s Tetralemma. Nagarjuna was an Indian scholar-monk, philosopher, and teacher of Mahayana Buddhism who lived in the first century CE. In his major work, Mulamadhyamakakarika, translated as Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, he developed the theory of Śūnyatā, or emptiness and dependent origination, as a way of approaching reality and existence. Nagarjuna is considered second only to Shakyamuni Buddha in his impact on Buddhist philosophy and practice.

We often talk about experiencing a dilemma. This word comes from Greek: di meaning double and lemma meaning premise, proposition or assumption. So a dilemma is a problem we wrestle with because in our minds there are two possibilities, neither of which seems unambiguously acceptable or preferable. When we encounter a dilemma, we are caught between two thoughts, beliefs, or points of view. This is our default mode of thinking, and our practice and Dogen’s teachings encourage us to recognize when this kind of dualistic thinking operates and to go beyond it.

One way to go beyond dualistic thinking is by practicing with Nagarjuna’s tetra lemma. The word tetra lemma also comes from Greek: tetra meaning "four" and lemma meaning premise, proposition or assumption.

The tetra lemma challenges our assumptions by take the di-lemma further; its challenges us with four possible points of view. With tetra lemma practice, we first move beyond a single point of view to experience its opposite. Then we embrace both views as co-existent, and finally, we let go of both. 

EXISTENCE: The thing is real and present

NON-EXISTENCE: The thing is not real; it is absent

BOTH: The thing is both real and not real simultaneously

NEITHER: The thing is neither real nor not real

Another way to put this:

True

False

Both true and false

Neither true nor false

Tetra lemma practice allows us to dissect our grasping hard fixed views and fixations: we look carefully at how we use words so we can be aware of the contradictions that are always present in our ways of thinking. It encourages our understanding that ultimately reality cannot be talked about or pinned down using our habitual, dualistic language. We see that a particular thing we think we know or understand completely is actually empty in the sense that it lacks a permanent, inherent, fixed self; it cannot be pinned down by our thoughts, labels, knowing mind. Reject extremes of either or thinking

Let’s look at this thing we call a watch through the lens of the tetral emma. We can say this watch is real and present. I wear it on my wrist, and when I look at it it indicates the time. I can see the watch; I can touch it; I can hear it ticking. And because I perceive this object we call a watch, I am certain that it exists; that it is real.

And I can also say that this watch is not real. I can deconstruct it, separate it into its component elements. When I take off the back of the watch, I can see the gears, the batteries. Let’s imagine that I take the batteries out and put them on this table, then dismantle the gears. I can flip the watch over and loosen the face of the watch, and put that on the pile, then I can lift off the hands of the watch. I can take off the watchband and lay that on the table with all the other parts of the watch. At some point we can agree that there is no watch here anymore, just pieces of metal in a pile. We can also ask where did the metal come from, who mined it, what factory was the watch made in, whose hands worked on putting the component parts together, and on and on and on.

So this object we call a watch is both real and unreal. It does and does not have an watch essence, but like all things it arises dependently, shaped by causes and conditions. We can recognize that when the pieces are together, the watch is a watch; its gears tick and the hands tell us what time it is, and simultaneously the watch is not a watch in the sense that it has no inherent existence if we separate its parts. So it simultaneously is and is not a watch. This takes us to the fourth statement of the tetra lemma, the watch is neither real, nor not real. “Watch” is a linguistic convention we agree upon when we see this object in this particular coming together of all its parts. To test the four parts of the tetra lemma we might ask how a bear, or chipmunk, or frog, or hummingbird or any non-human animal would respond when it came upon a watch.

Just as we applied the tetra lemma to an object we can also practice with the tetra lemma to rationally test our opinions, beliefs, thought forms. How is this belief true? How is it untrue? Both true and not true simultaneously? Neither true nor untrue? We’ll come back to this in a moment.

Nagarjuna’s method is to analyze things so closely we are no longer stuck on any one thought, feeling, or belief; to investigate and drop all conceptions that exist prior to the moment we are living, to notice the mind that seeks to know and pin down a “truth,” and to respond to the dynamic, unfolding reality of the moment we are living. Practicing with the tetra lemma helps us to recognize rigid binary either/or thinking and to recognize that all things are empty of inherent, fixed, permanent and independent existence, that everything always is in constant flux and arises from causes and conditions that themselves are constantly changing, without own being and connected to everything else.

“Emptiness” is a practice, not a belief, since as Nagarjuna says, “To believe in emptiness is the biggest mistake of all.” The tetra lemma helps us go beyond our attachment to the words we use to express what we think is real and true, and this includes Zen beliefs and doctrines.

In the same way that we practice scales on a musical instrument, we can practice the tetra lemma to avoid abiding in clarity. I’d like us to try that now.

Settle into zazen posture—spine erect, chin tucked, ears in line with shoulders, hands in the cosmic mudra. Gently rock back and forth, side to side to find your center point.

After your next exhalation, take a deep breath in through the nose and down through the lungs, completely filling the abdomen, and then let the breath out slowly and quietly through the mouth. Then just let the breath be natural.

Now bring to mind an opinion, a perspective, an idea, thought form, a judgment you believe is true. This can be either a positive or negative thought about a person, an event, an object, something that happened in the past or is happening currently. Examples might be: I am the kind of person who…; So-and-so is difficult to work with; this particular political position is right or wrong, I should do x,y,z or she should do x, y, z. Or you might try practicing with a dharma teaching.

First thought, best thought.

Now, as you sit with this viewpoint, opinion, judgment, belief, investigate all the ways it is real and true.

Next investigate all the ways it is not real or true.

Next, investigate your response when you consider that this thought form both true and untrue, real and unreal?

And investigate your response when you consider the statement neither real or true nor not real or true?

Now take a moment to reflect on this experience of practicing with the tetra lemma. What happened? What did you notice?

Emptiness In Practice, Part 1

Emptiness In Practice, Part 1

Myoki Sensei

I want to start out by thanking all of you for your presence and your practice. Sangha inspires me, encourages me to investigate the dharma deeply, motivates my practice and I am deeply grateful for our interbeing. As I frequently say, I am here because you are here, and I am who I am in this present moment because of you and all being.

I’ve taken the title of this talk from Shohaku Okumura’s book Living By Vow. He uses”Emptiness in Practice” as a subheading in his chapter on The Heart Sutra which we’re studying in Wednesday Evening Dharma. This section of the chapter follows the section Okumura Roshi titled “Emptiness in Theory.” I will explore both those phrases in today’s talk.

When I first contemplated the phrase—Emptiness in Practice—it occurred to me that I had previously been verbalizing and engaging with the word “emptiness” as a philosophical concept to unknot, as a theory.

Last month during a Sunday discussion we explored a phrase attributed to Bodhidharma: "Beyond words and letters.” Bodhidharma’s complete poem that contains this teaching is this: ”A special transmission outside the scriptures, Not depending on words and letters; Directly pointing to the mind, Seeing into one's true nature and attaining Buddhahood.” When we know the context of this teaching, we can understand more deeply what Bodhidharma was aiming at with his words. During the 5th or 6th century CE when Bodhidharma lived, Chinese Buddhist practice heavily focused on texts, scholarly debates, and memorization of complex sutras. With his dictum not to rely on words and letters, Bodhidharma shifted the focus from academic scholarship to meditation as central to practice.

His teaching, emphasizing that ultimate reality, enlightenment, and direct spiritual experience cannot be captured or transmitted by language or scripture, has been repeated throughout the ages as the key to Zen practice. It has inspired volumes of words and letters that have been written and spoken about going beyond words and letters.

I’ll share my contribution to the ongoing discussion that I hope is relevant in this particular time and place. Bodhidharma is not rejecting words and letters, he is not saying words are bad, unhelpful, or damaging and something else is good. He uses the word “beyond.” His teaching says to go beyond words and letters by engaging in sitting practice.

Words are not only helpful, they are essential to our practice. We gain conceptual understanding by studying books, fascicles, sutras, koans and treatises; listening to teishos of our ancestors and contemporary teachers. Our engagement with concepts act as a spur to realization, liberation, transformation.

The ongoing practice of awakening is to bring awareness to the immediate, direct, personal experience with conceptual understanding as a kind of foundation. Dale S. Wright in his highly recommended book, Philosophical Meditations on Zen Buddhism, sums this up when he writes: “…the practice of theoretical thinking comes to fruition when it becomes second nature, when its abstract and awkward character has been converted into intuitive instinct…. Concepts provide what it is that we practice; apart from these concepts, there is nothing to practice.”

So to build on these ideas in the context of this talk—What is emptiness in theory and what is it in practice? Emptiness in theory is not nothingness or the void. It means that nothing is fixed, permanent or independent, that everything always is in constant flux and arises from causes and conditions that themselves are constantly changing, without own being and connected to everything else. There is nothing about which we can say: This will always, permanently be like this. Emptiness is sometimes called thusness or suchness—the way things are before we interject our human tendency to divide things up into dualities—this or that, good and bad, self or other, pleasant or unpleasant, gain or loss etc.

Hoko Karnegis, dharma heir to Shohaku Okumura and Senior Dharma Teacher and leader of Sanshin Zen Community, says that emptiness also means that “whatever idea, label, judgment we attach to this thing is meaningless on an absolute level. As soon as I decide whether I like this or not, give it a name and write a story about what it means for ME, in the next moment that thing has changed, I’ve changed, and the idea or label doesn’t fit. Thus, emptiness doesn’t mean that things and people don’t exist; it means that because they are deeply impermanent, there’s nothing about them we can hold onto.”

What is practice in theory? Practice is doing something methodically, regularly and usually by choice. Practice is also defined as doing something instead of just thinking about it, as in putting a plan into practice.

These are ways we theoretically think about, explore, and investigate the concepts of emptiness and practice. The question for today and everyday is how do we practice emptiness? What does the direct experience of emptiness feel like? How do I act when I directly experience the interconnection and impermanence of self and all being? How do I actualize this fundamental point here and now?

Emptiness in practice refers to shikantaza, of course, as over and over again we experience the body-mind in the present moment. As we sit on our cushions, we live no fixed self and notice the dynamic flow of all experience. We notice the constant moment by moment flux of body-mind, the coming and going of sensations of eyes, ears, nose, tongue, the impermanence of this form sitting on this cushion, the sounds outside the window, the silence, all things and experiences without fixed self-nature. We notice over and over again that not even the I I think am is fixed or permanent.

Shikantaza practice is the practice of emptiness, the foundation upon which rests our awakened, aware lives. It is the practice—emphasize practice—of emptiness that engenders our ability to let be, let go, open the hand of thought so we experience the emptiness of this self we think we are and that we cling to as me. When we practice this emptiness of self, we also see that the person I face and with whom I am in relation is also empty, she is not an inherent, fixed self, but is also in constant flux.

Shohaku says: “All people and all things exist in ways other than how we see them. ...We develop the ability to see things clearly, closely, and deeply through the practice of letting go of thought. The practice of letting go of thought enables us to see people and things with fresh eyes,” says Shohaku. (p.170 Living By Vow) Our dharma brother Ensho shared in a Wednesday Evening Dharma discussion that he often silently asks this question when engaged with another person: “Who do you think you are talking to?“ If you think you know to whom you are talking, you are mistaken. If you think you know the you who is talking you are equally mistaken. This is emptiness in practice—we let go of thought over and over and over again so that we can see all things and beings with fresh eyes.

Why do we have to keep practicing this emptiness? In Living By Vow, [p. 164] Okumura says that we are never apart from reality, but we almost always lose sight of it because we imprison ourselves in our own narrow views, opinions, habit formations, what Okumura calls our “ready-made preconceptions or prejudices.” We lose sight of emptiness that teaches us that there is nothing at all to hold or grasp, and no one to do the grasping. Our preconceptions and prejudices that have been created by causes and conditions particular to each individual’s life, are so familiar, so comforting, so deeply engrained, we have to practice understanding them as ready-made, preconceived, or prejudicial. So deeply seated that we may act out ancient twisted karma without even being aware that we are doing so and acting in ways that are harmful to self and others and therefore to all being. Emptiness in practice, actually living emptiness, being the emptiness we are, means we practice not holding on or grasping over and over and over again.

Our tendency to judge, to divide all experience into dualities, makes us feel safe, as if we know what’s what, as if we’re in control. We are never in control. Surrendering to thusness, emptiness, is both liberating; we can relax and let it be. On the other hand, to live in this world we have to take a particular point of view. The third Zen Ancestor Sosan’s Faith in Mind poem starts with this often quoted verse: The great Way is not difficult; just avoid picking and choosing. The verse uses the word avoid, not the word eliminate. We have to pick and choose or we would not be able to move, literally. Each of us chose to get out of bed, get dressed, come to Sunday practice. We expressed a particular, personal point of view—I like to sit with sangha, I take refuge in the three treasures by logging on and practicing. We make choices all the time, and we practice noticing what motivates those choices—are our choices motivated by greed, hate, and delusion, by Mara, as we discussed last week, or are we motivated by bodhichitta, the awakened heart-mind that upholds the vows and precepts for the benefit of all being, including ourselves.

As we practice emptiness, we become more flexible, we cling less to our judgments and opinions and dig down into the core foundational teachings that are alive for us in this moment. We open to our lives as they are in this moment. This is how Dogen put it in Genjokoan: “To study the Buddha’s Way is to study the self. To study is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be realized by the ten thousand dharmas.” Emptiness in practice=study the self, forget the self, be that openness.

I said earlier that engaging in study and conversation gives us the tools with which we bring the dharma into our lives. Study and conversation give us stepping off points—I carry the words and concepts both in my conscious mind and subconsciously. They arise spontaneously as I live life. This is prajna—intuitive knowing. In previous talks I’ve used the metaphor of steeping tea in water. The tea leaves are the dharma, we are like water becoming tea. We become the dharma, we become the Buddha Way. At the same time we let go of dharma concepts when we notice we are clinging to them and they are becoming reified preconceptions that keep us from authentic action, from actualizing the fundamental point. We also notice when we grasp and cling to a phrase or a teaching without delving into what it may mean for us, when we accept a cursory understanding of it. We have faith and we trust that with patience we attain clarity and that clarity is for the time being; we let go of clarity and we experience whatever happens next. This is the whole-hearted practice of emptiness.

Theory and practice function together as we realize the Buddha way.

Dogen consistently encourages our practice with his admonition: “Investigate thoroughly.” Another way of saying this is: “Challenge your certainties.” Emptiness in practice is not to deny or reject conceptual thinking; it is to investigate and simultaneously avoid holding on to or reifying concepts. It is to drop all preconceptions (conceptions that exist prior to the moment we are living), pre-judgments (judgments and opinions that we hold inviolate regardless of the moment we are living) to notice the mind that seeks to know and pin down a “truth,” to recognize our tightly held opinions, and to respond to the reality of the moment we are living. This very moment has never been lived before and will never be lived again. Why drag your old, tightly held opinions and judgments into it? Live the emptiness you are. Live the newness of this very moment. What is happening right now?