When we look at a candle, a flame is burning brightly,
flickering moment by moment, not having a fixed shape.
We may question, where does the fire come from? Does it come
from north? South? East? West?
Does it come from the candle? It would appear so, but before the
candle starts burning there is no fire. When the fire starts
burning, it appears out of nowhere - the candle and a sudden spark
ignites the fire, but the fire came from nowhere - it is merely
dependently arisen, without a place of origin - entirely fresh and
new.
Where is it? The fire is constantly flickering, cannot catch a
location at all. Merely dependently arisen, no substantial core
that can be pinned down or located. In fact - try moving your hand
across the fire - it's totally hollow and transparent.
Where does it go after the fire is blown out? Does it go north,
south, east, west, up or down? Doesn't apply. For what is
dependently arisen, ceases upon the cessation of conditions, and is
empty of an entity. The notion of an entity that persists and goes
somewhere does not apply at all. Fire is empty of IT-ness. There is
no fire-ness of fire.
For what dependently originates does not come into being, and
what ceases upon the ending of conditions has no destination, nor
can it be said that a 'thing' has been 'annihilated'. It simply
means the absence of conditions for further arising.
Look at your current experience. How is it any different from
flickering fire?
Isn't it the case that whatever you think, see, hear, and smell,
are spontaneously appearing out of nowhere via dependent
origination? That it is constantly flickering, unlocatable,
insubstantial? That there is no destination to which things proceed
to and remain - rather, they simply cease upon the parting of
conditions?
If you are to pay a little more mindfulness to your experience,
it will not be difficult to directly observe your experiential
reality constantly dissolving moment by moment like your fingers
drawing on a pond utterly vanishing without a trace upon its
inception.
We however have ideas of substantial reality that exists
objectively, causing obscuration and proliferation that grasps at
solid self and things.
For example we imagine that there is an observer, a self, that
is peering out through the eyes at an objective world. The
objective world is seen to consist of solid entities and objects
each with their own inherent characteristics.
We reason ourselves that if we close our eyes and open them
again, we will again see similar shapes and colours. We then reason
to ourselves that these shapes and colours are inherently present
as the characteristics of objects regardless of whether we are
present to observe the objects.
We fail to consider that for example, dogs see no colours,
beings of other realms can see something different, and if we look
at the quantum level we see mostly void. We fail to consider also
that 'colours, shapes, and forms' are merely our visual experience
arisen due to specific causes and conditions. There is no such
thing as vision without colours, shapes, and forms. And there is no
colours, shapes, and forms without vision. They are synonymous. In
any case, they are simply dependently arisen experiences. Our
framework of there being an observer observing the world of objects
are baseless, no such delineation can be found in our
investigation. There is no seer that is seeing objects, nor objects
that stay the same and exists apart from our observation of them.
There is rather simply a wide array of appearances, which are
dependently arisen but no solid entities can be posited or
established whatsoever. Whatever object we investigate to see if
they could be characteristics 'belonging' to truly existent objects
are found to be more of the same hollow and substanceless,
dependently arisen appearance, like an empty shell which only
'appears' but do not pertain to any true existence or core. Being
dependently arisen, nothing whatsoever exhibits the characteritics
of inherent existence - core-like, singular, partless, independent,
unchanging. There are no objects behind the colours, shapes, forms
that we experience moment to moment... nor a seer behind the
seeing.
It is also not the case that objects pass through our field of
awareness or experience. To say that "things arise in awareness" is
fundamentally wrong already since it implies there is "things" that
can arise and pass away in some unchanging "awareness". But
actually both "things" and "awareness" are merely conventions that
point to a single self-luminous experience. In actuality there is
no 'awareness' other than what is seen, heard, smell, taste,
touched, thought, awareness is simply the self-aware, self-luminous
quality of each experience, and there is no sight, sound, smell,
... etc that is not the self-luminous display of mind. In short,
there is nothing apart from the suchness of every manifestation.
Language and thought falsely construes artificial dualities and
frame our experience in these false constructs causing confusion,
ignorance, clinging and suffering. Awareness is empty of any
intrinsic identity - being merely a convention, like everything
else are also conventionally designated without any substantial
ground to be found.
