Nondual Emptiness Teachings

An Eternal Now SG

By Dr. Greg Goode

http://www.heartofnow.com/files/emptiness.html

Emptiness is another kind of nondual teaching. Emptiness teachings demonstrate that the "I," as well as everthing else, lacks inherent existence. The notion of lacking inherent existence has several senses. In one sense, empty things lack essence, which means that there is no intrinsic quality that makes a thing what it is. In another sense, empty things lack independence, which means that a thing does not exist on its own, apart from conditions or relations. A great deal of what one studies in the emptiness teachings demonstrates that these two senses amount to the same thing. Emptiness teachings are found mainly in Buddhism, but there are some surprising parallels in the work of Western philosophers such as Sextus Empiricus, David Hume, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Jacques Derrida, Richard Rorty and many others.

The most common connotation of "nonduality" is "oneness" or "singularity." Many teachings state that everything is actually awareness; those teachings are nondual in the "oneness" sense in which there are no two things. But there is another sense of "nonduality." Instead of nonduality as "oneness," it's nonduality as "free from dualistic extremes." This entails freedom from the pairs of metaphysical dualisms such as essentialism/nihilism, existence/non-existence, reification/annihilation, presence/absence, or intrinsicality/voidness, etc. These pairs are dualisms in this sense: if you experience things in the world in terms of one side of the pair, you will experience things in the world in terms of the other side as well. If some things seem like they truly exist, then other things will seem like they truly don't exist. You will experience your own self to truly exist, and fear that one day you will truly not exist. Emptiness teachings show how none of these pairs make sense, and free you from experiencing yourself and the world in terms of these opposites. Emptiness teachings are nondual in this sense.

For those who encounter emptiness teachings after they've become familiar with awareness teachings, it's very tempting to misread the emptiness teachings by substituting terms. That is, it's very easy to misread the emptiness teachings by seeing "emptiness" on the page and thinking to yourself, "awareness, consciousness, I know what they're talking about." Early in my own investigations I began with this substitution in mind. With this misreading, I found a lot in the emptiness teachings to be quite INcomprehensible! So I started again, laying aside the notion that "emptiness" and "awareness" were equivalent. I tried to let the emptiness teachings speak for themselves. I came to find that they have a subtle beauty and power, a flavor quite different from the awareness teachings. Emptiness teachings do not speak of emptiness as a true nature that underlies or supports things. Rather, it speaks of selves and things as essenceless and free.

According to Buddhist teachings, freedom from suffering dawns when we realize that we ourselves, as well as all things, are empty.

In Buddhism, suffering is said to come from conceiving that we and the world have fixed, independent and unchangeable natures that exist on their own without help from anything else. We expect that there is a true way that self and world truly are and ought to be. These expectations are unrealistic and prevent us from granting things the freedom to come and go and change. We like pleasant things to abide permanently, and unpleasant things to never occur. We experience suffering when we actually encounter comings, goings and change. Suffering often takes the form of anger, indignation, existential anxiety, and even a sense that, as they say in TV sitcoms, "something is wrong with this picture."

But when we deeply realize that we and the world are empty, we no longer have unrealistic expectations. We find peace and freedom in the midst of flux.

What are things empty of? According to the Buddhist teachings, things are empty of inherent existence.

Being empty of inherent existence means that there is no essential, fixed or independent way in which things exist. Things have no essential nature. There is no way things truly are, in and of themselves. We will investigate the notion of inherent existence in more detail below.

Different Buddhist schools or tenet systems have different ways of characterizing emptiness; they have different ways of helping students reduce suffering. My characterization of emptiness adheres somewhat to the Tibetan Gelug-ba school of Prasangika or "Consequentialist" Madhyamika. The term "prasangika" is Sanskrit for "consequence." The "consequence" designation comes from this school's method of debate and refutation, which follows Nagarjuna's style in his Treatise.

The Consequentialists do not argue for substantive positions, but proceed dialectically. They argue by drawing out the unwanted and unexpected logical consequences entailed by their interlocutors' positions. The Consequentialist style of refutation is as follows: while in debate over metaphysical issues with an interlocutor, the Consequentialist refutes the interlocutor not by negating the interlocutor's statement with a counter-statement (e.g., that matter exists, not Mind), but by finding an inconsistency or a reductio ad absurdum among the interlocutor's statements. This allows Consequentialism to be positionless with respect to issues, most notably on questions of existence and non-existence.

Imagine a philosopher coming up to a man who is sitting quietly against a tree, and telling the man that the tree truly exists because it is of the nature of Mind, and only Mind really exists. The sitting man is a consequentialist. He doesn't have an opinion on the existence or non-existence of Mind or the tree, and doesn't wish to convince the philosopher of a contrary position; he's just sitting there. So he won't offer a counter-claim or argue that the tree really doesn't exist as Mind. Instead, he will draw out more statements from the philosopher until the philosopher is involved in a contradiction. Or he might show that the philosopher's assumptions entail an absurd, unwanted conclusion. Then he'll go back to sitting against the tree.

The Consequentialist school is the most thoroughgoing of the Mahayana schools in its rejection of any kind of intrinsic nature. Even though it is the school of His Holiness the current Dalai Lama, most of the Dalai Lama's public teachings are about other topics of wider interest. Emptiness teachings can get abstract and subtle, and not everyone is interested in them. But if you do find books in English on emptiness, most of them are likely to be written from the Consequentialist standpoint. You will find a list of these books in the References below.

(Click to show in full)

According to the Buddhist emptiness teachings, the world is made up only of things that are "selfless" or empty. Even non-existents are empty. Non-existents would include round squares, the hairs of a turtle, etc., and inherent existence. Existents are divided into two classes, compounded things and non-compunded things.

Compounded things are said to disintegrate moment-to-moment, in a way analogous to aging. They are impermanent in this sense. Compounded things have pieces or parts and are produced from combinations of other factors. Compunded things include physical objects, colors, shapes, powers, sensations, thoughts, intentions, feelings, persons, collections, and states of being. These various things fall under the categories of Form (colors, shapes and powers), Consciousness (the sensory modalities and thinking processes), and Compositional Factors (collections and states of being).

Non-compounded things include do not distintegrate moment-to-moment. In this sense, they are said to be "permanent." There are two kinds of "permanent" existent. There are "occasional permanents," which come into existence and go out of existence. These include, for example, the space inside the cup and the emptiness of the cup. Even though the cup is compounded and consists of parts (such as the rim, the handle, the walls, etc.), the space inside the cup and the emptiness of the cup are not compounded and do not consist of parts. Also, the emptiness of the cup and the space inside the cup stop existing when the cup stops existing. There are also "Non-occasional permanents," such as emptiness in general and space in general. These are the referents of general concepts, and exist as long as any objects or relations exist.

For the student of emptiness, it is not important to remember or utilize this scheme or employ these categories in one's day-to-day use. What is important is to learn the lessons taught by this scheme:

This last point is especially important when it comes to meditating on emptiness. When you meditate on emptiness, what you actually look for is inherent existence. Instead of finding inherent existence, you will find the lack of inherent existence. This lack itself is emptiness.

According to the Mahayana paths of Buddhism that emphasize the notion, emptiness is what the early Buddhist sutras were pointing to when they presented the notion of pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit) or paticcasamuppāda (Pali), namely "dependent arising":

There is the case where a disciple of the noble ones notices:
When this is, that is.
From the arising of this comes the arising of that.
When this isn't, that isn't.
From the cessation of this comes the cessation of that.
(Anguttara Nikaya X.92; Vera Sutta)

Centuries later, Nagarjuna (2nd century C.E.) became the preeminent expositor of emptiness teachings. His Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Treatise on the Middle Way) is today considered the most profound and sophisticated exposition of emptiness in Buddhism. The text provides scores of arguments for the conclusion that to propose any kind of inherent existence or metaphysical essence involves the proponent in logical contradictions and incoherence. Chapter 24 actually contains two specific verses that characterize the notion of emptiness itself:

Whatever is dependently co-arisen,
That is explained to be emptiness.
That, being a dependent designation,
Is itself the middle way. (Treatise, 24.18)

Something that is not dependently arisen,
Such a thing does not exist.
Therefore a nonempty thing
Does not exist. (Treatise, 24.19)

In verse 18, Nagarjuna sets up a three-way equivalence:

emptiness : dependent arising : verbal convention

and identifies this equivalence with the Middle Way. The Middle Way is a form of nonduality that is free from the dualistic opposites of essentialism and nihilism. Even emptiness itself is characterized as being empty. It is empty because, instead of having the inherent nature of being dependent arising, it is merely "explained to be" dependent arising.

In verse 19, Nagarjuna states that whatever exists, is in some sense dependently arisen, that is, empty. If something is not dependently arisen, then it is not empty. If it is not empty, then it does not exist. And of course even things we would normally consider as non-existent, such as unicorns and round squares, are also empty.

So how do things exist if they don’t exist inherently? According to the Buddhist teachings, things exist in an everyday, non-inherent, dependent way. Our mode of existence is dependent on many things, such as the causes and conditions that give rise to us, the components that make us up, and the ways we are cognized and categorized. According to the teachings, we are not separate and independent entities, but rather we exist in dependence on webworks of relations and transactions.

For example, we can say that a bottle of milk exists in a dependent, conventional way because you can go to the store, lift the bottle of milk off the shelf, pay for it, and bring it home. It exists in dependence on its surroundings, its having been manufactured, and in relation to the actions of the store employees and yourself. The bottle of milk is not found to exist independently of these things.

It is taught that all things are empty and dependent like this. That includes people and all other living beings, as well as consciousness and unconsciousness; pleasure and pain; time and space; cause and effect; good and bad; logic and math; language, meaning and reference; art, commerce and science; planets, boulders and bridges; unicorns and Sherlock Holmes; energy, thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. Whatever exists is said to exist conventionally, but not inherently.

Even emptiness is empty. For example, the emptiness of the bottle of milk does not exist inherently. Rather, it exists in a dependent way. The emptiness of the bottle of milk is dependent upon its basis (the bottle of milk). It is also dependent upon having been designated as emptiness. As we saw above, this is alluded to in Nagarjuna’s Treatise, verse 24.18.

Understood this way, emptiness is not a substitute term for awareness. Emptiness is not an essense. It is not a substratum or background condition. Things do not arise out of emptiness and subside back into emptiness. Emptiness is not a quality that things have, which makes them empty. Rather, to be a thing in the first place, is to be empty.

It is easy to misunderstand emptiness by idealizing or reifying it by thinking that it is an absolute, an essence, or a special realm of being or experience. It is not any of those things. It is actually the opposite. It is merely the way things exist, which is without essence or self-standing nature or a substratum of any kind. Here is a list characteristics of emptiness, to help avoid some of the frequent misunderstandings about emptiness, according to the Buddhist Consequentialists:

Inherent existence is the kind of existence we uncritically think things have, existing under their own power, without help from anything else. Our sense that things exist in this way is the root of our suffering, according to the Buddhist teachings. We have a sense of this inherency partly due to how we think of language. We think that words are labels pointing straight to pre-formatted, already-individuated things in the world outside of language or cognition. This tendency to feel inherency can even be intensified if we follow essentialist philosophies such as Platonism or materialist realism, which hold that things exist according to their own essential nature, independent of anything else. Our natural tendency to feel this inherency is the root of suffering, according to the emptiness teachings. Actually, being able to locate and isolate this sense of inherent existence in yourself is good news. The more clearly you can grasp the sense of inherent existence, the more powerfully you will be able to realize emptiness when you do your meditations.

What does the sense of inherent existence feel like? We will say much more about this later, but briefly, it feels like something is really there, just like that, being what it really is. You've had a very definite sense of inherent existence if you've ever wondered whether something or someone has been given the "correct" name! Or could it perhaps have been given the wrong name??

According to the emptiness teachings, inherent existence is the kind of existence that things do not have. Things actually lack inherent existence, because they exist as dependent arisings. This dependency is the lack of inherent existence, which in turn, is their emptiness.

The relation between inherent existence, emptiness and dependent arising can be seen through the translation of the Sanskrit or Pali terms for depending arising: pratītyasamutpāda (Sanskrit) or paticcasamuppāda (Pali). The Sanskrit components are individually translated as follows:

Pratītya = Meeting, Relying or Depending + Samut = Out of + Pad = To go, to fall

Notice the three English terms for Pratītya, Meeting, Arising, and Depending. These have been given three different kinds of meanings by the consequentialist writers (see H.H. the Dalai Lama, 2000, pp. 35ff in References), so as to cover all the variations of dependent arising. These kinds of dependence are explained as follows:

MEETING - The coming together of causes and conditions in time. The cessation of cause comes into contact with the onset of effect within a network of supporting conditions. Examples would include one billiard ball striking another, or the sperm and ovum coming into contact at human conception. Because of uncritically thinking that things and people exist inherently, we can sometimes be surprised by the effects of the "Meeting"-style dependent arising. An example would be the surprise at the aging process if we see someone for the first time after a long absence. This is the least subtle of the three types of dependent arising.

RELYING - The way a thing depends on its pieces and parts. The pieces and parts of an object are sometimes called its "basis of designation." According to the emptiness teachings, we would see roots, a stalk, branches and leaves, and based on this, designate the object as a "tree." These various parts are the tree's basis of designation. Being a tree is dependent upon the basis of designation. The tree cannot be said to exist if its basis of designation did not exist. For example, if you have a car in the parking lot over a long period of time, and vandals come and steal pieces here and there over several months, there will come a certain point at which there won't be enough parts for you to call it a car. This is how the car depends upon its pieces and parts, or its basis of designation. Even though this seems reasonable if we think about it like this, it's never theless easy to think that the true car exists in a way apart from the basis of designation, as though there were a "true car" that existed in an ideal realm of some sort. This sense that the car exists without depending on its basis of desgination is the sense of the inherent existence of the car. This is more subtle than "Meeting"-style dependence.

DEPENDING - The way a thing depends on being designated by convention, language, or cognition. Did Mount Everest exist before it was named? Did sub-atomic particles exist as such before they were ever thought of? Would a "rose by any other name" still be a rose? We look at the shape, size and structure of a natural formation of the earth, and call it a "mountain." According to the Consequentialist emptiness teachings, we would say that the basis of designation (formations of earth) existed, but the "mountain" as such did not exist until it was designated by the process of convention and cognition. According to emptiness teachings, it makes no sense to say that something exists if it was never designated or cognized. Nevertheless, it seems to us that things are always there regardless of cognition, and that cognition is a process of mere neutral discovery of what was pre-formed and present all along. This feeling of independence from designation or pre-formed existence is not only an easy feeling to get hold of, it might even seem like common sense to most people. This is another kind of sense of the inherent existence of things. But the emptiness teachings question this. This critique, this "Depending"-style of dependency (as opposed to the "Meeting" and "Relying" types of dependency) will be familar to those who have studied Advaita-Vedanta, Mind-Only Buddhist teachings, or the philosophy of Idealism. The emptiness teachings are not themselves a form of Vedanta or idealism (because emptiness teachings posit that physical objects do exist externally and physically), but they agree with the views which hold that uncognized objects do not exist. This is the most subtle of the three types of dependent arising.

According to Buddhism, anything that exists exists conventionally, through the network of dependent arisings, that is through Meeting, Relying or Depending. Even emptiness exists in this way. But we think and feel that things exist without these dependencies. For something to inherently exist, it would have to exist without any dependencies at all. It would exist without Meeting, Relying or Depending. It is the job of emptiness meditation to find inherent existence, to ascertain whether it exists as we feel it does.

Other terms for inherent existence, gathered from Buddhist and Western sources, would include the following:

So how does one actually realize that all things, self and world, are empty? In a nutshell, the realization of emptiness of an object is accomplished through trying to find and validate that object's inherent existence. One narrows down the options and looks everywhere where the object's inherent existence might be found. What happens is that one fails to find inherent existence. What one finds is the simple lack of inherent existence. This lack is the thing's emptiness.

According to the Buddhist path, one trains to stabilize the attention, abandon harmful actions, take up helpful actions, generate patience and compassion, and meditate on the nature of self and other. These various activities are integrated together to assist the practitioner in generating the insight that things are empty. Emptiness can be realized much more quickly this way than if the person began from scratch with emptiness studies themselves. Realizing emptiness is holistic and not merely an intellectual event. Therefore, a compassionate heart is said to enable the patience, spirit of generosity and flexibility of mind and that are required by the very subtle and tricky emptiness meditations.

The form of Buddhism that places the most emphasis on emptiness meditation is probably the Prasangikga Madhyamika. Once the practitioner has the spontaneous desire for compassion and a yearning to hear the emptiness teachings, then the traditional teacher will begin.

There are several stages in the study of emptiness, which are integrated into much of the Buddhist path itself:

Learn valid establishment – You learn the conventional ways that phenomena are established, i.e., how belief in things is justified. In Buddhism, this can be by learning the Buddhist teachings themselves. They can include teachings on cause and effect, psychology, epistemology, karma, interpersonal relations, compassion, the development of attention and analytical skills. Learning valid establishment prevents the investigator from falling into nihilism, which is the denial of conventional existence along with the denial of inherent existence. Emptiness meditation saves conventional existence, and refutes only inherent existence.

Ascertain the object of refutation – You concentrate to get a strong sense of inherent existence. In this preparatory stage, you familiarize yourself with the difference between conventional existence (which exists, and which is demonstrated by valid establishment) and inherent existence (which we feel exists, but which the meditations prove does not exist). According to the Buddhist teachings, this is the issue in a nutshell, and this is the most challenging stage. Ascertaining the object of entailment can actually require months go get clear about. But the clearer you are on what inherent existence must be, the more able you will be to recognize it should you actually find it in the meditations later, and the more thorough your realization will be.

Determine the entailment – You familiarize yourself with the overall logic of emptiness meditation. The logic is as follows: "Either things exist inherently or they don’t. If things have inherent existence, I should be able to find inherent existence by looking everywhere. But I can’t find inherent existence; I find only its absence, its non-existence. Therefore it doesn’t exist."

In the case of the inherent existence of my self, the logic would go as follows:

My self either has inherent existence or it is empty.

If my self has inherent existence, I should be able to find it by looking everywhere it could possibly be.

I have looked everywhere the inherent existence of my self could possibly be, and cannot find it anywhere.

Therefore, my self is empty.

Conduct the emptiness reasonings – These are the meditations themselves. They are called "reasonings" because they involve inference and entailment. They involve a form of logic, and are often thought of as a form of “analytic meditation.” You go through the steps of the emptiness reasonings in a full-fledged, holistic way, trying to put yourself fully into each stage. There are many kinds of emptiness reasoning. One of the simplest to understand is Chandrakirti’s Sevenfold Reasoning. It is easier to learn the stages of the reasoning by applying it to something neutral, such as a car. When the steps are familiar, you apply them to your self, where they are likely to have a greater effect, and the realization will prove to be more intense. The following is an overview of Chandrakirti’s Sevenfold Reasoning, as applied to a chariot:

Introduction: If the chariot exists inherently, I will be able to find it somewhere in or around its parts.

Is the inherently existent chariot exactly the same as its parts? No, I don't find the inherently existent chariot as equal to its parts. Instead, I find its absence, its nonexistence.

Is it totally different from its parts? No, I don't find the inherently existent chariot apart from its parts. Instead, I find its absence, its nonexistence.

Is it dependent upon its parts? No, I don't find the inherently existent chariot as dependent upon its parts. Instead, I find its absence, its nonexistence.

Is it such that the parts are dependent upon it? No, I don't find the inherently existent chariot such that its parts are dependent upon it. Instead, I find its absence, its nonexistence.

Is it the possessor of its parts? No, I don't find the inherently existent chariot as the possessor of its parts. Instead, I find its absence, its nonexistence.

Is it the mere collection of its parts? No, I don't find the inherently existent chariot as the collection of its parts. Instead, I find its absence, its nonexistence.

Is it the mere shape of its parts? No, I don't find the inherently existent chariot as the shape of its parts. Instead, I find its absence, its nonexistence.

Conclusion: Therefore the chariot doesn’t exist inherently. It is empty, existing not inherently, but conventionally only.

For a more detailed look at Chandrakirti’s Sevenfold Reasoning, see "Emptiness Meditation - Another Kind of Self-Inquiry"

Review the relation between emptiness and valid establishment – You reflect on how the emptiness of your self and the emptiness of other beings and things in the world allows all of these existents to move, change, and interact with each other. If things had fixed and independent nature, as we often feel they do, then they would not be able to change. For example, if a tree had an essential nature as something containing 106 branches and 2,196 leaves, then if it lost even one leaf, it would be definition not be that particular tree any more. If we, for example, had a fixed nature as a person with just these physical and psychological characteristics, then we could never become happier more mature, or more slender without violating these characteristics and becoming by definition another person.

Conze, Edward, (Translator). The Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines & Its Verse Summary. San Francisco, California. Four Season Foundation, 1995 (c1973).

Cozort, Daniel. Unique Tenets of the Middle Way Consequence School. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1998.

Garfield, Jay. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Na-ga-rjuna's Mu-lamadhyamakaka-rika. Translation and commentary on Nagarjuna's Treatise on the Middle Way. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Garfield, Jay. Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

H.H. the Dalai Lama. Transcendent Wisdom: A commentary on the Ninth Chapter of Shantideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life. Translated and edited by Wallace, B. Alan. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1988.

H.H. the Dalai Lama. The Meaning of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect. Translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins. Somerville, Massachusetts. Wisdom Publications, 2000.

Hopkins, Jeffrey. Emptiness Yoga. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1995.

Hopkins, Jeffrey. Meditation on Emptiness. Boston, Massachusetts. Wisdom Publications, Revised ed. 1996.

Huntington, C.W., Jr. The Emptiness of Emptiness: An Introduction to Early Indian Madhyamika. With Geshe Namgyal Wangchen. Honolulu: The University of Hawaii Press, 1989.

Kensur Yeshey Tupden. Path to the Middle: Oral Madhyamika Philosophy, edited and translated Anne Carolyn Klein: Albany, New York: State University of New York, 1994.

Klein, Anne. Knowledge & Liberation: Tibetan Buddhist Epistemology in Support of Transformative Religious Experience. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1986.

Klein, Anne. Knowing, Naming & Negation: A Sourcebook on Tibetan Sautrantika. With commentary by Drakba, Geshe Belden, Denma Locho-Rinpochay, and Tupden, Kensur Yeshay. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1991.

Lati, Rinbochay. Mind in Tibetan Buddhism. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1981.

Magee, William. The Nature of Things: Emptiness and Essence in the Geluk World. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1999.

Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna's Precious Garland: Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation. Translated with an Introduction by Hopkins, Jeffrey. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1998.

Napper, Elizabeth. Dependent-Arising and Emptiness: A Tibetan Buddhist Interpretation of Madhyamika. Boston, Massachusetts: Wisdom Publications, 1989.

Newland, Guy. Appearance & Reality: The Two Truths in the Four Buddhist Tenet Systems. Ithaca, New York. Snow Lion Publications, 1999.

Pabongka, Kyabje. Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand: A Concise Discourse on the Path to Enlightment. Edited by Trijang Rinpoche and Richards, Michael. Somerville, Massachusetts: Wisdom Publications, 1997 (c1991).

Rabten, Geshe. The Mind and Its Functions. Edited by Batchelor, Stephen. Le Mont P`elerin, Switzerland. Editions Rabten Choeling, 1992 (c1978).

Robinson, Richard H. Early Madhyamika in India and China. Madison, Wisconsin. University of Wisconsin Press, 1967.

Siderits, Mark. Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy: Empty Persons. Burlington, Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2003.

Tsongkapa. The Principal Teachings of Buddhism, with a Commentary by Pabongka Rinpoche. Translated by Tharchin, Geshe Lobsong, and Roach, Michael. Howell, New Jersey: Paljor Publications, 1998.

Wilson, Joe. Chandrakirti's Sevenfold Reasoning: Meditation on the Selflessness of Persons_. Dharmasala, India: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, 1980.

An Eternal Now SG

Thusness commented on https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=3225985453951330898&postID=406673482513792244&pli=1 (p.s. as initiated by Thusness... the Awakening to Reality blog is currently undergoing content (editing), design and feature revamp. Some design and features updates can already be observed):

There is more to the article regarding "Emptiness" from Dr. Greg Goode. His insights will be invaluable as he already matures his experience of non-duality similar to that of anatta. This non-dual experience if can be purified by the insight of Emptiness is most precious.

An Eternal Now SG

Here's another article by Greg Goode which Thusness said is good... it is on the insight on Anatta (No-Self).

The Enlightenment Secret

You are not a separate being. You are Being, and never separate. This is the Enlightenment, the happiness, in which all apparent things consist. It is the very Being of you.

It's a secret not because there's anyone hiding anything. It's been proclaimed by sages around the world for millennia. Rather, it's a secret because enlightenment is often misunderstood to be a matter of personal achievement, like scoring the ultimate goal. But there's no person there! There's not even a "there" or a spatial location where a person can reside. There is no individualized or separate "you" or "me"; no goal, no task and no achievement.

There are no things, and no gaps separating things.

Confirmation

How to "see" this? Experience confirms this at every moment.

The world, body, and mind appear as sensations, feelings and thoughts. These appearances are all arisings in awareness. The person does not see these arisings. Rather, the person is made up out of these arisings, including the supposed act of seeing. If these arisings are investigated, it can be seen that they do not reach outside themselves. They cannot point to each other, touch each other or contain each other. It is only memory that suggests that there has ever been another arising. But memory itself is nothing more than an arising. It cannot truly point backwards or forwards to anything, for during this apparent pointing, there are no objects to be pointed to. There is truly nothing in experience that establishes that there has ever been anything other than THIS. There is no evidence that there were ever even two arisings. If there cannot be two arisings, how can there be even one? What is left? Awareness, our true nature.

Dr. Greg Goode

No Separation
Satsang
Is Spiritual Practice Necessary?
Emptiness and No-Self
Free Will and Freedom
Physical Objects Disappear!
Experiences of Enlightenment?
The Problem of the Criterion
The Problem of Arm's Reach
Nondualism and Western Philosophers
Nondualism, Yogas and Personality Characteristics
Buddhist Numbered Lists
No Brakes -- Or, Zen on Wheels
(more about this at Old Skool Track.com)
Nacho Satsang

There is a small satsang that gathers occasionally in the New York City area. It usually takes place at dinner over nachos or curry. Join in! Contact Dr. Greg Goode

Years ago, there was lots and lots of vigilance in my life. Before and during spiritual seeking, I wasn't badly suffering or in pain or unhappy with circumstances in life or stuck in dysfunctional patterns. Instead, I felt a deep sense of loneliness, alienation, lack of fulfillment, and a strong yearning from the heart and mind to know "What is it all about? What is the purpose of life? What happens after? What are all these mystical truths that are spoken of? Where is fulfillment to be found?" I was very vigilant about it.

Going back 30+ years, I tried many, many different paths, from Ayn Rand's icy "Rational Selfishness" to the strictness and ecstasy of Born-Again Pentacostal Christianity. Years later, this all settled down to an intense inquiry.

For about 5 years, one question kept itself rooted in front of me. "What is the core of me?" I couldn't help it - I'd ponder this in every spare moment the mind wasn't engaged in something else. It was a sweet and relentless yearning. I really wanted to burrow into the deepest secrets of this. After a few years, the question refined itself. "What or where is this choosing, willing entity that seems to be in evidence?" "Is that the me?" "But where is it?"

The answer came one day while I was reading a book about consciousness. I was standing on the Grand Central subway platform during the evening rush hour, and the answer came. It didn't come as a conceptual statement like "It is ABC." Rather, it came by way of the world and the body imploding into a brilliant light, and the willing, phenomenal self thinning out, disappearing in a blaze of the same light. No separation was experienced; no time or space was experienced, yet I knew myself as the seeing itself. All "willings," "desirings," "thoughts" and other mentations were deeply experienced as spontaneous arisings in awareness, happening around no fixed point or location. And it wasn't personal. Not only the entity "Greg," but all apparent personal entities dissolved.

Out of nowhere, lightness, sweetness, brightness, and a fluidity of the world became qualities of everything, and became one with all experiences. My long-standing question had vanished along with what I had believed was "me." There arose resiliency, joy, and an untouchable happiness.

This experience uncovered the realization that without the conceptual structures that make things seem real, there is no presumption of a separate center. There is no suffering and no basis for suffering. There is no feeling that things should be different than they are. This is a sense of peace far beyond what happens when we get what we dream about.

(Back to Top)

Q: What is it about an experience that makes it an experience of enlightenment?

A: Any experience will do. All experience is the same, all experience is light.

A strong belief in true enlightenment experiences might be helpful in the beginning as one searches for direction, pointers and confirmation. Certain experiences are very encouraging and inspiring. An out-of-body experience, where we look down at the physical body on the bed while hovering and moving about the room and perhaps about the country, can convince us that we are not the body. An experience of clearly witnessing the mind's activities can convince us that we are not the mind. An experience of stillness can be a pointer to the stillness beyond experience. But ultimately, assuming that enlightenment is an experience leads to putting enlightenment ever at arm's reach. There are two problems involved, the problem of the criterion and the problem of arm's reach.

If there were such a thing as a separate and distinct experience "of" enlightenment, several things would be necessary. You would have to have (i) a separate experience, which stands in some relation to (ii) enlightenment. That is, we'd say that (i) refers to (ii) by being "of" (ii). But the "of-ness" is a myth and doesn't exist. To rely on this of-ness and "take it to the bank" involves two insoluble problems:

The Problem of the Criterion

What makes this experience one of enlightenment? If there is an experience of enlightenment, then this divides the world of experience into halves, where some experiences are of enlightenment and some are not. Next arises the need for some kind of criterion. What is it that makes this an experience of enlightenment? A feeling of oneness, lack of limitations, bliss or expansion? Such a criterion is usually in terms of some subjectively experienced state, complete with a "me" that experiences it. What makes any one criterion better than another? Definitions differ widely. And in the case of any criterion, it can only point to some state, however lofty and heavenly, that comes and goes. But THIS, NOW, is not a coming-and-going thing and is never removed from the present.

The Problem of Arm's Reach

This is a thornier problem, where enlightenment will be forever out of reach. If there is an experience of enlightenment, it is like a picture of dinner, not dinner itself. With such an experience and its referring relationship to enlightenment, enlightenment must always stand outside the experience. This puts enlightenment out of at arm's reach. You can never get there from here.

But worse, if enlightenment is a psychological state or other object standing remote from me or standing outside of experience, it makes no sense to talk about enlightenment at all. In general, we have no knowledge or no evidence or no experience to talk about ANYTHING outside experience. The notion of something existing outside of experience cannot be validated by experience. In fact, any attempted validation is self- defeating. Why? Because even a logical or verbal proof attempting to show that some object exists outside of experience actually proves its own contrary, by putting that object at least in some sense, like a unicorn, WITHIN our experience. Experience doesn't confirm objects; it self-confirms in the present. It is ever now, here.

In this way, all experience is the same. It is light that is the nature of us. Apparent objects seem to come and go in this light, but when they are searched for, they cannot be found. There is no experience of enlightenment, for nothing is separate from experience. Rather, experience itself is light.

(Back to Top)

George Berkeley's THREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HYLAS AND PHILONOUS is a remarkable book. It is a short, well written set of dialogues, arguing in exemplary style that there can be no external physical objects which are somehow perceived by our sensory apparatus.

And over 20 years ago, it had the most amazing effect on the globality of my experience.

Who is Berkeley? You know that old philosophical question about the tree in the forest, would it make a sound if no one were there to hear it? He's the guy in the 18th century who answered "No." Berkeley argued tirelessly that there is no external physical substance. Our thoughts do not point to external objects like rocks and automobiles. Rocks and automobiles do not cause our thoughts.

When I was in grad school going for a philosophy doctorate, my teacher Colin Murray Turbayne was acknowledged as one of the world's great Berkeley scholars. But to get a good grade in his class, you could never write anything against Berkeley. So we had to study Berkeley really carefully, because his ideas sounded so utterly unintuitive, crazy really. But after several months, they began to make sense.

One day after a lot of reading, Berkeley's arguments crystalized, and it felt like a fog cleared from my mind. The feelings and convictions about supposed external objects vanished! The concepts of material substance and the attandant inside/outside distinction vanished. Nor were they necessary to explain our experiences. I was shaking with excitement, and not just because I thought I'd now get an "A" in Professor Turbayne's class.

I went to Professor Turbayne's office. He instantly saw that something was different. He looked questioningly at me, and I could only nod. He smiled and said, "Aha! Now go write about it!"

Since that time, over two decades years ago, the inside/outside disctinction has been useless to me. The notion of "material substance" has been just like the notion of "Santa Claus." And amazingly enough, the dissolution of these notions has made it easier for me to interact in what is often called the physical world. Because I haven't seen anything as physical for decades, there has been no fear factor. I learned to rollerblade and ride a bicycle with no brakes in the traffic-filled streets of New York City.

Perceptions that are usually called "physical" occur as a kind of language that has no inside or outside, where each concept refers to other concepts in a growing and consistent way. But there's nothing Out There to which any of these ideas refer.

In my case, it was an excellent shake-up, like a mental Vege-matic blender, preparing me for non-dualist teachings.

(Back to Top)

The question of free will is from the perspective of the person. Does the person have free will? Many of the person's actions are forced or determined by factors over which it has no control. Some of these actions are accompanied by the feeling of being lived, of being in the flow, in the "zone." People often count these as the best times. But are at least some of the person's decisions and actions freely chosen? To establish free will, as is discussed in Philosophy 101 classes everywhere, it is not necessary to show that every action is free. Even one free action would be sufficient.

Case 1:
"Will that be coffee or tea?"
"Hmmm, let me think.... I'll have tea, thanks."

Case 2:
(Thought bubble rising:) "I'd love to take a walk in the beautiful woods. I'd like to surround myself with peace and serenity and inquire into my true nature." (Putting on hiking boots, opening the camper door and stepping out), "Here I go."

From the perspective of the person, if the decision process is not analyzed, the actions and decisions in both cases above seem to be perfect examples of free will. Upon analysis however, a free action and a free chooser cannot be found. A thought comes, followed by a desire, followed by a decision, followed by an action. Tracing backwards, the action is controlled by the decision, the decision is controlled by the desire, the desire is prompted by the thought. The thought arises spontaneously, itself unbidden, un-asked-for, unchosen. First the thought is not there, then it is. Nowhere in this process can a free will be found. Nowhere can a freely-acting chooser be found.

It is even too much to say that the actions, decisions, desires and thoughts can control or prompt each other. These cause-and-effect dynamics are not even observed. Rather, they arise as inferences and conclusions about what happened, that is, they arise as thoughts that rise and fall.

In something like Case 1, the decision might even be accompanied by a small feeling of freedom, lightness, and spaciousness. And maybe also accompanied by a thought, "I'm choosing tea but I could freely choose coffee instead." But the feeling of freedom and the thought "I could" also arise unbidden. That is, the feeling of freedom is not freely chosen.

The person is not the locus of freedom.

The person and the rest of the world cannot be found apart from the awareness in which all things appear. The person, the mind, body and world arise as thoughts, feelings, and sensations. These are nothing other than objects in awareness, and are nothing other than awareness itself. The person does not experience; the person is experienced. As awareness, we are That to which these objects appear. Thoughts, feelings, sensations - these objects arise from the background of silent awareness, they subsist in awareness, and they slip back into awareness. The awareness in which they appear is not itself an object but the background of all objects. It is our true nature. But the objects come and go unbidden, without autonomy. They are powerless and cannot do anything on their own. Objects cannot possess or contain freedom.

Is there freedom?

The silent awareness in which all objects appear is the true nature of all things. Awareness says YES to everything. Even if a NO arises, awareness says YES to the NO. Awareness is without resistance, without limits or edges, without refusal and without obstruction. Awareness is not free, it is freedom itself. What we truly are is not the person but this awareness, this freedom.

The person wants to co-opt this freedom, to own it, to behold it, to be present to use and enjoy it. But in spite of this desire from the perspective of the person, the person can never own That in which the person appears.

What about teachings that emphasize free will?

Entire religions and ethical systems are based on this idea. Ramana Maharshi told a questioner that all actions are determined except the ability to inquire into one's true nature. Isn't Case 2 above different from Case 1?

Sometimes teachings and exhortations about personal freedom are a beautiful, effective and necessary step for freedom from the idea of being a person. A person who prematurely adopts a "no-free-will" teaching can lapse into depression and antinomian behavior. "You have to be someone before you can be no one." The teachings on free will borrow from the freedom that we are. Among the many objects that arise in the mirror of awareness, some objects arise as images of mirrors. These images are taken as representations of their source. Like a mirror appearing in a mirror, Ramana's teaching serves as a pointer to freedom. Case 2 is not different in this respect from Case 1. As objects, all cases and their characters, and all teachings and all discourse (even this one!) are not themselves free or self-powered, but they arise from freedom and consist in freedom.

The person is never free.

As awareness, we are never bound.

(Back to Top)