No Coming, No Going
For many of us, our greatest pain is caused by our notions of
coming and going. We think that the person we loved came to us from
somewhere and has now gone away somewhere. But our true nature is
the nature of no coming, no going. We have not come from anywhere,
we shall not go anywhere. When conditions are sufficient, we
manifest. When conditions are no longer sufficient, we no longer
manifest. It does not mean we do not exist. Like radio waves
without a radio, we do not manifest.
Not only do the notions of coming and going not express reality,
neither do the notions of being and non-being. We hear these words
in the Prajnaparamita Sutra: "Listen Shariputra, all dharmas
[phenomena] are marked by emptiness, they are neither produced nor
destroyed, neither increasing nor decreasing."
The meaning of emptiness here is very important, it means first of
all to be empty of a separate self. Nothing has a separate self,
and nothing exists by itself. If we examine things carefully we
will see that all phenomena, including ourselves are composites. We
are made up of other parts. We are made of our mother and father,
our grandmothers and grandfathers, our body, our feelings, our
perceptions, our mental formations, the earth, the sun and
innumerable non-self elements. All these parts depend on causes and
conditions. We see that all that has existed, exists or will exist
is interconnected and interdependent. All that we see has only
manifested because it is a part of something else, of other
conditions that make it possible to manifest. All phenomena are
neither produced nor destroyed, because they are in a constant
process of manifesting.
We may be intelligent enough to understand this, but to understand
it intellectually is not enough. To really understand this is to be
free from fear. It is to become enlightened. It is to live in
inter-being.
We have to practice looking deeply like this to nourish our
awakened understanding of no birth and no death in our daily lives.
In this way we can realise the wonderful gift of non-fear.
If we just talk about inter-being as a theory, it will not help us.
We should ask: "Piece of paper, where do you come from? Who are
you? What did you come here to do?" We can ask the flame: "Flame,
where do you come from and where will you go?" Listen to the reply
closely. The flame, the piece of paper, is replying by its
presence. We only have to look deeply and we can hear it reply. The
flame is saying: "I do not come from anywhere."
That would be the answer of the japonica flowers also. They were
not the same and not different. They did not come from anywhere and
they did not go anywhere. If there is a baby who is lost, we should
not be sad. It is because there were not sufficient causes and
conditions for it to arrive at that time. It will come again.
- Thich Nhat Hanh: No Death, No Fear
