Suchness
Reality, as it is, is called suchness. Suchness means "it is like
that." You cannot describe it in terms of notions, especially
notions of birth and death, being and non-being, coming and going.
No word, no idea, no notion can describe reality: the reality of a
table, the reality of a flower, the reality of a house, the reality
of a living being.
Sometimes you are angry with your father and you say, "I don't want
anything to do with him!" What a declaration! You don't know that
you and your father belong to the same reality; you are his
continuation, you are he. Look into whether you are the same as
your father or different from him. Our true nature is the nature of
not the same, not different. You and your father are not the same;
and you are not different.
When you help the flame to manifest by striking the match, look
deeply and you can see that it comes from nowhere, and it goes
nowhere. Use the flame on the match to light a candle. Is the flame
of the candle the same as the flame of the match or different? If
you have a second candle and light it too, you can ask if the three
flames are the same or different.
Looking into a flame of one candle, we can see in this very flame
that the idea of "neither the same nor different" applies not only
to the flames of the two different candles but also to the one
flame that lit them both. This flame is not the same and is not
different because each moment of that flame is unique. The moment
that comes next is a moment where the flame manifests itself in a
different way.
The manifestation of something or someone does not rely on one
condition alone; it relies on many conditions. So, the idea that
one cause can bring about the effect is not correct. One cause is
never enough to help something manifest.
While we are contemplating the flame we did not look deeply enough
to see all the conditions. We know that the flame is nourished by
the matchstick, by the wood and by fuel. It is true that nothing
can survive without fuel, but the fuel is only one element, one
condition. The flame can manifest itself only when all the elements
are there. If there is no oxygen in the air, the flame cannot
appear for very long. The flame relies on the wood, on the wick, on
oxygen. The flame is already there in the matchbox. It does not
need to be born, it only needs to manifest when the conditions are
right.
We may only be a boy or a girl of twelve years old and do not now
have children of our own. But in our person, the causes and
conditions for the manifestation of children and grandchildren are
there. It's just a matter of time and conditions
A SHEET OF PAPER
No coming, no going,
No after, no before.
I hold you close,
I release you to be free;
I am in you
And you are in me.
No coming, no going is the true nature of reality. You have come
from nowhere; you will go nowhere. The rose, the cloud, the
mountains, the stars, the planet Earth - everything is like that.
Their nature is the nature of no coming, no going. To die does not
mean that from something you become nothing. To be born does not
mean that from no one you suddenly become someone. There is only
manifestation based on sufficient conditions, and the cessation of
manifestation, based on the lack of proper conditions.
The sheet of paper on which these words are written has a history.
This page in the book that you are holding in your hands took its
form in a single moment. That does not mean that it was a moment of
its birth. It was already there as the light of the sun, as the
trunk of a tree, as the cloud and the earth. The moment when it
came from the factory was just its moment of manifestation.
So we should ask, "Dear little sheet of paper, were you there
before you were born?" The sheet of paper will answer, "Yes, in the
form of a tree, in the form of the sunshine, in the form of a cloud
and the rain, in the form of minerals and the earth. The moment of
becoming a sheet of paper was a moment of continuation. I have not
come from nothing. I have come from the cosmos. I have been a tree,
I have been a cloud, I have been sunshine, soil and so on."
Looking deeply into the sheet of paper, you can still see the
trees, the clouds, and the sunshine. You do not have to go to the
past. That is the advantage of being a meditator; you do not have
to travel. You just sit there and look deeply, and you can see and
recognize everything. The sheet of paper contains all the
information about the cosmos, including information concerning the
cloud, the sunshine, the trees, the earth. If you return one of
these elements to its origin, the sheet of paper will no longer be
there. If you returned the sunshine to the sun, there would be no
forest, and no paper. That is why the sunshine is in the paper.
When you touch the sheet of paper, you touch the sunshine, you
touch the cloud, you touch the rain, you touch the earth, you touch
the whole cosmos. One manifestation contains all.
If you run your fingers over the paper, you can feel the cloud in
it. Without the rain, which comes from the cloud, there would be no
paper. When you are running your fingers over the piece of paper,
you are running your fingers over the trees in the forest. With our
fingers we can touch the sun and all the minerals of the earth in
the paper. All these conditions lie in the paper. When we can be in
touch with the paper with our awakened understanding, we are in
touch with the whole of existence.
When we practice looking deeply into this sheet of paper, we can
see the forest. Without the forest there would be no tree, without
the trees we cannot make paper. So this sheet of paper has not come
from nothing; it has come from something like the trees. But the
trees are not enough to make the sheet of paper. The sunshine
nourishes the trees; the clouds water the trees; the soil, the
minerals and a multitude of other phenomena help the sheet of paper
to manifest. And then there has to be a logger who cuts the tree,
and the deli worker that made the sandwich for the logger's lunch,
and the people who formed the company that pays the loggers. These
things do not exist outside the sheet of paper. They are one with
the paper.
You may think, How can I identify
this sheet of paper with the forest? The forest is outside the
paper. If you remove the forest or the cloud from the sheet
of paper, the sheet of paper will fly apart. If there were no
clouds, and no rain from the clouds, how could trees grow? How
could we make paper paste in order to produce a sheet of
paper?
The sheet of paper has no birthday, and you have no birthday. You
were there before you were born. The next time you celebrate your
birthday, you might like to change the song to Happy Continuation
Day." If it is true that the birthday is a continuation day, then
what you call the day of death is also a continuation day. If your
practice is strong, at the moment of dying you will sing a song of
happy continuation.
~ No death, no fear (pg
78 to 83); by Thich Nhat Hanh
