More monographs to be posted

More monographs to be posted

No Attainment

Spiritual teachers, down through the centuries, have spoken of (what we might call) the condition of “emptiness.” Where is one to turn today in order to learn the implications of this supposed reality?


Go to the library and check out twenty or so volumes on the subject: you’ll find that the preponderance were written by professors of philosophy (often as their doctoral dissertation) or by translators of venerable treatises in Sanskrit, Tibetan or Chinese.


Since Buddhism has long been a subject of interest to philosophers, the majority of these books focus on arguments between various (often extinct) sects’ schools of thought, generally straying far afield from an exploration of the implications of emptiness. In other words, little of the material will be of value, in plain English, to a reader today.


The two pillars of Buddhism – the Heart Sutra and the Diamond Sutra – have been succinct, dependable sources on the general implications of emptiness, for millennia. Few there are who aren’t familiar with the six-word summary in the Heart Sutra: form is emptiness, emptiness is form.


However upon learning this, as I did decades ago, one might superficially conclude, “This is just saying that form and emptiness are the same.”


Yes…. but the key is in recognizing that within that sameness there’s an important difference.


Every form is impermanent, presumably has a beginning and ending in “time” and “space.” Emptiness, itself, would be formless (which is why the contrast with form): no beginning anywhere, no ending anywhere.


This difference tells us something about the nature of what we take to be reality, and what only appears to be reality.


Appearances appear: they come and they go. Anything which we would properly call reality, as a presiding or ultimate condition, does not come and go.


If this is so, any ultimate condition would know nothing of beginnings or endings. Therefore that condition could not generate or propagate anything which does come and go: that is, forms of any kind; appearances of any sort. Forms, in their appearances, have no substantial reality, in other words; not any thing exists as it appears to.


What are these appearances, in reality? Empty. And what of emptiness itself? It can only be empty. Emptiness is the present condition, emptiness is the ultimate condition.


This sheds a different light on the complete teaching in the Heart Sutra. How does one “live” one’s “life” where not anything can have lasting, meaningful importance? In fact, is there a “life,” in actuality? As the Heart Sutra says, “no attainment”?


In the Samyukta Agama, Buddha says directly:


What is the discourse on emptiness in its ultimate meaning? Monks, when the eye arises, there is no place from which it comes; when it ceases, there is no place to which it goes. Thus the eye, being not real, ‘arises’; having arisen it ceases completely….


A noble disciple, observing things as they really are, sees that the world is empty. The world is empty: it is eternally, unchangingly devoid of self or of anything belonging to self….


Monk, all compounded things are as an illusion, a flame, ceasing in an instant, not really coming (or arising), not really going (or ceasing). Therefore, monk, you should know, rejoice in and be mindful of this: all activities are empty; empty of permanent, eternal status, unchanging nature; not-self-and-not-belonging-to-self.


Sushila Blackman has written:


As Ninakawa lay dying, Zen Master Ikkyu visited him. 


“Shall I lead you on?” Ikkyu asked.


Ninakawa replied: “I came here alone, and I go alone. What help could you to be to me?”


Ikkyu answered: “If you think you really come and go, that is your delusion. Let me show you the path on which there is no coming and going.”


With his words, Ikkyu had revealed the path so clearly that Ninakawa smiled and passed away.

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