Practicing with Emptiness
Once we pass the point of being novices in our practice, we
see that emptiness is at the core of the dharma. For many students, the word
itself is problematic. It is only later in their practice that they realize the
reason they struggle with the word is that it too is empty. For now, let’s not
make the word an obstacle to understanding this critically important Mahayana
teaching.
Let’s start by looking at what emptiness means. Emptiness
means that the things around us (animal, vegetable and mineral; people, places
and events; thoughts, ideas and concepts) don’t have any set definition or
value, don’t have any inherent meaning in and off themselves. Whatever meaning
they do have is because we have assigned it to them.
We know this, at least on the most basic level, because we
know that we can change the meaning of something: sometimes it is good to sleep
in late, other times not (sleeping is empty); sometimes I think I look great,
other times not (my appearance is empty). In fact, because things are empty we
can change the story, the description we have of that thing. Empty means anyone
can assign whatever definition or meaning or value they want to what’s
happening. And that means we can learn to rewrite our stories in ways that reduce
and end our pain and suffering.
What about stories that everyone agrees on, aren’t they
true? In the 6th century BC the Greeks determined that the world was
round and measured the circumference of the earth pretty accurately, yet
Europeans as a whole continued to believe that the world was flat until the 17th
century. The Alexandrians had measured the circumference of the earth with
remarkable accuracy in the 1st century BC, yet with the burning the
great library and the beginning of the Christian era, the world became flat,
flat, flat, again. Even if everyone seems to agree on a single story, that
doesn’t make it true or permanent; it is still empty. It is still just a story.
However, “accurate” understandings of the everyday world from stories are important
and useful, as we’ll see.
Emptiness is empty of story, empty of inherent and
always-the-same meaning and value. It does not suggest that the object doesn’t
exist. My car isn’t a good car or a bad car, it just depends on how I view it.
When it is running well, it’s a good car; when it breaks down, it’s a bad car.
The knowledge that on an ultimate, empty level, it’s not even “a car” until I
call it that, doesn’t mean, however, that it doesn’t exist. Of course it
exists. “Car,” though is just a label, a story.
So being “empty” isn’t a denial that things exist. Rather it
is an understanding that we superimpose upon ourselves–and on things around
us–a false existence, a self-existence or essential reality that actually does
not exist at all–a story about who we are and about the definitions, meaning of
values of the things around us.
What is emptiness? Emptiness is the way things really are,
in an absolute sense. It is the way things exist as opposed to the conventional
way they appear. We naturally believe that the things we see around us, such as
tables, chairs and houses are truly existent, because we believe that they
exist in exactly the way that they appear.
However, the way things appear to our senses is deceptive
and completely contradictory to the way in which they ultimately exist. Things
appear to exist from their own side, without depending upon our mind. This
computer, for example, seems to have its own independent, objective existence.
It seems to be “outside” whereas our mind seems to be “inside.” We feel that
the computer can exist without our mind; we do not feel that our mind is in any
way involved in bringing the book into existence.
Although things that appear directly to our senses to be
truly existent, in reality all phenomena lack, or are empty of, true existence.
This computer, our body, our friends, and the entire universe are in reality
just appearances to mind, like things seen in a dream.
On another level, though, we know that things are empty
because we know that everything is impermanent, and being impermanent,
everything is therefore interconnected. [How we know this will be the topic of
a future blog.]
So why do we care? For two crucial reasons: Until we
understand that there are two truths, a conventional truth, which is our
understanding of things from our everyday perspective, our story-telling, and
that there is also an ultimate truth, that things really don’t exist on their
own as we seem to perceive them, that things really aren’t separate and solid
as our senses imply, that in fact everything is ultimately interrelated and
interconnected, we cannot (1) develop a moral code that allows us to
distinguish between right and wrong, and (2) we cannot meaningfully learn to
reduce and finally end our suffering. [Look for a further explanation of this
in a future blog.]
Before explaining a simple way to practice with emptiness to
reduce our suffering, even when we are experiencing “big dukkha,” even with
events as intense as the death of a child or a terminal cancer diagnosis, I
would like to offer Guy Newland’s analogy from Introduction to Emptiness. If this blog has at all wetted your
appetite for more about emptiness, go to Newland’s book. He writes:
I concocted for my students the analogy of two radio
stations. Channel A is "all things considered radio." This is our
regular, conventional channel, and on it we get all kinds of information about
the diversity and complexity of the world. Perhaps today they are airing a
fierce debate: the proponents of red cars are angry, in a raging controversy
with the proponents of blue cars. Normally we listen only to this station, so
we take it all at face value and without deeper scrutiny. We are unaware that
there is or could be any other channel. But in fact there is a second station,
broadcast on channel B, the ultimate perspective. Channel B's programming is
"all emptiness, all the time radio." Every phenomenon is presented
only from the point of view of its ultimate nature. But when we tune into this
channel, all of the detailed information from the other channel is unavailable.
From the perspective of ultimate reality, red cars and blue cars are equally
and exclusively empty [they are not even “cars.”].
Channel B, emptiness radio, adds new information and a
deeper perspective on what is being discussed on the conventional channel. It
shows that the things discussed on channel A definitely do not exist in the way
that they are ordinarily presented [as solid, separate, and having an essential
nature].
When we come back to channel A after tuning in to B, we now
understand just how it is that channel A is merely conventional; it is not the
only or final perspective. But this new information does not, of course, prove
that red cars are in all ways identical to blue cars. [Nor does channel B tell
us of the nonexistence of an essentially existent car, that there are no cars].
We still have to make distinctions and make choices about what, if anything, to
drive. Channel B alone does not allow us to make practical distinctions, so we
still need the information from channel A.
Each gives correct information about its domain.
Conventional realities are not wiped out by…emptiness. The
problem of knowing which car to drive is the general problem of how to choose
between possible courses of action. It is the question of how empty persons can
make distinctions between right and wrong. [The great 14th century
Tibetan lama] Tsong-kha-pa shows that answering this question requires
distinguishing between two types of knowledge about persons, as well as cars
and other things.
Practicing with
Emptiness
Most of us live rather exclusively listening to channel A.
We see the world as seemingly permanent and separate. When my eyes make contact
with the plant in my office, I say to myself, “I see the plant.” Pure channel
A–me here, plant there, separate and each solid and existent on its own. When I
don’t get what I want, when things don’t go my way, I get mad. Again, pure
channel A.
This leads us to unending and unendable dukkha, to problems
with everything. As Newland points out, when we listen to channel A we become
unaware of channel B. To move significantly along the path toward peacefulness,
we must develop an awareness of channel B running in the background, behind the
information from channel A that we need to live everyday lives, make
distinctions (we need to be able to distinguish between a son and a husband,
for example), and we need these distinctions to be of value and benefit to our
families, friends, communities, and so on.
And therein lies the practice.
Instead of locking into and listening exclusively to channel A, which even when
“accurate” is black-and-white, rigid and problematic, say to yourself–whenever
you notice there is dukkha, whenever you notice that you are getting upset or
angry: “Where is channel B here?”
Whether it is big dukkha: the death of a child or parent, a terminal
illness, the loss of a job or house, or little dukkha, noticing a ding on the
car door, the moment your body sends you a signal that dukkha is arising (and
it is often easier to notice it in the body than the mind), just ask yourself,
“Where’s Channel B here?” and you regain your footing on the Middle Path and
the dukkha dissolves.
In these examples, the wisdom of emptiness on channel B lets
us see beyond our sense of loss to a greater understanding that aging and death
are part of every process. This lessons our attachment to “my” loss and allows
for grieving rather than self-indulgence. With a terminal illness, channel B
redirects our attention from wanting things to be otherwise to being present
and doing what is most beneficial, allowing us to see clearly and feel peaceful
as we pick wellness strategies. Similarly, a ding, channel B tells us, is
simply a chip in the paint on a piece of plastic–I can get it fixed, or not, as
is appropriate, without making it personal, without attaching and suffering.
“Where’s channel B here?” That’s the practice. Having the
wisdom to keep an awareness of channel B while going about our lives in a
channel A world.
If you would like more information about practicing with
emptiness, please email.
