The teachings on vacancy have been studied, debated, and refined at Nalanda. They arrive to life now, says Gaylon Ferguson, within the progressive deepening of our meditation follow.

Picture by Franz Grünewald.

Realizing vacancy, shunyata, lies on the coronary heart of the Maha­yana journey to enlightenment, however how does that occur? What examples and directions are there to comply with that make the belief of vacancy genuine expertise reasonably than an imagined state of blankness? We will start with the “Perfection of Knowledge” scriptures—the Prajnaparamita sutras—which reward nice bodhi­sattvas as courageous beings totally devoted to awakening for the profit and well-being of all. They’re praiseworthy not merely due to the deeds they carry out, however as a result of they’ve appeared into all of the darkish corners of their expertise, to free themselves from delusion, and but they willingly stay in samsara to liberate others. They embody the chic union of huge, compassionate motion with the profound knowledge of vacancy.

Such deep wanting into the character of expertise is intimately linked with the good students of the Nalanda custom—corresponding to Chandrakirti, and the brothers Asanga and Vasubandhu, to call just a few. Inside this monastic college, they actively engaged in meditative and interactive inquiry into the character of thoughts. They intensified the illumination of the Mahayana teachings. They didn’t, nonetheless, give attention to mental mastery—the first emphasis of latest scholarship. As an alternative, these practitioner–students used mind to information and maintain their contemplative practices, corresponding to meditations on the selflessness of individuals and the vacancy of phenomena. We comply with of their footsteps to today, and the spirit of Nalanda continues in practices that lead us to the knowledge of sunyata in ever-subtler methods till we totally embody it within the methods we act on the earth.

First Steps

We would start treading on the trail of vacancy meditation with the Foundations of Mindfulness Sutra, wherein the Buddha invitations us to put our naked consideration on the physique, emotions, thoughts, and sense perceptions. We’re inspired to be aware of the physique whereas sitting, standing, strolling, or mendacity down. In meditation, we deliver mindfulness to emotions of attraction, repulsion, or indifference. We be aware of sights, sounds, smells, and tastes, in addition to our discursive pondering.

These 4 foundations of mindfulness are sometimes taught as a part of the follow of shamatha or “peaceable abiding” meditation, studying to stick with the physique as physique, emotions as emotions, and so forth. These 4 objects of meditation present a helpful foundation for cultivating stability, steadily creating the thoughts’s inherent power. There are additionally hints right here pointing to egolessness, the absence of a strong sense of self.

On this follow, the Buddha suggests putting consideration on the bodily type of the physique respiration, whereas being attentive to the varied sensations and feeling tones (nice, disagreeable, impartial) that come up and dissolve. Studying this sutra, considering its which means, and meditating are steps on a path of creating discernment, distinguishing somatic from emotional dimensions of expertise, noticing variations between psychological chatter and sense notion. These varied facets of expertise are usually not one huge strong block, a looming monolith. Training on this approach, preliminary perception into the components and particles of our expertise is shut at hand.

What we name me or I or myself has each bodily and psychological components. As even a fast look reveals, the physique shouldn’t be a singularity however a various multiplicity of ft, legs, torso, arms, head, and shoulders. In flip, the foot has toes and a heel, legs have ankles and knees, palms have fingers and a thumb, heads have eyes and ears, a nostril and mouth.

The psychological dimension of our being is equally plural. In a single session of sitting meditation, we might expertise likes and dislikes, fantasies and regrets, anxieties and hopes, recollections and anticipations. We’re supplied a feast of conflicting feelings. The principle level: there is no such thing as a single I to be discovered on this swirling, dynamic composition we name me, myself, I. We’re clearly composite beings. We’re consistently shifting configurations of habits, impulses, inventive inspirations.

This early exposition of the Buddhist mindfulness teachings gently leads us into considering a number of elementary, existential questions:

What’s our true nature?
Are we unbiased, strong unities as our use of the one pronoun (me) suggests?
After we look fastidiously, the place within the physique or thoughts do we discover this core interior self?
Can we level to it?
The place is it positioned?
Is it within the head or the chest?
Does our sense of self develop bigger after we are praised and smaller after we are criticized?
Look, then look once more. The “solutions” to those and comparable questions are to be present in our expertise.

Seeing Change In all places

Subsequent, we transfer to contemplate emotions of being everlasting, unchanging selves. Right here the follow of mindfulness of respiration gives a perfect entrance into perception. Mindfulness of respiration is usually taught as a approach of cultivating regular, non-judgmental consideration. But mindfulness can be experiencing every breath because it arises and dissolves. Mindfulness is the alternative of a “seen one breath, seen all of them” method. By means of sustained follow, we uncover that every breath is totally different, distinct, by no means the identical. Respiratory itself is a altering course of as in-breath and out-breath alternate. Respiratory is change. The place on this consistently flowing trade is there an unbiased, everlasting self? If the self is identical as respiration, then clearly what I’m adjustments. If there’s a self elsewhere, how is that self associated to this pulsing, rhythmic, back-and-forth course of?

Mindfulness of respiration leads instantly into glimpses of impermanence: arising, being, ceasing, arising, being, ceasing. By means of shut attending to respiration, we’re launched many times to vary, altering, adjustments.
As we sit, we additionally discover that our emotions change. Alongside the way in which, we might hear a voice of resistance: “Okay, my physique consists of components, and these components are themselves altering, however the actual interior me—that’s all the time right here, proper? That should be my true self, my emotions.” Mindfulness of feeling presents ample proof on the contrary: a sense of enjoyment arises and finally fades, then a sense of dislike arises and in addition finally dissolves. None of our emotions final ceaselessly. In the event that they did, the sensation of enjoyment would displace all different emotions, now and forevermore. In our expertise, this clearly shouldn’t be the case. Mindfulness of feeling reminds us of the reality of impermanence, lack of a strong, enduring interior self.

Equally, the mindfulness of thoughts reveals us the altering stream of discursive ideas, typically like a gradual river, typically like a speedy brook, however all the time shifting, now accelerating, now decelerating. What we name “thoughts” typically behaves like an espresso-charged grasshopper, first touchdown right here, then there, then elsewhere. At different occasions, thoughts is sluggish, torpid, virtually too drained to maneuver. Utilizing imagery from nature, meditators have described their expertise of thoughts to be like encountering a waterfall, a geyser, an avalanche of ideas. Our expertise of thoughts throughout sitting meditation doesn’t recommend assembly a hard and fast, everlasting entity: “my thoughts.”

That which sees confusion shouldn’t be itself confused. That is the revolutionary discovery of consciousness.

With all this experience-based proof from meditation and contemplation, why can we cling to the concept of being a single, everlasting, unbiased self?

In Progressive Phases of Meditation on Vacancy, Tibetan meditation grasp Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso explains:

The query shouldn’t be whether or not or not the individual, persona, or ego is a altering, composite prepare of occasions conditioned by many complicated elements. Any rational evaluation reveals us that that is the case. The query is why then can we behave emotionally as if it have been lasting, single, and unbiased…. When in search of the self, you will need to bear in mind it’s an emotional response one is analyzing. Our mistaken notion shouldn’t be a easy cognitive error that may be instantly and simply adjusted within the face of proof on the contrary.

We’re deeply and emotionally invested within the ideas and concepts of a strong, everlasting, unitary self, regardless that, as Khenpo Rinpoche clarifies:

Clinging to the concept one has a single, everlasting, unbiased self is the basis reason behind all one’s struggling.

It’s All within the Thoughts?

The dangerous information that the Buddhadharma presents us with is that we’re struggling, born in struggling, dwelling in struggling, making struggling worse by habits of denial and aggression. The excellent news is we’ve got an innate capability to see struggling clearly. That which sees confusion shouldn’t be itself confused. That is the revolutionary discovery of consciousness, a transparent mirror wherein all our expertise could be seen simply as it’s, nothing added, nothing ignored.

We might uncover consciousness within the midst of cultivating mindfulness of thoughts. What’s it that is aware of when the eye is with the physique respiration and when consideration has wandered into fantasies of the previous or future? What is that this clear and current realizing of our thoughts states? Consciousness. With out this inborn capability for precisely discerning the position of our consideration, we couldn’t domesticate steady mindfulness in any respect. Within the sitting follow of meditation, we uncover the innate richness of jewel-like consciousness. The important significance of thoughts seems in all Buddhist traditions, going again to the primary verses of the Dhammapada: “If the thoughts is evident, no matter you do or say will deliver happiness that can comply with you want your shadow.” In one other translation: “We’re what we predict. All that we’re arises with our ideas.” The instructing of the six realms of confused existence (people, jealous gods, hungry ghosts, hell beings, animals, gods) is predicated on totally different sorts of psychological states. Within the conventional instance, one being gazes calmly at a peaceable lake, whereas one other being—indignant and full of hatred—sees this as a lake of raging hearth burning throughout. In the meantime, hungry ghosts understand a pond of scrumptious milk and honey with a thirst that may by no means be quenched. In every case, the figuring out issue is the mind-set of the perceiver. The central perception?

Thoughts issues.

By means of the sitting follow of meditation, meditators grow to be painfully acquainted with ceaseless psychological migration by way of the six realms. We’re like everlasting hitchhikers. Intensive follow classes typically embrace durations of dwelling in every of the realms, maybe for an hour, a day, perhaps even a complete day. Intimacy with the thoughts’s biking by way of totally different psychological states is one other step towards realizing vacancy.

If the thoughts is the supply of our heavens and hells, cravings and distastes, then dependable well-being can’t be discovered by way of exterior issues and occasions alone. This decisively shifts the emphasis of our non secular path from what appears to be taking place “on the market” to our personal mind-set and being. All issues are impermanent and contingent, topic to causes and circumstances. Regardless of numerous adverts suggesting in any other case, there is no such thing as a everlasting pleasure to be present in getting and spending. Searching for solutions outdoors won’t ever deliver liberation. What issues most are interior qualities of consciousness and consciousness.

Think about Suzuki Roshi’s analogy of the spacious meadow as meditation instruction: “To offer your sheep or cow a big, spacious meadow is the way in which to regulate him.” The sheep and cows are all non permanent mind-states, psychological formations. They present up within the meadow, eat some grass, chew their cud, and finally get lost. These cows and sheep are like psychological occasions—altering, conditioned, missing in solidity. Making an attempt to regulate them solely produces extra struggling.

What concerning the meadow? It’s not a psychological occasion or non permanent formation. The meadow appears to be an underlying floor that may spaciously accommodate all phenomena. This meadow appears an apt picture for what Suzuki Roshi known as “Large Thoughts.” Right here, the meadow sounds fairly much like vacancy.

The temptation right here is to solidify thoughts itself as an essence, a concrete factor. We might really feel relieved: ultimately, we’ve got arrived at some floor. We’ve discovered a house floor not “on the market,” however “in right here.” In a case corresponding to this—after we’re getting caught someplace that appears like a comfortable vacation spot—participating contemplative inquiry could also be helpful to softly nudge us alongside the trail. Right here, perception meditation means asking and thoughts instantly for experiential steerage:

What’s consciousness?
Does it attain out to the sounds I hear, or do the sounds come towards it in order that they meet someplace within the center?
Does consciousness have a form or coloration?
Does it come up and stop?
Look, look once more, and see.

It is a path of perception into thoughts’s true nature, past all our ideas. Thoughts shouldn’t be a factor. It can’t be objectified. It’s by no means an object. As Suzuki Roshi commented, “The massive thoughts wherein we should have confidence shouldn’t be one thing which you’ll be able to expertise objectively. It’s one thing which is all the time with you, all the time in your aspect.” Should you see thoughts in a small approach, he goes on to say, you’re “limiting your true thoughts, objectifying your thoughts.” Simply as our earlier perception journey confirmed us that types and emotions are composed of components, impermanent, and never strong, right here we uncover that thoughts isn’t strong both. Solely our confused ideas appear to make it so.

Brilliance

Let’s return now to the 4 Foundations, revisiting them this time as foundations for perception. Every is used as a foundation for making use of the strategy of contemplative inquiry. Our principal questions are: What’s “physique”? What’s “feeling”? What’s “thoughts”? What are “sense perceptions”? The citation marks are wanted right here as a result of in every case we start with what’s known as “physique” after which proceed to lean towards extra direct expertise past typical names and designations. We’re steadily peeling away layers and layers of obscuring ideas.

Starting with the physique, what’s it? We’ve scientific findings from anatomy and physiology, however that’s not the type of information we’d like on this case. We’re inquiring into our personal expertise of our bodily type: What’s that?
No matter arises (“my physique is a cloth object in house with weight and quantity”), we welcome that reply, and relaxation for a second.

Then we ask once more: What is that this “materials object in house” actually? Obtain the reply that arises gratefully, relaxation for a second, then inquire once more.

On this course of, we’re steadily leaning within the route of assembly what Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche known as “body-body.” He contrasted this with the dense conglomeration of opinions and ideas round our bodily types, which he known as “psychosomatic physique.” However “body-body” isn’t a closing reply right here both, only a approach station for the subsequent spherical of inquiry: What’s “body-body”? Inquire, look, relaxation with no matter we discover, then inquire once more. Spherical and spherical we go.

Dropping our storyline means leaning towards our precise felt sense and texture of feeling, reasonably than elaborating extra narratives.

Equally, we’d inquire into feeling—attracted, repulsed, impartial. What’s it that we name “feeling”? Typically practitioners exploring want will say: “Effectively, it’s an vitality, a heat vitality.” Good. Let’s be pleased about that perception and relaxation for a second with it. Then, again to work: What is that this “heat vitality”? Heat vitality is only a title for one thing. What’s “heat vitality” actually?

This strategy of inquiry echoes among the meditation directions obtained from Pema Chödrön and different academics to “drop the storyline” when intense emotions come up in meditation. Storylines about our feelings are often both justifying (“It’s proper that I really feel this manner. Look what they did!”) or negating (“What’s flawed with me that I really feel this manner, once more?”). Dropping the storyline means leaning towards the precise felt sense and texture of feeling, reasonably than elaborating additional narratives about it.

It is a extra bare, direct method to our expertise.

Inquiring into the character of thoughts is like strolling over slippery terrain. At moments we really feel there actually is not any “thoughts,” only a phrase we assume refers to one thing actual and substantial. But expertise arises, and what’s that? Equally, we might really feel—as names start to slide and slide—that there is no such thing as a “physique,” no “feeling,” no “consciousness.” After we inquire into sense perceptions—are they actually on the market or in right here?—we glimpse one thing like no type, no sound, no scent, no style, no contact. On this approach of experiential inquiry, we steadily draw nearer to the luminous profundity of the Prajnaparamita Hridaya (“Coronary heart”) Sutra.

Perception past the veil of phrases and names reveals…what?

Neither presence, nor absence, not one thing, not nothing, neither true existence, nor empty void. Within the ninth century, Ch’an grasp Hsuan-sha taught, “The entire of existence is one shiny pearl.” We’ve approached this shiny pearl steadily. But, all alongside this manner: no-self is vacancy; consciousness is empty of dualities; our bodies, emotions, minds are all emptily, vividly as they’re. Within the fourteenth century, the mystic Catherine of Siena proclaimed, “All the way in which to heaven is heaven.”
Right here, we’d say: all the way in which to vacancy is vacancy. With every step we arrive.