Emptiness (part 2)

Essay #8 of Samsara the Goddess

Samsara is not a place, she is a Goddess and you are her!

This post builds on ideas from:
Essay #1, The Two Natures
Essay #2, The Superpowers of Samsara
Essay #3, The Tragedy of Samsara
Essay #4, Obscuration and Blindness
Essay #5, Brambles, Traps and Obstacles
Essay #6, The Vampire Goddess
Essay #7, Emptiness (part 1)

I am blind, pretending that I can see. The Dharma itself is Empty.

There’s no need to become a sage, a superhero, or even somebody different. We just want to allow the clear-light of Buddha Nature to shine through.

Introduction

This essay presents ideas that have empowered my journey to Emptiness. Maybe they will empower your journey as well. I’ve coined some new terms so read the previous essay Emptiness (part 1), before reading this one.

Boiler plate stuff →→

These essays present an understanding of Dharma tailored to Westerners and smartphone addicts. While this perspective does not contradict a traditional understanding, it omits two ideas that often mystify Westerners: reincarnation and karma. Instead, it approaches the Buddhist path through a framework of Basic Human Needs, inspired by Marshall Rosenberg’s Nonviolent Communications.

There are many understandings. This is just another one. Any understanding of Dharma that’s worth it’s salt leaves one calmly, firmly, on the doorstep of Practice. I hope to achieve that goal.

Repetition

Every attempt to realize Emptiness CHANGES who we are, and what we’re capable of. The change is tiny, and the changes ADD UP.

Reach for Emptiness 10,000 times and you WILL catapult yourself toward WISDOM. There are 365 days in a year; if we attempt to emptify a realthing 25 times a day, that adds up to 9,125 times. BOOM, MASSIVE PROGRESS!

When we do finally manage to emptify a realthing, sometimes KLUNK, it returns back to it’s dreary delusional real world nature. Emptify it again… and again… and again… Sooner or later, that damn Emptiness is going to stick.

As we practice our skills increase. Slowly, the force of our Shamatha and our ability to recognize stories, deepens. We start to emptify foundational realthings, the ones that move the Earth, like the realthing which is YOU. It just takes patience and practice.

Motivation!!!

The trick is to inspire ourselves in a way that ROCKETS us toward Wisdom.

If we practice out of aversion, craving, or sheer willpower, we may set ourselves up to fail. It’s like we’re begging the Goddess to cloud our practice with delusion.

Rather than struggling uphill wouldn’t it be nice to travel an Emptiness path which goes downhill? Well, here’s a path down the hill that works.

I don’t like it, but I keep coming to the same conclusion: the face of suffering is what drives me downhill towards Emptiness. It could be major suffering or just a tiny twinge. Over and over it leads me to deeper, more encompassing Emptiness. Here’s the drill:

1. I Flounder and fumble around until I find a realthing which causes suffering, and an Emptiness practice which relieves it.

2. When I do the practice, in response to the suffering, my body learns the relief. Ahhhh...

3. From that moment on, when that suffering arises, without thinking, without trying, my body will naturally turn to that Emptiness practice.

It’s free practice for life!!!!!!!!!!!! And discovering one such practice leads to discovering others.

When we realize
In our body and soul
That Emptiness nullifies suffering,
We INSTINCTIVELY practice the skill of Emptiness
Whenever suffering arises.
And suffering arises
ALL THE TIME.

Bodhicitta

I’m not a fan of conventional Bodhicitta. In my experience it causes as much suffering as it helps. When someone mired in Samsara’s real world, tries to ‘help’ someone else mired in Samsara’s real world, delusion is often the winner.

But ultimate Bodhicitta? Yes! That’s different. Ultimate Bodhicitta is an explosion of flowers powered by guess what? Emptiness. In my experience it can happen like this:

1. We’re looking for a meaningful significant gift to give to someone who is suffering (who may very well see us as two-faced snake-in-the-grass).

2. By the wacky laws of Emptiness:

   1. We don’t exist

   2. The person suffering doesn’t exist

   3. This gift we want to give, doesn’t exist

3. GIVE — IT — ANYWAY!! Shut your trap and walk forward. See what comes up. This makes absolutely no sense, BUT DO IT! This is an absurd koan, BUT DO IT! Try a thousand times, and if it works even once, you’re home free.

Practicing Emptiness
To relieve your suffering
Is the CAT’S MEOW —
YOU’VE GOT IT MADE IN THE SHADE

Practicing Emptiness
To relieve someone else’s suffering
Is the double triple quadruple
CAT’S MEOW —
YOU’VE GOT IT MADE IN THE SHADE

To Avoid a Backlash

The Goddess Samsara is a know-it-all self-centered BITCH (with the best of intensions). How can we keep her from sabotaging our Emptiness practice?

Keep grasping and aversion away from practice

Grasping and aversion are like a dinner bell for the Goddess Samsara. If we cling to Emptiness, the bell starts ringing. If we’ve got lofty goals like Direct Perception of Emptiness, ding ding ding ding ding! If you’re beating the crap out of yourself, the Goddess snuck in the back door.

Fold practice into your lifestyle

Do Emptiness practice while driving, cooking, shopping, working, eating, bathing, etc. If you can figure out how to practice Emptiness while watching social media you’ll be world-famous. (I know there is a way; I just know it. I almost did it last night.)

My favorite time to practice is while socializing. I start out as a wallflower lost in focus and concentration. Then as I Emptify the people around me, one after the other or all at once, I become a social butterfly (briefly, before the Goddess wakes up and shuts me down).

Roll your own practices

Creating your own Emptiness practices is like growing wings. Emptiness opportunities and practices are everywhere, like all over the place. There’s probably one for every word in the dictionary.

So what’s the problem with letting a Dharma superhero choose your practices? Well, you risk getting tangled up in grasping and aversion.

Will your superhero like you? Are they YOUR teacher? WHAT IF YOU FAIL? Will you be tempted to lie, to them or your Sangha? Or exaggerate? Are you a good student, a crappy student, or an ignoramus? Are you good enough? WHY DIDN’T YOU PRACTICE YESTERDAY????

Renunciation

Renunciation means letting go of attachments.

Important! Important!!

You cannot emptify a realthing until you let go of your attachments to that realthing. In other words, you cannot realize the Emptiness of a thing unless you first renounce it.

Why?

If you are deeply attached to something, how can you possibly admit to yourself that it’s only a bedtime story?

Turning into a weirdo Bodhisattva

As I grow intimate with Emptiness, I feel lighter, more fluid, more like a breeze and less like a block of concrete.

Which creates a problem. I want to be the same person I’ve always been. I want to show up in relationships just as in the past. It’s a habit.

Others expect that continuity as well. They look for us to keep making the same responses, playing the same roles, and meeting the same needs. There is pressure from within us and without to conform, to be that same realthing which we always were.

Emptiness practice is changing my personality and I feel guilty, as though I’m betraying my self and my community. So I instinctively pull back from the practice. :(

The way forward is to renounce my attachment to the story of me. And to renounce my attachment to others, and to the stories of our relationships. Renouncing social roles brings up a fear of devastating loneliness. I guess there’s a choice to be made.

Clashing Realities

As social beings, we need to share a common reality with our community. As we sink deeper into Emptiness our reality may shift. Things and forms, which are important to them and were important to us, we now see like shadows and fleeting illusions. This can happen even within a Buddhist community.

The two realities will clash within our brain. They can’t both be true, can they?

Renunciation practice

Renunciation is like making a loud pronouncement, that you hereby RELEASE and RELINQUISH your attachment to one of the Goddess’ illusions. (This pisses her off.)

Here’s how I do it. Maybe you can find a better way.

1. I concentrate on the realthing I wish to renounce. I examine the personal and social needs it fulfills. I explore my feelings around it, especially desires, aversions, memories and judgments.

2. I offer the realthing up to Shakyamuni, Emptiness and the Lineage.

3. I Repeat the Mandala offering mantra: OM IDAM GURU RATNA MANDALAKAM NIRYATAYAMI.

(Have I mentioned that renunciation practices may have a delayed effect? You declare your renunciation, and nothing happens, so you blow it off, and then later, WHACK!)

A personal renunciation

Making this renunciation is like carving a gash into my body. Each time I renounce this blasted attachment, it returns. It’s a ball and chain I drag around.

I hereby renounce my attachment to writing fabulous Dharma essays! … Nope, it didn’t work.

I want to be a fabulous writer soooo bad. But I can’t write good Dharma if I’m CLINGING to writing good Dharma!!!!! Damn. Damn. Damn. OM IDAM GURU RATNA MANDALAKAM NIRYATAYAMI x 3000.

The Middle Way

If you’ve been studying Buddhism you’re probably familiar with two different ways of talking about realthings.

1. Realthings are real, solid, permanent, and exist from their own side.

2. Realthings are Empty, only stories, like a dream.

Shakyamuni said that Nirvana lies somewhere in between the two, but how so?

The Two Extremes

Realthings are real, solid, permanent

The truth of #1 is a matter of survival. If your body needs food and you take a bite, that bite better exist. If you’ve got to pee, the toilet better not be a dream. Any fool knows that #1 is true.

Taking #1 to an extreme, we live in an ORGY of desire, aversion and terrible suffering. A few people manage to enjoy this situation, but even they get depressed when it’s time to die.

Realthings are Empty, a story, a dream

This is the foundation of Buddhism. We’ve been examining #2 throughout these essays. It’s a very useful perspective when we want to relieve the suffering caused by #1. It opens the door to Enlightenment.

Taking #2 to the extreme, we get nihilism. Everything is just a story, so nothing has deep import or meaning. There’s no permanent self or soul. There is no ethical consequence to our actions because it’s all a story. In fact, nothing truly exists.

Suffering City and Emptytown

In order to talk about the two extremes, let’s call extreme #1 ‘Suffering City’. And we’ll call extreme #2 ‘Emptytown’ (like a ghost town).

Where do you want to live? TAKE YOUR PICK. CHOOSE!!! I choose neither, for the following reasons:

Suffering City hurts physically and spiritually. It’s like an ocean of suffering.

Emptytown, on the other hand, is devoid. It’s empty. It’s too stark and fleeting; IT HAS NO SOUL for god sakes.

But wait, there’s a solution.

Suffering City needs Emptytown’s Emptiness in order to cool down their ORGY of aversion and desire.

Emptytown needs the heart, warmth and soul which Suffering City can provide. We sentient beings need SOLID GROUND to stand on (even if it’s an illusion). Otherwise we get dizzy and puke.

Bingo! We’ve found the Middle Way.

Equipoise

It would be nice to have a word which describes this ‘Middle’ balance between Samsara’s real world, and Emptiness. Let’s call it ’equipoise’.

I love this word. It’s a verb and a noun, something you do and something you are. It’s Emptiness with soul. It’s a samsaric orgy-frenzy carried out with calm detachment.

Realthings in equipoise

Realthings don’t go away in equipoise. Having realized their emptiness, we can renounce our strong attachment to them. And now we can PLAY (yes play) with them. Realthings become like the ocean we swim in, instead of a prison.

Emptiness in equipoise

Empty stories allow us to endure the unthinkable richness of Buddha Nature without going insane. Samsara’s real world becomes a lens through which we can partake of the extraordinary goodness and virtue of the luminous void. (Have I gone overboard???)

A Gnawing Question!

Why not just do away with Samsara’s realthings and their stories, entirely? Why not just dissolve into Emptiness, and see Clear-light directly?

The answer is practical. When I try, it just don’t work. In fact, it can’t work. It’s like trying to cure a headache by chewing on dynamite.

We ride the Emptiness train until realthings are realized for their Empty nature. And then we MUST get off. We NEED those stupid fucking delusions. They’re our dream. They’re our totality. They’re our source.

Nirvana :)

Equipoise releases energy, like a bonfire on the surface of a placid lake. The fire burns just at the moment when realthings arise from the void. The fire is infinitely virtuous and good. It is the fundamental nature of the universe.

Concentrate until Samsara sleeps
Until she dissolves into luminous void
Together we sink gently into death

No!

The soul revolts
Samsara jolts awake
Gives arduous birth
And the half-born infant
(Real? Void?)
Shimmers with clear-light

Void, Lovely Void

Conclusion

Just a few notes:

Wrestling with Emptiness can lead to a sense of rootlessness. Concentration practice (Shamatha) gives rise to a blissful appreciation of the present moment, which will counter the rootlessness.

If the fundamental nature of the universe is infinite goodness and virtue, doesn’t that mean we are already in heaven? — Yes! but damn, you could have fooled me.

It drives me nuts when we pray for the total elimination of suffering. Suffering and ignorance are NECESSARY. If there’s no suffering, there’s no Suffering City to balance Emptytown, therefore no equipoise, therefore no Middle Way, and no Nirvana. Not to mention, without suffering there’s no compassion. Do you really want to pray for an end to compassion?

Hope it all helps.

Thanks for reading.