Transcription
Welcome. And it's lovely to be here and see so many familiar faces, and also unfamiliar faces, and such a thriving community, really. Let's see. Do they know -- did they give you the topic in advance? I actually changed the topic. I don't know when that was. I was going to do something completely different, but it felt too big, and too different, and too much of a stretch, really, for now, so I postponed that for next year. And I changed it to emptiness, so if you knew that -- but that will be the topic today, this theme of emptiness, the Buddhist theme of emptiness. That's also huge, so it's a bit crazy, what we're doing today. [laughs] It's a bit, yeah, mad of me to try and approach this in one day. But why not? [laughter] Let's be a little bit mad. It has its risks, but it seems to me worth it, for different reasons. It's an enormous subject, and it's a very profound subject -- probably the most profound subject in the whole of the Dharma, whole of the Buddha's teachings. There are also many ways of approaching it. It's not one way in. You can approach it from many different angles, and countless practices. I've actually lost count of how many different kinds of practices go into this area.
Now, I know that here we have room for however many people, and there's such a variation and diversity in people's histories of practice, of study, of listening to teachings. So that's partly what makes it crazy for me to even try. It would be crazy anyway, and it's doubly crazy because of that. I'm going to try and say something for everyone in the course of the day. There will be at least a piece that feels like, "Oh, I can take that and use it."
How many people feel like you're really very new to meditation, extremely new? Okay, good. So this is really the kind of deep end. That's okay, because I'm going to -- like I said, something for absolutely everyone, even if this is your first. That's my attempt. There will also be group -- especially for beginners, if you feel like you're very new to meditation. But for anyone who has any questions about the nuts and bolts of meditation practice, I'll stay in here in the period before lunch. And please do feel free to come and ask questions.
What I want to do now, I'm going to split the teaching up into sections over the day, and cover quite a lot of material. Because there's so much diversity of history, I just have to cover so much so that there's something for everyone. And what I want to do right now is speak a little bit generally. So just for a few minutes, it might seem a little bit abstract. Then I really want to ground it in specifics, in terms of our life, and what we struggle with, and our practice, and things that we can do -- very much the specifics of practice. But a little bit general at first. I want to cover today, let's say, three very specific practices that you can take away, and plug in, and use, and hopefully feel the fruit of.
But I want to weave them together, so they're not disparate. They actually connect very much together. And supporting them all is a common principle. So as much as these specific practices, I also want to communicate this common principle underpinning them all. And that's as important as the specifics of the practice. So there are kind of different levels going on here.
Okay, let's talk a little bit generally about this emptiness, this voidness, it's sometimes called. Emptiness, synonym is voidness, in Sanskrit śūnyatā -- whatever we want to call it, it's actually one of the most fundamental subjects in the Dharma. People don't often think about it that way. We tend to think, "Oh, it's some optional thing for really advanced people, and maybe some people get into it, but actually, something else is the fundamental." I actually think it's underpinning, it's the fundamental teaching of the whole Dharma, right from the beginning, not just for advanced people living in caves, etc.
Often, though, especially in this tradition, what you might call the Insight Meditation tradition, it's quite common that people have actually not heard much about emptiness. So you might have heard the word, not quite sure what it means, maybe a little bit here and there, or actually nothing at all. So that's quite common -- a person, even years of practice, years of coming to retreats, and just not encountered this most fundamental of all Dharma subjects and themes. [5:50]
In the Insight Meditation tradition -- and some of you have a lot of experience in this tradition; some of you are quite new -- I would say that one of the strengths of this tradition (it's my, if you like, root tradition), one of the strengths is that what we kind of do is, like today, we put people in a room, and we say, "Shut up". And then we say, "Watch what's going on. Pay attention. And keep quiet." And a person, in that, over days, or over a day, or on a retreat, starts encountering not just the breath. We say, "So try and stay with the breath," but you encounter all kinds of other stuff: inner experience, inner difficulties, body pain, all kinds of stuff. One of the strengths of this tradition, I think, is that we're really good at helping people, supporting people to be with their experience, to meet their experience in ways that are helpful. So there's a real emphasis on, "What's the experience right now? This heartbreak, this sadness, this joy, this boredom, this restlessness, this aching body, this whatever it is. And can we, can you meet that? Moment to moment, can you meet that? And then what's next? And can you meet that?" That's a great strength, because it's immediate, and it's relevant. It's now, what's happening. It's practical.
It's also the great weakness of the Insight Meditation tradition, because we're so much, "This experience, and the next experience, and being with the next experience, and then the next experience," that sometimes, it's actually really common for a person, for instance, not to have heard much about emptiness, not to have a real sense of, "What is the long trajectory of this path? Where are we going? What's the point? Is the point of the path really to be with this, and then to be with that, and then to be with the next thing, and to open to the next thing, and then the next thing, and then the next thing?" Might it be that something gets missed when we teach that way, which is how we tend to teach? When we do, "Be with this, be with that, be mindful of this, be mindful of the next thing," it's possible that something -- how can we say it? The nature of experience, the nature of what is, we say, "Be with what is, open to what is, love what is," etc. But all the time in that, the nature of "what is" goes unquestioned, for the most part. It's just, its reality is a kind of given. So in a way, this "being with" becomes kind of a goal, either explicitly or implicitly. But the experience -- its reality is given. It's not questioned.
Emptiness teachings, at that level of Dharma teachings, it's actually starting to question the fundamental reality of our experiences. It's aiming at a whole other level. And we can understand something about the nature of experience, something radical, remarkable, amazing about the nature of all experience. And that understanding brings a whole other level of freedom. I'm talking generally now, but I hope it makes some sense? Yes? [laughter]
Many of you, as I said, probably have not heard much at all about emptiness. I'm aware of that. The word is a little unfortunate in the English language, because we say "emptiness," and we tend to think, "Oh, bleakness, or barrenness, or depressed, or flat, or I feel empty inside." It has that kind of connotation in English. That's not at all where this is going -- completely not where this is going, or a kind of nihilism or something like that. Actually, going deeper into these kind of teachings brings joy and opens the heart in love, extraordinarily, to whatever degree one goes. [10:06] It brings, it opens the heart in love and compassion, that kind of understanding, this kind of penetration.
Nāgārjuna, who was probably the second most important and influential teacher after the Buddha, he said, he wrote: "Without doubt, when practitioners have developed their understanding, their realization of emptiness, their hearts and their minds will be devoted to the welfare of others." Something in this understanding does something magical in the heart and liberates something, liberates an openness in the heart.
But what is it? What is this emptiness business? So it's actually very difficult. It's partly why it's crazy today. It's actually very difficult to explain what it is. I want to say something very general now, and then follow a thread through the day, and try to give that more flesh, and more meaning for you.
When we say that something is empty, or when it is said that something is empty, we're kind of saying it's not really real in the way that it seems to be. So we move in the world, and my experience, and people I know and don't know, and myself, and this world of objects and things. And we tend to assume it's all real. I don't even consciously think that. Of course it's real. It seems so real. Everything seems so real. Emptiness teachings are saying: "Not as real as it seems to be." There's a technical language that's sometimes used, and some of you, depending on your background, might have heard something like this: empty of inherent existence. It's very technical. What does it mean to say something is empty? It means it's empty of inherent or independent existence. I'll try and explain what that means.
This bowl, or this cup, or this body, or an emotion, anything -- we tend to assume that it just exists as what it is, by itself, in itself, from its own side, as it were. It has nothing to do with anything else. Maybe it's connected to other things, but it is what it is. It's just that. It's just a microphone. It's just a speaker. It's just a chair. It's just a sadness. It's just a joy. Things exist as what they are, independently of anything else, and more importantly, independently of the way of looking at them, of the way that the mind looks at them. That's what we assume. That's what we feel. And emptiness teachings are saying, "Uh-uh." Nothing in the whole of phenomenal existence exists independently of anything else, and specifically, most importantly, nothing exists independently of the mind that is looking at it. To actually fully explain that, to actually fully understand that takes a lot of practice. So I'm just kind of throwing that out as a general thing. I'll try and, as I said, flesh it out, give it more specific meaning during the day.
We could use other words rather than empty. The Buddha did, in fact, in the original teaching. He uses the word illusory or illusion. He said all this experience is a mirage. Any and all experience, he said, is like a mirage. You know what a mirage is? In the desert? All of this looks so real. He says it's like a mirage. Any and all knowing of experience, any and all is like a magician's trick, he said. It's like a magician's illusion. He uses this word, illusion. It's all an illusion. But what he's saying is quite subtle. I'll come back to this.
Okay, but why is this significant? Is it just an abstract philosophical concept, just getting kind of intellectual and clever about, you know, the nature of reality? What does it have to do with me and my life? This is interesting, teaching this. It's not always obvious to people that, in order to struggle with something, in order to suffer, in order to have what the Buddha calls dukkha, dis-ease, I need to have this belief in the reality of things. When I see that they're not real, when I understand that, I undermine suffering at the deepest possible level. Do you see that that might be the case?
It's like -- well, I don't know what's behind me -- if suddenly it was a recorder, and then we heard this, you know, huge growl, a roar, and it's a lion's roar, and we think, "Somehow, a lion has showed up in Golders Green!" And there would be fear. But then we understand, "Oh, it's a recording." Very limited analogy, but the suffering, the fear, depends on the belief in the reality, right? That's why this is not at all abstract.
So try and keep that through the day, if it sounds like, "Oh, I'm not sure what he's talking about," etc. It's really not abstract. It's really talking about, "What is it that causes us suffering, most fundamentally?" When I understand that things are not real, automatically the grasping, the struggle with things, the suffering, the dis-ease goes. It dissolves, to some extent. [15:56]
But this business of illusion is quite subtle, what the Buddha is saying. A guy called Kaccāyana stopped him one day and said, "Do things exist? Or do they not exist?" And the Buddha actually answered, "That things exist, Kaccāyana, is one extreme. That they do not exist is another extreme. But I, the Tathāgata" -- meaning the Buddha -- "I, the Buddha, accept neither 'is' nor 'is not.' And I proclaim the truth of the Middle Way."[1] He's not just saying it doesn't exist at all. Something quite subtle is being said, beyond our usual notions of 'exist' and 'not exist.' Okay?
Sort of speaking generally now. I want to unfold the specifics of this as we go. Now, probably a lot of you have heard -- actually, how many people have come across some kind of teaching that says the ego or the self is kind of illusory or empty or something like that? Yeah, quite a lot. Good. That's kind of standard for people to have heard, but maybe not quite understand what it's saying, but to have heard that. In some sense, the self or the self-sense is empty, is illusory. But the fuller teachings are saying, not just the self, not just this ego, but everything, everything, all phenomena, everything, this self, these objects, the speaker, the bell, the body, perceptions, thoughts, emotions, time, and space, even this present moment -- not just past and future, but the present as well: illusion, illusion. The now, awareness: illusion. Something quite radical is being pointed to at its deep end. Any sense of subject and object: magical illusion, magical illusion.
So when we talk about emptiness, there are levels of understanding. That's the deep end. And we can talk -- I want to start today, when we get more specific, on the very much more shallow end, and say that it leads deeper.
So how on earth might we come to that level of understanding? It sounds so mind-blowing, so far out compared to our usual sense of things. How might we approach that as practitioners? I want to take one kind of wide approach today, which I kind of feel is one of the original ways the Buddha taught this. This word illusion, illusory. Have you ever had the experience that you're in a certain mood, and then the mind, through that mood, catches hold of something in yourself, or in the environment, or another person, latches on to that thing, and starts obsessing about it? And then the next thing that happens is you go around and around in a circle, and you're spun in a vortex, obsessing around that thing, and it's getting really, really uncomfortable and cramped. Yes? [affirmative noises from yogis]
Pretty human experience. There's a word for it in Pali, the language of the Buddha. It's called papañca. It's a great word: ego-proliferation. What's happening then, in that, in those times, when the mind is doing that, this thing that I have latched on to is getting blown up. It's getting inflated, like with a bicycle pump. Inflate this thing -- it's getting huge, isn't it? Can you see that? This thing is getting so prominent. Whatever it is, I'm obsessing about it and circling around it, and through that, the actual sense of the thing is getting inflated. It's getting, we could say, constructed. I'm constructing the sense of this thing.
At the same time -- and sometimes we realize this, and sometimes we don't -- the self-sense is also getting constructed, and self-views: "I am like this," or "That person's like that." So a rigidifying of self-view, but also a pumping up of the very sense of self. It starts to feel more solid, this self, as well as this thing that I'm obsessing about -- more contracted, more separate.
So self and object are getting inflated, pumped up, built up, constructed -- if we use a technical word now -- fabricated. They're getting fabricated together in this, through this vortex of papañca. Afterwards, hopefully, you know, some time later, sometimes a few months or whatever, later, you realize, "Oh, wow. It was all -- it was just a construction. Just somehow this thing got constructed. It was fabricated." And you see: "Oh, it was kind of illusory." Yeah? In the middle of it, it's hard to see. Afterwards, you see, "Oh, it was fabricating this whole thing." Do you have this experience, in and out of this? Yeah? Okay, that's emptiness, right there. Everyone's had it. Even a non-meditator has seen it. It's a level of emptiness right there, because I see the illusory nature of something, and sometimes the sense of self. In this case, I see it in hindsight. Doesn't matter. I see the fabricated -- something has been built up, an illusion has been built up and fallen for. I've fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. It seems so real, so solid. The solidity, the reality -- it's all built up. Do you understand? So there's emptiness right there. That's it. [22:10]
Yogi: [inaudible] ... catastrophizing this?
Rob: Yeah. You could call -- that's a great word, catastrophize. I like it. Very nice, thank you. Yes, absolutely. And afterwards, you realize, "Oh, I just got into a state, and I was catastrophizing this thing. And in the process, I was building a catastrophic self as well." So we call that papañca in Pali. We say that the self-sense and the object-sense, in the mind state of papañca, is more fabricated than it is relative to a normal mind state. Yeah? Emptiness, right there. That's the thread that I want to pick up today. So everyone knows that. Even a non-meditator can see that, and just start following it.
And the gift of meditation is that we can start following this actually quite simple idea in practice, meditatively, and follow it deeper and deeper and deeper. And where it lands is what I was talking about before: everything is empty, completely beyond something we can even conceive. So that's the principal thread, if you like, the principal inquiry, in a sense, that I want to stress today. It's an inquiry into, "What is fabricated? What is being fabricated? What is being constructed, blown up, built up?" Or rather: "What am I able to see is fabricated, and therefore illusory?" So that's the question, and one follows this question deeper and deeper and deeper, and wider and wider, in practice. And is it possible to deconstruct? When I feel I'm catastrophizing, or there is a building up, is it possible to actually relate in different ways that start deconstructing this construction? So we start very, very simple, very, very easy, very, very normal stuff.
I meant to say earlier -- I was talking about emptiness, and maybe earlier -- I don't know; did you catch your heart's reactions to some of the things that were said when I say, "Space is empty, and time is empty, and awareness is illusory," and all that? Did you notice how it landed? Was there some fear for some people? Yeah. I mean, it can be a whole range of reactions -- very, very common. So as we go through the day, notice that. Just notice what the heart, how all this lands at different times. Any reaction -- some people get really excited and really joyful. And you can have a whole range of reactions. But just notice that. It's really, really important.
The approach that I'm trying to lay out today and offer has one advantage. In starting very simply, if I say to you, seeing the emptiness or the constructed nature of catastrophizing, and then letting go of that, most people, it's like, "Ah, that's okay. You know, I can feel good about that." That's not too scary, right? It's just a small step. And we'll be glad to let go of that, right? I hope. [laughter]
So there's a way of following this thread, step by step. And just the first step, and you feel, "You know what? That feels much better to let go of that catastrophizing, to let go of that huge building up. I feel better for it. I can feel the freedom, the release, the openness, the love, the lightness -- all of that comes in. You know what? I trust this process. I'm ready to take the next little step." And then, same thing happens: feels good. Take the next little step. So there's a way of going where it kind of reassures a lot of the fear that can be there. Deconstructing, seeing the emptiness, but feeling the freedom and release that comes at each level, and that brings trust. That brings this ease.
But keeping open this question: what is fabricated? Because usually, we tend to say, "Yeah, I can see the catastrophizing is a fabrication, is illusory. But come on, this is real." [taps on something] "And you're not going to say that the present moment is not real." So we come with preconceptions about what's real. But what if we just follow this thread with a completely open mind about what -- who knows where fabrication ends? I mean, I'm telling you it doesn't end, but you don't have to believe me. Just follow, just with an open mind, just, "I don't know where the end of what is fabricated is." So that's the general principle.
There's a later Buddhist sutta where people, groups of monks and nuns are taught about emptiness -- this radical, very deep emptiness -- and they actually throw up. [laughter] It's so, like, "Whoa," that they -- you know, they're disturbed by it. So you can actually go very step by step. Some people get very joyful and excited.
Okay? Enough talking for now. We're going to pick up this thread in very specific -- I really want to ground it in specifics, and see what you can follow.
SN 12:15. ↩︎
