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"How to See Yourself As You Really Are - Discovering the source of problems" - Dalai Lama
I've been reading this book on and off for the last 3 years. It's very good but one of those that I at least need to read over and over. Could anyone help me?
"Discovering the source of problems" - misconceptions about inherent existence I think - does this mean e.g. to see a chair as simply something to sit on or a collection of parts and not "I own this chair and it is superior to most other chairs"
"Discovering the source of problems" - misconceptions about inherent existence I think - does this mean e.g. to see a chair as simply something to sit on or a collection of parts and not "I own this chair and it is superior to most other chairs"
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It is an interesting exercise in emptiness and form. Ultimately, our labels we assign to the world and ourselves are empty. There is nothing we can point to and say, "This is the unique element that makes this particular object a bowl." Everything is empty of intrinsic or inherent values when looked at this way.
But the bowl exists. This thing in front of me is a bowl, because my mind sees form and function as related and this object holds some nuts in its emptiness in this case. So form also exists.
Emptiness and form. Welcome to wisdom.
Now look in a mirror and apply this thinking to your self. What qualities make up what you call your mind...
good answers guys . . .
. . . most of us would agree we are a person - conscious. If we look for the part that is independent of the parts . . . we can not find a self independent of the parts. We are inherently empty.
In a similar way enlightenment does not come or go, arise or die, you could say it is present. What is it dependent on? It is independent of dependencies. Dependent on nothing.
Must be time to sit down . . .
:orange:
Dogen said - moon in water analogy - moon is not in water, but also moon is in water.
Heart Sutra says - form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
we exist, but not in the way we think we exist.
everything is both independent and interdependent on everything else simultaneously.
Hsin Hsin Ming says -to deny the reality of things is to miss its deeper reality. to assert the reality of things is to miss its emptiness. the more you think about it, the further you are from truth. cease all thinking and there is nothing that will not be revealed to you.
Misconceptions about "things" ie. sunyata aka emptiness.
"What" or "Who" hears? "What" is heard?
There is only the process of hearing. What actually hears? Where is the hearer located? Is it the eardrum, ear ossicles, cochlea, auditory nerve or brain? Yet without these parts there is no hearer or heard. What is "heard" is nothing but vibrations. The "hearer" is an activity, not an entity.
Where is the ear?(anatta) without its parts (the eardrum, ear ossicles, cochlea, auditory nerve or brain)
If I was to say point at the chair, you may point at the back of the chair, but that's not the chair is it? You might point at a chair leg, but that's still not the chair is it?
You might say, "Ah, but all these different parts is the chair!", so we could call each of these parts a 'non-chair part' (because each of the parts is not the chair), but a collection of coins is coins and a collection of sheep is sheep, so how can a collection of non-chair parts be a chair?
I personally found it easier to understand that there was no inherent self. You could Google for a meditation on the emptiness of self and just follow it. You'll go looking for yourself in an analytical meditation and it's quite funny when you can't find yourself. The first time I did this I narrowed myself down to my memories and then realised that memories can't be trusted; so how can I be something that isn't really real? I found it funny.
Mine is only a superficial understanding though; we start with the concept and then deepen the understanding with meditation.
Perceiving a dualistic world is how we are described as being self aware. This is our greatest blessing and our biggest source of suffering. A chair doesn't know it's a chair because it has no brain. As far as the chair is aware, it is still a tree or a seed or a prior tree... Maybe the entire universe. A chair doesn't suffer the delusions of self so any label we apply could not possibly truly describe its essence.
Absolutely, it's the same when we examine the self we claim to be aware of when we see separation... We call ourselves self aware but we are only kidding ourselves because we are only looking from inside the box.
And the box is temporary.
This doesn't mean we should forego labels because duality doesn't have to be a trick, it can be turned into a tool of exploration. Only you can see us from your own unique perspective and so we have quite a lot to offer each other.
There is a Zen saying that goes;
Before enlightenment, rivers were rivers and mountains were mountains;
During enlightenment, rivers are no longer rivers and mountains are no longer mountains;
After enlightenment, rivers are once again rivers and mountains are once again mountains.
I suppose in the Western language we'd say the reality you experience depends on your point of view.
I mean, what does it matter if a chair is really a chair? Or If its 'real' or not..
The fact remains we give things 'names' so that we can use, 'relate' and communicate with each other and everything else etc...
I havent been on here for awhile now Because i realised something a while back, and that was; "nothing really matters but the 'now'.. And right 'now' i am sitting on a 'chair', i am typing on my 'phone', and ill be soon eating my 'dinner' on a 'plate' with a knife and fork..
Now if all these things do or do not really 'exist', i dont really care, because what difference does it make?
You are gonna die one day, so just enjoy life and try not ask too many questions. Remember; "to seek is to suffer"
The 'seeking' mind hurts us... The 'still' mind enlightens us!
Here is what my lama said about 'feelings'.
Does that make sense?
A misconception of the reality is just the manipulation of our sense gate data. Meditation is simply the practice of trying not do that.
Hsin Hsin Ming has a beautiful line in it, which says - do not seek truth, only cease to cherish opinions.
now the question arises how to know truth - for that Dogen said - just sit - meaning just sit and do not do anything else, let the mind become calm on its own and when the mind will be calm, insights will arise in it and then knowing will happen.
metta to you and all sentient beings.
Śūnyatā (emptiness) ... the absence of inherent essence in all phenomena.
inherent existence ... that I somehow am independent of the beings that coexist with me
inherent existence ... that I somehow am independent of the beings that coexist with me
Ajahn Chah taught gave the analogy of leaf in wind - when the wind moves, the leaf moves, but the natural state of a leaf, when there is no wind, is that the leaf is still. similarly, the natural state of mind is stillness - the mind moves, when it is conditioned by like and dislike to the conditions which have arisen.
Hsin Hsin Ming similarly teaches - liking and disliking are the disease of mind. when there is a single trace of right and wrong, the mind is lost in confusion. - meaning do not try to figure out things by thinking about them, just try to be in here and now.
the problem, which is with this approach of just sitting and not doing anything is that - due to our prior conditioning of our mind, we think that in order to know something, we have to do something. but this just sitting method goes just in the opposite direction, where it is said don't do anything and things shall happen by themselves. sounds wierd, but seems like it should work, because whenever we do something, it is adding to our existing conditioning of the mind, so in just sitting meditation, it is said just sit and dont do anything, because the purpose of meditation is not to get something, but to let go of things. moreover, this meditation of just sitting or zazen is not only when we physically sit, rather it is applicable at any time of day whatever we are doing - as it is just to stop doing thing and coming back to our original nature, of who we really are, not what we think we are, till we finally come back to our original nature - whatever you may want to call it spirit, soul, atman, buddhanature, awareness, consciousness, knowing etc. Seems here something is coming back or returning to something, but as per what the teachers have said - the realization which comes is something similar to - this is what was there all the time, this original nature was always who we were, but we did not realized it, as we were caught in our world which we created through our thoughts.
patience and contentment are needed to be just in here and now. as Ajahn Brahm teaches - considering that whatever is in here and now that is good enough, we do not need anything more than it. As Buddha taught, craving leads to clinging, which leads to becoming and which leads to suffering, so in order to end suffering, end craving. so craving for both trying to become something and trying to not become something, these both are craving, which leads to suffering.
Dogen taught to do non-doing - well, we cannot do something for doing non-doing - so he taught to just sit and not do anything. gradually the mind will settle down on its own.
anyways, body and mind are not in our control, so we cannot do anything in this regard. so just relax. don't try to figure the deep questions like - who am i - by thinking. just try to be in here and now, meaning wherever we are and whatever we are doing, just being in the present moment and fully accepting whatever is happening in the present moment.
http://buddhism.about.com/od/basicbuddhistteachings/a/genesis.htm
Here is what we typically think: there is this, and there is that.
This is emptiness: this arises because of that, that arises because of this.
Let's say you hear the sound of a windchime. But this "sound" is much more than JUST this one isolated thing, existing separately from everything else. In the most basic sense, there can be no sound without your ear to hear it. It is the interaction between the wind, the windchimes striking one another, the vibration of sound, your ear, your nervous system and brain to interpret the sound as the sound of the windchime. And the web of inter-retionships could be extended further: the person who hung up the windchimes, who made the windchimes, the whole entire universe was needed to bring you to THIS VERY MOMENT when you heard the windchimes.
In a certain sense, its another way of saying that everything is necessary. Or what T.S. Eliot write in Four Quartets: "And all is always now."
But we don't see this. We see THIS and THAT as two independently existing entities and we chase after them or avoid them. We don't see how I am seamlessly interconnected to you. So if you do something that makes me angry, it is because I see you as separate from me. The truth is that you haven't made me angry-- I have become a victim of my very own suffering. My deeply held mis-perception of separate existence is one aspect of suffering.
This is WHY emptiness is relevant to Buddhist practice-- it's not just fancy intellectual talk. Even for all of Nagarjuna's very intricate philosophical examinations, it was always within the context of liberation from suffering.
I realize that you don't want any important stuff to get lost by using simple definitions but sometimes for beginners this can be very useful and something to build on.
So unless anyone has any concerns at this stage in my development I'm going to use the following statements:
1. emptiness is the absence of inherent existence in all phenomena
2. inherent existence means that I'm somehow independent of the beings that coexist with me
3. nothing exists independently
In the above book it also mentions "You do not exist in and off yourself" which I also struggled with for a while with but not anymore.
thank you.
I've been reading this book for a while as well.
Isolating what inherent existence is in our direct experience takes probably the longest and the most effort. Basically the first half the book deals with this.
It is a coarse and subtle issue. With the chair metaphor we can say the inherent existence of the chair is what is left of the chair without its function, parts, wholes, qualities, etc. So it is an independent quality of a chair that gives the chairness to the chair. And it is exactly this imputation that the dalai lama in this book is refuting. So until we have the ability to focus one pointedly on this inherency yet alone even find and isolate the inherent existence we have no chance at refuting. Because we will then refute the object itself or the idea or whatever, which makes us fall into either nihilism or eternalism.
In all cases what is not being refuted is the conventional existence of the chair which is the function, the parts, the concept, the collection of consciousness (visual, tactile, etc). And if we are clear about this then we cannot fall into Nihilism or Eternalism.
Another way to consider inherent existence is a kind of computer aided drafted image of the chair. One where you can see all sides, all configurations of the chair. One where if you took away everything about the chair it would still existence. This is the chair existing as a unit or singular entity. Does the collection of parts make up the chair as an inherently existent chair? Or is the chair prior to the collection of parts. Is it one thing or many things? The point is to actively engage in one pointed meditation and actively seek for the inherent existence.
When such inherent existence is not found then one has an insight into emptiness which is exactly the lack of the assumption. There are depths of this insight and its a gradual process of unbinding the assumption, which takes years and year and if not lifetimes to undo.
But chairs and stuff are fun. Do yourself. The self is the one that counts. And the depth to which one can actualize emptiness of self will be tested by the application of that same insight onto objects. But I personally find the emptiness of self to be probably the most use or rather more pragmatically aligned with the whole praxis of buddhadharma, which is the end of all emotional affliction.
I wish you well.