The Wave analogy

Bunks

"Enlightenment, for a wave in the ocean,
is the moment the wave realises it is water."

I've been mulling over this quote by Thich Nhat Hanh for a little while now and trying to determine what it means from the perspective of being a human being i.e. I am the wave.

Do you think he means that all human consciousness / mind arises from (and returns to) the same place?

I'd be interested to hear other people's take on it.

Cloud

The wave is never something separate from the ocean. It's just water moving in different ways. We're just emptiness taking on different forms, dependently originated, not separate from the "ocean". Un-enlightenment is seeing "a wave", enlightenment is seeing "the ocean waving", or simply "waving" (since the ocean isn't a static thing itself, especially if it's being used as a metaphor for "emptiness").

Things do not arise from and return anywhere... they *are* the ocean of emptiness at all times.

Cloud

So in short (to put it less clumsily), it's us seeing that we are the emptiness, the water of the Great Ocean. There are no separate entities here and even the ocean is forever changing... there's nothing to cling to, nothing to grasp. Anyone who thinks there's a separate entity anywhere has failed to see It. There's only water.

To lose the self/other delusion, to no longer be a bucket of separate water in the ocean, is the initial goal. Letting go of all other grasping will come with time.

DairyLama

Bunks said:

"Enlightenment, for a wave in the ocean,
is the moment the wave realises it is water."

This is TNH being cryptic. Look up his description of "interbeing" for the background - "interbeing" is TNH's version of emptiness ( sunyata ).

Cloud

He's being anything but cryptic, he's basically spelling it out. Then again most of what's said of Zen is the same way... it makes absolute and clear sense, except with delusion fuddling everything up.

DairyLama

Cloud said:

He's being anything but cryptic, he's basically spelling it out... that's about as plain as you can get.

Not to me. It sounds like a cliche.

Cloud

Yeah well forget what it sounds like, just look to its meaning.

Be the wave...

We can't really see how the analogy works for humans unless we put ourselves in the wave's place, now can we?

DairyLama

Cloud said:

We can't really see how the analogy works for humans unless we put ourselves in the wave's place, now can we?

Maybe that's the problem with the analogy.

Anyway here's the relevant link, see section 2.2 Interbeing:
http://interbeing.org.uk/manual/

Cloud

Probably the same problem with a lot of the Zen-speke. Though it's the closest it can get to saying plain-out how things are, it's worlds away from normal delusional thought and so comes off as gibberish.

Interesting link... gonna bookmark that one.

The very first quote in that section is, “If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this piece of paper. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. Paper and cloud are so close......”

Does that quote not shed light on the analogy? We are no different... no different at all.

PrairieGhost

It doesn't mean anything unless you're in the right place to understand it. It's not so much meaningful as useful, but you have to make use of it.

Cloud

@PrairieGhost, Probably very true. You can grab someone and shake them and scream "why don't you understand!?" all you want, but it's not going to help. All you can do is help point them in the right direction and hope they follow the path without falling off. Or point them toward a teacher to watch over them.

andyrobyn

Cloud said:

@PrairieGhost, Probably very true. You can grab someone and shake them and scream "why don't you understand!?" all you want, but it's not going to help. All you can do is help point them in the right direction and hope they follow the path without falling off. Or point them toward a teacher to watch over them.

However, reflecting on your own actions in the scenario ( ie. grabbing someone, shaking them and screaming at them etc ) could prove useful - reminds me of that cartoon about needing to respond to someone online whom you just know is wrong - lol.

Cloud

I didn't mean literally or even with anger, I just meant the common frustration of trying to get anyone to understand something they're just not ready to understand. Baby steps.

PrairieGhost

Sometimes grabbing people and screaming at them is as helpful as giving wave/ocean analogies, but in my experience it's usually less helpful.

But what's spoken of as likely to be helpful may be different from a specific action in real-time that is helpful.

andyrobyn

Neither did I, Cloud ... different strokes for different folks, maybe?

Sabre

A wave can not choose where to go, it is just propelled by water and wind. Normally we struggle, try to get anywhere. Go left, go right. And most of all, we don't want to die. But a wave has no such a choice, because a wave has no entity. It's never the same water. As a wave sees that, it sees it is just ocean, just this. So enlightenment also is the wave allowing itself to wash up on the beach.

Or how the Buddha would have said it: Choices (part of cetana/sankhara) are without a self. Nibbana is cessation.

Cloud

@Sabre, A person has no "entity" or "agent" either, just a perceived one (a "false self"). The bus has no driver. There is choice but no one choosing. Anywhere we go, anything we do, is the entire ocean moving/changing. Exactly as you say the Buddha would say, "choices are without a self". If the wave were aware... it would still wash up on the beach. Whether it suffered or not would be another story.

andyrobyn

Cloud said:

I didn't mean literally or even with anger, I just meant the common frustration of trying to get anyone to understand something they're just not ready to understand. Baby steps.

My point was language sets out to reflect something that is seen in the world, yet in reality it seems to me that we cannot find any sufficiently substantial relation that would allow us to bind together world and word at that most fundamental level consistently .... hence the words are best understood as pointing at the moon rather than being the moon.

Cloud

Well yeah, who would think otherwise? Words are communication, and communication is meant to convey "ideas". Sometimes the ideas match up with real life, and other times they're more abstract, but there's always some idea attached to the words. Our problem is that we solidify these ideas as having essence, of having "self", rather than to see that the actuality is of processes (verbs).

andyrobyn

Hi Cloud, best delete all my posts from one thread if you delete some as the remaining do not have the correct context for me to continue in the discussion ... thanks

PrairieGhost

Maybe think to a more basic level of communication - when cat mews at you to get you to open a door, how is that different to a human saying 'open the door, please'?

Cloud

@andyrobyn, Huh? I haven't deleted any posts.

PrairieGhost

Is communication about 'meaning' or it is about action and reaction?

Cloud

@PrairieGhost, It's not. It's conveying (communicating) the cat's desire to be indoors.

PrairieGhost

All I see in both cases is the door opening. I'm interested in what we see as the difference between an animal's 'call' and a human's 'speech'.

(if it's not too off topic)

p.s. Cloud, I'm pointing to what you said here:

' Our problem is that we solidify these ideas as having essence, of having "self", rather than to see that the actuality is of processes (verbs).'

Cloud

@PrairieGhost, Why should there be any difference? It's still "communication". Animals all have unique ways of communicating, and it all has some meaning, whether it's a mating call or a warning signal or what have you. Human communication is very complex and we have a lot more to talk about, of course.

In the ultimate scheme of things you're right... that human hears a cat meowing, interprets it as the cat desiring to be inside, and opens the door. It's causally related. That's how our will/choice can also be interpreted, as being due to conditions. However that doesn't mean that communication isn't still meaningful... it just means it's interdependent, like everything else. "Relatively" meaningful. In other words empty of self, part of the full interdependent play of reality.

And I didn't mean the ideas themselves, but what they point toward (what they're about). The idea of "Sam" is to thing-ify what's actually not separate or static to begin with. To create self where there is no self. Every "idea" we have is an abstraction, even the idea of emptiness.

PrairieGhost

Hi Cloud; I'm cheating a bit here, because it's easier pose questions about the nature of meaning than to make statements about it.

Language itself has an inherent difficulty in talking about what it is in a purely logical way, because it can't be its own foundation.

Cloud

@PrairieGhost, That's quite alright! Meaning is relative is about the only thing you can say about it, and even then it's not enough... someone would have to take that and really think about what it means. It's the same to say everything is Dependently Originated. It takes a long while for this to be worked through by the mind to really see it in relation to "everything", including a human being (the one thinking about it).

PrairieGhost

Cloud

someone would have to take that and really think about what it means.

Good luck to them lol.

Cloud

The foundation of language is experience, methinks. Someone points to an orange and says "orange", and that abstract link between what you've seen and what you've heard is made. I don't think we really want to go into all this though... we're getting off-track as far as the wave analogy goes.

andyrobyn

Cloud said:

Well yeah, who would think otherwise? Words are communication, and communication is meant to convey "ideas". Sometimes the ideas match up with real life, and other times they're more abstract, but there's always some idea attached to the words. Our problem is that we solidify these ideas as having essence, of having "self", rather than to see that the actuality is of processes (verbs).

Yes, and since my posts are remaining ( lol ) the words we use are not able to get close to making consistent statements ( which mean anything - that is )

Cloud

@andyrobyn, It's all good.

andyrobyn

:thumbsup: .... yes, please continue on with your discussion from the OP on analogy.

PrairieGhost

A wave expresses the (infinite) ocean's nature through its own (finite) nature, and seeing this clearly in our own experience might be what is meant by a wave joining the ocean.

What is infinite is indefinite, and what is undefined does not exist separately, even if it is real to us.

DairyLama

Cloud said:

The very first quote in that section is, “If you are a poet, you will see clearly that there is a cloud floating in this piece of paper. Without a cloud there will be no water; without water, the trees cannot grow; and without trees, you cannot make paper. So the cloud is in here. The existence of this page is dependent on the existence of a cloud. Paper and cloud are so close......”

Does that quote not shed light on the analogy? We are no different... no different at all.

To be honest I find TNH's concept of "interbeing" quite confusing. It's like he's saying we're one with the universe and everything is connected, well OK, it's a variation on dependent arising - but I struggle to see how "interbeing" fits with teachings on anatta and sunyata. I like TNH's emphasis on mindfulness and social action, but I find his approach rather vague and bit muddled.

Cloud

@PedanticPorpoise, That one at least easy can be cleared up! Interbeing = Emptiness (Sunyata), which is itself saying all phenomena whatsoever are Not-Self ("empty of self") and are Dependently Originated.

It all fits together, leaving us with an interdependent ever-changing tapestry of "suchness".

The "one with the universe" thought is a good one. We just can't say it's ever the same because it's always changing, and we're just part of that change, not really separate/individual things. We really are just water in the ocean, taking on different form and shape, having no set size or configuration (and so no fixed identity).

PrairieGhost

Songhill

Thich Nhat Hanh statement could also be put this way:

In water enlightenment, the water realizing itself, realizes that the waves are water-only; they don't really exist apart from water; they are an illusion. From the very beginning there has only been water; nothing really has been born [apart from water].

"As the waves appear instantly on the ocean, or [images] in a mirror or a dream, so the mind is reflected in its own sense-fields" (Lanakvatara Sutra).

"Like the waves of the ocean, Mahamati, the world which is the mind-manifested, is stirred up by the wind of objectivity, it evolves and dissolves" (Lanakvatara Sutra).

"As memory [or habit-energy, vasana] grows in various forms the Mind is evolved like the waves; when memory is cut off, there is no evolving of Mind." (Lanakvatara Sutra).

"As no pictures are separable from the wall, no shadow from the post, so are no [Vijnana-]waves stirred when the Alaya[-ocean] is pure [and quiet]" (Lanakvatara Sutra).

"From the Alaya all mental activities take their rise like the waves; with habit-energy as cause all things are born in accordance with conditions of causation" (Lanakvatara Sutra).

Songhill

Cloud:

...enlightenment is seeing "the ocean waving", or simply "waving" (since the ocean isn't a static thing itself, especially if it's being used as a metaphor for "emptiness").

Nay brother, enlightenment is to see that waviness is only a configuration of pure water; like a gold lion is only a configuration of gold.

From the Lankavatara Sutra:

"there are no external objects, there is nothing to get attached to; when one abides in Mind-only [cittamatra], beyond which there is no external world, dualism ceases; as there is no realm of form based on discrimination, one comes to recognise that there is nothing but what is seen of the Mind itself; and for these reasons the discrimination of what is seen of the Mind itself does not take place. Owing to the cessation of discrimination, one enters into the triple emancipation where is the state of no-form, emptiness, and effortlessness. Hence it is called deliverance"

Cloud

Yes Songhill if you've paid attention to the entire thread, that is what the analogy is about. The wave sees that it is water. We see that we are emptiness, or a configuration of "water" only, not something independent or separate. The difference between "pure" water and "impure" water is only a matter of perspective, whether there is delusion or not... it's all water regardless. Pure water (even "partly" pure) is beyond self/other duality; any self-view whatsoever is the mark of "worldly" or "puthujjana" mind, as yet unenlightened to its true nature.

Songhill

Cloud, In a nice way I am trying to say that Thich Nhat Hanh is mistaken. Waves don't see the water it is the water that realizes itself, then knows that waves don't really exist, that is, waves are nothing apart from water.

A Buddha is one who is awakened to absolute Mind (the water); who sees that the conditioned, pluralized world (the waves) deluded sentient beings glom onto is only an illusion in virtue of the fact that such a world is nothing more than a configuration/projection of Mind. (This also includes the mental world.)

"Birth and no-birth, emptiness and no-emptiness, self-nature and no-self-nature, —these are not discriminated [by the knowing one]; in Mind-only [no such things] obtain" (Lankavatara Sutra).

“There is the ‘Mind-only,’ there are no objects to be seen; when there are no objects to see, Mind is not born; and this is called by myself and others the Middle Way" (Lankavatara Sutra).

driedleaf

I think it is a good imagery. Waves are like us because that's what human ego is like, it likes to make waves. But if the wave would only know that it is water, then it would know that water is ever-changing and evaporates eventually.

tmottes

Cloud said:

@Sabre, A person has no "entity" or "agent" either, just a perceived one (a "false self"). The bus has no driver. There is choice but no one choosing. Anywhere we go, anything we do, is the entire ocean moving/changing. Exactly as you say the Buddha would say, "choices are without a self". If the wave were aware... it would still wash up on the beach. Whether it suffered or not would be another story.

It is my understanding that there is no choice (object) or person choosing (subject), but rather only choosing. All dualities can be collapsed, as a wave crashes back into the ocean. What is wave, what is ocean, what is water?

Cloud

@Songhill, Really? You're putting your own understanding above Thich Nhat Hanh's and saying he is the one that's mistaken? Your personal interpretations put forth on the forum have been at loggerheads with what every enlightened teacher has historically said... this would seem to be what's suspect here. TNH isn't wrong. Nagarjuna isn't wrong. Dogen isn't wrong. The Buddha isn't wrong for that matter.

I sincerely hope you haven't had one of those meditation experiences that lead people to think they're enlightened or anything (you wouldn't be the first on this forum). Though it would explain a lot, it's also notoriously difficult to break away from (a false sense of enlightenment is like a false sense of self in this way).

Sabre

Everybody is free to doubt Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddha, the scriptures. We can't know who is enlightened or not. Even in the scriptures (that one is allowed to doubt of course ) we see that only the Buddha knew such things. There is no magical knowledge that provides us with a sort of radar to find enlightened ones.

Now a bit of a joke: Even if there was such thing, we surely can't know without having met them. Which in case of Thay would be possible, but with Nagarjuna and Dogen is already a bit less likely

Cloud

@Sabre, Much easier to not doubt them when you've had a steady practice and they all say basically the same thing in different ways. Easier to doubt naysayers who contradict everyone else. Buddhism isn't itself that difficult, it's just extremely difficult to get over self-view. We have to work at it. If we try to rework Buddhism to be pro-self instead, that just complicates things and then turns normal Buddhism into nihilism, makes enlightened masters "mistaken", and everything else. That's really not helpful to anyone, especially newbies who this site is meant to help.

poptart

:wave:
Maybe he meant this kind of wave.

Vastmind

:wave:

Jeffrey

:eek: Oh my god look at those waves! ::running for shelter::

OneLifeForm

"Enlightenment, for a wave in the ocean,
is the moment the wave realises it is water."

Seems self explanatory to me.

For when the wave saw that it is water it would be all pervading awarness of it all.

It wouldn't be a "concrete" wave thinking, "I am made of water!"

Every molecule in the ocean would be seen and understood then and the ocean would continue to be an ocean.

Sabre

Cloud said:

@Sabre, Much easier to not doubt them when you've had a steady practice and they all say basically the same thing in different ways. Easier to doubt naysayers who contradict everyone else. Buddhism isn't itself that difficult, it's just extremely difficult to get over self-view. We have to work at it. If we try to rework Buddhism to be pro-self instead, that just complicates things and then turns normal Buddhism into nihilism, makes enlightened masters "mistaken", and everything else. That's really not helpful to anyone, especially newbies who this site is meant to help.

Well, again, I don't see why we would have to call anyone an enlightened master and give them some sort of authorative position. It's only fair to ourselves and others to doubt them. Just as we should doubt our own position of course.

Not that I agree with Songhill, as you know I do not. But for one thing I think not placing anybody as unquestionable is what keeps Buddhism safe from forming sects or something like that. Good teachers would like you to ask questions and have doubts. It's also a bad argument to say "well every 'master' says this so it's right and you're wrong', no offense of course