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form is emptiness, where the rubber meets the road?
Jeffrey
Veteran
I'm listening to the heart sutra liturgy of my sangha..
Form is empty..
But in my actual life I am addicted to coffee I like massages I like to have fresh air. The question is NOT that I feel guilty having these pleasures. But in the coffee context I cannot fathom how to go from 'mmmmmmmmmm coffee' towards seeing the coffee as empty.
I do see the aspect of emptiness, no big deal. Pema Chodron talks about things that hook us, shenpa. And the coffee hooks me but then I counteract it by saying, 'no big deal, it's just coffee'. I remember my cousin and my nieces, once removed, were together eating breakfast and the nieces were fighting over cereal. I said
'it's just cereal'. And that is to say let go and have no big deal. Of course I have no clue how to handle children and my cousin sorted it out.
But could you add something that helps sort out shenpa from 'no big deal'. Pema Chodron definitely intends practice with shenpa to be helpful. So is that the teaching of the heart sutra? In my day I definitely believe coffee is very important.
Form is empty..
But in my actual life I am addicted to coffee I like massages I like to have fresh air. The question is NOT that I feel guilty having these pleasures. But in the coffee context I cannot fathom how to go from 'mmmmmmmmmm coffee' towards seeing the coffee as empty.
I do see the aspect of emptiness, no big deal. Pema Chodron talks about things that hook us, shenpa. And the coffee hooks me but then I counteract it by saying, 'no big deal, it's just coffee'. I remember my cousin and my nieces, once removed, were together eating breakfast and the nieces were fighting over cereal. I said
'it's just cereal'. And that is to say let go and have no big deal. Of course I have no clue how to handle children and my cousin sorted it out.
But could you add something that helps sort out shenpa from 'no big deal'. Pema Chodron definitely intends practice with shenpa to be helpful. So is that the teaching of the heart sutra? In my day I definitely believe coffee is very important.
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Comments
But then, I'm an addict as well so I'm biased
There is no self in your coffee. Coffee, as with all things, by its very nature is simply an arising that is marked by it's impermenance. In that it gives you pleasure, that you find it rewarding is a nice experience. I have my coffee every morning and tea in the afternoon and find great joy in them. Is there really a hook or shenpa here? If you are compelled or driven by this, then maybe. For me it is simply a joy that I have in this beautiful life.
you are going to die and everyone you know is going to die, is coffee important? wtf gives a shit about coffee
The coffee example doesn't mean I feel bad about coffee. It just points out how upset I am when I don't get a cup. How am I going to face death and grieving? I know this argument doesn't make sense, but it is amazing how the angst of missing a coffee is so great.
somedays its good coffee. it does the job. keeps us awake and alert.
somedays its bad coffee. it doesn't do the job. keep us in pain and pooping.
to some the poop is worth it. to others the poop isn't.
coffee also helps teeth. but some say that coffee can harm us as well.
sugar or cream? no, i like it black. but some like it with 8 sugars and 8 creams.
In the evenings I like a warm cup of coffee.
I didn't understand what it has to do with pooping
Its function is its emptiness.
Taste of coffee. Requiring no one, place or time. Just an instant of taste consciousness then gone. Appearing and disappearing due to conditions.
Mouth, tongue, coffee maker, coffee beans, cup, contact, arising of taste consciousness.
Eyes, white expanse we call cup, black expanse we call coffee, steam, contact, arising of visual consciousness.
Hands, cup handle, contact, arising of sensation consciousness.
Notice how sensation, sight and taste are different dimensions.
Each instant of arising is just an instant of arising. Through memory we chain moments together and we thus have sollidity of coffee. Yet it is just three distinct moments of consciousness coming together in our direct experience.
The senses are pre conceptual. They tell no stories on their own. Without the mind there is nothing to link or say. Just this instant of contact and arising of a specific consciousness then gone.
Its happening right now. Notice.
Close your eyes. Smell the coffee.
Smell then gone.
Close your eyes. Close your nose.
Feel the sensations that are chained via memory to create the form you feel.
Open your eyes. Smell the coffee. Touch the form. Do not bring memory or do not project. Just experience what is there. A white and black expanse. We call this coffee.
Thats visual.
We smell. We call this coffee. Its just a smell.
We taste. We call this coffee. Its just taste.
Its still coffee. But that is pure inputation from us and not coming from the coffee itself. Its just distinct moments of consciousness in taste, color which makes shape with light makes form, and smell.
Then there is the mental projections. The grasping and attachment which asserts is or is not. But if you focus and look directly there is no coffee. Just appearances of consciousness due to condiions.
Actually to say there is no coffee is a mistake. There is no coffee but the negation is what we assume coffee to be. The status of coffee is neither nothing or something. Just shimmering appearances of consciousness.
I think of all the traditions explanations' of Buddha-nature, I still prefer some of the explanations of Buddha-nature by some Soto Zen teachers (particularly those influenced by Dogen).
A few excerpts/postings found on a good blog http://byakurenzen.blogspot.com by Zen teacher Judith Ragir:
The emancipation of suchness
From Dogen, Bussho Fascicle, Shobogenzo:
Although with mu-buddha-nature (no- Buddha-nature) you may have to grope your way along, there is a touchstone – What. There is a temporal condition – You. There is entrance into its dynamic functioning – affirmation. There is a common nature – all-pervading or wholeness. It is a direct and an immediate access.
In contrast to some interpretations of Buddhism which are about transcending suffering or leaving the realm of samsara behind and not returning, Dogen always surprises me by turning that around. He encourages us see this moment of what we might call “ordinary life”, as the moment of practice and liberation. There is no room to stray far from the moment at hand. He is completely affirming of life, quite different then a nihilistic interpretation of Buddhism.
Katagiri-Roshi said,
The important point is not to try to escape your life. But to face it- exactly and completely the way it is beyond discussion of good and bad, right and wrong, like and dislike. All you have to do is just take one step. Strickly speaking, there is just one thing we have to face and nothing else (the temporal condition). If you believe there is something else besides this one thing, this is not pure practice. Just take one step in this moment with wholeheartedness.
In studying the fasicle Bussho, we find that Buddha-nature is not a thing that represents some kind of foundation. Buddha-nature is impermanence and interconnectedness. It is essentially empty. Dogen breaks down the “thingness” or solidness of all things by deconstructing time, space and body. He only writes of the whole body or entire being, and the total functioning or interconnectedness of life. The temporal conditions are the coming together of all the factors which produce the formation of this very moment. That formation itself is Buddha-nature.
The whole body or entire being is often expressed in Dogen with the words:
Mountains and rivers or
Earth, grasses and trees, fences and walls, tiles and pebbles
All things in the dharma realm in ten directions
Carry out Buddha work.
From Jijiyu Sammai, Dogen Shobogenzo
All human bodies completely inter-be with all other manifestations of life. We are not solitary, independent units.
In this dynamic reality, Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. The temporal condition of the moment, the “what”, gives birth to and emancipates the suchness, emptiness, or aliveness of the moment. Emptiness, impermanence and interconnection are affirmed in this very moment. They are freed or manifested through their birth in form. In inversion, form is freed by the letting go into impermanence. This inter-embrace is Buddha-nature.
Katagiri:
It means just appearing, that’s all.
This is the basic nature of existence.
Posted by Byakuren Judith Ragir at 7:00 AM
"Entire being is the buddha-nature"
In the beginning of Dogen’s Bussho fascicle of the Shobogenzo, he quotes a famous passage from the Nirvana Sutra (ch. 27) All sentient beings without exception have the Buddha-nature. In Dogen’s way, Dogen reinterprets this sentence so that it more explicitedly reads in a non-dualistic style. In the previous sentence, it’s possible to read it dualistically as:
A subject, “sentient beings” “has” an object, “Buddha-nature”
Dogen reinterprets the sentence as: Entire being is the Buddha-nature. He tries to alleviate the duality inherent in the sentence structure. Entire being becomes the complete network of interdependent co-origination, which has no inside and no outside, no I and no you. Our being or a sentient being is actually the same as the total dynamic working of the entire network of beings. We cannot pull out a separated “being”. Dogen deconstructs the space or place of a “being” as a separate, independent unit. The entire network of beings, functioning together, is the Buddha-nature.
The Buddha-nature is not seen as a “thing” or an “object” but rather the process of life life-ing itself. It is the total dynamic working of the machine of life. Katagiri Roshi deconstructs the “time” of Buddha-nature. He says :
“Buddha-nature is impermanence itself. This real moment is constantly: working, arising, disappearing, and appearing. To say what the present moment is, right here, right now, is to say that this moment has already disappeared. This is called emptiness. Both cause and effect are exactly impermanence in themselves. It means just appearing, that’s all. This is the basic nature of existence. That’s why impermanence is Buddha-nature. Buddha-nature is being preached constantly. When you manifest yourself right now, right here, becoming one with zazen or with your activity, this is Buddha-nature manifested in the realm of emptiness or impermanence.” From Returning to Silence, page 9.
Posted by Byakuren Judith Ragir at 7:04 AM
FRIDAY, JUNE 17, 2011
To know Buddha-nature, contemplate temporal conditions
Buddha said, “if you wish to know the Buddha-nature’s meaning, you must contemplate temporal conditions. If the time arrives, the Buddha-nature will manifest itself. From Bussho, Shobogenzo, Waddell and Abe translation.
This is it for me! No more seeking. (thank god, after 40 years I’m so tired of seeking) (Joshu calls us, “Buddha seeking fools”) No more intellectualizing on the meaning of Zen or the sutras or thinking we can understand. No more seeking deep and poo-pooing surface (ordinary things). No more wishing for sacredness and transcendence, which discounts our ordinary delusions and the problems of life. This dualistic thinking, separating the absolute and the relative, with our concurrent preferences, just continues all the worldly suffering, confusion and fatigue. Wishing things were otherwise.
The absolute and the relative, the sacred and the ordinary, are completely intertwined and completely arise together. That means that this moment is complete, is the Buddha-nature. There is no “other” “thing” to search for. So our practice should be directed at seeing the inter-related quality, the process of no-solid-objects including me!, the openness and no-story (and the taking care of the story) of what is actually arising, the temporal condition of this moment. We must ONLY contemplate the temporal condition of this moment, and then the next. This moment is the nexus of process that brings forth this object and brings forth Buddha-nature. There is no exception and no abandonment. We can experience this when we release our concepts of truth and our preferences.
If the nexus of forces that arrive are in alignment, we can see "no form" with integrity and "form" with integrity. We can also experience that they are not separated but whatever the object of our awareness is, This itself is the arrival of Buddha-nature. “If the time arrives, the buddha nature will manifest itself. From Fukanzazengi: :The treasure store will open of itself, and we will use it at will”
Posted by Byakuren Judith Ragir at 12:13 PM
thoughts. simple as that.
whether or not other things have mental projections is irrelevant.
there is only your experience and your mental projections/inputations.
its important to realize that thoughts do not touch reality. they are abstractions after the experience, interpretations about the experience. the experience itself does not contain these abstractions. these abstractions are what we bring to the table.
A thought may be comprised of many components, roughly including sense data, memory, newly formed mental connections and associated feelings. If, for example, sense data is a mental projection, at what point does nerve cells interacting with each other convert to sense data?
According to Buddhist thought there are other minds, so not everything can be a mental projection. There must be some common basis for all minds to have common ground. Take the ground itself for instance, how can all minds perceive a common ground if everything is a mental projection?
sure there are other minds. each individual mindstream is different, yet completely connected. not by some kind of super mind or consciousness or mindstream but by dependent origination or the causal process called life. but with that understanding one must realize we only can work with this mind. this mind we see at first as the conceptual mind. then we see through the conceptual mind by seeing the reality of suchness. then mind is no mind. because mind is the sound, the smell, the taste, the thought, the sensation, the vision. there is no entity called mind other than imputation onto the skandhas.
here is where experience and understanding divide. experience is always non conceptual, non thought. sense data or the five modes of sense meeting sense objects and arising of sense consciousness is distinct from the consciousness that formulates thoughts.
it is always sense data then the projection onto the sense data via mental consciousness.
experience then mental proliferation. intertwined and seamless as if they are one in the same. breaking through this is very important.
everything is a mental projection in our reality, our experience. there is no such thing as an objective reality that we can access. we can though compare and contrast through experience but that is always a conceptual expression. it is always inferential.
a great example that was given to me was touching fabric. one can touch both the fabric and then alternate to the skin.
but there is a reality prior to our mental imputations. this is the interdependent reality of suchness. suchness has no story, or conceptual baggage. it requires no agent, no subjects, no objects. it has no status of existence, non existence, etc.
let me know if you need clarification.
Emptiness is form: Enlightenment might be found while drinking a cup of coffee.
As long as this heart is beating there will be a "shred of affliction".. meaning there will be things around which I lose space, equanimity, and so forth. It will be lessened to a great degree by continuous practice, but there will always be a circumstance where I "lose it", and if we are all honest, we all "lose it" from time to time. So the question for my practice, in the context of the Heart Sutra, is how is this samsaric "losing it" embraced skillfully, without merely giving license..? how to practice that too? We are only human, and the path of the Heart Sutra is the Human way, at least in my understanding..
Maybe if we could work out this part I might understand you. You seem to be saying that everything is at once a projection and an inference. An odd way of looking at everything, but the part that is the most incoherent is that there is no objective reality that we can access. Let me me give you an example that might help to bridge our understanding. Imagine that I have a large diamond. Everyone in the world who can experience this diamond can only experience it as one diamond. No mind can experience it as two diamonds, or six diamonds, or any other number of diamonds but one. Now say I cut the diamond in two. Now there is no mind that can experience these two diamonds as the one diamond that it was before. I have changed something. Other minds did not "project" that change. I made the change and other minds can sense the difference. It doesn't matter if some minds "project" that there is still only one diamond. In reality there are two. It does't matter if no one notices that there are two diamonds. When they do notice there will be two.
This basic example illustrates that not everything is a projection and that there is an objective reality, or rather a reality that is not dependent on our subjectivity. I know that we are all that, and a bag of potato chips, but the universe doesn't really revolve around us. Actually it does but you know what I mean.
Concepts always assume a thing. Some kind of object or objectively existent phenomena. We can call it physicality.
But actually the diamond isn't a thing. The diamond is a label ontop of moment of consciousness.
For instance visually we see an expanse of color which showcases whats behind he diamond. Throught light we create distinctions in shape. There is no boundary between the color of the diamond and the background, etc. Where exactly is the point where colors divide? And to even go closer where is color? Color cannot be found in the mind nor in the diamond. It is a dependently arisen moment of visual consciousness.
Then we can deconstruct sensations. When we touch the diamond there is one point of sensation then the next. Just these sensations make up what is the form.
Ontop of the suchness of a diamond we project an entity called diamond. That entity is conceptual. The assumption that there is an independent, objectively existent diamond. We can conceptually agree that there is one or two diamonds. Just like we can agree one plus one is two. These are systems we assert as objective and under the agreement of such systems they function. There is no objectivity apart from the collectivr and individual agreement that they are objective.
But thats besides the point.
The point is to break through the ideas of an entity.
How is this done?
Through directly experencing the suchness of the diamond. It is just two distinct arisings of consciousness which is linked by the mind to create what we call an entity and through that objective physical existence.
Hope this is clear.
The view of dependent origination can be experientially analyzed very easily.
When it comes to visual and tactile one must analyze and deconstruct separately.
Visual:
In seeing (process of conditions of eye sense organ making contact with sense object) = just the seen (arising of visual consciousness or color, form, shape).
This is happening all at once. Conditions coming together and we experience the effect of color, shape and form.
This can be experientially seen. And this is totally non conceptual. Just color. On the basis of colors meeting shape. On the basis of light meeting shape we get form.
The suchness of phenomena is the effect of the conditions which is the arising of visual consciousness. The conditional arising implies its emptiness of entity. There is no sense organ without sense object and contact. All conditions must be in play to have the visual consciousness.
Tactile:
Now tactile consciousness operates the same way (dependently originated). But it is distinct from the visual in that sensations are completely different than color, shape and form.
In feeling (process of conditions of body making contact with sense object) = just the sensation (arising of tactile consciousness or sensation).
Where they are linked is from the I, my, me reference point. Which is just a thought. So without this thought everything is just different streams of consciousness arising due to certain conditions being met.
Any reference point be it a subject or an object assumes an entity or a thing. But there are no things because everything is dependently arisen.
Hence designations of something and nothing do not apply to suchness. Objective, subjective, etc do not apply either. These are all thoughts.
But a bowl is still a bowl, the sky is blue, and my child is crying and I hug him.
The point is to see our assumption about reality. Whatever we give to reality be it inherentness or duality is merely our imputation. If one can use words while realizing that suchness lacks whatver we give it then they are not caught.
Mountains are still mountains. Sky is still sky.
Emptiness and dependent origination is taught to open the hand of thought. To let go of conceptual holding.
Because there is no inherent flower, there is a flower. But any kind of inputation of inherency or duality is just wrong view. Such views proliferate suffering. Whereas dependent origination is the viewless view. The view is used to see how reailty functions without agency and the view self liberates.
So projection. Projection of what? Inherency, objectivity, independent existence. From that we project subjects and objects.
Hope this is clearer. Sry i made you go through that
Under the assumption of things (inherency).
Coffee tastes bitter, I dislike it, it is unpleasurable.
But to another that same coffee would be different or maybe the same dependent upon their karma.
They could see what I interpret as bitter as good and pleasurable.
Projection is interpretation. Maybe my use of the world projection is incorrect.
Just a thought.
Particularly in the advertising you can see the Diamond is mentally labeled as suitable for marriages.
The diamond is dependently originated, what it means to each individual. Some people might like big diamonds. Some might like artful or colored diamonds.
You couldn't miss two for one, but your mentations are individual. My lama's husband is a physicist and thinks a lot about how the dharma relates to math and physics. My stance on two apples is that it is true they have the same DNA but calling them apples is like saying two humans are two humans rather than individuals. Each diamond, apple, or human is only mentally labeled based on observations, DNA, or chemical structure.
Think of all the nations who invented the pizza. Every nation says they invented the pizza, but the pizzas are all individuals.
I do agree that nobody could mistake one for two. Yet that is dependently originated based on sense organs, learning in school, and other things like that.
Have you heard of the tree falling in the forest? Two diamonds is a movement of awareness drawing a boundary. Really there are more than two diamonds on the earth and it's arbitrary to limit 'diamond' to two diamonds.
Even if we knew all the diamonds in the universe how do we know there aren't parallel multiverse?
Kind of 'hand waving' I know, but get back to my original point about mind training rather than control of the environment.
Its like there is the projectioning without the projectioner.
For instance there is the sensation of fabric. In bare attention it is just sensation.
Whatever comes after that is a projection. I feel this soft fabric. The "I" here (reference point) feels (fabric, reference point) there. I interpret this as soft.
Essentially opinions, division, occur only as imputations.
In direct experience there is the suchness of phenomena.
There is no-self in form,feeling, perception, mental formations or consciousness.
Form,feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness are by their very nature impermenant.
All things are equal in that they are not self and impermenant.
But things do matter.
Intention matters. Motivation matters.
My intention to be free of the wheel of Samsara, to know what is skillful and abandon what is not, this is important.
A crying child in front of me is not empty and requires a reponse. My heart opens, and compassion is the correct response.
I pour myself a cup of coffee and taste it. Maybe it sucks, maybe it is the best cup of coffee I will ever have. It really doesn't matter as long as I am mindful of what arises. There is suffering, and maybe my coffee causes said suffering. I should abandon my desire for my coffee to be something that it is not.
It is not a mental projection, it might taste like crap.
It is my clinging to a reality, a want, a desire, that is not manifest in this cup of coffee that causes my suffering.
How simple isn't it? :coffee:
Sometimes it's nectar of the gods. Sometimes it's mud. Sometimes tasting mud upsets us. Sometimes we just have tea instead.
Our senses tell us that things are substantial and real but is this “reality”.
Let us try a thought experiment.
Imagine that we are viewing things and events happening on Earth from a distant planet. We know that light takes time to travel and scientists have informed us that some stars are only detected long after the original stars have died out. If we are not aware of this fact, we would think that those stars still exist. Suppose we are on a distant planet watching Earth which is already dead.
So we see all the events taking place on Earth, the wars, famines, births, deaths, marriages, the World Cup, etc. Even the trees, mountains, lakes etc appear real and substantial. But the “reality” is all these things that we know to be true from seeing with our own eyes are an illusion. The Earth is gone but we remain convinced that this is not so. We see our families and friends doing their things. We have moments of joy, happiness, anger and sadness, getting involved in things. Everyone standing where we are will see exactly the same thing.
But in reality they don’t exist anymore!
If the scientists have not pointed out that we are only seeing the play of light and sounds in our consciousness, we would believe what our senses tell us.
Our senses deceive us into believing that the world and everything in it truly exist. We grab on to existence as though it is something permanent and substantial whereas in truth everything is slipping away and nothing is substantial. There is nothing we can hold on to as real. All that we can perceive can only come through our senses. Since there is a time lag between contact of our retina and form, eardrums and vibrations and the actual process of seeing or hearing, everything that we see or hear no longer exist the way we perceive them.
The "world" is neither existent or nonexistent but is dependent on the activity of our senses. There is no 'the world' besides these ongoing activities.
In this experiment what is real becomes unreal. What we “know” to be substantial and permanent is in fact an illusion.
The actual process of seeing or hearing takes place in microseconds between for example the light travelling from an object to reach the retina and eventually registering in the brain as visual consciousness.
For the objects for sights, sounds, smells, taste and sensations are no longer there by the time they register in our consciousness. They have already slipped away.
" . . . . . . . Suppose, monks, a magician or a magician's apprentice
should hold a magic-show at the four cross-roads; and a keen-sighted
man should see it, ponder over it and reflect on it radically. Even as
he sees it, ponders over it and reflects on it radically, he would find it
empty; he would find it hollow; he would find it void of essence.
What essence, monks, could there be in a magic show?
Even so, monks, whatever consciousness --- be it past, future or
present, in oneself or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior,
far or near -- a monk sees it, ponders over it and reflects on it
radically. And even as he sees it, ponders over it and reflects on it
radically, he would find it empty; he would find it hollow; he would
find it void of essence. What essence, monks, could there be in a
consciousness ?
Phena Sutta
Foam
"To study the Buddha Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be verified by all things. To be verified by all things is to let the body and mind of the self and the body and mind of others drop off. There is a trace of realization that cannoy be grasped. We endlessly express this ungraspable trace of realization."
- Line 6 from Genjokoan by Dogen. Translation by Shohaku Okumura
When love and hate are both absent; everything dwells in perfect clarity.
~Shinjinmei (Trust in the Heart-Mind), first verse