Emptiness

The world is full of obvious things which nobody by chance ever observes.
~ Sherlock Holmes

Truth lives all around me but it’s just beyond my grasp. ~ Country Joe McDonald

All yogas have only one aim:
to save you from the calamity of separate existence. ~ Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Of course the bird we see and hear exists.
but what I mean by that may not be exactly what you mean. ~ Suzuki Roshi

“Mingyur Rinpoche is a bright young Tibetan lama who, not too long ago, returned from a four-year personal retreat wandering the Himalayas. On his first visit to California in 1998, I had a chance to visit with him and show him around Marin County. As we drove I tried to strike up a conversation. “How do you find the West?” I asked. “Square and clean,” was his reply. “Do you think Tibetans are happier than Westerners?” “Yes.” End of conversation.

We reached our destination at the top of Mount Tamalpais and were walking along the trail around the summit, an asphalt track about six feet wide, when I thought I’d try again. “What is the difference between the Dzogchen view and the Madhyamaka view?” I asked, referring to two schools in Tibet that are considered to have different understandings of the nature of reality. “Ah!” he said, now interested.

“To understand that, you have to understand that there are eighteen different kinds of emptiness!” He sat down on the path right where we were and talked animatedly about the two views, concluding by saying something to the effect that the Madhyamikas think that the Dzogchenpas believe that something exists that doesn’t actually exist, but that actually the Dzogchenpas don’t believe that. Or something like that. The eighteen different kinds of emptiness went by quickly, but in any case it was a delight to listen to the young rinpoche.”

“Clearly seeing the fact of impermanence undermines our tendency to hold on, because we recognize that things will inevitably change. As we get older, for example, if we continue to wish that our bodies would stay as they were when we were twenty, we will suffer with every new wrinkle and pound. When we understand that change is inherent in the nature of the physical body, we can be much more graceful in accepting the aging process. Seeing emptiness acknowledges this and takes it a step further. We also see that there was nothing solid to hold on to in the first place. It is not actually possible to cling to reality, because change is so rapid and universal that a graspable thing cannot be found anywhere. All that we can cling to is the memory of something fleeting.

We understand, for example, that aging is going on in our bodies even at the cellular level. If cells are constantly dying and being recreated, how can our skin be expected to be constant for even one year? Moreover, within most cells, rapid chemical interactions are constant, as mitochondria burn the nutrients delivered to them. These bodily processes cannot be stopped or frozen even for a second. When we see that this is true in every facet of life, it changes us deeply. We become less bound to the past and able to live more in the present. The heart can let go of what it has tried to store up. This shift comes as a great relief. We feel lighter, freer, and happier. We explore emptiness not to construct another ideology but to bring greater freedom and contentment into our lives…

Suppose I were to ask, “How old are you?” You might answer promptly, “I’m thirty-seven,” thirty-seven,” or whatever. Then let me ask, “What color are your eyes?” And again the answer comes easily, “My eyes are blue,” or brown or green. The answers arise naturally and immediately. But if we look at each of these responses in detail, we discover something odd. If you say, “I’m thirty-seven,” you really mean this body is thirty-seven years old — don’t you? You don’t necessarily mean that all of you is thirty-seven. Are your thoughts that old? What is the age of the mood you’re feeling right now? Perhaps it came on today, an hour ago. So when we say, “I’m thirty-seven,” “I” is taken to be the body. This tendency to equate oneself with an aspect of our experience is called identification — in this case, identification with the body.”

~ Guy Armstrong has been leading insight meditation retreats since 1984 in the U.S., Europe, and Australia. His training included living as a monk for a year in the Thai forest lineage. Guy is a member of the Spirit Rock Teachers Council and a guiding teacher of the Insight Meditation Society. He lives in Woodacre, CA.

~ Guy Armstrong, Emptiness: A Practical Guide for Meditators