Ramesh Manocha is the author of Silence Your Mind, this op-ed first appeared at The Conversation, a new journalism project "featuring content from the sharpest academic minds." The editorial was reposted at Live Science.

Meditation, Mindfulness and Mind-Emptiness (Op-Ed)

By Ramesh Manocha, University of Sydney | January 04, 2014

Mindfulness essentially involves the passive observation of internal and external stimuli without mental reaction. Credit: Meditation image via Shutterstock

This article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

Ever been unable to sleep because you can’t switch off that stream of thoughts that seems to flow incessantly, mercilessly through your head?

When your mental noise distracts you from the task at hand, makes you forget why you walked into a room, or keeps you awake at night, you’re a victim of what is known in the East as “the monkey mind”. It is this thought stream that, according to Eastern tradition, is the source of much of our modern day stress and mental dysfunction.

So, what can you do about it?

Meditation

In the West, meditation has become a woolly term under which many different methods have found a home. Mindfulness is the latest, and certainly the most popular, addition.

Scientifically speaking, all approaches to meditation – be they relaxation, mindfulness, visualisation, mantras or otherwise – are associated with measurable but non-specific beneficial effects. So too are all stress management-style interventions even if they are not labelled as “meditation”.

So, does meditation have a specific effect or is it just another way to relax and de-stress? These are the questions that the scientific community continues to struggle with. Importantly, we can only answer this question if we have a clear understanding of what meditation is (or isn’t).

Our research shows that by defining meditation as “mental silence”, which is an evolution of the mindfulness concept, we can effectively answer the key scientific questions about meditation.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness essentially involves the passive observation of internal and external stimuli without mental reaction. It is most explicitly, but not exclusively, laid out in Buddhist meditation texts.

The Buddhist connection is one reason Mindfulness is so popular. Credit: Buddha image via Shutterstock
Mindfulness has become immensely popular for several reasons: its connection with Buddhism, which is very much in fashion; its secular style; and its suitability as an adjunct to many other mental health counselling strategies such as cognitive behavioural therapy.

There is no doubting that mindfulness has a useful role to play in preserving health and promoting wellness. But despite its hundreds of clinical trials, there is no consistent evidence of an effect specific to mindfulness itself.

In fact, the vast majority of evidence concerning mindfulness relates to clinical trials that do not control for placebo effects. This is something relatively few researchers seem to want to talk about, either because it’s too difficult or too politically incorrect.

Mental silence

Perhaps surprisingly, the oldest known definition of meditation predates both Buddhism and mindfulness by thousands of years. In the ancient Indian Mahabharata, the narrator states that a meditator is “… like a log, he does not think”. In other words, the earliest definitions describe the key defining feature of meditation as an experience of “mental silence”.

Many other explicit examples of this definition can be found in Eastern literature from virtually every historical period. Lao Tzu, for example, urged us to “Empty the mind of all thoughts” in the Tao Te Ching.

Yet Western definitions of meditation have consistently failed to acknowledge its significance. Perhaps this is because of the predominance of the Cartesian dictum “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am) that has come to characterise not only Western philosophy but the psyche as well.

This might explain why for most people in the West, including the academics and researchers on whom we rely to generate our scientific knowledge, mental silence represents both an alien concept and an illogical experience.

Yet the results of more than a dozen years of scientific research here in Australia tells us that mental silence-orientated approaches to meditation are in fact both achievable and associated with specific benefits above and beyond those seen in non-mental silence approaches.

Take, for instance, my 2011 Meditation for Work Stress Study, involving 178 full-time Australian workers; it’s one of the most thoroughly designed randomised controlled trials of meditation in the scientific literature.

Mental silence is responsible for many of the benefits of meditation. Credit: Carnie Lewis.
Participants were randomly allocated to one of three groups: either mental silence meditation, a relaxation-orientated intervention (non-mental silence) or a no-treatment control group. Their stress, depressive feelings and anxiety levels were measured using scientifically validated measures before and after the eight week program.

While people in both intervention groups improved, those in the mental silence group manifested significantly greater improvements than the relaxation group and the no-treatment group.

A randomised controlled trial of meditation for asthma sufferers mirrored these findings by comparing mental silence-orientated meditation to a stress management programme promoted by the state department of health. Not only were the psychological improvements significantly greater in the meditation group but there was also a reduction in the irritability of the airways.

Although further work needs to be done to identify the mechanisms, this change is likely the result of the modulation of chronic inflammation pathways, presumably through altered signalling from the brain.

Other larger surveys as well as smaller trials also demonstrate promising outcomes – all pointing toward the idea that mental silence is the key defining feature of meditation, responsible for effects specific to meditation.

Brain studies report some interesting findings. First, the experience is associated with a characteristic pattern of brain electrical activity – increased alpha-theta activity at the front and top of the brain along the midline. This is associated with reduced anxiety and improved attentional focus.

There was also a strong correlation between these objectively measured electrical changes and the subjective experience of the quality of the meditation experience.

Second, meditators exhibit reduced stress responses in the brain compared with non-meditators. This implies that the benefits are occurring at a neurophysiological level rather than being just a suppression of emotion or of its peripheral features.

The effects of meditation seem to be beyond the ability to suppress emotional responses. Credit: Flickr/premasagar.
Meditators, therefore, seem to be fundamentally modifying the way they generate negative emotions in response to the environment.

Reduced negative emotional reactions to stimuli should logically lead to reduced stress and an improved sense of well-being. But until studies where the brain changes are simultaneously measured alongside clinical changes, we can’t definitively state that these brain changes are the cause of the specific effects uncovered in our clinical studies.

Mind-emptiness

So how does this all fit together?

The mental silence paradigm is both complementary to and a progression of the mindfulness concept. While mindfulness involves the passive observation of stimuli with the aim of reducing mental reactions, mental silence involves progressing this experience to, and attaining, a state of no-mental-content-at-all, while remaining in full control of one’s faculties.

The original intention of mindfulness is as a method to facilitate the attainment of mental silence rather than being an ends in itself.

This shift in our understanding resolves many of the paradoxes that were hitherto insoluble – while at the same time offering consumers and clinicians a practically useful way to understand and benefit from meditation.

You can try the evidence-based techniques that we have evaluated for yourself by going to www.beyondthemind.com.

~ Ramesh Manocha is the author of Silence Your Mind, published by Hachette.

Ramesh Manocha is a regular meditator. He has received funding from the RACGP and the Barbara Gross Research Unit at the Royal Women's Hospital in Sydney. All author royalties from Silence Your Mind are donated to research and education in the area.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article. The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher. This version of the article was originally published on LiveScience.

Steve Taylor Ph.D. - Does Your Self Exist?

In his Psychology Today blog, Out of the Darkness, Steve Taylor, Ph.D. recently argued that the claim made by neuroscience and some philosophers that we have no unique self - that it is an illusion created by our brains - is rubbish.

Taylor states, paraphrasing his misunderstanding of the science: "The brain is just a soggy clump of grey matter - how could that soggy mass possibly give rise to the richness and depth of consciousness?" This is not his argument - he is conflating consciousness with a unitary self. We are fully conscious beings (well, most of us), and we are also a collection of subpersonalities that our brain manages in such a way that without developing subject/object awareness, we are unable to distinguish the subpersonalities, so they appear to be one personality, one self.

He goes on to mention Vedanta and meditation, making this assertion about meditative experience:

It [consciousness] appears to be full of energy - a powerful energy which itself has a quality of well-being, or even bliss. (This is what Indian Vedanta philosophy describes as satchitananda - being-consciousness-bliss.) There is also a quality of spaciousness - somehow my own consciousness seems to become wider and larger, to spread beyond my own brain or body.

But most importantly in terms of my argument in this article, in these moments, one of the qualities of consciousness is a sense of ‘I’. There is still a sense of identity, even if this sense may be different to that of normal consciousness. This identity does not feel separate or boundaried. It may feel a part of something greater than itself, but still has a sense of I-ness.

Again, he goes only part of the way in these statements. Spend some time in meditation, as the Buddhists suggest, trying to find the "I" of self - it's not there. The more you seek the self/I, the more one discovers vast emptiness, the emptiness filled with bliss.*

Does Your Self Exist?

Is there anyone there inside your mind? Of course there is!

Published on November 27, 2013 by Steve Taylor, Ph.D. in Out of the Darkness

If there is one concept which has been under constant attack by psychologists and philosophers over the last few decades, it is the idea of ‘you’—that you exist as a real entity or ‘self’ inside your own mental space.

Many modern philosophers and scientists suggest that this sense of being an 'I' is illusory, or just a simple product of brain activity. Somehow the billions of neurons in your brain work together to produce it, and all of the thoughts and feelings which it incorporates. The philosopher Daniel Dennett speaks of the illusion of the ‘Cartesian theatre,' the sense that there is ‘someone’ looking out at a world ‘out there’, and also watching our own thoughts pass by. In reality, says Dennett, there are only mental processes. There are streams of thoughts, sensations and perceptions passing through our brains, but there is no central place where all of these phenomena are organised. Similarly, the psychologist Susan Blackmore has suggested that the self is just a collection of what she calls ‘memes’ - units of cultural information such as ideas, beliefs and habits. We are born without a self, but slowly, as we are exposed to environmental influences, the self is ‘constructed’ out of the memes we absorb.

Modern neuroscience seems to reinforce such views. Neuroscientists claim to be able to ‘locate’ the parts of the brain responsible for mental phenomena such as aesthetic appreciation, religious experience, love, depression and so on, but they haven’t found a part of the brain associated with our underlying sense of self. Therefore, they feel justified in concluding that this doesn’t exist.

‘Ghosts don’t Exist’, says the Ghost

There are many problems with the attempt to ‘reduce’ our sense of self to brain activity. This is what is sometimes called the ‘hard problem’, to distinguish it from the ‘easy problems’ of mental abilities and functions such as memory, concentration and attention. Whilst we might be able to understand these phenomena, the problem of how the brain might produce a conscious self is on a completely different level. The brain is just a soggy clump of grey matter - how could that soggy mass possibly give rise to the richness and depth of consciousness? To think that it could is a ‘category error’ - the brain and consciousness are distinct phenomena, which can’t be explained in terms of each other. And on a more practical basis, after decades of intensive research and theorisising, no-one has yet put forward an even slightly feasible explanation of how the brain might produce consciousness. The ‘hard problem’ seems completely insurmountable.

There is a basic absurdity in these attempts to show that the ‘self’ is illusory. They always feature a self trying to prove that it doesn’t exist. They are caught in a loop. If the self is an illusion to begin with, how can we trust its judgements? It’s a bit like a ghost trying to prove that ghosts don’t exist. Perhaps it may be right, but its illusory nature doesn’t inspire confidence. Dennett and Blackmore are presuming that there is a kind of reliable, objective observer inside them which is able to pass judgement on consciousness - and that presumption contradicts their own arguments. That is the very thing whose existence they are trying to disprove.

Related to this, there is a problem of subject/object confusion. All of these theories attempt to examine consciousness from the outside. They treat it like a botanist examining a flower, as an object to scrutinize and categorize. But of course, with consciousness there is no subject and no object. The subject is the object. You are consciousness. So it is fallacious to examine it as if it is something ‘other.’ Again, you are caught in a loop. You can’t get outside consciousness. And so any ‘objective’ pronouncements you make about it are fallacious from the start.

Subjective Investigation

So does the self exist? Is there really anybody there inside your own mental space?

I think the best way to answer the question is to take a different approach. Rather than attempting to analyse consciousness from the outside as if it is an object, the best approach is to embrace subjectivity, and delve into your own consciousness.

Try meditation, for example. In deep meditation, you might find yourself in a state of complete mental quietness and emptiness, with no thoughts, no perceptions, no information processing and no concentration. In fact, this state can be seen as the ‘goal’ of meditation (at least according to some traditions). The philosopher Robert Forman has called it the ‘pure consciousness event’ - a state in which consciousness exists without content, and rests easefully within itself.

I have experienced this state myself. Paradoxically, although consciousness is empty, it has a quality of fullness too. It appears to be full of energy - a powerful energy which itself has a quality of well-being, or even bliss. (This is what Indian Vedanta philosophy describes as satchitananda - being-consciousness-bliss.) There is also a quality of spaciousness - somehow my own consciousness seems to become wider and larger, to spread beyond my own brain or body.

But most importantly in terms of my argument in this article, in these moments, one of the qualities of consciousness is a sense of ‘I’. There is still a sense of identity, even if this sense may be different to that of normal consciousness. This identity does not feel separate or boundaried. It may feel a part of something greater than itself, but still has a sense of I-ness. You could compare it to a wave which has a sense of its own existence as a wave but at the same time is aware of itself as a part of the sea. There is still an ‘I’ which has awareness of itself and of its situation.

From this point of view, it appears that consciousness or identity is not an illusion. In this state, there are no ‘memes’ and no streams of mental processes, but consciousness still appears to exist. I would therefore say that the sense of self is fundamental to us, from the deepest levels of our being. Of course, this fundamental sense of ‘I’ is acted on by all kinds environmental, social and psychological influences, and becomes ‘constructed’ to a large degree. You could compare it to how a Roman fort is built upon and expanded over centuries until eventually it develops into a modern city. But there is a fundamental kernel of ‘I-ness’ which is always there, underlying all of the activity and all the construction.

Of course, this is just my own subjective experience. I shouldn’t make any universal claims for it - although, as Robert Forman has pointed out, the ‘pure consciousness event’ seems to be universal in the sense that human beings from culture to culture have independently described experiences of it throughout history. Ultimately, however, the only real way to substantiate this is for you to try it out yourself - to reach a deep state of meditation, and see if your own experience accords with mine.

* * * * *
~ Steve Taylor PhD is a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Metropolitan University, UK. He is the author of Back to Sanity: Healing the Madness of the Human Mind. stevenmtaylor.com

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* * * * *
* Here is a Zen story and explication around the idea of "vast emptiness" and "I don't know," via The Story of Zen.

Bodhidharma

Vast emptiness, no merit

Bodhidharma's reputation as a Dhyana master was said to have preceded his arrival in China, and so the Chinese Emperor Wu, a devout Buddhist, called upon Bodhidharma to visit the Imperial Palace to teach. Having sponsored the construction of a great many Buddhist monasteries and temples and patronizing the teachers of the various Buddhist sects, Emperor Wu—in accordance with his understanding of their teachings—assumed that he would gain much 'merit' in the form of a happy and prosperous reign. And he assumed he was earning an auspicious rebirth in what some Buddhist schools called a 'Pure Land' where, unlike on earth, all the conditions of life would be conducive to his attainment of Enlightenment.

Emperor Wu: "I have built many temples, copied innumerable Sutras and ordained many monks since becoming Emperor. Therefore, I ask you, what is my merit?"

Bodhidharma: "None whatsoever!" answered Bodhidharma.

Emperor Wu: "Why no merit?"

Bodhidharma:: "Doing things for merit has an impure motive and will only bare the puny fruit of rebirth."

Emperor Wu, a little put out: "What then is the most important principle of Buddhism?"

Bodhidharma: "Vast emptiness. Nothing sacred."

Emperor Wu, by now bewildered, and not a little indignant: "Who is this that stands before me?"

Bodhidharma: "I do not know."

This legendary interchange, with Bodhidharma's inspiring directness and unsparing responses, became for later generations of Chan practitioners a model for telling things as they are, without pulling any punches.

No merit

No merit, Bodhidharma told the astounded emperor! No merit, no lack of merit. No giver of merit, no receiver. Although the emperor likely misunderstood the teaching as a rebuke, Bodhidharma was pointing to the true merit that derives from seeing one's own true nature, one's Buddha nature.
 

Vast emptiness

"Vast emptiness, nothing sacred." Right from "the beginning" we see Zen's spare uncompromising tone. And, as Peter Mathiessen points out, great mystery and power.

This "emptiness" was neither absence nor a void. . . Like the empty mirror on which all things pass, leaving no trace, this ku contains all forms and all phenomena, being a symbol of the universal emphasis. Thus this emptiness is also fullness, containing all forms and phenomena.

"I do not know."

And with "I do not know." Bodhidharma launches Zen with the supreme answer. As Peter Mathiessen observes, not-knowing:

. . . echoes "vast emptiness," yet goes still deeper to the unnameable source where there is noting-to-know, were nothing exists outside the doing and being of this present instant witout past and future. . . . Like emptiness, this not-knowing is very close to us, therefore hard to see. It is the source or essence of our life, and of Zen practice . . .

This "not-knowing" links Bodhidharma directly to the existing Taoist notion of wu-nien (no thought) and is an early example of Buddho-Taoist vocabulary.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu - What Do Buddhists Mean When They Talk About Emptiness?

Nice bit of dharma from Tricycle's "Back to Basics" special edition.

Back to Basics: What Do Buddhists Mean When They Talk About Emptiness?

Thanissaro Bhikkhu

Emptiness is a mode of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to, and takes nothing away from, the raw data of physical and mental events. You look at events in the mind and the senses with no thought of whether there's anything lying behind them.

This mode is called emptiness because it is empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience in order to make sense of it: the stories and worldviews we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that the questions they raise—of our true identity and the reality of the world outside—pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.

Say, for instance, that you're meditating, and a feeling of anger toward your mother appears. Immediately, the mind's reaction is to identify the anger as "my" anger, or to say that "I'm" angry. It then elaborates on the feeling, either working it into the story of your relationship to your mother or to your general views about when and where anger toward one's mother can be justified. The problem with all this, from the Buddha's perspective, is that these stories and views entail a lot of suffering. The more you get involved in them, the more you get distracted from seeing the actual cause of the suffering: the labels of "I" and "mine" that set the whole process in motion. As a result, you can't find the way to unravel that cause and bring the suffering to an end.

If, however, you adopt the emptiness mode—by not acting on or reacting to the anger but simply watching it as a series of events, in and of themselves—you can see that the anger is empty of anything to identify with or possess. As you master the emptiness mode more consistently, you see that this truth holds not only for such gross emotions as anger, but also for even the most subtle events in the realm of experience. This is the sense in which all things are empty. When you see this, you realize that labels of "I" and "mine" are inappropriate, unnecessary, and cause nothing but stress and pain. You can drop them. When you drop them totally, you discover a mode of experience that lies deeper still, one that's totally free.

To master the emptiness mode of perception requires firm training in virtue, concentration, and discernment. Without this training, the mind stays in the mode that keeps creating stories and worldviews. And from the perspective of that mode, the teaching of emptiness sounds simply like another story or worldview with new ground rules. In terms of the story of your relationship to your mother it seems to be saying that there's really no mother, no you. In terms of your worldview, it seems to be saying either that the world doesn't really exist, or else that emptiness is the great undifferentiated ground of being from which we all came and to which someday we'll all return.

These interpretations not only miss the meaning of emptiness but also keep the mind from getting into the proper mode. If the world and the people in the story of your life don't really exist, then all the actions and reactions in that story seem like a mathematics of zeros, and you wonder why there's any point in practicing virtue at all. If, on the other hand, you see emptiness as the ground of being to which we're all going to return, then what need is there to train the mind in concentration and discernment, since we're all going to get there anyway? And even if we need training to get back to our ground of being, what's to keep us from coming out of it and suffering all over again? So in all these scenarios, the whole idea of training the mind seems futile and pointless. By focusing on the question of whether or not there really is something behind experience, they entangle the mind in issues that keep it from getting into the present mode.

Now, stories and worldviews do serve a purpose. The Buddha employed them when teaching people, but he never used the word emptiness when speaking in these modes. He recounted the stories of people's lives to show how suffering comes from the unskillful perceptions behind their actions, and how freedom from suffering can come from being more perceptive. And he described the basic principles that underlie the round of rebirth to show how bad intentional actions lead to pain within that round, good ones lead to pleasure, while really skillful actions can rake you beyond the round altogether. In all these cases, these teachings were aimed at getting people to focus on the quality of the perceptions and intentions in their minds in the present—in other words, to get them into the emptiness mode. Once there, they could use the teachings on emptiness for their intended purpose: to loosen all attachments to views, stories, and assumptions, leaving the mind empty of all the greed, anger; and delusion, and thus empty of suffering and stress. And when you come right down to it, that's the emptiness that really counts.

Thanissaro Bhikkhu is the abbot of Metta Forest Monastery in Valley Center, California. His most recent book is The Wings to Awakening (Dhamma Dana Publications).

 

 

Upaya Dharma Podcasts - Thanksgiving Retreat: Form and Emptiness, Exploring the Heart Sutra

This is a very cool 5-part teaching on the Heart Sutra from Upaya Zen Center, given over the Thanksgiving weekend by Beate Stolte and based on a version of the Heart Sutra translated by Sensei Kaz Tanahashi and Roshi Joan Halifax.

Thanksgiving 2011 Retreat: All 5 Parts

Recorded: Sunday Dec 4, 2011

The 5 part series  Thanksgiving Retreat: Form and Emptiness, Exploring the Heart Sutra is now published. To access the entire series, please click on the link below:

Thanksgiving 2011 Retreat: All 5 Parts

Here is part one, with links to the other 4 parts below.

Beate Stolte: 11-23-2011: Thanksgiving Retreat: Form and Emptiness, Exploring the Heart Sutra (Part 1 of 5)

Speaker: Beate Stolte

Recorded: Wednesday Nov 23, 2011

Boundlessness is the nature of all things.
It neither arises nor perishes,
neither stains nor purifies,
neither increases nor decreases.

~from the Heart Sutra

The Heart Sutra, chanted daily in Zen monasteries and practice places throughout the world, contains the central teachings of Buddhism in a very concise form.

In this retreat, we will work with the beautiful rendition of the Heart Sutra used at Upaya, translated by Sensei Kaz Tanahashi and Roshi Joan Halifax.

When we drop into stillness we discover the boundless quality of our hearts and minds. Through zazen (three times a day), chanting, service, oryoki meals, study, and discussion, we will experience for ourselves the wisdom contained in the Heart Sutra.  We will also familiarize ourselves with the other essential related teachings within the sutra.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Thanksgiving 2011 Retreat: Part 2 of 5
Thanksgiving 2011 Retreat: Part 3 of 5
Thanksgiving 2011 Retreat: Part 4 of 5
Thanksgiving 2011 Retreat: Part 5 of 5

Dharma Quote - The Nature of the Mind Is Like a Mirror

SELF-LIBERATION THROUGH
SEEING WITH NAKED AWARENESS
translation and commentary by
John Myrdhin Reynolds
foreword by Namkhai Norbu
more...

Dharma Quote of the Week
When we understand the empty nature of our own mind, then the consequences of merit and sin will not be realized. In the state of emptiness, there exists no objective merit or sin.

...The nature of the mind is like a mirror; merits and sins are like the reflections in this mirror; and reflections in no way affect or modify the nature of the mirror. When we are in a state of contemplation, we are living in the condition of the mirror. At the time when all phenomena are exhausted and pass into the nature of reality, then our virtuous and vicious deeds will cause no benefit or harm to us. There is no basis for effect--all limitations, all frames of reference, all solid ground having been eliminated. But if we do not understand the nature of the mind and intrinsic awareness through direct personal experience, it will be a very dangerous situation for us.

Indeed, it is not sufficient merely to understand these teachings intellectually; one must first practice and attain realization from this practice. Otherwise the virtuous and the vicious acts we commit in this life will create and accumulate karma, leading us again inevitably into transmigration. From the present time until we realize the ultimate exhausting of all phenomena into the nature of reality, our behavior must be refined; it must be heedful and scrupulous. Otherwise our view is only so much empty intellectual talk. (p.66)

--from Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness translation and commentary by John Myrdhin Reynolds, foreword by Namkhai Norbu, published by Snow Lion Publications

Self-Liberation • Now at 5O% off
(Good until May 27th).

Tags: Self-Liberation through Seeing with Naked Awareness, translation, commentary, John Myrdhin Reynolds, Namkhai Norbu, Snow Lion Publications, Buddhism, dharma, books, mind, emptiness, awareness

The Dalai Lama - Cultivate a State of Mind Focused on Bliss and Emptiness

THE UNION OF BLISS AND EMPTINESS:
Teachings on the
Practice of Guru Yoga
by the Dalai Lama
translated by Thupten Jinpa
more...

Dalai Lama Quote of the Week

The play of this divine mind,
The union of bliss, the supreme father, and emptiness,
Is unlimited and thus beyond concept.
--The Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelsang Gyatso

Cultivate a state of mind focused on bliss and emptiness as forcefully as possible. The wisdom of bliss and emptiness is compared to space, which is non-obstructive and expansive. Because offerings are the manifestation of the wisdom of bliss and emptiness, these substances are called "offerings of Samantabhadra (All-Good)."

Generally speaking, a bodhisattva named Samantabhadra is renowned for his elaborate offerings to the buddhas and bodhisattvas. But here the term all-good (samantabhadra) refers most appropriately to the wisdom of bliss and emptiness. It is all-good from the viewpoint of emptiness and also from the viewpoint of bliss. This emptiness is the ultimate truth and also the ultimate virtue. And the wisdom of great bliss is the clear light wisdom: With a feeling of joy, imagine that offerings having such a nature pervade entire space. (p.64)

--from The Union of Bliss and Emptiness: Teachings on the Practice of Guru Yoga by the Dalai Lama, translated by Thupten Jinpa, published by Snow Lion Publications

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Guy Newland - Spiritual Fulfillment Requires the Ability to Act Compassionately

INTRODUCTION TO EMPTINESS
As Taught in Tsong-kha-pa's
Great Treatise on the
Stages of the Path
by Guy Newland
more...

Dharma Quote of the Week

Complete spiritual fulfillment requires the ability to act compassionately, and that involves making practical distinctions. Therefore, Tsong-kha-pa insists upon the clarifying power of analysis that is not ultimate, analysis that operates within the constraints and boundaries of conventional fact and language so as to illuminate what does and what does not exist, what is and what is not helpful.

Not all useful analysis need immediately reduce everything to emptiness. In other words, we can learn valuable, practical things by analyzing which car is good to drive, which action is good to do, which seed is good to plant, without at each step interrogating the final ontological status of the car, action, or seed.

... A pervasive sense that things are real and solid and exist just as they appear is woven right into the fabric of the world as we experience it. While tables do exist, we have yet to see them just as they are. Our very perception of them--while a valid source of information--is at the same time contaminated with a layer of distortion. That distortion is the appearance of the table as something that is able to be there on its own power, something that exists in and of itself.

Thus when we begin to see, or even to suspect, that things lack essence and are not at all as we had supposed, we may feel terrified, as though our world is coming apart at the seams or evaporating beneath our feet. We calm those fears by again remembering that it is not that there is nothing. There is dependent arising, just as there has always been. Analysis threatens nothing but the false overlay, the distorting superimposition, which has caused us and others so much misery. (p.43)

--from Introduction to Emptiness: As Taught in Tsong-kha-pa's Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path by Guy Newland, published by Snow Lion Publications

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(Good until April 15th).

Tags: Introduction to Emptiness, Tsong-kha-pa, Great Treatise, Stages of the Path, Guy Newland, Snow Lion Publications, Buddhism, dharma, books, emptiness, Spirituality, Fulfillment, Ability, Act Compassionately

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche - Love and Emptiness

This article from the Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche comes from the new issue of Shambhala Sun.

Love and Emptiness

The first realization on the Buddhist path is our own emptiness—we look at the self and find nothing permanent. The next step is the egolessness of other, says Sakyong Mipham, and the way we discover it, interestingly, is through love and compassion.

What is buddhahood? It is the attaining of egolessness. But what are we realizing the egolessness of?

According to the Theravada school of Buddhism, if we attain egolessness of self, we realize nirvana, enlightenment. This is a common approach: to attain enlightenment for oneself. But when we have discovered the emptiness of the self, what is left? The other. In the Mahayana school, the "Great Path," egolessness of other is one of the most profound teachings.

The self has no entity in itself, but it believes it does. Its nature is that it spreads. Wherever it goes it pervades; whatever it encounters it begins to absorb as “I.” For example, when we are born, somehow our consciousness has been able to transfer from our previous life into this body, which exists only in a temporary way. Once we came into this body, we thought, "Hmm, not bad. It’s not mine, but I’ll make it mine." And once we got used to our body, we immediately began thinking: my mother, my father, my house. Then my city, my state, my country, my planet, and so forth.

Ego has no boundary. It can go on continuously, appropriating other. When we come in contact with something, initially we look at it in a neutral way; we see it as belonging to somebody else, or maybe belonging to no one. If we see a tree, we don’t automatically think, “My tree.” Then we build a house next to it—and after a while, we think, “My tree.” This happens in any situation. When we buy an article of clothing, at first it feels foreign, but then it begins to feel familiar as my shirt. It is other, but the ego is constantly solidifying it as self.

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Tags: Buddhism, love, compassion, dharma, Shambhala Sun, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, Love and Emptiness, egoloess, self, Buddhahood