Awakening the Buddha Within _ Eight Steps to Enlightenment - Lama Surya Das [56]
Perhaps yesterday you went for a walk. There was a pleasant breeze and the sun was shining on your face, but you were feeling a little bit glum because of some small disappointment. As you walked along, you ran into a few neighbors—the cat who lives next door, the people who live down the block. As you strolled around the corner, thinking about your disappointment, you decided to do something to cheer yourself up, so you went into a store and bought some daisies. Walking home you ran into an elderly neighbor couple, and you impulsively gave them the flowers. So many things happened on your little walk. So many moods, so many feelings, so many changes. Today you are on to other things, emotionally in a different place, and yesterday’s walk seems like a dream. Yesterday, who or what was experiencing your experience? How about today? Now? So many mind-moments in even one instant. Who can analyze them all?
When you try to analyze who or what is experiencing your experience, don’t just settle for a quick superficial conclusion. As the Buddha said, in describing his process-oriented view of the world, “In hearing, there is just hearing, no hearer, and nothing heard; in seeing there is just seeing, no seer and nothing seen.” Like the sound of a drum, which arises from the interplay between the stick beating on drum skin held together by wood and brackets, it’s all like echos and reflections. Everything is in process. There is no sound somewhere waiting to be heard. Of course when the drum beats, we hear a sound, but sound is not a concrete entity, is it?
The Korean Zen master I studied with, Nine Mountains, used to exclaim with gusto, “What is it?” This, his main koan or Zen conundrum, was boldly calligraphed in Korean as a hanging scroll on the wall. This is an intense, heartfelt, visceral question: “What the hell is it?” That was his whole teaching. What the hell is going on? What is this? Who is this? This is a fundamental existential question, turning our exploration inward. What is this presenting itself right now?
EVERYTHING CAN BE VIEWED
FROM MANY ANGLES
In life we may keep looking for the right answer, but there is no right answer. Everything is relative rather than absolute. That’s the answer. In meditating we strive to keep going deeper and deeper, peeling off layers of the onion until we find the center of the onion, called sunyata, the Sanskrit term for emptiness. As we keep peeling and peeling, we begin the process of unmasking our personas. First we unmask the body, then the mind. Then we go deeper and unmask the psyche, continuously letting go and unmasking all the layers. We all have so many masks it’s as though every day in our life has been Halloween. When we remove the masks, we are shedding our fantasies about ourselves, others, and the world. We can see and be seen. We know and are known. We are.
Emptiness does not mean that you should deny yourself, abnegate yourself, or pretend that nobody’s there. Simply put, this teaching is meant to help you empty yourself when you are too full of yourself. This is meant to help you look at yourself realistically and lighten up when your ego is taking itself too seriously. In this way we can dissolve our deluded view of ourselves and the universe, until we ultimately arrive at sunyata, emptiness, and the radiant, infinite openness of our original, unprocessed natural state, our genuine being. That is Buddha-nature, aware and empty of fantasy.
EMPTINESS, OPENNESS:
FULLY PRESENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR
The sunyata doctrine further develops the understanding of “no-self” or egolessness (anatta), providing it with a more