Buddhist Emptiness Explained

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Emptiness (or śūnyatā in Sanskrit) is  one of the deepest, most important,   and most life-changing concepts of Buddhist  philosophy. Many critics of Buddhism see   emptiness as a form of nihilism, contradiction,  or plain absurdity. But these accusations are   based on shallow understanding. In fact, throughout its history,   Buddhist philosophy has developed at least  5 distinct meanings of śūnyatā. Each of   these is profound enough to change  one’s entire perception of reality.  In any case, I have to warn you. The great  Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna wrote that   ‘when it is wrongly seen, emptiness destroys  the dull-witted, like a snake wrongly grasped’.   So, if you don’t want to risk being  bitten and poisoned by this insight,   you may want to click away from this video. But… the reward of properly understanding   emptiness is equally great. To grasp śūnyatā  in all its depth and to embody it in your   life constitutes full spiritual awakening. We can start with more humble ambitions.  In this video, I have divided the complex  teaching of emptiness into five sub-teachings.   This five-fold division is not part of the  Buddhist tradition, but it will help me   present śūnyatā in a more organized fashion. So let’s go through these five one by one and   let’s see how much they will deepen our  understanding of reality. I hope after   you’re done watching this some of your core  beliefs about the nature of the world and of   yourself will be challenged… In a good way! So, grab a seat, because we’re going deep   with this one. I welcome you into the  great Buddhist teaching of śūnyatā.  CHAPTER 1: NO SUBJECT  The first Buddhist to use the word śūnyatā was  the historical Buddha himself. In the Suñña Sutta,   he talks about emptiness like this: ‘It is … because it is empty of self   and of what belongs to self that  it is said, ‘Empty is the world.’’  The first meaning of emptiness is  that in the world of our experience   a self (or anything belonging to  a self) is nowhere to be found.  We’ve covered this before, so here  we will pause on it only briefly.  For the Buddha, conscious experience is like  a musical performance. We can divide a musical   performance in three parts: a musician, a  musical instrument, and the music itself.  In the same way, conscious experience involves  sense objects, sense organs, and consciousness.  Music arises is when the musician is  playing her instrument. In this same way,   consciousness arises when sense objects  come in contact with sense organs.  It is in these three components of experience –  sense objects, sense organs, and consciousness,   that the Buddha says a self cannot be found. Let’s examine the act of hearing as an example.  When a pianist plays the piano, music is produced.  This music is a sense object. If you have healthy   ears, these are your sense organs for sounds.  When the music from the piano reaches your ears,   you ‘hear’ it. This experience of  ‘hearing’ the music is consciousness.  We instinctively say ‘I hear the music’, but  this phenomenon of hearing is the result of an   automatic chain of causes and conditions.  A completely deterministic domino effect.  Contact between the pianist and the piano  causes the music. Contact between the music   and the ears cause hearing of the music. Without  a pianist or a piano, there is no music. Without   music or ears, there is no hearing of music. In this chain reaction there is nothing to   which we can attribute a self. Nor is a  self required for all of this to occur.  The Buddha says: ‘The ear is empty   of a self or of anything pertaining to  a self. Sounds[,] ear-consciousness[,   and] ear-contact [are] empty of a self  or of anything pertaining to a self.’  He applies this same logic to all  six senses, including the mind,   which he considers a sixth type of sense. Hearing,  smelling, tasting, touching, seeing, and thinking   are all automatic processes that occur when the  right causes appear in the right conditions.  The point here is that, if you investigate it  deeply, you would see your personal experience   is actually entirely non-personal. There  is no you to whom experience is occurring.   No experiencer of experience. Only an  endless cycle of causes and conditions   stretching infinitely back and forward in time. This cycle, as we saw in the video on the Four   Noble Truths, brings us endless suffering  and disappointment. And what is the fuel   that keeps it running? It is our clinging to what  we like and our avoidance of what we don’t like.  It all has to do with what our ‘self’ wants. To realize our feeling of being a self does not   correspond to anything in reality is the  insight that brings suffering to an end.   To live one’s life in accordance with this  insight is what the Buddha called nirvāṇa.  This short summary should do for now. If you  want a deeper dive into the no-self teaching,   I highly recommend you watch my earlier  video on it, where we discuss it at length.  With this basic idea of what the Buddha meant by  śūnyatā, let’s see how the idea evolved through   the work of his disciples. In fact, when we get  to the 4th meaning of emptiness, you will hear a   teaching that seems to contradict all we’ve just  covered. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.  For now, we turn to the work of the greatest  figure of Buddhist philosophy, second only to   the Buddha himself. Nāgārjuna.  CHAPTER 2: NO OBJECT  As the Buddhist tradition spread across Asia,  it took under its wing many of the greatest   minds of the time. These great scholars and  monks developed the Buddha’s teachings in new   directions and in ever deeper sophistication. Perhaps the greatest among these was the 2nd   century philosopher Nāgārjuna. It is to  him we owe the second meaning of śūnyatā.  If the Buddha said there is no ‘you’ experiencing  things, Nāgārjuna added there are also no ‘things’   being experienced. Let me explain.  I’ll use this video you’re watching right  now to illustrate Nāgārjuna’s point.  This video is a certain phenomenon, is it not?  It is an object in your awareness. Certainly,   you are watching and listening to something,  right? This ‘something’ we call ‘this video’.  So far so good. But let’s try to draw the  boundaries of this phenomenon. Any object   must have boundaries defined, otherwise  we can’t say it is an object separate   from its environment. So let’s see where this  video ends and the rest of the world begins.  This video consists of my voice, the script  I’ve written, images, and music. That’s a   good low-resolution definition. But let’s investigate further.  This video could not appear in your  experience without the pixels of the   screen you’re viewing it on. Or without  the speakers that project my voice.   These things are necessary parts of the  video, even if they don’t appear in it.  This video, as an object of your experience,  would not exist without your internet connection   either. Or without the people who installed  and maintain your internet connection.  As a phenomenon you are experiencing, this video  couldn’t exist if you didn’t have the ears to hear   it and the eyes to see it. And these eyes and ears  are the products of many causes and conditions,   including your mom and dad, evolution, the  Big Bang... We must include all these too as   causes and conditions for this video  being an object of your experience.  Also, the ideas, images, and music in this  video have been produced by a countless   number of people. Shouldn’t we credit these  people too as causes and conditions of this   video? The historical Buddha himself is the  major factor for this video’s existence,   so we must include him in the credits too. This list of causes and conditions could go on   forever, but I’ll stop here before you get bored. You see, there is no point at which we can exhaust   the causes and conditions that have  contributed to the existence of this   video. What you are experiencing now looks  as an individual phenomenon, ‘a video’   only to our everyday, unenlightened mind. A mind with clear insight would see that the   whole world and all of history have conspired for  this video to exist. What you call 'this video'   is but the form in which the entire universe is  appearing to you in this moment of experience.  Of course, this video is not a  unique example. Nāgārjuna tells   us every seeming object or phenomenon, of  whatever kind, is a bundle of causes and   conditions. There is nothing in experience  that can exist apart from everything else.  An apple cannot exist apart from the  tree, the tree apart from the soil,   the soil apart from the planet, the planet  apart from the solar system and so on…  Things also cannot exist without their  opposite. There could be no front without back,   no high without low, no good without evil. You can watch my video on Heraclitus to see   how this same idea appeared in Ancient Greece.  In fact, Heraclitus was alive at the exact same   time when the Buddha was teaching his  Dharma in India. Are the similarities   in their philosophies just a coincidence?  Or does this point to something more about   the collective mind of our species, developing  similar ideas in different parts of the world?  Anyway, Nāgārjuna’s point is that nothing  possesses a svabhāva, an individual essence.   All things are a form of dependent origination  – their origin is dependent on other things.  The great scholar-saint summarizes  this in the following stanza:  There does not exist anything That is not dependently arisen.  Therefore there does not exist anything That is not empty.  Here you might ask ‘If every object and phenomenon  in the world is empty… wouldn’t that mean the   world itself is empty? That nothing exists and  nothing is happening? But this is absurd because,   after all, I am watching this video! Clearly,  something does exist and something is happening!’  This is a good question and by the end of this  video you will have heard a few possible answers   to it. For now, I’ll say Nāgārjuna explicitly  refused the wrong view that nothing exists. But he   said the view that things exist is just as wrong.  To him, the existence and non-existence of things   are two extreme views, neither of which captures  the complex and mysterious nature of reality.  To Nāgārjuna, emptiness, understood properly,  is a middle way between these two wrong views.   That’s why the school of Buddhism he founded  is called Madhyamaka, meaning ‘the Middle Way’.  Nāgārjuna did not treat śūnyatā as some  intellectual diversion for philosophers   and scholars. No, he maintained how crucial  this insight is for liberation. To see the   interdependence of all things is to see  that all suffering in your life is also a   dependent phenomenon. An effect originating  from causes and conditions. This means that   if you understand the causes and conditions for  your suffering and remove them, so too would you   remove the suffering that springs from them. Nāgārjuna believed that to cultivate insight   into śūnyatā is the essence of walking  the Buddhist path. The path leading   out from suffering and ignorance. But the Madhyamakas were not the   only Buddhists with a new take on emptiness.  The next development of the idea came from a   famous Buddhist school known for their mastery of  meditation. Since meditation is a form of ‘yoga’,   this school became known as the Yogācāra. It is from this great lineage of Buddhist   philosophy that we get the  third meaning of śūnyatā.  CHAPTER 3: NO SUBJECT & OBJECT  Okay, let’s summarise what we’ve learned. An unenlightened mind thinks he is a self,   there are objects of the world, and  he is experiencing these objects.  The Buddha showed us the sense of self  is empty of reality. Nāgārjuna showed   us objects too are empty of individual essence. So, after subject and object have been shown to   have no ultimate reality, we are left only  with the mysterious fact of 3) experience.  This is a funny position we find ourselves  in. How is experience possible if there is   no one who can have an experience –  and nothing that can be experienced!?  Yet experience is the one thing we can't deny. You can question all aspects of your experience,   you can even question whether it is  ‘your’ experience… But the one thing   you can’t deny is that something -  rather than nothing - is happening.  What the Yogācārins did was inquire into the  nature of that 'something' we call 'experience'.  Let me demonstrate what they discovered. I will use a colour as an example. Orange will do.  Now as you look at this orange, notice the  usual way in which we would describe this   experience. There is you as the subject,  there is the orange colour as the object,   and there is your experience of seeing the colour. A Yogācārin's first question would be 'what is   the difference between this orange and  your experience of seeing this orange?'  Could you experience seeing this colour if the  colour was not here? Obviously not. Without the   object, you cannot experience said object. Now how about the reverse question…  If you were not seeing this  colour right now, would it exist?  Here the natural answer is 'Yes,  of course orange would still exist   if I was not seeing it! Colours don't just  disappear every time I look away from them!'  But wait a minute. How would this orange   exist if you were not seeing it right now?  What evidence do you have to support this?  You may answer that there is orange all around  the world, in Van Gogh's paintings, in sand dunes,   in the sunset, in... well, oranges. You know  that because you've seen these, and anyone   who’s not convinced can immediately Google  countless images containing the colour orange.  But that's the point. You have seen orange in the   past. Anyone can Google and see orange images.  If I look at the sunset while you look away,   I will see orange hasn’t disappeared. In all cases, seeing orange is the proof   of its existence. Our experience is the  base upon which existence is confirmed.  After all, can you imagine a colour  that you are not currently seeing?   No, because the moment you imagine it, you see it! It is tempting to dismiss this as sophistry,   as simple slight-of-hand philosophy. But the  Yogācārins took it very seriously. Their deep   meditative experience, combined with their  philosophical genius, discovered that what   we call 'objects of experience' are really  inseparable from what we call 'experience'.  Orange and seeing orange are like the full  and empty halves of a glass. One has no   meaning without the other. One cannot  be said to exist without the other.  The Yogācārins reached the same conclusion about  what we call ‘self’ or 'subject’ of experience.  Think about it. Would you be seeing this orange  if you weren't seeing it? If you had your eyes   closed and only I was looking at the orange,  would you be seeing it? Well, I think we can   all agree your experience cannot occur if, well,  you aren’t experiencing it. To see something,   you have to see it. This is natural enough. But let's ask the reverse…  Right now (look at the orange), do you  exist separately from seeing this orange?  If you did, then your seeing this orange  would be in one place and you would be in   another. But then you would be experiencing  something else and this orange would be seen   by nobody. This is obviously absurd. You see, there is simply no place where   we can draw the line between you as an  experiencer and your experience. You   as an experiencing subject and your experience  are completely co-dependent in your existence.  This is like the case of the egg and the chicken.  A case of paired opposites which mutually create   each other and cannot exist apart. Now let’s see where these   findings led the Yogācārins. We have seen there is no boundary between   this orange and your seeing it. There is also no  boundary between you and your seeing this orange.   This would mean that you, this orange, and your  seeing this orange are different names for one and   the same thing observed from different angles. When the Yogācārins used the term śūnyatā,   they meant that the division of experience  into subject and object is empty.  Subject and object are like Heads and Tails  - two sides of a single coin. But Heads and   Tails are only conventional terms. In reality,  we never find one without the other. Only the   coin itself is real and contains in itself  all of itself. Any divisions we may impose   on it are artificial labels produced  by the duality of conceptual thinking.  This indivisible wholeness of Heads, Tails, and  coin is how the Yogācārins understood experience.  In the Yogācāra view, all  that exists is experience.  To the unenlightened mind, reality feels like a  subject at one end and an object at the other.   But an awakened mind sees the unity of all  things in the flow of conscious experience.  Reality is the experience of itself. Reality  is both that which experiences and that   which is being experienced – by itself. If you're finding it hard to wrap your   head around this, don't worry. It’s not  something you can wrap your head around.  Remember, Yogācāra philosophy is rooted in insight  gained through meditation. The Yogācārins said   ultimate reality cannot be conceptualized. It  is not a thought you can have. It also cannot   be spoken or written down, or represented  in any way. At best, it can be pointed at,   like what this video is hopefully doing. The only true way of understanding ultimate   reality is through direct experience. But  even here language is misleading. Once you   do experience ultimate reality, you are no  longer ‘you’ and it is no longer ‘it’. You   experience ultimate reality not as something  you are a part of, but as that which you   already are – which you always have been. The coin wakes up from its dream of being   Heads and Tails. It declares, like the  great Christian mystic, Meister Ekchart:  ‘The eye through which I see God is the same eye  through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye   are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.’ The Yogācārins went even further. What became   their most famous claim is that the world we  experience is all produced by the mind. They   saw all objects, phenomena, and experiences  like dreams – mental projections produced   by the psyche. No wonder some call this  school the depth psychologists of Buddhism.  We will leave this profound discussion for  another time. For now, you can have a look   at my earlier video where I compare the Jungian  and the Yogācāra views on the unconscious – a   fascinating subject. But let’s move on as we  have two more meanings of śūnyatā to cover! CHAPTER 4: BUDDHA NATURE  We've learned a bunch of Sanskrit words  here already. We've learned śūnyatā,   we've met the Madhyamaka school of the  middle way and also the Yogācārins.  Now for the 4th meaning of emptiness I will  introduce one last Sanskrit term (I promise)   and this is a bit of a mouthful. I mean the tathāgatagarbha.  Let me explain what this word  means and why it is so important.  We can divide tathāgatagarbha into two parts  to make sense of it. Tathāgata and garbha.  The first part, Tathāgata, is a fascinating  compound word itself. It can have three very   different meanings, each of which have been  interpreted for centuries. Tathāgata can   mean 'one who has thus come', 'one who has  thus gone', and 'one who has thus not gone'.  You don't have to remember these. But know that  Tathāgata is how the Buddha most often referred to   himself. Whatever the deep meaning of the word is,  it is what the Buddha understood himself to be.  The second part of Tathāgata-garbha  is more straightforward. Garbha means   ‘womb’, ‘embryo’, and ‘core’. So, tathāgatagarbha literally   means 'Buddha-womb'. Most often,  it’s translated as 'Buddha nature'.  Now why are we discussing this in  the middle of a video on emptiness?  Well, because the tathāgatagarbha is one  of the most important and revolutionary   ideas which evolved out of śūnyatā. Remember, Nāgārjuna showed us how objects of   experience are empty of an independent essence.  Coupled with the Buddha’s teaching of no-self,   this leaves our picture of reality as both  lacking real objects and lacking real subjects.  And yet Nāgārjuna maintained reality is  not empty of reality. In other words,   there is something, even if it can’t be  defined in subjective or objective terms.  The Yogācārins continued this line of  reasoning. For them, what our unenlightened   minds understand by the term ‘experience’  is the closest we can get to a concept of   reality. Deep insight reveals you are experience  experiencing and being experienced by experience.  The tathāgatagarbha doctrine is the next step  in this line of reasoning. At the same time,   it is also a radical break from everything  we’ve covered. Many even call it a heresy.  Let me explain. The tathāgatagarbha teaching tells us   ultimate reality can be talked about as it  does possess qualities. What’s even more…   get this… ultimate reality possesses the  qualities of a self. And not just any self,   but the capital ‘S’ Self of the Tathāgata. Ultimate reality is the Buddha.  Okay, this sounds way too out there, so let’s  take a step back. Like most Buddhist teachings,   the tathāgatagarbha is rooted in direct  experience. So, let’s test this teaching   against our own concrete experience. Let me ask you a question.  What is the difference between you and me? I mean this literally – what makes   you one thing and me another? Perhaps we can start with the fact   I’ve made this video and you’re watching  it. That’s one difference. I’m speaking,   and you’re listening. My name is Simeon and  your name, in all probability, is not Simeon.  I am also located in Sofia, Bulgaria, whereas  you might be anywhere else in the world.  We can have differences in age,  sex, height, weight, skin colour,   eye colour, education, and so on. We may have different opinions,   beliefs, and temperaments. These are some of the things   that make us different. Because of these we  can’t say you and I are one and the same thing.  But… here comes the tathāgatagarbha twist.  Making this video is an experience in my  conscious awareness. Watching this video   is an experience in your conscious awareness.  Being a twenty-five-year-old male Bulgarian is   an experience in my conscious awareness. Your age,  sex, and nationality are experiences in yours.  You see, all the differences we can list are  differences in the content of our awareness.   Differences in what we experience,  not differences in who or what we are.  Let me explain this with a metaphor I  learned from the great Rupert Spira.  You’re probably watching this on some sort of  screen right now. Think of all the things you   can watch on this screen. You can watch something  funny like Rick and Morty. You can watch something   tragic like footage from the Turkey and  Siria earthquake. You can receive spiritual   guidance by Rupert Spira. You can watch porn. These are all different types of content that can   appear on your screen. Each of these would provide  an entirely different experience, and yet through   all of them, the screen will remain the same. Watching a Dharma talk will not make this screen   a good screen. Watching a Nazi rally will  not make it a bad screen. In other words,   the screen can display any content, but it  is not itself affected by what appears on it.  Maybe you can see where this is heading. But there’s one more point.  The screen on which this video is appearing is not  a part of the video. At the same time, this video   could not appear without the screen. The whole  time you have been watching this video, you have   been watching the screen, even though the screen  itself has never been the subject of the video.  Until now. Now this video is referring to the   screen on which it is appearing because I want you  to refer to the screen on which you are appearing.  I want you to investigate  your conscious awareness.  Our age, sex, nationality, height, weight, skin  colour, eye colour, education… – these appear   one way on the screen that is my awareness  and another way on the screen that is yours.  But what is the difference  between your screen and mine?  Let’s try to define some key  qualities of your conscious awareness.  First, your conscious awareness is luminous. In  other words, it shines light on things. Whatever   appears in it is instantaneously perceived.  Like how an object is immediately reflected   when it appears in front of a mirror. Could my  conscious awareness lack this quality? No. Because   then it wouldn’t be conscious awareness. Second, your conscious awareness has no   preferences. It lacks resistance and attachment.  When something pleasant appears, like the taste of   Nutella, it is fully perceived and then released.  When something unpleasant appears, like the pain   of a broken leg, it is fully perceived and then  released. Could my conscious awareness lack this   detached quality? No, because then I would  be only experiencing the pleasant things in   life. And let me tell you – that’s not the case… Now, don’t mistake conscious awareness with the   will or the intellect. Your will and intellect  may resist or become attached to experiences.   But your conscious awareness is that which  experiences these resistances and attachments.   It is the field in which they appear as objects. Thirdly, your conscious awareness is empty. It can   hold any thought, emotion, feeling, and experience  because it is itself empty of thoughts, emotions,   feelings, and experiences. It is like the space of  an empty room which can be filled with furniture,   because it is itself empty of furniture.  Could my conscious awareness lack this empty,   spacious nature? No, because then it would be  an object of awareness and not awareness itself.  Finally, your conscious awareness is outside time  and space. Time and space appear in it as objects,   but it itself cannot be located anywhere  within time or space. Could my conscious   awareness belong to time or space? No, because  then it would have form and duration. But at   all times and all places, my conscious  awareness is always present here and now.  Well, it appears what we call ‘your’ conscious  awareness possesses no quality different from   what we call ‘my’ conscious awareness. When  we are comparing two entities and we discover   not a single difference between them, we must  conclude they are one and the same entity. This   ‘entity’ we here call conscious awareness.  The Buddhists called it tathāgatagarbha.  The Buddha Nature doctrine teaches that even  though we lack a personal self, at our core lies   the fully awakened, detached, and liberated Self  of the Tathāgata. The reason why we ourselves lack   these enlightened qualities is that our Buddha  nature is obscured by layers of defilements.  When this video reminded you that you are  watching it on a screen, it did not produce   the screen. The screen was already there the  whole time. Unchanging, fully detached from   its content, outside the dimensions of  the video, the screen was always there.  The same goes for the tathāgatagarbha. Just like all the videos you can watch   will appear on one and the same screen, so too  all selves are appearances in one and the same   conscious awareness. Your self, my self, the self  of Thich Nhat Hanh, the self of Donald Trump,   and yes, even the self of Barni, my dog…  these are all appearances in the luminous   mind of the tathāgatagarbha. As the Buddha says in the   Mahāyāna Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, ‘Hidden within the defilements of greed,   desire, anger, and stupidity there is seated …  the Tathāgata’s wisdom, the Tathāgata’s vision,   and the Tathāgata’s body… [A]ll beings,  though they find themselves with all sorts   of defilements, have a tathāgatagarbha that  is eternally unsullied, and that is replete   with virtues no different from my own.’ Now, the screen metaphor is just a metaphor   and it can only go so far. This video can talk  all day long about your screen, but it cannot   actually display your screen. In the same way,  the tathāgatagarbha can be talked about but,   ultimately, it is outside the dimensions  of experience. So how can we talk about   something we can never experience? Well,  because you and I already are that thing.  This is an argument also used by the proponents  of the tathāgatagarbha. They say the only reason   why you can understand the Buddha’s teaching and  reach enlightenment, is because the essence of   the Buddha is already within you. Nirvāṇa is  not something we can produce or find outside   of us. If it was, it would be just another  conditioned, empty object of experience.   Nirvāṇa is rather an ever-present reality  we must uncover by removing our defilements.  Like a mirror covered with dust, our  Buddha nature is always there within   us. The goal of Buddhist practice then is  seen as wiping the dust off the mirror.  There are many beautiful images of our Buddha  nature in the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra. My favourite   is the simile of the honey. It goes like this: ‘[The Tathāgatagarbha] is like pure honey in   a cave or a tree, surrounded and protected  by a countless swarm of bees. It may happen   that a person comes along who knows some  clever techniques. He first gets rid of the   bees and takes the honey, and then does as he  will with it, eating it or giving it away...’  Like the honey surrounded by bees, we all have the  Buddha nature inside us surrounded by defilements.   But if we learn the right ‘techniques’,  we can get rid of those defilements and   reach the tathāgatagarbha. Now, again, what has all   this got to do with emptiness? Well, some Buddhists believe the   tathāgatagarbha is the natural completion of  śūnyatā. Others believe it is a perversion   of the Dharma and a heresy. Both sides have strong arguments.  Without getting too much into it, I should say  Nāgārjuna specifically warned against taking   emptiness to be some sort of Ultimate reality.  To him, even the term ‘emptiness’ is ultimately   empty; it only means something relative to  our unenlightened, everyday views on reality.   Some criticise the tathāgatagarbha doctrine as a  mistaken interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s emptiness.  Others point to the clear contradiction between  the tathāgatagarbha and the Buddha’s original   no-self teaching. To them, the tathāgatagarbha  is an alien concept smuggled into Buddhism   from other traditions like as Hinduism. Also, the scriptures that talk about the   tathāgatagarbha, like the one I quoted,  were written centuries after the death of   the historical Buddha. This does not mean they  don’t contain authentic spiritual insight. But   I wouldn’t bet on them being records of  what the historical Buddha actually said.  In their defence, the proponents of the  tathāgatagarbha point out that the Self of the   Tathāgata is an entirely different kind of self  from what the Buddha attacked. The tathāgatagarbha   is impersonal and is in no way identical  with what we take to be our everyday self.  To use the screen metaphor again, the Buddha  warned us against believing this video is the   screen or that the screen can be found within  the video. The tathāgatagarbha doctrine simply   tells us the screen exists and that  the video is only an appearance on it.  The Jungians among you might detect here  the archetype of the Self in which the ego   appears as a complex. We will return to this  fascinating comparison in an upcoming video.  Another argument for the tathāgatagarbha is  that if reality is empty all the way down,   then why would the Buddha waste 45 years of  his life teaching the Dharma to empty people   living in an empty world? Yes, the Buddha said  the everyday world of saṃsāra is impermanent,   full of suffering, and without a self. But then it is logical that nirvāṇa, being the   opposite of saṃsāra, should have the opposite  qualities. Namely, it should be permanent,   lacking suffering, and possessing a self. The self of the fully awakened,   fully liberated Tathāgata. So, which is it? Is there   a capital ‘S’ Self or no-self? This has remained an open debate for centuries.   I invite you to approach it with curiosity and  not settle too quickly on any final opinion. I   know all of us, at different stops on our path,  espouse different (sometimes conflicting) views.  The Buddha himself, when asked if  the self exists, remained silent.  Then he was asked if the self doesn’t exist. He remained silent still.  In the end, I return to what Niels Bohr  said: ‘The opposite of a great truth is   another truth’. Such is the paradox of  life and no single view can capture it.  CHAPTER 5: NO VIEWS Okay, we’ve covered lots of ground here.   We’ve seen how śūnyatā, the doctrine of  emptiness, challenges our understanding   of 1) ourselves, 2) the objects of our  experience, of 3) experience itself,   and 4) the ultimate nature of reality. But there is another meaning of emptiness,   which points in an entirely different direction. This fifth aspect of emptiness is perhaps the most   dangerous of them all. But like everything we’ve  covered so far, it also holds the potential to   free our minds from ignorance and suffering. I am talking about the emptiness of views.  This teaching was first given by the historical  Buddha and it was developed at much greater length   by the Mahāyāna philosophers, Nāgārjuna  key among them. Yet, strictly speaking,   the emptiness of views is not a Buddhist  teaching. You might even say it is an   anti-Buddhist teaching. In fact, it is not  even a teaching at all, but an anti-teaching.  Let me explain. From the outset, Buddhist philosophy recognizes   two kinds of truth: 1) conventional truth and 2)  ultimate truth. Let me demonstrate the difference.  It is 1) conventional truth that  my name is Simeon and that I’ve   made this video. It is 1) conventional  truth that you are watching this video.  Of course, we have seen that things are much more  complicated than that. Ultimately there is no me,   no you, and no video. This is 2)  the ultimate truth of emptiness.  Pay attention here, the Buddhists did not say  conventional truth is false, they still considered   it a kind of truth. For example, if I say my name  is Kanye West and I’ve painted the Mona Lisa,   this is both ultimately and conventionally untrue. Buddhist philosophy recognizes and respects   conventional truth. After all, we are  conventional beings. We can’t function on   the level of the ultimate or we can’t do it most  of the time. Most of the time we have jobs to do,   kids to feed, and taxes to pay. You  can’t do this as the tathāgatagarbha.  So, conventional truth is important. It is  also a bridge to the ultimate. After all,   what are parables, symbols, and myths if not ways  of using conventional truth in a way that points   to something beyond it – something ultimate? As Nāgārjuna writes:  Without depending on the conventional truth The meaning of the ultimate cannot be taught.  Without understanding the meaning of the ultimate, Nirvāṇa is not achieved.  Now, everything we’ve covered so far in this  video, the last four meanings of emptiness, it’s   all ultimate truth. But the emptiness of views is  not ultimate truth. It is not conventional truth   either. But it is also not untruth. We can either  call it hyper-ultimate truth… or anti-truth.  You see, the emptiness of views  tells us that all teachings and   all kinds of truth are ultimately untrue. It tells us even the most perfect of teachings,   like those delivered by the Buddha, are  a compromise. An imperfect translation   of reality into ideas. Translations can  be good, they can be a piece of art in   themselves… but they are never the original. This idea is as profound as it is simple. All   theory, all teachings, all opinions – in short,  all views depend on language. Whether they are   expressed in Sanskrit, sign language,  C++, or equations, all statements about   the world come in the form of language. Language takes the infinite complexity   of the world and compresses it  into semantic units. It thus   ends up being a low-resolution map of reality. The emptiness of views is simply a warning not to   mistake the map with the terrain it is mapping. It is a reminder that no matter how deep and   complete, our theories are always a pale  reflection of the true complexity of   reality. You could say this is a special case of  Nāgārjuna’s emptiness of objects. Like how objects   lack a svabhāva, an independent essence, so too  concepts are artificial divisions of reality.   The idea of wisdom is inseparable from the  idea of ignorance. The notion of purity is   inseparable from the notion of defilement. In other words, language is a conventional   division of reality into ideas small enough  for the human mind to understand. Even the   very words of the Buddha, spoken during his  deepest sermons are ultimately conventions.  Ultimately untrue. Yes, this is controversial. But what’s even more   surprising is that this is a mainstream Mahāyāna  doctrine. In the Mahāprajñāpāramitā Sūtra (or the   Large Perfection of Wisdom Sutra), we read: ‘There is no ignorance and no cessation of   ignorance… no suffering and no knowledge  of suffering, no cause [of suffering],   and no abandoning of the cause, no cessation  [of suffering], and no realization of cessation,   and no path and no development of the path…’ If you are familiar with the Four Noble Truths,   you will recognize this passage refers  to them and refutes them. And this is   a passage from a major Mahāyāna text! Is this an extreme form of nihilism? Is   this telling us we shouldn’t bother learning the  Buddha’s Dharma since even it, like everything   else in life, is meaningless? Did the disciples  of the Buddha turn their backs on his teaching?  Well… I told you the emptiness of views  is dangerous. Like with a poisonous snake,   one should be very careful with how one  grasps it. But also like the snake’s poison,   this anti-truth can be used as medicine. The emptiness of views, like all Buddhist   doctrine, is aimed at freeing us from suffering.  This anti-teaching springs from the insight that   much of our suffering in life comes from  our views, expectations, and prejudices.  In our ignorance, we jump to conclusions far  too quickly. Our ideas and opinions give us   unearned self-assurance and we build a sense of  self around them. This robs us of the humility   we need to continue learning and growing. Rigid  views take away our spontaneity, our ability to   face life as it is rather than as we imagine it to  be. They close our eyes to the paradoxes of life,   which are the wellsprings of true wisdom. One look at the state of the world shows   us another danger of growing attached to views.  Division, oppression, scapegoating, censorship,   war… All these can result from the simple fact  that I hold one strong view and you hold another.  The emptiness of views is a safety measure. It is  a reminder left by the greatest Buddhist teachers,   the Buddha first among them, to take the  Dharma seriously, really seriously… but not   too seriously. To take all teachings, theories,  models, philosophies, and concepts seriously – but   not as seriously as we take life. It is a reminder that human thinking   is simply too linear, too dualistic  and naïve to capture ultimate truth.  Perhaps this same idea drove the  philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to conclude:  ‘[W]hereof one cannot speak,  thereof one must be silent.’  In later Buddhist tradition there is the  image of a finger pointing at the moon.   A reasonable person will know the moon is  what the finger is pointing at. An ignorant   one will think the finger is the moon. The emptiness of views is not nihilism.   It does not tell us there is no truth in life.  It is simply a warning not to mistake the moon   with the finger pointing at it. Not to  mistake life with our ideas about it.  Like the Yogācārin śūnyatā, the emptiness  of views tells us ultimate truth cannot be   communicated. To reach ultimate truth, one has  to experience it for oneself. In this sense,   ultimate truth is the most private of things. Shortly before dying, the Buddha encouraged   his disciples with the following words: ‘Monks, be islands unto yourselves, be your   own refuge, having no other; let the Dharma be  an island and a refuge to you, having no other.’  I believe the Buddha was not telling his disciples  what they should be, but what they already are.   What we all already are. The seeker of truth walks  a lonely path. He can have companions, enemies,   teachers, disciples… but in the end, he encounters  truth alone in the wilderness of his heart.  But truth requires space. It fills you only to  the degree that you are empty of falsehood and   half-truths. Even the idea that there is  some great, final, ultimate truth must be   surrendered if indeed you wish to be filled  by the great, final, and ultimate truth. CONCLUSION Okay, this is our longest video and   I hope you feel your patience was worth it. I hope  I’ve given you a taste of just how deep, complex,   and beautiful the Buddhist teaching of śūnyatā is. Before I end, I want to mention a few ways   in which śūnyatā is relevant today  outside the boundaries of Buddhism.  First and foremost, by now you’ve seen  emptiness is really a teaching about   the interconnectedness of things. It is not a  denial that anything exists, but a denial that   anything exists on its own. Nāgārjuna writes: ‘I praise that perfect Buddha, / The Supreme   Philosopher, / Who taught us relativity…’ Śūnyatā shows us the world and we ourselves   are a web of interdependence. Any division  between us and them, conservative and liberal,   civilization and nature, self and world…  all these are only conventional partitions   of reality. A deeper perspective on the  world sees the interconnectedness and   necessity of all objects and phenomena. Emptiness, when grasped correctly,   is the ultimate form of environmentalism.  It shows how our every thought, word,   and action echoes out into the world and bears  fruit. It also reminds us of the opposite,   that we are part of the whole  and our every thought, word,   and action is a fruit of the world we live in. As Bulgaria’s national hero, Vasil Levski, wrote:  ‘Time is in us and we are in time.  It changes us and we change it.’  In this sense, emptiness is the exact opposite  of nihilism. It gives us a perspective of just   how great our responsibility is and how our  thoughts, words, and actions are the living   fabric out of which the world is woven. This has a psychological significance too.  To see the interconnectedness of things within  you is to reunite the fragments of your own   soul. It is to reconnect with all you would  rather suppress and all you’ve exiled within   yourself. It is to see that what is high within  you is held up by what is low. And that your   light is born in the womb of your darkness.  It is to see yourself as an ecosystem which   is nowhere divided, but everywhere whole. Then you understand what Carl Jung meant   when he wrote that: ‘No tree… can grow to   heaven unless its roots reach down to hell’. I have to stress, interdependence is not the   same thing as identity. To see the interdependence  of war and peace, man and woman, right and wrong,   ignorance and wisdom – is not to think they are  one and the same. In fact, it is the opposite.   Ying and yang are interdependent because  one is black and the other white. It is in   their difference that they are the same, and  you cannot stress the one without the other.  It is in the conflict of opposites that  are the same, but also not the same that   the world is created. You can ask  Heraclitus, he will confirm this.  Last, but not least, the Tathāgatagarbha,  that mystery of conscious awareness within us,   is the one true base of love and compassion.  After all what, does love mean if not taking   another to be as real as you? In the Gospel  of Mathew, Christ sums up His teaching thus:   ‘[I]n everything, do to others what you  would have them do to you’. But further on,   He adds to this. He says something that could  have come straight from the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra:  ‘[W]hatever you did for one of the least of these  brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me…   Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one  of the least of these, you did not do for me.’  I believe Christ did not mean we have to imagine  ourselves in place of others. Nor that we have to   imagine that how we treat others we treat also  Him. I think he was pointing to a profound fact   of reality. The fact that you, me, Chirst,  the Tathāgata – that we are all one and the   same timeless, unlimited, inconceivable  thing. Only the temporary appearances of   the world conceal this ‘thing’. Thus, it  appears as the impermanent, limited, and   concrete individuals we believe ourselves to be. But who knows… In the end, even this concealment   of ultimate truth, even this confusion of the  eternal with the temporary, the unlimited with   the limited, wisdom with ignorance, the self with  the world… Perhaps even this is nothing other than   the pure, direct experience of ultimate truth. As the Heart Sutra says.  all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness; their true nature is the nature of  no Birth no Death, no Being no Non-being,  no Defilement no Purity, no Increasing no Decreasing. It goes without saying this video is only  an introduction into śūnyatā. Emptiness   has been developed in unbelievable depth for  centuries by many great minds. For this reason,   I have included some additional study  resources in the video description.   Follow these if you wish to lean more. This video took me weeks of work and I   hope it brought you something of value. If it did,  I invite you to support my work through Patreon,   PayPal, or becoming a member here on YouTube.  Or, if you prefer non-financial support,   please do share this video with people who would  enjoy it. This would be a tremendous help too.  I thank you for spending your time here  with me and I wish you all the best.  And remember – ‘what you seek is seeking you’. See you next time!
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Channel: SEEKER TO SEEKER
Views: 762,074
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Keywords: emptiness, shunyata, Śūnyatā, suññatā, voidness, nothingness, anattā, anātman, Mahāyāna, Buddhism, Budism, śūnya, Nāgārjuna, Madhyamaka, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Prajñāpāramitā, śūnyavāda, shunyavada, शून्यवाद, SEEKER TO SEEKER
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Length: 52min 12sec (3132 seconds)
Published: Sun Jul 23 2023
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