Beyond Form or Formlessness: A Crisp Introduction to Buddhism
on Feb 13 in Religion by T.M. CoalRecently I was listening to a well studied, and kind, Christian speaker that was teaching people about truth who said, albeit politely, that Buddhist writings talk in circles and cannot be understood. This is very unfortunate because even though at times Buddhists write in a complex, and hard to understand, way their teachings are very deep and practical. The speaker quoted the following verse to prove his point:
“The realization that undifferentiated emptiness is the sole absolute truth. Nirvana therefore is that mental state in which one realizes that all things are really non-existent.”
In order to see if his claims hold true, we are going to analyze this verse however we are going to do so by applying Buddhist understanding to the text and not a Christian understanding.
Before we begin to look at the statement we are first going to look at the foundations of Buddhism and some of the concepts it has about reality. After this we will try to look at the words through the eyes of the writer and give them the meaning closer to what writer intended, or at least in the same vein of thought. What we will not do is look at the words through our western philosophical and religious systems, judge it by our current understanding, or apply our personal definitions to them. Those who judge something without understanding it are not wise and doom themselves, as well as those they teach, to great misunderstanding and illusion.
One cannot understand this verse without first understanding Buddhism and the first step to doing that is to look at the story about the life of its founder. As with most all ancient religions there are many different stories and schools of thought that have blossomed from the ideas and life of the founder. This then is not an all encompassing treatise on the ultimate nature of Buddhism, it is the understanding of Buddhism that I have gleaned from the study of Buddhist I have been conducting from some time now. As always never accept one voice, or book, as the ultimate authority about everything or anything. One cannot study and eat apples and know the flavor of oranges, only oranges can reveal to you the flavor of oranges — not books or growers of oranges can do that. We each need to be always open and always seeking if we are ever going to have right understanding.
How Siddhartha Woke Up
Once long ago there was a son born to a powerful king. The child’s mother received a dream that told of his importance and a sage told of his of his two possible fates. The wiseman said to the king that his son would either become a mighty ruler or a great spiritual leader. The king, thinking only of himself, decided to hide the suffering in the world from the boy so that the prince would not consider human suffering and instead turn to state craft and bring his father’s kingdom great glory.
The boy, named Siddhartha, grew up and I heard that one day he was taken out into nature by the kings servants. After a while the servants lost their focus and the young Siddhartha’s attention become fixed upon a farmer plowing a nearby field.
As the child watched the farmer turn his soil he witnessed the plow unearth a sleeping grub. Almost immediately a bird noticed the misfortunate creature and, swooping from the sky, gobbled up the grub. Siddhartha saw all this and thought to himself, “Why is it fair for the worm to suffer like this? What did it do to deserve such a turn of events?”
Over time the child became a handsome youngman and even though he learned, and excelled at the arts and methods of statecraft and prince hood, he never found contentment in the pleasures that his father sought to intoxicate his mind with.
One day Siddhartha asked the king, “Can I go out and see the city?” Amazingly the king agreed and, together with his charioteer, he went out of the royal dwelling. As they went Siddhartha caught sight of a sick man, and asked his driver, “What is wrong with this man?”. The driver replied, “He has fallen ill and is suffering”. Siddhartha wondered if this could happen without to anyone, the driver said it could and the young prince, overwhelmed by his thoughts, returned to his home.
The next he and his driver went out again and came upon another thought provoking sight. Siddhartha had caught sight of an old man and wondering about his condition asked his driver, “What is wrong with this man, is he sick too?”. The driver replied, “No, this man has lived a long time and his body, decaying daily, has reached the state you see now”. Siddhartha asked if this was unavoidable and if it happened to everyone and his driver informed him that indeed every living thing ages and that nothing can stop it. Again the young prince was deeply moved and asked to return home.
The third day Siddhartha went out again and saw a motionless body being carried through the streets. He asked his driver, “Who is this that can sleep so soundly?”. The driver replied, “This man is not asleep he is dead, the functions, and conditions, that gave and sustained his life are no more.” Siddhartha asked if all that were born died in this way and after being told it was so by his driver again returned home.
Now Siddhartha wanted to leave and find the meaning to these puzzling realities, however he wanted to have the permission of the king to leave. Going to his father’s chamber, Siddhartha asked him, “Will you grant me any thing I ask for?” The king replied, “Even if it is my very throne”. The prince then asked, “Can you give me the power to always remain healthy, to never grow old, and to live forever?”. The king said, “I cannot do this”, to which Siddhartha replied, “Then I ask permission to go and seek out that which you cannot give”. The king granted his request and Siddhartha set out to obtain the truth of these things.
Siddhartha searched far and wide but never found any answers that were satisfactory. So strongly did he search that at one point he almost died due to his utter neglect of the material self. Eventually however he sat down under a tree and, intending not to rise until he had obtained ultimate insight, entered a meditative state. There, after sometime he eventually defeated Mara and all the tempters destructive devices. At that moment Siddhartha Gautama realized the highest state of awareness and became the Buddha, the enlightened one. The Buddha then set out to share with the world how all may attain unto this state so that all living beings can live in joy, peace, fearless wisdom, and unconditioned freedom. Those teachings, called the Four Noble Truths, form the soil in which the whole of Buddhism finds root and meaning.
The Four Noble Truths
Here I would like to share with the reader a summery explanation of the four foundational truths of Buddhism. In no way is what I am about to write an exhaustive presentation of these principles. In fact these simple ideas have sparked a fire in human minds which led them to produce one of the most extensive collections of sacred writings held by any religion. I think it would do one well to personally consider each of these on a deep, and scholarly, level.
First Noble Truth — The Truth of Suffering.
Any of us who have lived long enough to understand these words knows that all who live will suffer. In the reality in which we live pain is as dependable as change. No matter who, or what, you are on earth if you were born then you will die and if you do not die quickly you are bound to suffer.
The principle of suffering is tied up very closely with the sights that the Buddha saw, and the experiences he had, along the road to liberation. In the worm unearthed by the farmer, the sick one, the old one, the dead one, and in the accounts and images of the starving Buddha, the pain and misery of life are brought into focus so that each of us may admit what we have already experienced and know — to live is to suffer.
Buddhists often name three types of suffering which plague the human. The first kind is the suffering which comes about due to external events. Getting a cold from someone at work, getting hit in the head by an out of control baseball, or being punched in the face are all examples of suffering that arise from causes and conditions that effect us physically.
The second type of suffering is that which arises from internal events. Driving for miles only to find what you wanted is not there, finding that your dog ate your favorite CD, or catching your spouse in the act of cheating on you are all examples of suffering that arises from causes and conditions that take from us what we would rather have had or forces upon us what we do not like.
The third type of suffering is that which arises from the impermanent nature of all things in reality. When after eating we become hungry again, when we look in the mirror and see that we have become old, and when our faithful car changes into a rust pile — these are all examples of suffering that comes about due to the endless changing of everything in this reality.
Even though one can dissect suffering into three parts it is merely three sides of the same thing and usually the suffering we experience is built from varying combinations of the three.
Second Noble Truth — The Truth of Dependent Origination
Even though it sounds pretty complex this truth simply states that all things that exist are created by a series of causes and effects — in other words nothing happens without a cause and every cause came about due to another. This is a more spiritually enriched version of two truths observed by Isaac Newton:
1 — that anything at rest, or in motion, will remain at rest, or in motion, until it is acted upon by new force.
2 — that for every action there is an equal, and opposite, reaction.
Where Newton’s ideas deal with the physical world the second noble truth deals with the physical and spiritual. The principle of dependent origination teaches us many things and among those is a tremendous insight into the suffering of humanity. As Siddhartha thought on all the suffering that fills our world he was naturally led to ask the question, “Why do we suffer?”. This question has been asked, and answered, in many ways but no where do I find a more satisfying answer than the one the Buddha gave based on this second truth– we suffer because of our own actions and ideas.
When my body malfunctions due to misuse, when I am punished for crimes, or when I break my arm trying to do a stunt all of my pain is a direct consequence of my actions. When I am oppressively depressed, instantly angered, or racked with fear it is the result of my thoughts and the way in which I have cultivated them. When my body malfunctions and causes me harm and woe, it is not some external thing that is to blame it is the very make up of my body that has turned against me
Those times when humans are caused grief by another human the suffering still arises from the actions and ideas held by others of our own kind. We need to look no further than the ignorance and selfishness that dwell within our minds when we are looking for the cause of human misery. As long as we blame our pain on gods, goddesses, ghosts, or devils we will never look for the cause of our suffering, not looking we will never find it, and not finding it we will never understand it, thus we will suffer until we die. Even immersed in the pain caused by others when wisely instructed and, compassionately cared for, we can free our mind so that the pain and loss does not define us or our world — no matter what our peace, goodness, wisdom, and joy is our responsibility.
The Third Noble Truth — The Truth of Nirvana
If all things change into, maintain, and pass out of their form due to the causes and conditions around them, then one can control and manipulate the causes to create the conditions they would like to have. That being the case, when one looks at the suffering of humanity and realizes that it all has come about due to ignorant and selfish actions, they also realize that by wise and unselfish action suffering can be made to cease. This is the truth of Nirvana – that each of us can obtain unconditoned freedom from all the suffering, evil, and illusion that exists in each us, and once we all have destroyed these in ourselves they will no longer be a part of life on earth.
Nirvana is the state of being where one has extinguished the self and all of its desires for anything in the material world. In this state understanding is pure and one views all things as they are without any love or hate, like or dislike, desire or repulsion. The mind dwells in but rises out of the world just as a water lily grows from the water but in the end floats on top of it. Being in the world one understands its workings, and works in harmony with them, but does not fall into its illusions or become attached to its sense based pleasures. Freedom from all illusion, the cycle of life and death, and all external and internal influences is the reward of those who strive for, and obtain, Nirvana. This freedom, Nirvana, results in an experience of pure bliss because the mind has cast out all evil, illusion, and ignorance. The mind is light, joyful, and without anxiety while the life is free of all self inflicted complications because all unwise thoughts, words, and actions have ceased.
The Fourth Noble Truth — The Path to Nirvana
The fourth noble truth is the course of action those who want to achieve Nirvana must take. Nirvana is not some future good that we have to wait for, neither does it fall upon one day without action, it is something that we all can achieve if we take the right actions, or walk what Buddhists call the eightfold path.
You see Nirvana, or the enlightened nature, resides within all of us from the day we are born. It is not a state that we get to by striving or by adding to what we already are, rather it is obtained by stillness and by removing all the rubbish and filth that has covered it. The Buddha compared it to a fighter that always wore a beautiful headband that contained a priceless diamond. The diamond sat in the center of the forehead and one day, in a very violent fight, it become crushed into the flesh and covered with blood, dirt, and gore. The fighter was very frustrated at the loss of the diamond and suffered greatly trying to find it. Refusing even the mildest treatment the fighter searched without success for many days until finally collapsing from exhaustion. After collapsing they were taken to a doctor who, while washing away the dirt, blood, and gore, found the jewel imbedded in the flesh beneath.
This is the way each of us are. In the deepest part of our nature there is something radiant, a drop of divinity, that we have forgotten. Like the eagle who was raised around chickens all of its life we do not realize we are eagles so we scratch around in the dirt looking for some pitiful morsel of grain or the occasional worm. However by entering the hospital of wisdom, receiving the treatment of truth, and then walking the eightfold path we can remove the filth that corrupts our minds and realize that part of us which is to great for this world to contain, corrupt, or control.
That path is as follows:
Right View – seeing things as they are
Right Thought — thinking things that are pure and correct
Right Speech — saying the right thing, in the right way, to the right person, at the right time
Right Action — acting in ways that in perfect harmony with the principles of the Universe
Right Means — using the right methods and tools in order to obtain and accomplish our ends
Right Effort — having the right attitude while remaining focused and consistent from start to end
Right Remembering — considering, and relating to the past, accurately
Right Concentration — stilling the mind by meditation and applying mind rightly-n-calmly to all
Those who take the time to learn these things correctly and then apply them without fear or half-heartedness will, without failure, obtain Nirvana and escape the three fold world of illusion, form, and formlessness.
The Truth of Emptiness
We must also understand the Buddhist idea of Emptiness before we can understand the verse. This concept, though not mentioned directly in the second truth, flows out it. What do we mean when we say that a thing is ’empty’? We mean that it has nothing inside of it, it has no load, no substance which fills up its form. This is what the Buddhists say about everything in reality, and it is a very keen insight.
Due to our philosophical roots, and the way we educate our children, most everyone has come to mistake the names of things with the things themselves. When we say ‘tree’, we get a picture in our mind of a large plant that has roots and limbs and which provides us with a great deal of the materials we use to make our world work. However, the thing that we are calling a ‘tree’ is not really a ‘tree’.
Have you every walked over to a ’tree’ and looked for the label on it that tells us what it is? Try it someday and you will find, as you may already know, that there is no such label on the ’tree’. How then do we know its true name? We cannot because it does not have one, we humans have given it is name. Oh sure, it is an actual entity that exists in the external world, and we can watch it and learn how it works, what it is made up of, and how it effects the world around it, but what does it mean? We can know its place in reality, we can know its form, and we can know its function, but its meaning is not something we can know by any observation or measurement imaginable. Why? Because it has no inherent meaning.
The tree is like an empty jar that we have filled with our meanings. Just as the name ‘tree’ is completely superficial, something we have put on it from the outside, so too are the meanings superficial. As with the tree so with everything in all of reality. Not one ‘thing’ in all of reality has any inherent meaning. All the meanings that we think things have are creations of the human mind that exist only within the human mind. Thus, when we look out upon the external world we need to realize only what is there — its nature, its form, its place — and then understand it, define it, and relate to it according to its nature and not according to the empty names and meanings our varied societies have pasted onto it.
Not only is everything in the world of sense empty of meaning, it is also empty of any permanent identity; it lacks substance and is always in a state of change. At first this sound crazy, our western mind screams, “Of course it has substance because I can sense and interact with it!”. Even though there are some schools of Buddhism that teach the external reality does not exist anywhere except in our mind – a statement which in some ways is true and in other false – this is not what I think the Buddha intended to teach. There is indeed something outside of me which I can sense, it does have an exact atomic structure, and it is this atomic structure that determines its behavior and how it relates to all other things. However this very truth vindicates the Buddha’s teaching that the material realm is illusionary and lacks substance.
So that we can understand this we will go back to our example of the ‘tree‘. Walking through a field I spot the form of the thing we call a ‘tree’ standing in the middle of it. From a distance It seems to be one individual thing however as I get closer I realize that it is made from many parts working as one. The roots drink the earth and spring, the leaves drink light and rain, and the trunk, branches, and stems carry the nutrients throughout the organism. All these parts are really only one whole that cannot exist without them and the parts are portions of a whole that cannot exist without it.
Suddenly however my eyes are opened and now laid out before me is the cellular structure. Plant cells of differing kinds, themselves made of many individual parts, are all working together and it is this singular cooperation between them that allows the first set of things I saw to live, grow, and change. Again however, like the larger parts, these cells cannot exist without all of their parts, neither can the parts exist without the cells.
While I am still trying to fathom this level of sight my awareness is expanded yet again and now I can see all the molecules of the different chemical combinations that make up the individual parts of the cells. Just as the cells determine the actions of the tree so do the chemicals determine the actions, and construction, of the cells. All the molecules interacting according to the way they are built — each needing another to be what they are.
Just when I think that I have reached the deepest level of sight again my perception is improved and the entire atomic world is laid out before me. Now I see all the individual atoms, and the smaller energies which make them. As the sub-atomic energies react one with another they create the atoms, which create the elements, that create the chemicals, that create the molecules, that create the cells, the create the parts, that together form the tree. The most amazing thing however is not all the ‘things’ I see it is the emptiness I see within them. The atom, that from which all is built, is mostly just empty space and the substantiality that we sense arises from energetic interactions that occur inside this space. Thus what we know of the external world through our sense is not even a quarter of what is really happening — what we see it not what it is there.
So how does this relate to the lack of any inherent, and individual, identity? It tells us that nothing has an individual identity; all things we see are really made up of billions and billions of individual things, which are themselves the product of many other things. The thing we see is created due to an almost unimaginable amount of causes and conditions and is in constant change. The tree we see began as a seed, the seed affected, and was affected by, the environment around it and eventually grew into a tree, the tree will retain its form until causes and conditions make it impossible for it to continue to live and then it will be become a million other things as it decays and returns to the primary elements that made it. Thus it can be said that the tree is unsubstantial, it is not a permanent entity unto itself, it is impermanent and due to the changes it undergoes every moment, and if our sight was deep enough, we would never see the same tree twice just as the water in the river is the same stream but never the same water.
As it is with the ‘tree’ so it is with everything that we can sense including ourselves. Nothing exists alone and even what I call ‘I’ only exists as a phenomenon created by billions of things working in union and to reduce all those things to a single, unchanging, identity and call it ’self’ is very unwise. I, my consciousness, is a thing that is neither here nor there, real or illusionary, it straddles the worlds and defies any concrete definition, as well as those that do not address all of its qualities.
The Truth of the Middle Way
The final Buddhist teaching we will look at is the teaching of the middle path. The Buddha realized that any extreme is unhealthy and obscures correct understanding. The world is not only black and white, there are a billion shades of gray and the wise see these without trying to make them disappear. Meanwhile, the unwise polarize their world so they can make reality fit into their simple, and errant, explanations.
Those who say the tree does not exist at all are wrong because there is something that is there which we can sense and interact with. Likewise, those who say the tree is not illusionary, and lacking in substance, are wrong because everything from the name to the form they see is an illusion created by the limits of our sensory tools and the human mind. Thus the Buddhist say that the tree is neither a ‘tree’ or a ‘non-tree‘; it is something that is altogether more than words can ever express and too big to be held in any narrow, perspective based, concept.
Again, as it is with the tree do it is with all things in reality. Those who see only one side, who argue only one point divide where there is not division and so prevent themselves from ever understanding anything as it is because by dividing the truth they have only a partial truth remaining and so only understand parts of anything. I am sure that Buddha would agree with the Confucian saying that the middle way is always the best.
Expounding the Saying
In order to lose the formal sound, and make the explanation as brief as possible, I am going to take the tone of a Dharma Teacher and write the explanation in the manner of a conversation with a pupil, may it enrich and bless your life. Please note however that I am unsure as to weather or not the gentleman quoted the whole statement but it doesn’t matter because the passage is still quite rich.
P –Teacher, I heard that, “…the realization that undifferentiated emptiness is the sole absolute truth. Nirvana therefore is that mental state in which one realizes that all things are really non-existent.” Does this have meaning?
T — Of course it has meaning and that meaning flows from the mind who used the symbols that expressed it. The writer put into the words what meaning, or understanding, they wanted the reader to get out of them. Who would write meaningless words?
Things that humans have not created have place, nature, and form and so anything said about them should arise from these and not from the external meanings that humans have given them. The wise give their words meaning that have been defined by reality and do not define reality by the meanings of their words.
P — What is undifferentiated emptiness? Does it teach us anything?
T — ‘Undifferentiated emptiness’ means that in the material world all things have no inherent meaning or permanent substance. Thus one stops measuring things by their ‘meanings’ and current form, choosing rather to measure things according to their construction, role, and behavior.
Because all meanings are given to a thing, and all value arises from how much a thing means to us, then the value of any external object is determined not by the nature of the object but by how much the mind wants it — by what it means to the mind. When the mind is free of want, and sees things as they are, it realizes that all things, internal or external, are impermanent and illusionary so that mind no longer cares for, or clings to, things. Who spends their life trying to catch the smoke which rises from a flame? Who spends their life trying to build mansions of snow in the desert?
P — Is this emptiness the only absolute truth?
T –Emptiness is not the ’only’ absolute truth for there is much truth, and much of it is absolute, however in order understand the truth of anything you have to first forget all the things you were told it ‘means’ and look only at its nature, form, and relationship to other things. Thus the emptiness of all things in reality is the primary truth through which the mind can begin to fathom all the rest. One must always remember that any expression about reality is always only partial and so no one thing can ever reveal all of reality.
P — How can Nirvana, or the extinction of desire, attachment, and self, come through the realization that nothing exists?
T — Nothing ‘exists’, neither does anything ‘not exist’, all things have a nature somewhere in the middle of both of these and thus it is neither. When one realizes that all the external things are without meaning, and thus without value, they realize that there is nothing of worth in the material world. Realizing that there is nothing of worth in the material world they begin to look beyond it and into the ultimate nature of things, looking into the ultimate nature of things they come to understand all things deeply, understanding all things deeply they relate to all things correctly, relating to all things correctly they do not misuse anything, not misusing anything they have clear minds, with clear minds they can accurately see to the bottom of themselves, seeing to the bottom of themselves they realize that others are just like them, understanding the likeness of all living things to themselves the realize the reason why compassion is best, through compassion they realize why evil is evil, realizing the nature of evil they forsake it, forsaking evil they realize wisdom, and by wisdom they are liberated from all things, even life and death. It is thus that realizing that nothing exists empowers the mind to know the existence of all things as they are.
P — This is not nonsense I just did not understand due to the limited and one sided nature of words.
T– Think on this Koan, or riddle of Zen, when listening to the Buddha it is best to plug your ears friend.
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