The Wall—Emptiness

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The enlightenment of The Buddha introduced an entirely new vantage-point to the human experience. 

In summary, his grasp of reality addressed two, apparently different views which he said were the same thing looked at from alternate perspectives. Those two dimensions were the conditional and the unconditional realms of form and emptiness, which according to him arose dependent upon each other. 

Today and tomorrow we’ll consider these two, metaphorically through a model of a wall and a ladder that leans against that wall. The metaphor came in a dream following a day of contemplating the various understandings of the word dharma. 

I discovered in my research that dharma was derived from the Sanskrit root dhṛ, which means to support or hold, and often referred to cosmic law. In my dream, I saw a ladder leaning against and supported by a blank wall.

The story is told that Bodhidharma sat in meditation staring at a blank wall for nine years. What did he see? Let’s take a walk into a realm almost too strange to imagine. In fact, it is only possible to enter this realm through the imagination. It is the realm of a transcendent wall, which strips conceptuality down to the ground of all being. Think essence—pure essence, infinite essence, 100% essence, without any otherness. Such a realm is impossible to imagine because to imagine it requires separation and otherness: an imaginer as well as what is being imagined, and such essence is transcendent to all divisions. It is a realm where subjects and objects melt into one another. It is non-dual in any and every way. 

Form requires dimensions of at least the aggregation of time, space, and circumstances. Not the imagination. Essence is the sentient eye seeing itself beyond all time, space, and circumstance. This essence is what Eckhart said was, “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.” 

Form content needs context within which to exist but essence is both content and context at the same time, which is a contradiction already. Essence is entirely “+” and “-” fusion and such a thing cannot exist except in the imagination, or so it seems to conventional wisdom.

What would such a realm approximate? The closest thing imaginable would be a black hole, which instead of sucking in otherness, sucks in itself (symbolically an Ouroboros—expressing the unity of all things). An infinitely large (or infinitely small: size is a contradiction) sucking machine without motion or any defining characteristics. Why? Because this is the primordial seed essence before mother and child. Form mother and children come next. “Large” is a defining characteristic. “Small” is a defining characteristic. “Motion” is movement from one space/time circumstance to another and this requires otherness which in the case of essence is so profound it cannot exist.

Defined thusly, in a dream, essence is transcendent to both life and death. It is beyond time, space, and circumstances. Such a condition is non-conditional, non-contingent, and non-everything. In fact, it is transcendent even to that prior statement since “non” is otherness and pure essence is non-non and is indefinable. It is wholly beyond; even beyond imagination and logic and every other frame of reference, which requires discernment. This would be 100% potential energy without even a glimmer of kinetic energy. Conceptually it is impossible to imagine. All concepts fail to capture essence. 

I think this way of envisioning essence is a fairly accurate description of something that is 100% ready: neither alive nor dead but ready for either, neither or both, only this is transcendent to all such defining characteristics which imply life or death. Readiness is unborn and never dies. This would be an independent, wholly essential, unconditional non-thing with no other purpose except existence itself. This is a Self with no other. It would be the womb of creation without a child, forever and ever: another with no otherness, yet transcendent to such distinctions. It would be completely empty of everything, yet completely full at the same time. It would be everything and nothing at once. It would be completely meaningless and completely meaningful—The Big Bang before either bang or big—pure singularity of the essential kind.

Is this what Bodhidharma saw? We’ll never know but countless Zen Masters have spoken about this ineffability using names like Mind Essence, Ground of Being, Original Face, and Purity. Some have called it Buddha—the Dharmakaya. Others have used the word, God. The founder of the Rinzai Zen (Lin Chi) used the idiom, “True Man of no rank” because, within this ineffable sphere, there is no discrimination and discrimination is conditional, only possible when otherness is present. 

Bodhidharma simply called it “The Void” or the primordial mind and what he was experiencing for nine years was a view of his own mind. Names are mere handles to represent what can’t be, and never will be, adequate to describe what is utterly transcendent. Exodus 20:4 speaks clearly about the admonition of God: “You are not to make an image or picture of anything in heaven or on the earth or in the waters under the earth.” 

And the understanding of this admonition is clear: any and every word or handle harkens a conceptual image engraved in the mind: a shadow—a surrogate, of the energy which inhabits and moves all of life. Essence is things exactly as they are, sans any and all defining characteristics. This is suchness. The nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth. “Those who know don’t talk. Those who talk don’t know.” — Stanza 56, The Tao Te Ching.

If it walks like a duck…

The common-coin understanding is that Buddhism is a Godless religion, and the reason for this view is that the Buddha didn’t focus on the concept of God but instead focused on understanding the mind and overcoming suffering. It’s worth the time and energy to thoroughly investigate this matter.

First is the notion that God can be understood conceptually. The Buddha’s perspective was that such a thing was not possible and, when thoughtfully considered, this is, of course, true. God is transcendent to all considerations and can’t be enclosed within any conceptual and rational framework. To even attach a name such as “God” is to be lost in a delusional pretense.

Sokei-an Shigetsu Sasaki used the name “Great Nature” and “Great Self.” There are many names to point to the nameless creator of heaven and earth but Sokei-an perhaps said it best. He said, “If you really experience ‘IT’ with your positive shining soul, you really find freedom. No one will be able to control you with names or memory of words—Socrates, Christ, Buddha. Those teachers were talking about consciousness. Consciousness is common to everyone. When you find your true consciousness, you will not need the names or words of any teacher.” 

As a result, Gautama addressed only what can be controlled and didn’t participate in fostering further delusion. So the question is whether or not ‘IT’ can be defined, even marginally. What are the characteristics of ‘IT’ and how does ‘IT’ function? Whatever name is chosen, regardless of religious affiliation, the nature of God is understood to inhabit the entirety of creation. 

The creator can’t be severed from what is created, which is the point of the Buddhist understanding that all form is the same thing as emptiness. Rather than using the name “God” (in vain), the name “Buddha” is used, and “Buddha” means awakened to the true essence of oneself. We might use any name but the essence would not change. An awakened person is said to enjoy the mind of enlightenment. 

If you read Buddhist literature extensively, you’ll find a laundry list of sorts, which speaks to this mind of enlightenment. It includes the following qualities: complete, ubiquitous, full of bliss, independent, transcendent, full of wisdom, never changes, the ground of all being, the creative force of everything, devoid of distinctive nature (ineffable) yet all form endowed with this nature.

When we take all of this in and digest it, a duck begins to emerge that walks, talks, and looks like a duck. In the final analysis, a name is fleeting, but the substance remains forever. Here is what Jesus is recorded as having said about where God lives: 

“If your leaders say, ‘Look, the Kingdom is in the Heavens,’ then the birds will be before you. If they say, ‘It is in the ocean,’ then the fish will be before you. But the Kingdom is inside of you, and the Kingdom is outside of you. When you know yourself, then you will know that you are of the flesh of the living Father. But if you know yourself not, then you live in poverty and that poverty is you.”—Gospel of Thomas 3.

We must acknowledge that languages are means of articulating something but the something is never the same as the words we choose. What possible difference does the name make? We have grown excessively protective of our own names of choice and sadly have lost touch with our very own souls.

The action of non-action.

“To act” presumes an actor. It would be absurd to speak of action otherwise. Action must therefore consider the source—this actor doing the acting to understand action. In a normal sense, action entails the will (volition) the capability of conscious choice to do one thing and deny another. And that volition is a reflection; the vote of the actor. To say “I desire” is an expression of such a will—the desire preceding action. But we must take a serious look at how we understand this one who acts to explore the motive.

In Buddhism (as well as Taoism) this matter is taken seriously. We all have a sense-of-self (the actor) which is constantly agitated, wounded and hungry. There is never enough to fill the belly of this actor, nor fences tall enough to guard what the self desires and possesses. The ego is never satisfied.

The Forty-Eighth stanza of the Tao Te Ching says: “In the pursuit of learning, every day something is acquired. In the pursuit of Tao, every day something is dropped. Less and less is done until non-action is achieved. When nothing is done, nothing is left undone. The world is ruled by letting things take their course. It cannot be ruled by interfering.”

Compare this to what Jesus said in Matthew 6:26-27: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?”

These views came from different times and places, yet they speak of the same faith dimension—trust that our lives are important and not lacking. Lao Tzu understood the source of the ultimate self as the Tao. Jesus understood that same source as “your heavenly father” but they were speaking of the same well-spring: The source of non-action which functions through our being. We (our bodies and our minds) are the arms and legs of the Tao/Our heavenly father. And when our action is thus centered, our action will not be our own. Lao Tzu referred to this as wu-wei or non-action since the will of ego is not involved.