Empty Cup

Often times we hear people denouncing Eastern religions and spiritual teachings as being world-denying. Buddhism, being of Eastern origins, gets bundled into the same category of world-denying practices. I should like to add that these accusations often seem to originate from the Christian-based thinkers.

Obviously, Christianity itself could just as easily be accused of the ‘world denying’ propensities, seeing how eager Christian practitioners are to denounce the world, or as they call it, the valley of tears. Their teaching and practice is all about suffering and tolerating the unpleasantness of this world in order to earn the reward of life everlasting in Heaven (Heaven being, of course, the absolute denial and negation of this world.)

But here I want to ask the question what is meant by ‘world’ and what is meant by ‘denying it’?

For most religious practitioners, ‘world’ is synonymous with ‘creation’, and ‘world denial’ is synonymous with destruction. The truth of creation is the highest value and the highest goal in the minds of the ‘creationists’. Is there an equivalent to that in the Buddhist teaching?

Four Truths in the Buddhist Teaching

We as Buddhist practitioners are aware of four kinds of truths. These truths inhabit our practice, and are detectable at various times to variously trained practitioners.

The first kind of truth is the truth we tend to uphold while being in the state of sleep and dreaming some dreams. At that point, the content of our dreams appears to us as undeniable truth, something that is simply self-evident. We do not feel, at the time when we’re engulfed in dreams, that we have to stop and step back and reevaluate the truth of what’s unfolding before us in our dream.

However, when the conditions change, that is to say when we wake up, the simple truth that was so self-evident to us a moment ago, ceases to be the truth and turns out to be untrue. The states we were experiencing while dreaming did not continue to hold true when our conditions changed from sleeping to being awake. So that, for example, while I may have been unbearably embarrassed in my dream where I was under the impression that I have showed up at the office without wearing my pants nor my underwear, upon waking up I immediately realize the falsity of that fact and the foolishness of feeling embarrassed about something that never happened.

So we see that the first kind of truth is subject to conditions. At one point in time it appears to be holding true, but the next moment its truthfulness simply evaporates.

The second kind of truth that we can talk about in Buddhism is the truth of the optical or other apparitions, as they may occur to us while being awake. Thus a person could find himself wandering in the desert, not having any water to drink. At some point, that person may look toward the horizon and joyously discover that there is a little lake full of fresh water awaiting him. He may then rush toward that lake, hoping to quench his thirst. But sooner or later, the conditions will change for that person, and he will be forced to recognize the falsity of this, the second level truth. Such truth used to hold true for the time being and under certain conditions, but as soon as the conditions change, the truth evaporates. Therefore, the second kind of truth in Buddhism is also conditioned. It arises under certain conditions, and then it perishes when those conditions cease to be present.

The third kind of truth is the truth of the so-called normal waking living. This truth holds that there are space and time which possess certain attributes (i.e. up, down, left, right, west, east, south, north, before, now, after, etc.). Also, it holds that there are various objects that come into being, stay around for a while, and then vanish. All these objects are distinct and separate from each other.

What Buddhist practice reveals is that this third kind of truth is also completely conditioned. Same as the first two kinds of truth (i.e. the truth of dreams while being asleep and the truth of optical illusion while being under duress), the normal everyday truth of being born, growing up, aging, getting sick and dying is also applicable only under certain circumstances. Remove those circumstances and conditions, and the normal everyday truth evaporates in the same way that the truth contained in the dreams evaporates upon waking up.

The fourth kind of truth is the so-called absolute truth, that is, truth of the totality. Unlike the first three kinds of truths, this truth is unconditioned. It is unborn and unperishable. Regardless of how violently and abruptly the conditions and the circumstances may change, absolute truth cannot be affected.

What is being denied in Buddhism?

Buddhism negates and denies the unconditional validity of the first three kinds of truth (that is, the truth contained in dreams, the truth contained in optical and similar illusions, and the truth contained in everyday norms accepted by the consensus). Buddhism does not negate the validity of the absolute truth. But if anyone blindly believes that the first three kinds of truths contain immutable validity that is not affected by the changing conditions and circumstances, than such person is being delusional.

So is Buddhism denying the world? It would depend on the definition of the notion of ‘world’. If by world we mean the world of dreams, then yes, Buddhism is denying the unconditional validity of that world. Also, if by world we mean the world of optical illusions, then the answer is also positive. Same for the world of socially constructed norms, such as our regular daily world of sowing seeds and harvesting crops, chopping wood and carrying water. Buddhism does indeed deny the unconditional validity of that world. In other words, Buddhism claims that such worlds are only relative, being dependent on conditions and circumstances, and thus being at their whims.

What is not whimsical, according to the Buddhist teaching, is the undeniable validity of totality, of absolute truth. Buddhism does not deny nor negate this world. Buddhism only denies the world where the truth, even though appearing to be self-evident, cannot withstand protracted scrutiny.

Shunyata (often translated as emptiness) is at the heart of experiencing reality as it is. Anyone who’s been in the position to taste the unsurpassed flavor of freedom had actually been in intimate touch with shunyata at that moment. And that moment is, of course, timeless.

From the phenomenological perspective, that is, from the perspective of attempting to describe the indescribable experience of shunyata, one can only say that there is an unmistakable realization that all the everyday things and concepts are unreal. Everything that we cherish and everything that we feel brings meaning to our lives is perceived as false and irrelevant once we experience enlightenment by getting in touch with shunyata.

What then tends to be rather confusing to the innocent bystanders, who may become aware that someone in their community has experienced liberation, is why is it that liberation invariably brings love? Why is it that, once someone realizes how utterly futile all human hopes and dreams are, all that’s left for that person to feel is love? Why not feel hate instead of love, or feel anger, or cynicism, or any other arbitrary emotion?

The reason is very simple: love is the most immediate manifestation of intimacy. When a person experiences liberation, enlightenment, shunyata, what becomes immediately apparent is how intimate every apparition, every manifested as well as every unmanifested phenomenon is. All separation is gone, disappeared in the same way the night disappears with the light of dawn. And all that is left is absence of separation, absence of anxiety, absence of vexation. In other words, love.

The above description may be naive and simplistic, but it is nevertheless true.

My mother died ten days ago. When I heard the news, my first reaction was a friendly welcome. A feeling of welcoming a very dear friend.

Now, that reaction may strike you as being completely odd, even inappropriate. You may be now wondering: “Alex, where is the sadness and the sorrow that every living human being must feel upon learning that their mother passed away?” Here is why I think my knee-jerk feeling of sadness was almost instantaneously replaced by the feeling of embracing a new, long awaited friend:

It’s not because I didn’t love my mother, or because I wasn’t close to her, or because we had unresolved issues. No, I’ve been close to my mother my entire life, and we cared for and deeply loved each other. It’s also not the case of witnessing someone suffering long and unbearable illness, and wishing for a swift mercy death. No, my mother was healthy, in good spirits. She died suddenly, from a heart attack (even though she was only 74 years old).

But an event as significant as my mother’s death revealed something to me that was a lesson worth learning. Instead of taking this sad event as the tragedy that unexpectedly happened to me, I was blessed with the insight that could be summed in the following sentence: “It’s not about you, it’s about her!”

There is an enormous feeling of liberation whenever we manage to leave the world of personal convenience and neglect our puny egomaniacal concerns, and place our selves in other people’s position. My mother’s dying instantly put me into that position. All I was concerned with was her own situation, not mine.

This feeling helped me tremendously in solidifying my own convictions that self is irrelevant, and that the meaning of life can only be found in seeing through the falsity that is masquerading as self, or ego. This is why I consider my mother’s death as her gift to me. She gave me the gift of life, she gave me the gift of teaching me how to survive, and now she gave me the final gift — the gift of knowing how to die.

So, no matter what happens, it really helps if you carry with you a strong insight that it’s never about you. You, as a separate being, are irrelevant. If you can clearly see that, then there will be no more obstacles to stop you in releasing your lion’s roar of liberation!

Human beings are born into the world of duality. Is/isn’t, up/down, left/right, before/after. Also, agreeable/disagreeable. And so on.

Because of that, the events that arise in our lives get to be treated in the same dualistic way. Meaning, each event gets evaluated according to some set of criteria. Thus, this event may be perceived as being desirable, that event as being undesirable, and so on. This process of evaluation never ends.

Buddhists and Events

If a person engages in the Buddhist practice, and if he perseveres, there comes a time when the events in that person’s life begin to gain certain uniformity. It is quite difficult to explain what this uniformity is about, or how does it feel like, but the thing is that the ups and downs from the non-Buddhist life now tend to smooth out a bit.

There comes a point where you realize that all events are created equal. If you then persevere and keep going, you will get to the point where you can almost plainly see that it’s how everything is. No event is better or more precious than any other event. And vice versa — no event is to be avoided, to be shoved under the rug.

Events, the way we perceive them, are what reality is. It is our life. Buddhist practitioners are peculiar because they have given up coping with life. They realize that they are the life, and that it would be therefore impossible to cope with something that you already are.

“I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones.” -John Cage

Fear is the first cousin of ignorance. In Buddhism, ignorance (avidya) is the Primus Movens of all human suffering. To abandon suffering one must abandon ignorance. And to abandon ignorance, one must go through its first cousin — fear — and figure out how to deal with it (i.e. fear).

But the question is: fear of what? The knee-jerk common wisdom answer is: fear of the unknown. People seem to be afraid of the unknown.

Now, if we stop and think about it, is that really how things are? Are we really afraid of the unknown? I mean, the unknown is just that — unknown. Not being known, or knowable, what is there to be afraid of?

On the other hand, there are countless known things that we have pretty solid reasons to be afraid of. Such as the known possibility of getting very sick, getting injured, and of course, the fear of a very well known thing — death and dying.

That’s why John Cage said that he is afraid of the old ideas. He is afraid of the things that are already known. And he is afraid of them because he knows how horrible those known things are.

Something new and still unknown could actually be good. No need to be afraid of it yet, until we see what’s it actually shaping up to be.

So realizing this, Buddhist practitioners work on dealing with the known fears. One of the known fears is that you may lose a much loved someone, or something. How are you going to cope with that fear?

Buddhist practice is solely concerned with human condition. And the most prevalent characteristic of human condition is that we tend to take events that happen to us very personally.

This is the cause for many a suffering. Being extremely sensitive personally is not a fun way to go through life.

So what do Buddhist practitioners do to get out of that hole? They basically have a choice of two courses of action:

1. Don’t take things that concern them personally
2. Take those things personally, but in addition, take everything else that occurs personally as well

In truth, both the above courses of action boil down to the same thing. If a practitioner choses the ‘don’t take it personally’ path, that will liberate him from the bondage of being confined inside the prison of his body and mind. But if another practitioner takes another recommended course of action and starts taking everything personally, he will also be completely liberated from the prison. By taking onto himself all the other people’s travails, he will become fully aware of the self, an will consequently forget all about the self.

Thus, he will be freed.

Buddhist practice and teaching represents a fully qualified triumph of Intellect over Will. When attempting to describe the Buddha’s incomparable achievements and powers, Buddhist texts invariably speak of his omniscience, but seldom of his omnipotence. Clearly, the Buddhist tenet system holds Knowledge (jnana) in a much higher esteem than it holds Will.

The power of will, in the Buddhist system of practice, is a blind force brought about through erroneous thinking. As such, it must be transcended through the proper use of intellectual analysis. Once the insubstantiality of the cravings, clinging and attachment/aversion becomes plainly evident to the practitioner (via the use of intellectual analysis), the power of will inevitably wilts away and fades out.

Such blind force of will, that arises via the confusion of ignorance, can be dispelled once proper understanding has been achieved. But, can the concept of Free Will, which should be a much less blind force, be regarded as a guiding principle in the Buddhist practice?

The principle of Free Will stands in stark contrast with the abiding Law of the Universe. The Law (or, a collection of laws) governs the Universe, governs the behavior of all manifested phenomena. The Law is inescapable — it applies in all places, at all times.

But if that’s invariably the case, then morality and ethics would become meaningless. Every act, every thought being predestined by the rigid workings of the Law, no one would be accountable for their actions.

All the great religions of the world uphold morality as the cornerstone of their practice. Consequently, such teachings cannot allow for a full blown determinism of the Universe. A loophole must be allowed to appear so that humans could be made accountable for their behavior. And such loophole is called Free Will.

According to the doctrine of Free Will, human beings are given a choice — either they will attempt to discern what is right from what is wrong and then chose to do the right thing, or they will neglect that duty and turn their backs to the moral teaching. And, depending on their choice, humans will get rewarded/punished.

Depending of the scope of the human being (i.e. whether a particular person is viewed as lasting only a single lifetime, as opposed to being reincarnated in multiple lifetimes), the concept of reward/punishment gets defined. If a human being is viewed as contained within a single lifetime (as is the case in the Semitic religions), the reward or punishment will be awarded after that person’s demise. If, however, the person’s scope is viewed as extending into multiple lifetimes, the rewards and/or punishments are viewed as being administered on a pretty much ongoing basis.

Buddhism, being prevalently an ethical practice, places emphasis on the necessity of being accountable for one’s deeds. The basic premise of the Buddhist teaching is that anything a person does will bear fruit, and that fruit will get experienced by that same person sometime in the future. Furthermore, and as a corollary to this, it would never be possible for one person to experience the fruit of another person’s deed.

This morality therefore pretty much demands that a person, upon reaching the end of his life, must be born again. This is so because up until the very end of his life, that person has continued committing deeds, and such deeds will inevitably bring fruits in the future. And as that doer instantly dies and perishes, there will be no one to experience the fruits of his actions in the future (because of the dictum that forbids one person to taste the fruits of another person’s doing). Consequently, and according to the Law of Karma, anyone that dies must be reborn in order to reap what he or she had sown in their previous life.

Now, similar to other ethical teachings, Buddhism also places the onus of choice on the individual’s shoulders. If the practitioner understands the moral law as taught by the Buddha, and if the practitioner observes that understanding in her everyday acts, she will experience the fruits of her good deeds. And conversely, if she does not understand the teaching, or if she understands it but nevertheless choses to ignore it, she will experience the fruits of her bad deeds.

In Buddhism, the fruits of good deeds are experienced as an improved conditions for practising the Dharma. The fruits of bad deeds are experienced as worsening of such conditions, as in the case when a practitioner regresses into some form of a subhuman creature upon being reborn.

So, unlike in some other religions, where bad deeds are being punished by an act of eternal damnation, for example, in Buddhism there is no such concept. Since everything we might encounter in our lives is a direct product of our own acts, we go from lifetime to lifetime always carrying this choice whether we want to improve or worsen our chances for attaining complete freedom.

As such, we see that Buddhism is the teaching that is based on the idea of change. One’s situation could be quite bleak, but one can change that. How? Simply by learning the Buddha’s teaching and observing it in one’s workaday life. Conversely, one’s situation could be quite advantageous, but one can change that as well. How? Simply by forgetting the Buddha’s teaching, or by neglecting to apply it in everyday life.

Also, the Buddhist teaching of ultimate freedom is based on the idea of change. It is thanks to the fact that everything is impermanent that a person can change his/her situation and attain liberation. If things were permanent, being forever defined with unchangeable identity, no chance of being freed could ever present itself to any human being.

Observing this situation superficially, it would appear that the concept of Free Will is extremely prominent in the Buddhist teaching and practice. However, upon closer examination, it becomes really hard to identify this concept anywhere in this teaching. True, sentient beings are faced with a choice at every moment in their lives — observe the Buddha’s precepts, or ignore them. But, their choice is not governed by their will. It is governed by their knowledge, as obtained through careful proper analysis of phenomena.

In non-Buddhist religions, the practitioners do not feel the need to examine the phenomena, since they believe that the world was created by the Supreme Being, or God. The only thing a worshipper needs to do is embrace the Will of the Creator, discard one’s own will, and rest assured of the posthumous award. Conversely, failing to do that, the subject will rest assured of a tormentous punishment that awaits in the designated hell.

Where does Free Will fit in with that picture? Why was the individual human being given Free Will and the ability to choose?

Free Will in such religions is merely an expedient that enables the all-loving Creator not to be blamed for the ills of His creation. Why would an omnipotent all-knowing all-loving Creator create a world with so much hardship, heartbreak, misery and catastrophe? He wouldn’t, not under any conceivable circumstances. How are we then to explain all the misery and inconceivable suffering that permeates the world? There is no other way to explain that discrepancy away other than to invoke the magical principle of Free Will. God has created humans in his own image and endowed them with Free Will, with the ability to choose between embracing Him or embracing the darkness. All the miseries that collate around the world are caused by the man’s weak will, by his inability to choose the right path.

On the surface, this situation seems very similar to the Buddhist worldview. In Buddhism we also have the situation where individuals can choose at any moment whether to embrace the light or embrace the darkness. However, this is where the similarities end. In Buddhism, a person does not embrace darkness because of the weakness of his will, but because of ignorance. In non-Buddhist religions, the worshipper cannot be excused on the grounds of ignorance, because the unambiguous teaching is explained to all worshippers, and it is easy to understand that teaching. Basically, the knowledge needed to embrace the light consists in undivided allegiance to the Creator. Embrace the Creator in one’s heart, devote one’s entire life to Him, and you will be saved.

Things are far from being that simplistic in the Buddhist practice. To begin with, there is no Creator, so there is no one to pledge our allegiance to. Secondly, the teaching itself is abtruse, extremely recondite. Even among the advanced Buddhist practitioners one can notice considerable struggle in trying to fathom the more subtle, profound aspects of the teaching.

We have said at the beginning of this essay that proper knowledge is sufficient to eradicate any will. This is precisely what Buddhist practice aims for. The deluded mind conceives erroneously of “I” and soon enough the notion of “mine” follows. Then the “non-I” becomes a problem, and the will arises to fight the “non-I” and to conquer the “not mine”, and turn it into “mine”.

This will is the result of erroneous, miscalculated perception and apprehension. The same miscalculated perception gives rise of the false, phantom Free Will. Feeling falsely imprisoned by the phantom “non-I”, the equally phantom-like “I” dreams of breaking free. This dream is what gives rise to the notion of Free Will.

Once this dream dissipates (through the establishment of the right view, or proper knowledge), the miscalculated perception turns into unblemished perception. The falsely perceived enslaved “I” vanishes, and with it every notion of Free Will. Once the notion of Free Will is discarded, true liberation is shines through.

Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself

George Bernard Shaw

Funnily, a Buddhist prescription to what ‘life is about’ would be the exact opposite of what George Bernard Shaw suggested. If we ask a typical Buddhist practitioner what life is all about, he would quite possibly tell us: “Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is about destroying yourself!”

Sounds quite radical. However, that’s not the end of it. If we look into the Madhyamika teaching and practice, we may end up being startled upon finding even more radical explanations. However, before we go into that level of detail, we need to first set the stage appropriately.

Levels Of Buddhist Practice

Generally speaking, there are four levels of Buddhist practice, as exemplified in the four types of Buddhist practitioners:

• Common folk (i.e. Buddhist wannabes)
• Shravakas (i.e. ‘hearers’, the ones who hear the Buddha’s teaching and adopt it for their personal salvation)
• Pratyekabuddhas (i.e. the self-enlightened ones)
• Bodhisattvas (i.e. the ones who wish to save all sentient beings)
• Buddhas (the fully accomplished, perfect ones)

Of course, common folk are the heavily deluded practitioners, the ones who believe in real substance underlying all life’s experiences. These people may engage in the Buddhist practice, at which point they will undergo training to try and shed the cast of the coarsest illusions.

Shravakas, on the other hand, are the ones who had already managed to shed the heavy cast of more coarse delusions, and who are capable of attaining the cessation of their own personal emotional turmoil. Such practitioners have experienced the taste of nirvana, the complete cessation of personal emotional turmoil.

Pratyekabuddhas are more advanced than Shravakas because they have penetrated the worldly illusion. They realize that all experiences are hollow to the core, in the sense that they do not possess identity.

Bodhisattvas are the most advanced on the path, due to the widening of the scope of their practice. Upon raising compassion in their hearts, certain Buddhist practitioners enlarge the scope of their practice from being concerned about their own salvation to assuming a more altruistic outlook. All of a sudden, such practitioners realize that, without liberating all beings, they won’t be able to ever find the final peace. Such people are then known as Bodhisattvas.

Finally, Buddhas are the ineffably perfect, fully accomplished beings, who are treading the path of no more learning.

The Madhyamika Level

Nagarjuna introduced a very pointed teaching, which systematizes the core of the Buddha’s recondite teachings. This teaching is not suitable for the common folk, or for Shravakas or even for Pratyekabuddhas. Only Bodhisattvas can enter the Madhyamika path, because their vows of undying love toward all beings help them gain strength and stamina required for practicing this extreme path.

It is the most radical, uncompromising path there could ever be. It goes beyond substantialism/nihilism. In terms of answering the Bernard Shaw’s bon mot, Madhyamika proponent may say something like the following:

“Life isn’t about finding yourself, life is abut destroying not only yourself but also the entire realm of phenomena!”

From the above we can glean that Madhyamika practice negates, in the wholesale manner, the reality of the entire range of human experiences.

In terms of the various levels of Buddhist practitioners, the Buddha knew that different people are characterized by different range when it comes to the scope of their practice. Thus, different types of practitioners reach their level of exhaustion at different times. Common folk are, or course, the first ones to fall exhausted to the ground. To them, the Buddha delivered encouraging words in the sense that if they persist, they will be reborn in much more agreeable circumstances.

Shravakas, by the virtue of their disciplined practice, are characterized by the much farther-reaching range. Still, even those practitioners have relatively short range, after which they cannot keep pushing their practice. To them, the Buddha delivered encouraging words explaining the bliss of nirvana, the final repose. Of course, nirvana, designed for Shravakas, is not really the final repose, it is merely an oasis, a place to rest and gather one’s strength.

Pratyekabuddhas and Bodhisattvas are much more resilient, as they are prepared to invest extreme effort in order to reach the far shore. To Pratyekabuddhas, the Buddha delivered the soothing words explaining how all the phenomena are devoid of substance, of real existence.

To Bodhisattvas, the Buddha delivered the final teaching explaining that both the personal self, as well as the phenomenal self, have no reality. Both classes of phenomena are illusory, to be regarded as mirage, a reflection in the glass, a moon reflected in the pond, etc.

This is actually the Madhyamika level, which teaches that not only the personal self is nowhere to be found, but also the phenomena (the no-self) are empty, not findable.

Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day

As the famous saying goes, it took considerable effort to build a city the size and the splendor of Rome. Certainly not something that could be accomplished overnight. However, as it turns out, as long as it may have taken to build Rome, it certainly took much longer to destroy it. Once a magnificent facility gets built, it assumes a life of its own, and tends to be very resilient, resisting true change. Thus, we see from the history textbooks that it took many lifetimes (read: generations) of persistent destructive behavior to finally destroy this magnificent city.

The same applies to the self. It takes some time to build it and to polish it, but it certainly takes much, much longer to demolish it.

The practice of compassion arises from understanding the situation. If our understanding is lacking (i.e. is tainted by ignorance), then everything we perceive appears as if being reflected in a broken mirror. Things and events appear fractured, fragmented, jagged, and in general, very unpleasant and jarring.

Every now and then, we do manage to find a special angle in that fractured mirror where things start appearing a little more palatable to us. This precarious balance is difficult to achieve, and is typically very short lived. A slight, minor change or shift in our perspective is sufficient to ‘break the spell’ and to push us back into viewing things as being disjointed, unpleasant, even threatening to us.

Because of that, some people tend to hide their heads in the sand, or to run away from that fractured mirror. Substance abuse (overeating, alcohol, drugs), sexuality abuse (incest, child molestation, S&M), material cravings (acquiring goods and services), throwing oneself into therapy, or into some irrational cultish ritual, are all signs of not being able to cope with the broken mirror.

At the other end of the spectrum, some people, being seriously disturbed by the broken mirror, tend to practise ‘growing up’ in order to reach some sort of a truce with the unbearable broken mirror. Instead of sticking their heads in the sand, or running away from it, they try to embrace as much as what they find embraceable in there. In order to understand that, we should study selfishness, as it occurs among humans:

At the most crude level, we see that some people never outgrow their preschool/kindergarten age. Such people always hasten to let us know how all they care about is their own self, and how they don’t really care about what happens to anyone else. These are the people that can easily sell their own mother, even their own children, when push comes to shove. They cannot tolerate even the slightest discomfort.

At the next, somewhat more cultivated level, we see that some people learn to outgrow such childish obsession with their own little comfort zone, and manage to develop some level of empathy toward other humans (and maybe even animals). These people can have functional family lives, including even developing a circle of close friends.

At the even more cultivated level, we find people who managed to enlarge their own self to the point where they start loving not only their immediate family members and close friends, but their own tribe, their own nation, their own race. Even loving the entire humankind. These people like to think they are practising compassion.

But, are they really? Are they any less selfish than the kindergarten types (the ‘me, me, and only me!’ types)? We can see that, by enlarging their self to embrace the others, and, ultimately, the entire world, they have also enlarged their selfishness. All this compassion that they practise is actually only compassion towards their own self. By identifying with things apparently outside of themselves, they have enlarged their self, they have conquered the new territory, and are working to ensure that their now bigger self will achieve a beneficial status in the future. That’s not the spiritual path of cultivating compassion. That’s just an effort to fix the fractured mirror, to appease and tranquilize the troubled mind.

The problem is, no amount of mending is ever going to cure the problem. What is needed is the realization that the mirror is not actually broken. It is as if a dislocated screen was placed between the interpretative perception and the mirror. Once we see through this charade, and the imagined screen is dispelled with, the mirror appears as if restored, in its incomparable brightness and shininess. For the first time, things appear as they truly are, unfractured, unfragmented, whole.

Once this happens, we can safely abandon the search for those ’special’ angles. Any angle is the angle we want to look at.

So, once we get to the point where we see things objectively, as they truly are, instead of seeing them subjectively (through the distorted imaginary screen, i.e. selfish), we can finally understand the situation. Then, we can truly help others, because we clearly see what it is that they need. Before that happens, what we may see in other beings is certainly not what they really need. Everything is tainted with our own fractured and fragmented, personal selfish agenda.

Substantiality is the single biggest problem in the Buddhist practice. It is ubiquitous and persistent. It seems that no matter what level of sophistication practitioners may reach, there always exists this propensity for reification of one’s experiences.

Thus we see different practitioners getting ’stuck’ at different levels of substantialist beliefs. Less refined ones tend to hang on to the more coarse manifestations of substantiality, such as believing in a separate personhood, etc. More refined practitioners, who manage to get beyond such coarse reifications, usually tend to get stuck at a less obvious impasse. Such advanced practitioners can be recognized as belonging to the ’substantialists’ by their afilliation with more sublime concepts, such as Tao, or space, the sky, consciousness, awareness, or mind, etc. All these subtle concepts (i.e. Tao, vast expanse of space, vast expanse of mind, etc.) are only reified substance, masquerading as something non-substantial.

The Buddha, upon attaining the unexcelled perfect enlightenment (samuttara samyak sambodhi), expressed his keen concern regarding these issues. He lamented:

This Dhamma, won by me, is deep, difficult to see, difficult to understand… But this is a generation delighting in sensual pleasure… And if I were to teach Dhamma and others were not to understand me, this would be a weariness to me, this would be a vexation to me

(Vinayapitaka, I 3f)

Why Was The Buddha Vexed?

The Buddha knew that it is relatively easy to convince regular, untutored person that his/her ways are deleterious. Most people realize that they’re not even close to being perfect.

But the person who had spent years perfecting her virtues and polishing her insight may not be so amenable to the suggestion that her ways might actually be ruinous. The Buddha was mostly worried about such practitioners. He knew that all people have this ingrained tendency to search for the Holy Grail, for the Philosopher’s Stone. And he also knew that such miraculous stone is merely a fool’s gold. In other words, the existence of a wish-fulfilling gem is nowhere evidenced. The search for the primordial substance, so dear to each and everyone of us, is very deleterious for a very simple reason — it is a colossal waste of time.

And while ordinary people tend to search for this primordial substance in vulgar places (such as material wealth, fame, longevity, etc.), more sophisticated practitioners, who managed to rise above such crass concerns, seek for this substance in exalted areas, such as mind, dharma, nirvana, and such. Because of that, the Buddha knew that such practitioners absolutely won’t be able to understand his teaching. He knew that they will consequently choke on something so illusive, so fine grained, that it would be incredibly difficult to get them to realize that they actually have a serious problem.

Nagarjuna’s Solution

Shakyamuni Buddha introduced a teaching so radical, that it took a number of generations before the dust could settle and the teaching could be systematized. After several partial attempts at systematizing the Buddha’s teaching (i.e. Abhidharma, Prajna-paramita), Nagarjuna was the first master who managed to fully expose the essence of the Buddha’s teaching without leaving any unresolved issues.

This systematization resulted in the formulation of the Madhyamika school of Buddhist practice. This school is based on the discipline of the Middle Way, beyond the extremes of views. Nagarjuna explained it thus:

If I were to advance any proposition whatsoever, from that I would incur error. On the contrary, I advance no proposition. Therefore, I incur no error.

(Mulamadhyamaka karika)

This relinquishing of all views is what constitutes, according to Nagarjuna, the essence of the Buddha’s teaching.

I reverently bow to Gautama the Buddha who, out of compassion, has taught the true doctrine in order to relinquish all views.

(closing verse, Mulamadhyamaka karika XXVII 30)

This teaching could only be fully understood if the doctrine of Two Truths is mastered. Here is the essence of the Two Truths, as Nagarjuna puts it:

In teaching the Dharma, Buddhas resort to two truths: worldly conventional truth and ultimate truth.
The ultimate cannot be taught without resorting to conventions; and without recourse to the ultimate, one cannot reach nirvana.

Once the significance of the above formulation is fully realized, one cannot help but become free of any substantialist impulses. Nevertheless, regardless how simple the instructions given to us by Nagarjuna may appear to be, in reality this is the most difficult teaching to follow.

Because the ultimate cannot be demonstrated in and of itself, beings tend to confuse it with conventional manifestations. And because conventional manifestations cannot be flatly rejected (being the vehicles for realizing the ultimate), deluded beings have tremendous difficulties understanding and adhering to the teaching. Only devout followers of the Middle Way school (i.e. Madhyamika) can avoid falling into the substantialist trap.

Two Truths Vs. Three Truths

Things are far from being idyllic even in the extremely rarefied world of Madhyamika practice. One would think that those practitioners, who had summoned the courage to set their foot on the Middle Way course by relinquishing all views, would cease erring on the substantialist side. Alas, that doesn’t seem to be the case.

How do some Madhyamikas fall into the substantialist trap? It all has to do with the misapprehension of the Two Truths teaching. The Buddha had taught that all manifestations could be viewed in two lights — in the correct light, and in the incorrect light. When phenomena are viewed in the incorrect light, we are dealing with the conventional, all-concealing truth (samvrti in Sanskrit). When those same phenomena are viewed in the correct light, we are dealing with the ultimate, indeterminate truth (paramartha in Sanskrit). The all-concealing truth, or truth by consensus, is no different than the ultimate truth, only it is subjectively falsified. The error is entirely epistemological, imagined, and has no ontological status of a really existing entity.

At the same time, the ultimate truth is nothing more than the all-concealing truth after the error of misperception has been corrected. This unity of the Two Truths is at the essence of the Buddha’s teaching, and it has been underlined and re-emphasized by Nagarjuna, as well as by many other prominent Madhyamika practitioners.

So, where’s the problem then? The extremely subtle issue creeps in when some Madhyamika practitioners get hit by the realization that what this doctrine actually means is that the conventional, consensus-based realm doesn’t really exist. It can be best illustrated with the following (classic) example:

Imagine a person hiking in the countryside, who sees a wheat field in the distance. In the middle of the field, he sees a farmer, and decides to ask him for directions. The hiker starts yelling: “Hello, over here! Hey, you, can you hear me?” But the farmer doesn’t seem to respond. Getting closer to the farmer, the hiker becomes more and more agitated, getting annoyed that the farmer doesn’t seem to exhibit a common decency to reply to his calls. The hiker now gets positively angry with the farmer, and starts marching toward him with the intention to teach him a good lesson in etiquette.

But as the hiker gets closer to the farmer, he suddenly notices that the farmer is nothing more than a scarecrow. All of a sudden, all the pent up drama dissipates in the same manner it tends to evaporate when a person wakes up from a very intense dream.

The farmer who seemingly was the cause of all the fuss and fury, turned out to be completely non-existent. His apparent ‘existence’ was imputed, or ascribed by the hiker. More careful analysis, performed by that same hiker, resulted in the correction of error; this method is referred to as removal of ascriptions, and is part of the regular Madhyamika practice.

Similarly, all the other seemingly solid and existing phenomena invariably turn out to dissipate in the same way the imputed farmer had dissipated after more careful analysis. And according to the Buddha and Nagarjuna, as well as many other Buddhist Masters, no evidence exists of any phenomena that is not imputed/ascribed in the exact same manner.

Knowing this, it is easy to see how unreal the domain of conventional, everyday truth is. However, the inherent bias toward substantiality, that many of us seem to cherish above anything else (even above truth itself), compels some practitioners to still hold that behind all that charade, there is still some solid, immutable, reliable substance. According to their line of reasoning, all the demonstrable apparitions that the world of consensus-based truth deludes us with are based on some underlying non-deceiving substance. While they agree that things appear to arise and cease, and that these cycles are deceptive, they nevertheless insist that such deception, such error is only possible if there is something real, something substantial causing things to get imputed or incorrectly ascribed.

Such practitioners cannot conceive of the validity of accepting wholeheartedly the utter emptiness, or lack of self-determination of any manifested phenomena. Even after convincing themselves in the evident utmost unfindability of any perceived phenomena, they still keep on insisting that such phenomena continue to exist “according to their characteristics”. In other words, while the substantialist Madhyamikas accept that manifested phenomena are devoid of real, inherent existence, they still must exist based on their attributes.

In this manner, the Madhyamikas with a substantialist bend introduce the third truth. That one they call the “approximate truth”. Before we proceed with the analysis of the third truth, let us first examine all the possibilities. In the final analysis, it is possible to formulate four truths about the world:

1. Hallucinatory truth
2. All-concealing truth (i.e. truth by consensus)
3. Approximate truth
4. Ultimate truth (i.e. the indeterminate truth)

1. Hallucinatory truth: simple examples of optical illusions could illustrate this truth. A deluded person may think he sees a lake in the desert, while all he actually sees is just hot air hovering above the horizon.

2. All-concealing truth: as already explained, everyday occurrences, which may appear totally solid and real, turn out to be mere figment of imagination when examined more closely.

3. Approximate truth: as mentioned above, this is the truth about phenomena who do not exist according to their true nature (which is nowhere to be found), yet exist according to their characteristics.

4. Ultimate truth: indeterminate, indescribable, surpasses conceptual realm.

Different philosophical and religious systems may subscribe to different combinations of the above list of possible truths. No system is known that embraces all four at the same time. Some systems embrace only one truth (such as Materialistic system, which basically only holds that whatever is accessible to immediate perception is true, everything else being false; as such, the materialists deal only with the second truth, the so called all-concealing truth).

Some systems embrace three truths at once (apparently, Vedanta being one such system, where the hallucinatory truth is accepted as a subject of investigation, together with the all-concealing truth and the ultimate truth).

In Buddhism, the doctrine teaches only about the Two Truths: the all-concealing truth and the ultimate truth. The Buddhist practitioners show no interest in analyzing the hallucinatory truth. However, in the Madhyamika practice, the substantialist current felt the need to introduce the third truth, namely the approximate truth.

Approximate Truth

Some Madhyamika practitioners, upon reaching the inevitable conclusion that all experiences are nothing but mere figment of imagination, feel uneasy about being forced to conclude that experiences are essentially unreal. While the inviolable evidence compels them to proclaim how things do not actually exist, they still cannot help but murmur under their breath: “How is it possible that things don’t really exist?” Due to their deeply ingrained substantialist bias, they cannot really accept the fact that everything anyone could ever experience is a mere error in perception, a blatant miscalculation or misinterpretation.

Thus they rush to impute another concept, that of “approximate truth”. The rationale they offer for introducing this newfangled concept is based on the ineffability of the ultimate truth. Their argumentation goes as follows:

“If everyday experiences are phantom-like, and if the ultimate truth is unreachable by the rational means, how are we to teach the deluded beings?”

The simple answer by the non-substantialist Madhyamikas is: “In order to teach deluded beings, use the falsity of the manifested phenomena as a starting point for spotting and correcting the error. Once the error gets corrected, the ultimate gets realized.”

However, in the approach suggested above one cannot find any handles that would help one solidify, or reify one’s need for substantiality. Both the unborn error, as well as the act of correcting it, are totally insubstantial. And the realized ultimate truth is also insubstantial, simply by the virtue of being indeterminate.

Such situation is absolutely untenable for the practitioners who have even the tiniest substantialist inclination. For them, after all is being said and done, after everything has been analyzed and debunked, a solid residue of something distilled that is reliable, immutable and definable must remain. And that definitely is not the case with the devastating dialectic analysis that the Madhyamika practice brings.

In order to keep the dreaded insubstantiality at bay, the substantialist Madhyamika practitioners introduce the concept of approximate truth in the last ditch attempt at clutching straws. The practice of approximate truth is devised in order to attempt bridging the perceived gap between the all-concealing relative truth, and the ineffable absolute, ultimate truth. While proper Madhyamika practice forbids us to introduce any concepts that may attempt to approximate the characteristics of the ultimate truth, the substantialist current of the Madhyamika practice encourages such attempts. Thus, such practitioners do not limit themselves to only exposing all theories as being idle speculations (by reducing their conclusions to absurdity), they also actively engage in weaving their own theories about the world. They allow for introducing positive propositions during the debate, thus directly violating Nagarjuna’s dictum:

If I were to advance any proposition whatsoever, from that I would incur error. On the contrary, I advance no proposition. Therefore, I incur no error.

(Mulamadhyamaka karika)

Two Teachings

In order to suppress the strong urges toward substantiality, Buddhas and bodhisattvas resort to two teachings. The easiest way to explain the difference between these two teaching is to give a simple illustration:

Imagine a person who must spend one month alone in the forest. His biggest concern is survival. Not having any skills required to live alone in the wilderness, that person is getting close to having a panic attack when thinking about what awaits him in the dreaded forest.

He may hear of a good teacher, a person who himself is known for being able to survive alone in wilderness for a prolonged period of time. So he goes to see that teacher, to ask for help.

The teacher may ask him: “When are you scheduled to spend one moth in the forest?”

“In April”, the person would reply.

“April could be tough,” warns the teacher. “No berries or any other plants will be available yet. You may have to rely entirely on mushrooms for your sustenance.”

“All right, I’ll eat the mushrooms then!” the person replies, being somewhat relieved to hear that it is possible for him to somehow stay alive there.

“Wait, not so fast!” warns the teacher. “You cannot just go there and start eating the first mushroom you stumble upon. There are many different mushrooms in the forest, many of which are very poisonous. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll drop dead on the forest floor the very first day!”

“But, what am I to do then?” the person asks desperately.

“Well, you can either learn all there is to know about mushrooms, or… I can try and teach you how to obtain keen vision. You see, even if you acquire encyclopedic knowledge of the mushrooms, that still wouldn’t mean that you are free of risk. Many poisonous mushrooms look very similar to the edible ones. You will then grasp for the innocent looking one, and will soon find yourself rolling on the ground in mortal coil.”

“Please help me, what should I do then?”

“You need to acquire the ability to see through the mushroom as something that is desirable or as something to be avoided based on the characteristics of that mushroom. If you can see through that, you’ll be able to see which ones contain the deadly poison.”

In a similar way, in order to attain liberation, deluded beings need to let go of their attachments. So, the most natural way to teach them is to warn them against attaching.

However, that would be similar to saying “don’t eat mushrooms, they may be poisonous, you never know!” The person who accepts the teaching, which advocates not to attach, will be right in his practice. However there will remain a certain residue in that person’s mind which will sit there like a cloud of doubt. Sort of like “All right, I’ve abstained from eating that mushroom because I know that it may be poisonous; but what if it isn’t? Am I not missing a delicious meal then?”

In order to circumvent this doubt, Nagarjuna taught the method of direct seeing: if you can learn how to see directly, and to realize the very emptiness of phenomena, your propensity to attach/reject will spontaneously melt away. Once you do that, you will never again suffer from doubts whether your decision not to attach to something was a correct one or not.