Emptiness?
I've suspected for some time that, assuming my biological needs are met (food/shelter/safety) my mood/emotional state is predicated upon how closely my preferences match my circumstances. IE - how closely does my life match my desires for my life? It is rarely the case that reality and what I want are equal and thus I decided the problem must lie with the desires themselves. I have struggled with the idea of not having desires eventually realizing that it is impossible for me not to have desires. I then went on for awhile thinking that perhaps if I could willfully change my desires to match my circumstances then I would be happy. I attempted to act and think as if I had chosen my life exactly as it is right at that moment. I put a lot of energy for several months into this line of thinking and while this path has been helpful in terms of surrender and acceptance, I realized that ultimately it is still fundamentally tied to what I think I should have. I've been stuck there for awhile.
Tonight during the first couple minutes of a sit I remembered reading somewhere that if one looks at the ego it disappears. I don't really understand that too much however I figured a good way to start to try and look at my ego would be to mentally identify when something I was thinking was ego-based. I quickly realized that everything was some opinion or judgement of mine. I even have opinions about my opinions. It never ends.
Almost immediately after that I understood these things simultaneously: I invent all my desires and if the desire is fabricated, then it follows that the feeling associated with the desire must also be my invention. Next, if I am sitting here realizing this then there must be a part of me that is... separate(?) from my thoughts. "Who is thinking about the thinking?" I can't know that I'm thinking about thinking unless there is a separation between me thinking and the noticing of the thoughts and reactions. That's confusing but anyway I have this idea that emptiness must be the next thing to explore. I say this because I'm assuming that anything other than emptiness must be ego, or I haven't eaten in awhile, or I'm cold or something like that. Aside from my basic needs it's all ego, no? It's all my opinions which are themselves opinions about opinions about opinions and so on... There can't not be desires and opinions so I'll focus on the empty area where there is just the noticing of the desires, judgements, opinions, satisfactions, suffering, etc...
/////////////////////////////Cravings cannot be ended via intellectual games or will. Only by wisdom seeing impermanence, not self, suffering.
//////////////////////////////Emptiness is not in a different area. The basis of understanding emptiness is mindfulness. Mindfulness is being fully present, without separation. Apply the technique: let the thoughts be and come back to now. Sitting, breathing. Feel your legs, the tension in your jaw or shoulders. Sitting, breathing.
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The Miracle of Everyday Mindfulness
we practice mindfulness in our daily lives, says Thich Nhat Hanh, we open to the wonders of life and allow the world to heal and nourish us.
Photo by Sarah Marshall.
Everyone has the seed of suffering inside. Sometimes it slumbers in the depths of our consciousness and sometimes it manifests as a very noticeable energy. When suffering manifests, it’s difficult to feel joy or happiness. The practice of conscious breathing and mindful walking or mindful sitting can help us handle the suffering inside. Our suffering is not only our own suffering. It carries within it the suffering of our father, our mother, and the many ancestors who have transmitted it to us.
Our suffering also reflects the suffering of our people, our country, our society, and our world. When we understand the nature and roots of our suffering, then compassion and love can arise. We go home to ourselves and get in touch with the suffering inside. Practicing conscious breathing, we generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration. These are the energies with which we can recognize and embrace our suffering. If we don’t have the energy of mindfulness, the suffering may overwhelm us. But if we breathe in and out and allow our body to be relaxed, we can generate the energy of mindfulness and concentration, and with that energy we can embrace our suffering and hold it tenderly.
My dear suffering, I know you are there in me. I am here to take care of you.
Suffering and Happiness Inter-Are
There are people who wish to find a place where there is no suffering, like heaven, the Pure Land of the Buddha, or the kingdom of God. We may think that “up there” there is no suffering; there is only happiness. But when we look deeply we see that suffering and happiness inter-are, just as the mud and the lotus interpenetrate each other. A lotus can only grow in mud. If there were no mud, there would be no lotus flower. There’s a very close connection between suffering and happiness, just as there is between mud and lotus. Real happiness is possible when we have the right view of suffering and happiness. It’s the same as front and back, right and left. The right cannot exist without the left; the left cannot exist without the right. Happiness cannot exist without suffering.
Happiness is made of non-happiness elements, just as the flower is made of non-flower elements. When you look at the flower, you see non-flower elements like sunlight, rain, earth—all of the elements that have come together to help the flower to manifest. If we were to remove any of those non-flower elements, there would no longer be a flower. Happiness is a kind of flower. If you look deeply into happiness, you see non-happiness elements, including suffering. Suffering plays a very important role in happiness.
When we live mindfully, we try to live in such a way that we can generate the energies of mindfulness, concentration, and insight throughout the day. These are the energies that bring us happiness and the clarity that we call right view. When we have right view, we’re able to practice right thinking. Right thinking is based on right view; it’s thinking that’s characterized by nondiscrimination and nonduality. According to right view, there can be no happiness without suffering. Our thinking can make us suffer, but it can also make us free. We need right thinking to help us stop our suffering.
If there is a group of people living in the same environment, some may be happy and others unhappy. There are those among us who have the ability to appreciate the presence of the sun and get in touch with the trees, the fog, and all of the wonders of life that are around and inside us. But there are some people who don’t have the ability to get in touch with these wonderful things. They only see suffering. The conditions of their lives are exactly the same as those of the people who are happy, so why are some people happy and others not? The answer is that the one who is happy has right view. The other is suffering because he doesn’t have right view, so his thinking is not right thinking. Suffering is relative. Something that causes one person to suffer may not cause another person to suffer.
///////////////////recommend looking at the dependent arising aspect of this. Emptiness is a non-affirming negation, in other words the mere truth that the object you are analyzing (in this case ego) lacks inherent existence. But it still is observable and appears to the mind. The key then is to look at how it exists. If it helps, ego is more of a western psychology term. Some topics that may help you are the self-grasping aspect of the mind (the fundamental ignorance that thinks "I" exists inherently - without change and without dependence) and then to see how self-cherishing layers on top to protect this self-grasping view. So if the thought of "I" doesn't exist on its own, how does it exist? It floats from thought to thought, from experience to experience, grasping and grabbing hold. It is merely imputed... meaning there is something going on, the rising/falling of thoughts, sensations, etc. and the "I" comes along (very quickly) and labels "me", "I", "mine" onto it.
///////////////////////////////Lama Zopa Rinpoche put it at teaching in Italy in 2004:
"This is dependent-arising, how things actually exist - dependent on the base or related to the base and the thought that is labeling. "Dependent" eliminates permanence or the view of eternalism - without depending on the base and the mind labeling, it would not exist. That eliminates the extreme of existing from its own side. "Arising" is "existing" - it eliminates annihilation or the view of nihilism. Since the phenomenon does arise, it does exist.
/////////////////////Try settling into the awareness of the unfindability of the "I", "me" or as you put it ego. When the thought arises "Well them how does it exist?" then observe its dependent arising within your thoughts. "What does it latch onto?" - observe the pure rising/falling of the continuum of mind due to karma.
I hope that helps, and as always, I'm still learning/figuring this out, but this has been my understanding thus far. I hope it helps you in settling your mind in your analysis during meditation.
////////////////////THERAGATHA 6.3 Sirimanda:
"When covered, it rains too much; When uncovered it does not rain too much.Therefore uncover the covered, Thus it will not rain too much.
The world is undermined by death, limited by aging, affected by the thorn of craving, perfumed with longing.
The world is undermined by death,limited by aging. Being harmed as such,without recourse to shelter,like a thief receiving punishment.
These three:death,disease,aging, approach like a mass of fire. There is no force that can withstand them and no speed can escape them.
Whether a little or a lot, don't waste the day. Life is diminished in whichever way the day passes.
Whether walking,standing,sitting or laying down, the last night approaches,don't waste your time."////////////////PSYD People who are open to experience have a lower risk of developing dementia, new research finds.
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