Note: Click here to see more related articles.



“In anatta, self is negated and D.O (dependent origination) is realized. In emptiness the idea of "negation" is further refined to allow the mind to see how conventions are mistaken to be "real" and "true". Understanding how conventions and reifications (mistaken to be "real" and "true") can be intellectual but seeing through requires direct experiential insight and anatta is the actual taste of that in relation to the convention "self/Self". Once this is understood "emptiness" is realized to be the natural progression of anatta. The direct taste is beyond description, often expressed as +A and -A.”

~ Thusness (John Tan), 2018


John Tan
Hi David, thanks for sharing.

First there is the direct apprehension of Clarity/Awareness.

Next is recognizing the apparent separation of clarity and appearance caused by a seeming perceptual knot.

Then there is resolving of this separation and what’s left is appearances / phenomena / cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed

It is interesting that the resolving of the separation for your case is not by way of subsuming into an all-encompassing non-dual awareness/space; however the overcoming of the center/agent can arise (from my experience) by:

1. By a prolong training in a state of no-mind.

2. Seeing through the center that the center has always been assumed, it is extra. In reality it does not exist.

3. Seeing through that the fundamental nature of the perceptual knot itself

4. A combination of above

Do you overcome the center by any of the above or by a different approach?

June 25 at 12:45pm · Edited · Unlike · 4

David Vardy Nice to meet you John. Looking back ( I was a slow learner. This is over a thirty year period). The first insight was associated with Taoist Yoga/Meditation performing the small microcosmic orbit. I had developed a lot of Chi over the years and when that orbit opened there was a hyper aware state, one of complete calmness and clarity. A feeling where everything just dropped. It wasn't until another decade or so when I was standing in line at an ice cream stand and a little girl turned around and looked up at me. In that moment she seemed as if she didn't see me, was looking straight through me. It was huge to say the least, brought me literally to my knees. The event left me feeling as if I had a hole in my forehead for about 2 months, experiencing headlessness all along. Deconstructed were the opposites, particularly inside and outside. You could say that from that day with that girl automatic continuous deconstruction was going on henceforth. There was no getting around it, even when exhausted. It's difficult retracking in such a short space here, but subsequently there was the experience of Anatta. This was incredible in light of the fact it hadn't been spelled out to me and having left the Chan tradition well before advancing in it I was kind of at a loss, not experientially, there was no doubt there, but how to talk about it. I had pretty much been seeing from the I AM position prior to this. Prior to Anatta it was as if my backside was an infinite expansive potential, the front being purely phenomenal. This destroyed the backside. What had been imagined to be non-dual was seen not to have been the case at all. The notion of absence being on the backside was now gone. The idea of no-self prior to Anatta was really just self as Absence, but still holding onto a conceptual absence you could say. There was still a center. Experiencing Anatta in my case, coincided with seeing DO. Prior to Anatta, phenomena seemed to be hyper real, substantiated as you say? In the moment of Anatta, the packed nature of phenomena as a unitary seeing having no inherent qualities was clear. Emptiness of both sides was clear in the same moment, and fortunately continued as a heightened Samadi like experience for months after the initial introduction.
June 25 at 1:28pm · Unlike · 3

David Vardy There is a physical component to this. Here, the experience occurring with the insight coinciding with seeing the packed nature of sensing is also a packed feeling in the brain. Every space is filled. I call it the 'stuffed animal' effect. The center is squeezed out by seeing itself. It's as if by virtue of occupied receptors, the play of opposites is cancelled out, not intellectually but physically. And that which is cancelled is who you've been featured imagining yourself to be. There has been no one there but the play of opposites in a hyperactive fashion. The essence of quietude is the absence of that play.
June 25 at 1:51pm · Like

John Tan Hi David,
Nice meeting you too and thanks for sharing your experiences…felt a little nostalgic after knowing your Taoist background.
Your description of the little girl’s stare is beautiful. The stare cuts through not only one’s discursive thoughts but also pierces through the living Presence (the first level of koan of one’s original face) and right into the fundamental essence of anatta. Even from your mere description, there is still the wordless transmission of headlessness that penetrates deep into one’s bone marrow and boils the blood. The stare preserves the lineage that is beyond words. Thank You.
For me, the initial insight of anatta was mainly what I have stated in scenario 2 -- seeing through the center that the center has always been assumed, it is extra. In reality it does not exist.
Up until this point of anatta, I was very much a non-conceptual advocator, less words more experience. I have heard of the word “Kong
”(Emptinesss) numerous times but never exactly know what it truly meant. The idea of Emptiness struck me probably “2 years later when I came across the chariot analogy of the Buddhist sage Nāgasena. There was an instant recognition that the analogy is precisely the insight of anatta and anatta is the real-time experiential taste of the “Emptiness” in relation to self/Self except that it is now replaced with “chariot” in the example.
The insight was huge and I began to re-examine all my experiences from the perspective of "Emptiness". This includes mind-body dropped, the impression of hereness and nowness, internal and externality, space and time...etc. Essentially a journey of deconstruction, that is, extending the same insight of anatta from the perspective of emptiness to all phenomena, aggregates, mental constructs and even to non-conceptual sensory experiences. This led to the taste of instant liberation at spot of not only the background (self) but also the cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed without the need to subsume either subject into object or object into subject but liberates whatever arises at spot.
The deconstruction process reveals not only the taste of freedom from freeing the energy that is sustaining the constructs (in fact tremendous energy is needed to maintain the mental constructs) but also a continuous formation of a perceptual knot that blinds us in a very subtle way and that relates to scenario 3 -- Seeing through the fundamental nature of the perceptual knot itself. Seeing the nature of perceptual knot involves in seeing clearly certain very persistent and habitual patterns that continues to shape our mode of knowing, analysis and experience like a magical spell. The perceptual knot is the habitual tendency to reify and Emptiness is the antidote for this reifying tendency.
The journey of emptying also convinces me the importance of having the right view of Emptiness even though it is only an intellectual grasped initially. Non-conceptuality has its associated diseases…lol…therefore I always advocate not falling to conceptuality and yet not ignoring conceptuality. That is, strict non-conceptuality is not necessary, only that habitual pattern of reification needs be severed. Perhaps this relates to the zen wild fox koan of not falling into cause and effect and not ignoring cause and effect. A koan that Hakuin remarked as "difficult to pass through".
Not falling, not ignoring.
A word different, a world of difference.
And the difference causes a wild fox for five hundred lifetimes!
A long post and time to return to silence.
Nice chat and happy journey David!
June 26 at 1:33am · Edited · Unlike · 9

David Vardy Thank you John. This is a real pleasure. It’s like having a first flush cup of Tung Ting after a few years of drinking Lipton. This feels similar to when Soh happened to pop up in another forum that I was in. What he said then, and continues to say, is perennially refreshing.
“This led to the taste of instant liberation at spot of not only the background (self) but the cognized, seen, heard, tasted, smelled and sensed without the need to subsume either subject into object or object into subject but liberates whatever arises at spot.”
Functioning, in the absence of clinging as it were, seems to be self-consuming much like a fire burning, the fuel being what appears to be arising. Whatever arises is consumed by the very nature of the activity itself. What we’re featured doing it seems is making ‘still lifes’ (reification) out of the flames, assumed to be living as such, but only in memory. When this functioning isn’t appearing against a background, and there can only be a conceptual background, then what pops up only survives as long as it’s noticed. If there was anyone to be continuously surprised by all this, slack jaw would probably be an ongoing problem.....lol
For many years, 23 to be exact, I worked in a small kitchen of my restaurant. We had two windows looking into the dining room including a distant view of the street in front of our restaurant. I remember to this day, the first impact of seeing people walking by in the street, disappearing stage left, disappearing stage right, appearing from stage left, appearing from stage right. What was a surprise back then, slowly became a virtual matter of fact. There just isn’t a way to create a story of what’s happening to those people, do they have lives, where do they go, what happens to them. etc. in the absence of a background. In many ways, this is just about seeing things as they arise in the absence of stories. What can’t be described is the utter simplicity of it, and in one sense, it’s the one thing that isn’t required because, in fact, that’s all that’s happening.
This then translates to our daily ‘lives’. When someone shows up who you haven’t seen for sometime you ask out of genuine curiosity how they’ve been, what’s been happening because they’ve simply been out of mind and out of sight, not asking out of mere habit.
So long as there’s reification, deconstruction is required. The nature of deconstruction can at first be tedious, but eventually it just becomes what has to happen. There’s no getting around it. When it becomes as natural as a fire burning, then we can trust that what’s happening is what’s happening and their need not be concern for outcomes, a future, a past, whatever. It’s not different from experiencing a wound heal. Patience I’ve discovered has been my best friend. Sometimes these things feel as if they can take an eternity....lol When it’s understood that the undercurrent is far stronger than whatever is appearing at the surface, we give in to the current.
June 26 at 1:43am · Edited · Unlike · 3

John Tan Hi David, I see that you are expressing what I called the +A and –A of emptying.
(+A)
When u cook, there is no self that cooks, only the activity of cooking. The hands moves, the utensils act, the water boils, the potatoes peels …here there is no room for simplicity or complications, the “kitchen” went beyond it’s own imputation and dissolved into the activity of cooking and the universe is fully engaged in this cooking.
(-A)
30 years of practice and 23 years of kitchen life is like a passing thought.
How heavy is this thought?
The whereabouts of this thought?
Taste the nature of this thought.
It never truly arises.
June 26 at 8:43am · Unlike · 8

David Vardy Hi John - Well said. The kitchen is full of metaphors, but once beyond metaphor and measure, there's nothing quite like it. I use to refer to it as being a 'corner of a wall-less room'.
June 26 at 11:25am · Like · 1

Soh:

On "Right View? No View? Semblance":

I wrote to Din Robinson:

Not commenting on Aham Monas as I am unfamiliar with his view. But commenting on your comment:

"Din Robinson yes, I'm asking if you believe your thoughts/views are an accurate reflection of reality"

Which implies that no thoughts and views are an accurate reflection of reality. I don't quite agree with that. That view of yours will lead to the disease of non-conceptuality: http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/.../the-disease-of...

Before Anatta, non-conceptual direct realization of Presence-Awareness can be there, but reified and identified and clung to as some true Self or background behind all phenomena. This is a form of clinging, not liberation. Even though one may rest in a non-conceptual state of Presence, it is not the same as liberation.

Even if the Witness collapses into One Mind and one experiences non-dual luminosity, that luminosity can be reified again into something ultimate, changeless and independent.

As Thusness said in the past (and has been so in my experience), non-dual luminosity is blissful, but emptiness liberates (seeing the nature of Self/Phenomena as empty liberates).

It will be a mistake to think that I, Thusness, and the other members of this group, have not had direct realization of that Presence-Awareness. But we know that is not the key to liberation, merely resting in a state of non-conceptual awareness is not the key to liberation but serves as a basis to investigate the nature of Presence-Awareness further, so that not only is the luminous clarity experienced but its empty nature.

Even after anatta, all experience is self-luminous, lucid/vivid, direct and non-conceptual, without seer-seeing-seen. Although the sense of being a background Witness or Agent is gone, foreground presencing/lucid/vivid phenomena can appear vivid and real, until analyzed by seeing the dependent origination, so that its non-arising is realized. This analysis of dependent origination and dependent designation is at first conceptual and inferential, but eventually a direct, non-conceptual realization of the emptiness and non-arising of foreground Presence can arise. But until direct realization arises, having a proper understanding of dependent origination, dependent designation and emptiness as a semblance (semblance as direct insight has not arisen) can be helpful to aid one's contemplation.

Hence the path of Buddhadharma is about giving rise to direct realization that ends reification, identification and clinging, of both Self and Phenomena as existing inherently, rather than merely resting in a state of Awareness or Clarity (as most teachers and teachings have taught). It is quite unique in this regard from the common non-dual discussion groups out there. The direct realizations are non-conceptual, but it is not induced by merely resting in a non-conceptual state of clarity/presence/awareness (which can happen even at the I AM phase) but by analyzing and contemplating the nature of Presence/Awareness/Experience. First penetrating into anatta (with the wind analogy and weather analogy and the two stanzas of anatta), then into twofold emptiness (the dependent origination and non-arising of all phenomena).

Even so, Pristine Awareness is never denied. As Thusness wrote in 2012, "I do not see practice apart from realizing the essence and nature of awareness. The only difference is seeing Awareness as an ultimate essence or realizing awareness as this seamless activity that fills the entire Universe. When we say there is no scent of a flower, the scent is the flower.... that is because the mind, body, universe are all together deconstructed into this single flow, this scent and only this... Nothing else. That is the Mind that is no mind. There is not an Ultimate Mind that transcends anything in the Buddhist enlightenment. The mind Is this very manifestation of total exertion... wholly thus. Therefore there is always no mind, always only this vibration of moving train, this cooling air of the air-con, this breath... The question is after the 7 phases of insights can this be realized and experienced and becomes the ongoing activity of practice in enlightenment and enlightenment in practice -- practice-enlightenment."

This reminds me of something Thusness wrote years ago which I agree:

John TanThursday, August 21, 2014 at 6:36am UTC+08
I am not into no view...but actualization of right view.

John TanThursday, August 21, 2014 at 7:03am UTC+08
We all know views are only provisional and are approximate of "reality" but some views are better representations of "reality" than others. I am not into "no view", that will lead us into taking "non conceptuality" as the goal of practice. I have no issue adopting "right view", "non conceptuality of view" to me simply means not to let "view" remains intellect and conceptual but have experiential insight and actualized it in daily activities.

...

John TanTuesday, December 30, 2014 at 6:21pm UTC+08
No what I mean is a view and a structure like that of "mere designation" to have a semblance of direct experience of 2 fold and total exertion. Then in each of the phase, to trigger the direct insight, use koan or short stanza for contemplation.

John TanTuesday, December 30, 2014 at 6:22pm UTC+08
So a practitioner will not have a desync of view and experience, there will be a smooth process.

...

John TanMonday, January 5, 2015 at 2:26pm UTC+08
Seeing through first how reifications arise and the deconstruction of these reifications in direct experience (anatta and 2 folds) and then how to correctly apply conventionality as a semblance to "what is".

...

John TanTuesday, January 6, 2015 at 9:12am UTC+08
Semblance because insight has not arisen.

...

John TanTuesday, February 3, 2015 at 8:56am UTC+08
Lol...actually I hv always like Jax's relentless zeal in pointing out the ultimate is direct, immediate and beyond arbitrary concepts. Primordial suchness is free from all elaborations, natural and stainless. Like eating an apple, the taste cannot be conveyed; all concepts of ultimate are at best a semblance, a concordant mental image but I believe no one is contesting that. It is the no practice and unskillful presentation of the ultimate, ignoring two truths and seeing everything as conceptual designation is a nightmare. Phenomena are only realized to be absence and empty when sought and analyzed via dependent arising, otherwise it is amazingly real and vivid. No matter how direct, non-dual and non-conceptual, no experience survives ultimate analysis, when analyze always non-arisen and empty. There is no subsuming of subject into object or object into subject, no skewing to either poles; only always seeing the nature of whatever arises as empty and non-arisen when presented then phenomenon is free and liberating.

...

Look at what that appears quite substantial in experience, it is easier to contemplate like "the green color of my yoga matt" because the "green-ness" doesn't disappear...clearly it is "green" but is it? We keep contemplating and realized it isn't truly there at all. We must infer for non-conceptuality cannot bring us to that realization...there it is conceptual + non-conceptual to "awake" this insight of absence while in vivid presence. What most practitioner missed is they hold too tightly to non-conceptuality and therefore are denied of this realization. We then bring this taste to the entire scenery and ask where is in this scenery...it must be in a non-dual of just scenery to bring this actual taste upon one's own empty clarity...then the whole entire experience turns illusion-like. Then we bring this to the more insubstantial phenomena like sound, sensation, scent...just one's empty clarity ... Vividly there while absence...not being constantly dissolved.

It is a 2 mode (analysis via DO + non-dual no mind experience) of cognition into right contemplation as a practice...


Also, Thusness wrote in Jan 2015:

From "hereness"...everything is clearly here but there is no "here"....to scenery...where is this scenery ... Where is this clear "redness" of the flower...

Now I know how to express in prasangika terms - "A" being negated of the existence of "A"


From "hereness"...everything is clearly here but there is no "here"....to scenery...where is this scenery. If not how I dare to say the "key" is in translating the insight from inferring consciousness into a taste then dropped the habit to capture by inference after one is familiar with the illusion-like experience ... ... Where is this clear "redness" of the flower...

Look at what that appears quite substantial in experience, it is easier to contemplate like "the green color of my yoga matt" because the "green-ness" doesn't disappear...clearly it is "green" but is it? We keep contemplating and realized it isn't truly there at all. We must infer for non-conceptuality cannot bring us to that realization...there it is conceptual + non-conceptual to "awake" this insight of absence while in vivid presence. What most practitioner missed is they hold too tightly to non-conceptuality and therefore are denied of this realization. We then bring this taste to the entire scenery and ask where is in this scenery...it must be in a non-dual of just scenery to bring this actual taste upon one's own empty clarity...then the whole entire experience turns illusion-like. Then we bring this to the more insubstantial phenomena like sound, sensation, scent...just one's empty clarity ... Vividly there while absence...not being constantly dissolved.

It is a 2 mode (analysis via DO + non-dual no mind experience) of cognition into right contemplation as a practice...

Having vivid experience and we look into the dependent arising of this vivid presence of experience...where is "hereness", just a formation of sense impression...clearly everything is here but "where"....this has the same effect of throwing one into illusion-like spaciousness...not only does it point to dependent arising and empty nature and also points us right back into one's clarity.

They [Advaita] are simply looking at the deconstruction of subject/object duality and the clarity that comes from such a state. This experience is important to nyingma as well as other schools too but that is simply part of the it. More importantly is to understand the non-arisen nature of whatever dependently originates. Many pride non-conceptuality over conceptuality and that is the problem. They refuse to analyze properly because there is this wrong impression that they already have a vivid experience of non-conceptual non-dual clarity, why the need to step back... The "when analyze" is key in madhyamaka because insight of non-arisen via dependent arising will not dawn without analysis.

Imo it is crucial to look at "dependencies" and "absence" as two distinct separate insights and later unite them. If masters and teachers can device koans style to trigger the "aha" moment of these 2 insights in a direct way and later the skillful unity of them, it will be great.

In addition to debates, one must seriously contemplate and realize the limitations of even the direct non-dual and non-conceptual mode of perception. Over pricing it can be a disservice. Prajna wisdom (wisdom of emptiness) is a deep realization that arises from the maturing of non-dual perception + inferring consciousness. It needs both. Btw, open spaciousness is a presence, not an absence.

So "profound absence" is triggered by ultimate analysis and integrated in an experience of non-dual Presence as empty and non-arisen. Therefore illusion-like spaciousness comes from both.
It is not easy to see this but go contemplate deeper.
I am referring the 4th level of realizing the "absence", clearly appear but "not exactly there". So analysis via DO triggers the realization of the absence and the dependencies whereas direct non-dual perception is about Presence.


Someone wrote: “I think something that might be totally crazy here but, isn't viewing things as mere conditioned arisings subtly reifying things to be a thing which is conditioned?”

I replied:

Depends on how it’s understood. Understood in the following way, conditionality does not reify but serves as a semblance for total exertion and empty clarity, +a and -a
emptiness.

Does dependent arising require some “thing” to depend on?

Greg Goode:

Steve,  Madhyamika interprets the "thingness" gestalt as a type conception, a way of reacting or conceptualizing words or concepts or sensations, as if there were existence involved.  Maybe some words seem to invite this kind of reifying conceptualization more than others - we usually feel that more physical-sounding, more concrete words entail a more independent kind of existence.  But Madhyamika would refute this kind of existence across the board.

Does "dependent arising" require there is (A) something dependent that arises, and (B) something that A is dependent on?   Even though Madhyamika itself refutes this?

Not according to Madhyamika itself.  When A is said to be dependent, the meaning is that is is not INdependent.  It is not self-sufficient, it has no essence or true nature.

What does "dependent" mean?  Dependence is usually broken down into three types.  Phenomenon A relies on pieces and parts, on conditions, and on conceptual designation.

But none of these things (pieces + parts, conditions, conceptual designation) is an inherent, self-standing thing.  Each of these things itself dependent.

This kind of dependency is not linear, tracing back to an original first cause or universal stopping point.  It's more like a web of dependencies.  It's not arborial, it's rhizomatic.
----

Years ago:

Greg Goode: Different types of dependency: several people have given examples, and here's another one.

A table..

1. A table depends on legs, a top, screws and braces (parts)
2. A table depends on being constructed, and trees, and sun and air, and builders (causes and conditions).
3. A table depends on being conceptualized and designated as a table.

This is the subtle one. Let's say you see a leg and a top. Do you see a backrest? No, so you won't call this a chair. The designation goes like this - you see some forms, and make them out as legs and a top. You give those forms the name, label, designation of "table."

This is subtle because the table is not exactly equal to the parts. The table cannot equal the parts, because then, if the parts change, the parts would be different, and so, following the equation, the table would have to change. Another reason the equality cannot hold is that there are many parts and only one table. The table cannot equal the *collection* of parts, because if the parts change, or if a leg gets broken off, or swapped out, then the collection changes. So the table would have to be a different table.

But we really don't want to say that the table would be different just because the parts are different. We want to somehow say that the table can remain relatively stable as the same table, even if the parts change, or get painted, etc.

And at the same time, we cannot find a truly existent, unchanging table behind or within the parts. If we did find such a truly existent table, then we wouldn't need to designate the parts as a table. But we do. It makes no sense that the table would really be a table if no one had ever in history designated anything as a table.

So we allow ourselves to end up saying, in a loose, conventional way, that the table depends on the parts, but is not the parts. It's a table in name only. this kind of naming is the designation-aspect of the dependency.

And this loose, conventional approach to tables and selves and life and all things is the experience of emptiness. It's a free, flexible, sweetly joyful, open-hearted way of life....

John Tan: And also functionality. A Chariot continues to function even with some of its parts missing. Dependencies based on parts, causes and conditions, relations, functions and imputations.

**Important: Does dependent arising require some “thing” to depend on?
**Important: All Things are Conceptual Designations
**Important: A Sun That Never Sets (Written by Kyle Dixon)
**Important: Putting aside Presence, Penetrate Deeply into Two Fold Emptiness
**Important: Nondual Emptiness Teachings
**Important: Fully Experience All-Is-Mind by Realizing No-Mind, Conditionality, Unreality and Non-Arising
**Important: Quotes by Dogen
**Important: Emancipation of Suchness
**Important: Buddha-Dharma: A Dream in a Dream

**Important: Zen Patriarch Bodhidharma on the Inseparability of Awareness and Conditions
**Important: Emptiness as Viewless View and Embracing the Transience
**Important: Actualization in Mundane Life and Encounters 
Ultimate and Relative 
Fully Experience All-Is-Mind by Realizing No-Mind and Conditionality 
Daniel's Post on Anatta/Emptiness
Realization, Experience and Right View and my comments on "A" is "not-A", "not A" is "A" 
Non-Arising Because of Dependent Origination
Being-Time by Shinshu Roberts (more on Total Exertion)
Dharma Body (more on Total Exertion)
How Experiential Realization Helps in Liberation
Emptiness as Unity
Two-Way Dependency/Dependent Designation
Another Kind of Self-Inquiry: Chandrakirti’s Sevenfold Reasoning on Selflessness
Dependent Arising and the Emptiness of Emptiness: Why did Nagarjuana start with causation? 
Advice from Kyle Dixon
Dzogchen vs Advaita, Conventional and Ultimate Truth (Written by Kyle Dixon, with comments by Thusness)
Greg Goode on Advaita/Madhyamika
Purpose of Madhyamaka?
Leaving traces or Attainment?
A casual comment about Dependent Origination
Reply to Yacine
Phagguna Sutta: To Phagguna
Where did by breath go? (luminousemptiness blog; read article + comments by PasserBy/Thusness) 
All Experience is Mind (luminousemptiness blog; read article + comments by PasserBy/Thusness)
True Mind and Unconditioned Dharma
The place where there is no earth, fire, wind, space, water 
Two Types of Nondual Contemplation after I AM
Finally, now that my dukkha of examinations has ceased, at least for a while, I've some time to type out something I wanted to share for a long time. Bernie Glassman is a real bodhisattva. I actually have this book 'Infinite Circle' with me for many years but it is only now that the book resonates. I'm starting to read it.

Ah wait as I'm typing this I found that it's already typed online, so it saves me from the trouble of typing.

Bernie Glassman:





Chapter One


No Yellow Brick Road


The Heart of the Perfection of Great Wisdom Sutra
Maha Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra


The Wisdom literature, or the Prajnaparamita sutras, exists in many different lengths. There are versions of one hundred thousand, twenty-five thousand, eight thousand, one hundred, and fifty lines. The version I'm discussing here is twenty-four lines and represents the heart (hrdaya), or essence, of the Prajnaparamita.
    Some people say it's not necessary to read the Heart Sutra in its English translation, that the essence of this Wisdom literature can be achieved by just chanting it in the original Sanskrit. Before I review the meaning of the title, let me say that when you truly just chant the Heart Sutra, all of it is contained in the act of just chanting. When we chant in such a way that nothing else is happening, that all our concentration, all our mental and physical energies are condensed into just being the sound A (the first syllable of the original text, from "Avalokitesvara"), that is all that exists. Just A! Just the elimination of any trace of separation between subject and object, which is nothing but our zazen itself. If we put all our energy into just chanting in this manner, there is no separation, and that state of no separation is the state of sunyata, or "emptiness," or what I also call not-knowing. That is the state of 100 percent action; everything is fully concentrated in this very moment. This is the heart of our practice, to be totally in this moment, moment after moment. It doesn't matter what words are being chanted; when you are totally A, it is not even A anymore; it is the whole universe, it is everything.
    This is the essence of the first word of the Sanskrit title of the Heart Sutra: Maha. The entire title in Sanskrit is Maha Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra, or in English, The Heart of the Perfection of Great Wisdom Sutra. In a way, the whole text—as well as all of Zen teaching—is summed up in this title.
    Maha is commonly translated as "great" in both a quantitative and qualitative sense—in fact in a very special sense. Maha is so great that there is no outside. An analogy from mathematics may help. If you draw a circle, that circle includes certain things and excludes certain things. If you make a larger circle, there are still going to be things outside the circle. In mathematics, one way of defining a circle or determining its size is by trying to find something outside it. You ask of any given object, "Is this inside or outside?" If it's outside, then you know the object is exterior to the circle.
    Let's look at ourselves. I draw a circle representing who I think I am. In a way, we all do that. When I say that maha means there's no outside, then any object I name is inside the circle of myself, of who I think I am. Everything is nothing but me. If I look at anger, that's me; it's not outside me. If I look at the trees and the river, they're me, too; they're not outside me. Everybody reading this book is me. Moreover, the stars and moon are me; they're not outside. If this is true, then each one of us is this maha. If we are all within the same circle, then all of this is One Body; there is no outside. Since there is no outside, there is no inside either. This is one of the major teachings of Buddhism and one of the fundamental teachings of Zen.
    When we introduce the term outside, that automatically introduces the correlative term inside and creates a boundary, a circle. If there is no outside—for the circle is infinite—then not only is there no inside, there is also no circle anymore. What remains is a single entity, just one thing. This is what is meant by One Body, which is the fundamental meaning of maha.
    Maha is all-inclusive, nothing is left out. In this sense maha also describes what's known as the Way (Tao). Since maha is no-outside-and-no-inside, it is therefore the Way. By contrast, people tend to think that the Way is some kind of path, or that it refers to the way of doing things or some sort of direction that we take. But the Tao is everything. Each of us is the Way; each of us is walking the Way.
    You remember Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz? Someone sets her on the yellow brick road so that she will finally get to the Wizard of Oz. But there is no yellow brick road! We are already on it. Wherever we are, that is the yellow brick road, that's the Tao, that's maha. And maha declares that there is no outside or inside to the path. Everything is the path; we are all on the Way. Where? It doesn't go anywhere! It's the pulsating of life everywhere.
    The second word in the title is Prajna, which is usually translated in English as "wisdom," but in a special sense. In some meditation halls, a monitor hits the shoulders of the meditators with an encouraging stick known as the sword of wisdom, or Manjusri's sword, to help cut off their delusions during meditation, to cut away all their ideas and notions. So this prajna is not wisdom in the sense of knowledge or a gathering of information, nor does it refer to an omniscient sage who knows all the answers. It's not even the wisdom implied in understanding the essence of life. We speak of prajna as the wisdom of emptiness.
    Prajna is empty in the sense that it has no content of its own. It's nothing but the functioning of maha, which is the One Body, or everything as it is. It's the functioning of reality at this very moment, of nothing but this very moment. Being hot, we sweat; the very act is prajna. Sweating is the wisdom of being hot because it's the functioning of this moment as being hot. You light a candle and the light itself is prajna. When we walk in the rain, we get wet—that's prajna. We step on a dog turd and our shoe stinks—that's prajna, the functioning of what is.
    A Nazi putting a young child into the Auschwitz gas chamber is also prajna, so we can't look at prajna in terms of right and wrong, good and bad. The sword of Manjusri, the sword of wisdom, cuts away all dualisms, leaving only what is. The functioning of that state is prajna. It's so vast that most of the time we don't realize we're even experiencing it. For example, you are experiencing a leaf falling from a tree somewhere in Connecticut right now, even though you don't realize it. That's prajna. It's the sounds that we hear, the rain, the sunlight, the smell of flowers, the airplane overhead—directly experienced as not being separate from us. When our ideas or concepts drop away, so does the separation from what is, and the very functioning of this nonseparation is what we mean by prajna. Because prajna is the functioning of maha and maha is nothing but us, prajna is our functioning and we are nothing but prajna.
    The first half of the Heart Sutra explains what this prajna is. The second half explains the functioning of the bodhisattvas, those who realize this prajna. We all manifest prajna, but bodhisattvas have a realization of what it is. It turns out that we are bodhisattvas too, as we shall soon see.


The next word in the title is paramita, which is often translated as "perfection." However, param literally means "to go to the other shore." Paramita is the present perfect tense ("having gone to the other shore"), so it means "at the other shore." Do you know where the other shore is? Some people call the other shore nirvana. Being at the other shore thus means that nirvana is already here. It signifies that we have already gotten to the place where we are this One Body. Instead of thinking of going from the state of delusion to the state of enlightenment, what paramita means is that we are already there. This is the other shore; this is the state of enlightenment.
    We talk about six paramitas, of which prajnaparamita is only one. But the Heart Sutra deals with prajna as the vehicle that takes us where we already are—this is it! Now obviously, if everything is nothing but the One Body, how could there be another shore? On the other hand, if this was so clear to us we'd have no need for Manjusri's sword cutting off the delusion of duality. But we do! For although there is no other shore, it is neither obvious nor acceptable to us. We are always searching for that other shore, for something extra, something outside ourselves, thinking it is some wonderful place we are going to find. We refuse to accept the fact that this is it.
    We don't go to the other shore; the other shore comes to us. Something happens, and we awaken to the realization that under our feet lies the shoreline. This very body is the Buddha, and all the sounds of the world—everything that happens as is—are the Buddha's teachings.
    Everything in Zen is present perfect tense. There is no future, no past—it's all now. There's nowhere to go, nowhere to reach, it's all here, all One Body, one thing. Since we are already here, we are already at the end of the path and we are also at the beginning. We don't practice to become enlightened, we don't practice to realize something; we practice because we are enlightened. We don't eat to live; because we are alive, we eat. We usually think it's the other way around, that we eat and breathe so we'll be or remain alive. But no because we're alive, we breathe, we eat, we do.
    To say that we practice to realize the Way misses the point, because it implies that through practice we're going to attain something, maybe enlightenment. That same logic implies that because we breathe, we're going to be alive, as if being alive results from breathing. No, both are happening at the same time. They're not linear; cause and effect are one.
    We generally tend to look at life from a linear perspective: We do something and that causes something else to happen later. But in fact it's all happening at this very moment. There seems to be a linear sequence, but it's not real. Looking at a movie, we think it's continuous, but in fact it's composed of separate frames. Reality—everything—is here right now. Our minds think that what happens this moment is going to create the next moment, and in a way it does, but this way of seeing things is misleading. Both what happens now and what happens later are all here right now, this very moment.
    If we stop breathing, of course, we won't live very long. Because breathing is the very function of life, one can't not breathe. But breathing doesn't cause life, it's inseparable from it. Breathing is life. It can no more be separated from life than wetness from water. The oneness of cause and effect is this complete inseparability.
    Dogen Zenji says that firewood does not become ash. From our linear viewpoint, we think that the burning of firewood causes the firewood to become ash. But there is no such thing as becoming! Firewood is firewood and functions as firewood; ash is ash and functions as ash. Breathing is life, life is breathing; they're not related as cause and effect. Just as firewood does not become ash, so life does not become death. Life is life and functions completely as life. Death is death and functions completely as death.
    To say there is no such thing as becoming follows from the fact that this is all One Body, all one thing. It does not mean that things don't change. Shakyamuni Buddha said that everything is change. This is it—and it's changing. This is the enlightened state and it's changing. If we can really see that, if we can really let it soak in, there is no way to be upset about ourselves, no way to feel dissatisfied or guilty about not doing things right. It's all going to change, whatever it is. Instead of being tormented by guilt and bad feeling, we simply say, "Well, let's do it better." Whatever it is, is the enlightened state.
    Since this is the enlightened state, it is the best that could happen at this very moment—but best in the special sense that it's happening and there is no choice. It is in this sense that we say everything is perfect just as it is, in the sense of being complete. Take an incense bowl. It's perfect as it is. If I drop it and it breaks into a lot of pieces, each piece is perfect as it is—because that's what it is. We may have the notion that all those pieces should be returned to their original condition as parts of a whole incense bowl so they can be perfect again, but that's just a notion.
    Another synonym for perfect is absolute. The pieces are just what they are. If we add anything to the incense bowl, we don't make it more perfect, we change it to something different. We are perfect as we are. If we add another head on top of our own, we create something else, another kind of creature. If we add anything to who we are, we're something different. Therefore, whatever happens at any given moment is the best that could happen at that moment. Any other conclusion is the result of our ideas about how things should be or are supposed to be, and these too are just notions.
    Sometimes it helps to think of perfect, or complete, or absolute in mathematical terms, meaning that nothing is left out. Again, take an incense bowl. Is there anything left out? We can say, "Well, it should have a top, the top is missing." At that moment we're pointing to something not there that we want to be there. We're coming out of our notions of what an incense bowl should look like.
    There is a wonderful little story from the Surangama Sutra that illustrates the point I am making. Once upon a time there was a prince who, upon waking up, would look at himself in the mirror and exclaim, "Ah! Beautiful!" He was very handsome and he loved himself. One day he woke up and picked up the mirror the wrong way. Because the back of the mirror was not polished, he could not see his face in it and he panicked. "My head is gone! My head is gone! It's missing! It's missing!" He went completely berserk. Running into the streets yelling in this manner, he searched everywhere to find his missing head.
    Eventually some friends saw him and grabbed him, saying, "You have your head. Why are you running around like this?" "No, my head is gone!" the prince insisted. They took him back to the palace but were unable to calm him down. They did not have straitjackets in those days, so they tied him to a pillar. He screamed so loudly they had to gag him. So there he was, bound and gagged, struggling to break loose so he could continue searching for his missing head. Finally, he got tired. (You can only struggle for so long.) When he had calmed down somewhat, one of his friends hit him in the face, and the prince shouted, "My head! It's there after all!"
    For a few days he was beside himself with joy, telling everyone he'd found his head. His head was there, how wonderful! But when all his friends just looked at him in disbelief, he finally stopped being so exuberant about having found his head. It had always been there.
    We have a notion that something is missing or not here, and one day we awaken to the fact that it is here, if only we could see it. And what is here? Just what we are, as we are. Our preconceptions and ideas block our acceptance and realization of this simple truth.
    Because perfect means neither good nor bad, just what is as it is, even the murder of a child is perfect in this sense. It is just what it is. Good and bad are the judgments we add to what is—they're extra. Rain is what is. If we are farmers, we tend to say rain is wonderful; if we're planning a picnic, we think rain is terrible. But rain is rain. People say rain is wet, but a fish wouldn't. Water is the very essence of life to the fish, neither wet nor dry. The fish attaches no notions or dichotomies to it. When we say that something is perfect, we're pointing to this absence of dichotomy or dualism. Within the One Body, there is just one thing happening.
    The brain functions in a dualistic way, breaking things up into this and that. It judges everything we do as good or bad, right or wrong. But good and bad, including the notion of evil, are extra. This does not mean that evil does not exist or that good and bad do not exist. It simply means that they're judgments that exist in the realm of the relative, colors we add to the thing itself. They're as the woof is to the warp, which brings me to the last word of the title, Sutra.
    Sutra has several meanings. We have the English word suture, a joining or sewing of two together into one. Sutra also means warp, the threads that run through everything, the foundation threads of a weaving, or the interweaving of all things. The threads that run through everything are everything. So the sutra is the plane we hear flying outside. Breathing in and out is the sutra. All the discourses of this One Body are the sutra.

In weaving, the warp is the vertical threads, the woof the horizontal threads. For the warp, one chooses strings that are strong, unvariegated, simple, plain, without knots so they can tolerate lots of movement in any direction very easily. What the warp does is support the pattern give it its basic tone. The threads of the woof don't have to be straight, usually they represent the pattern, so any threads can be used: splinters of wood, feathers, even horsehairs! The more complicated the weave, the more effect the color has on the tone. Together, the warp corresponds to the absolute, the woof to the relative, the weaving itself is their oneness. So the sutras are the strings or threads that run through everything, that allow all motion, all forms of life. But what is it that runs through everything and allows everything and anything to manifest?

Let's look at the word Heart in the title. As we have seen, the heart or essence of the Enlightened Way is not-knowing which makes it possible for everything and anything to manifest. As soon as we know something, we prevent anything else from manifesting, from just popping up. As soon as we know something, we limit the thing we think we know. The state of not-knowing is everyone, everything, and anything, constantly manifesting, constantly popping up in accord with changes in time and situation. But if we live out of knowing, this endless manifestation of things, one after another, can't be experienced directly. We're blocked by our notions of what should be happening and get upset because our expectations don't match the way things really are. When we let go of our expectations, we are with things as they are, and we realize the essence or heart of the Perfection of Great Wisdom Sutra.

Maha Prajnaparamita Hrdaya Sutra:
The whole message is right here. If we could really see this word maha, see this One Body, see this one garden that is us, the world would look different. Instead of seeing trees, soil, manure, and flowers as different, separate things, we'd see them as One Body with different qualities, features, and characteristics. We'd see that when we cultivate the soil, we cultivate all the rest. Taking care of the tree affects the flowers; taking care of a flower affects the soil.

In the same way, we usually see the body as a limited, bound thing, yet we know that it has many features -- hands, toes, numerous hairs and pores (all different), skin, bones, blood, guts, an assortment of organs, many feet of intestines. But they're all just one body with many, many features and characteristics. Hit one part and the whole feels it; the entire body is affected. Eat some food and what part is not affected? Breathe, what part is not affected?

Using the human body as a model of the One Body is a little misleading because the One Body has no outside or inside. We have to see this, we have to see maha. How do we see maha? We wake up!

Piotr quoted something nice by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche:

"Nonduality does not mean that you dissolve into the world or that the world becomes you. It is not a question of oneness, but of zero-ness. No synchronization of the sense perceptions is necessary. Everything is reduced into zero, and the whole thing becomes one-pointedness—or zero-pointedness. That is moksha, or “freedom.” You do not have any hassles and no synchronization is necessary. Things just unfold by themselves."


Thusness also wrote:

The tendency to unify is the cause of reification. Consciousness always subsume into Oneness because the idea is so beautiful to the mind and fits so well to the inherent intellect. The very act of unification into oneness prevents the seeing of liberation at spot. Instant liberation at spot is realized by recognizing the very nature of appearances/phenomena and self is non-arising and empty, it is not resting in/as Awareness or space. The former is liberation via wisdom, the later is just Awareness teaching.