Emptiness is one of the core teachings of Mahayana and Zen Buddhism. I have found that within Zen communities emptiness is often misunderstood. Emptiness is a difficult to translate word from the Buddhist Tradition that makes us think of voids or black holes, or that empty-feeling of something being “not quite right.” 

Because emptiness is misunderstood it can also be avoided. We can come to practice looking for relief, ease, calm and/or stability in our lives and find that meditation helps with that–without realizing that there is more to the path. Genuine insight into emptiness can help us know a freedom beyond conditions, the inherent rightness in being itself! 

Zen practice is dynamic and diverse, subtle and nuanced. It is non-dual in its nature, which means it is all inclusive. In its inclusiveness, Zen demands of us a deep attention to what is, and a radical honesty with what we see. So often we fail to really see through the layers of delusion that keep us dissatisfied and feeling as if something is wrong.

Zen practice is founded on a particular kind of Faith. Where traditional Buddhist teachings hold up suffering as a core mark of existence, and teach a gradual method of relief from suffering. Zen sees freedom + love as the core of who we are and instructs that we can live from this freedom + love, here and now–in this groundless moment.

Zen’s radical presentation eludes the mind’s ideas of success, progress, perfectionism and purity which we so often bring to our spiritual pursuits.

In this spirit I would like to evoke a koan story from Bodhidharma, the founder of the Zen tradition. 

His student comes to him in distress and says, My mind is not at rest.

BD replies: Well bring me your mind, and I will put it to rest.

Let’s stop there for a moment. Because that is a stop the mind moment. Imagine that for a moment, you turn towards your partner or friend to complain about your restlessness or anxiety or worry. And they say, well bring me the mind that is restless, worried anxious. Bring me your mind!

What do you do? Where do you look? Can you pick up your mind and bring it to some one? Where would you start? How would you do such a thing?

The student continues: I have searched and searched, and I can not find my mind

BD says: See, I have put it to rest for you

In this story, we see that instead of giving him a practice to calm his mind, to apply to the restlessness, instead of listening to his worries and doubts, he empowers his student to look directly at the source of his suffering. To look back at the mind itself.

This empowerment is key. 

One of my clients shared the other day that the best piece of advice that she ever received was when, as a ten year old, the toilet was running and she went to her father to have him fix it. And he replied, you can fix it. She said she replied something like, I’m just an 10 year old girl, I can’t fix it–you have to because you are the Dad. 

He told her, I believe that you can fix it. Go look directly at the problem–

The client said she was able to feel empowered to actually investigate the problem and in doing so, the solution was simple. She remarked how this advice has carried on in her life, where she feels empowered to investigate her so-called problems.

Perhaps this is the Faith and Practice of Zen. We are empowered to look directly at the source of our so-called problems.

If you think there is a problem, look at it directly, investigate it for yourself–look into its source. Or more directly still, look at the one who thinks there is a problem, investigate that sense of contraction, blame, despair, restlessness. Investigate the one who is experiencing it all.

When we take up this inquiry, what can we show? What can be grasped? The sutras say that the self is like a flash of lighting, a bubble in a stream, a dream, a star at dawn–seemingly appearing in an instant, and in that moment already gone.

Emptiness by its very definition is elusive. Emptiness is not dogma but an invitation to inquire deeply into our own experience. It’s not a resting place but the pure possibility inherent in life itself. Realization of emptiness frees spontaneity and creativity.

Zen Teacher Koan Ejo says in his beautiful exposition of practice called the Komyozanmai – “you can not grasp it, you cannot throw it away, it is unattainable, although it is unattainable, it permeates this whole body.”

Other words emerge as English translation–voidness, no-thingness, absence, zero-ness, pure potential energy, boundlessness, spaciousness, inter-being, togetherness, limitlessness.

Emptiness becomes koan for the uninitiated. Koan is an essential part of practice-realization. To exercise the ability of the mind to question itself, to question all assumptions. This is how Mind has the potential to transcend mind.

Emptiness by its very nature questions all of our assumptions about so-called reality. 

For those of you familiar with the Heart Sutra (an essential teaching on emptiness in the mahayana buddhist tradition). The sutra reads as a long series of “no’s”. Showing us all the ways we can get bound up, all the ways we limit ourselves, others and the world. 

If our nature is truly boundless and ungraspable, it seems to say–look at how you attach to, get fixated on–your body’s appearances and how it feels, the moods and mechaniations of mind, state of consciousness, sense experience. 

The Heart Sutra swings the sword of emptiness, which is a sword of radical compassion + freedom, don’t get stuck! It takes away the body, the mind, consciousness, it then proceeds to take away the Buddha’s teachings of the four noble truths, suffering/cause and liberation. Proclaiming that going beyond, beyond, beyond is the way of the bodhisattva practitioner. Any landing place is only temporary, even the insight into emptiness is not a goal as much as a crucial aspect of path.

Thich Nhat Hanh says, emptiness is a wonderful thing–for when we realize that the idea of a separate self is empty, we see that we are full of everything. 

The basic practice of emptiness in the Zen tradition is to sit with an open mind. Non-grasping. As Uchiyama Roshi says, to open the hand of thought. 

There is a koan in the Zen tradition of the seven sisters in the charnel ground. It starts with one sister suggesting that instead of going to view the spring flowers, that the seven sisters instead go to the charnel ground.

Another one retorts, that place is full of dead bodies, what is such a place good for?

Such a question, is an important question in opening up the teachings of emptiness. It is said that when the Buddha started teaching emptiness teachings, some of their students fainted, others walked out. Emptiness teachings directly confront our core insecurities, the ways we manage and try to control things. They invite us to see through, even that. To go beyond the self-improvement project of spiritual practice.

One may ask, What is the space of mind beyond thought good for? Why see into the nature of being? What is emptiness good for?

The first sister replies. Trust me, very good things are there.

And that is what we do when we take the posture of zazen. We enter this fundamental trust. Good things are here, beyond the mind’s label of good and bad.

In his introduction to the Blue Cliff Record Maezumi Roshi quotes this famous expression:

Before awakening, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers

At the moment of awakening, mountains are no longer mountains , nor are rivers rivers

After accomplishing awakening, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers

He goes on to say that we must understand that the mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers experience after awakening is not at all the same as before realization. We can not dispense with the mountains are no longer mountains, nor are rivers rivers aspect, which requires that the individual clearly realize her own true nature.

Although we know that all animate and inanimate beings are intrinsically buddhas, mere knowing is not enough. Dogen Zenji says, “This dharma, is abundantly inherent in each individual, nevertheless, without practice it will not be revealed, and without enlightenment it will not be realized.”

Sharing in these teachings of emptiness helps to keep the inquiry alive, to see what keeps us limited, and to see beyond, to see through, to see that all that appears is without inherent nature, that mind’s nature is boundless, and to let these insights guide our lives from the inside–which means living a life of non-separation, interconnection and compassion.

I am going to be sharing more teachings of emptiness on this sight. If you are interested in exploring the emptiness teachings in your Zen or Dharma practice, please reach out if you would like support.

amy.kisei@gmail.com