Practice Shouldn't Make You Special

Case

Emperor Wu of Liang asked Great Teacher Bodhidharma, “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?”

Bodhidharma said, “Vast Emptiness—there’s nothing holy.”

The emperor said, “Who is this facing me?”

Bodhidharma said, “I Don’t know.”

The emperor didn’t understand. Bodhidharma subsequently crossed the Yangtse River, came to Shaolin, and faced a wall for nine years.

There is a lot to unpack here in this Koan. Just to get some preliminary explanation out of the way, Bodhidharma was the first ancestor of Zen Buddhism in China. Bodhidharma was from the Indian subcontinent and left there to bring the “mind to mind” direct transmission of awakening of the Zen tradition. This zen tradition is said to have began with Shakyamuni Buddha turning a flower, upon which Mahakashyapa smiled. It is said that this turning and this smiling was the first authentic transmission of the Buddha mind.

So, While Buddhism was already being practiced in China at the time of Bodhidharma’s (from here on Daruma) arriving in China, what wasn’t being practiced was the “transmission outside words and letters” of the zen school, based on this mind to mind transmission from Shakyamuni Buddha to Mahakashyapa. This is what Daruma was bringing to China, The practice/awakening of dharma, or the reality.

“What is the highest meaning of the holy truths” points directly to what is always beings asked about dharma/zen, even today. What is the most important part? What is the turning phrase or verse that will set me free from suffering? There must be something more than just the practice of zazen and forms that is transmitted from teacher to disciple. Complicated teachings, or philosophical outlooks must be important to awakening. I must have some grand experience of floating up on a lotus flower above the clouds, my mind bursting with all the awareness of the universe with a bright halo forming behind me just like a statue of a Buddha. The expectations is, I must get something out of the dharma that makes me better, holy, or different than I am now. So, why isn’t this happening?

The thing is, There is nothing like that. I doubt even Gautama experienced something like that. And, if he did, I’m sure he saw through that experience as nothing more than a sensory event that happened. Experiences like this can mean a lot of things to us, but are also a huge hindrance to the unfolding of reality as the unconditioned “self.”

Now, I’m not trying to say that these awakening experiences don’t happen, they clearly do as many people have written about them in the past, present, and will in the future. However, I think we all make some assumptions about these experiences that are not helpful or accurate to life as awakening.

The first assumption that should be discarded is that we are in any way special for having an awakening experience, or Kensho. In the Buddha-dharma we are all Buddhas, so really, nobody is special. Or, maybe everyone is special, so therefor nobody is special. We are all interconnected and don’t exist separate from anything else. We are just conditioned aspects of an unborn undying nature. What are the conditioned aspects, the coming together of elements that create sensory experiences that build on a notion of self that we interpret as “me” that has an existence that is separate from “you” or anything else in the universe. Yet, when the conditions expire, i.e. death arrives, we experience the dissolution of our physical self that drops away our mental self. So, we believe we are no longer part of the conditioned universe and we are “gone” from this place.

That has SOME truth to it, but by no means is it the entire truth. My 2 and a half year old daughter asked me, when her fish died, where he was. I explained that the fish had died. She naturally asked me what that means. I said it means that we cannot see the fish as we saw it before. She asked “Papa, how do I see the fish now?” That is a great question. If we look with the eyes of Buddha we can still see the fish in this universe. We cannot see it in its relative sense, because that fish was composed of conditioned elements that no longer are collected together, having scattered about to earth, fire, wind, water, and space.

The heat (fire) from the fishes body living life has dissipated, the breathe (wind) of the fish no longer functions in the gills, the blood and fluids in the fish’s body (water) no longer are contained, and the space that was in between all the “fish” atoms is no longer bound to them. In essence the universe is no longer contained in the aspect of this fish.

I then told my daughter that if she wants to see the fish, she just needs to look around and experience the world as nothing other than her fish. You can still talk to the fish, see the fish in the changing of seasons, and see the fish even in yourself as memories and experiences of the fish.

The unconditioned nature of the fish (Buddha) is no more, nor less present than before.

Her fish died months ago, but yet my daughter still looks on the mantel where the fish bowl was and occasionally asks about her fish. Each time I repeat that we can no longer see the fish as it was. We can only now see the unconditioned nature of the fish in everything we see. Later, when she asks about the fish I can even explain that each time we saw the fish while it was alive, it still wasn’t the same fish as the moment before either. So, in a sense we never experienced the fish actually, but a continuous process of the universe being a fish.

This is true for all of us.

So what does this have to do with the case Koan? Well, “What is the highest meaning of the holy truths?” What is the most important meaning of Buddha-dharma?

Bodhidharma said, “Vast Emptiness—there’s nothing holy.” Vast emptiness is the essence of everything. Nothing is of any substance that is outside the universe. It is impossible to add, or to take away anything from everything that is. How can you add anything on earth, to the Earth? It was already on Earth to begin with. Vast emptiness does not mean a negation of anything, nor does it mean an affirmation of anything. It is beyond both affirming and negation. Vast emptiness is infinite potential for anything. All things are made up of emptiness meaning they have no existence that is outside of anything else.

This means that there is nothing holy, nor unholy. There is nothing stained, nor immaculate. No increasing, no decreasing, no birth, death, ignorance, nor enlightenment. No attaining and no non-attaining. Experiencing this truth of nothing holy, vast emptiness, and non-duality, we finally arrive at the unborn/undying. Within the unborn/undying there is nothing to be holy nor unholy.

The emperor said, “Who is this facing me?” So if everything is empty of an independent existence and is nothing more than a conditioned self, who is the true self? Who is this Bodhidharma facing me? This is the “Gotcha” moment the emperor is looking for. But, unfortunately he doesn’t get it. This happens a lot when folks want to be right, more than anything. I’m often asked questions like, “If desire is so bad, what about the desire for enlightenment, huh!?”

Again, within emptiness all things are without a separate substance so even desire is no desire, nothing to desire, nothing to covet and nothing coveted. That is why the prajna Paramita heart sutra states:

“…No gain, thus the bodhisattva lives Prajna Paramita, with no hindrance in the mind; no hindrance, therefore no fear. Far beyond deluded thoughts; this is Nirvana. All past, present, and future buddhas live Prajna Paramita and therefore attain anuttara samyaksambodhi (Complete perfect awakening).

What is there to desire in emptiness? Who is desiring it?

Now back to our original story, the “gotcha” moment the emperor is hoping for. If everything is empty, who are you then, huh? Daruma replies, “ I don’t know.” This I don’t know is not in the intellectual sense, of I cannot think of an answer, but from the experiential knowledge of emptiness. To put an answer in front of th emperor would be to limit this understanding of emptiness. “I” don’t know because there is nobody and nothing as the essence of anything. Again nothing exists apart from anything that is already existing. There is never anything outside of everything, so who is it that is sitting before me, at its essential nature, I don’t know is the most accurate answer. You cannot define the undefinable.

All of this is a roundabout way to discuss how practice cant make you a something. If it has, perhaps the need to reinvestigate Bodhidharma’s “ I don’t know” is in order.