There are three kinds of concentrations
that are available in every school of Buddhism,
northern, southern Buddhism, every school.
That is the practice of the Three Doors of Liberation.
The three concentrations taught in that are:
emptiness, signlessness and aimlessness.
Today we are going to learn
how to put into practice these kinds of concentrations,
because they have the capacity to remove fear and despair
and help us to touch the Ultimate and leave behind our notions,
like birth and death, and so on.
The three concentrations, called Doors of Liberation,
begin with emptiness.
Emptiness does not mean nonexistence; it's quite a different thing.
This morning before the transmission of the Five Trainings,
we chanted the Heart Sutra.
The Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara
in deep meditation found out that the five skandhas are empty.
He was looking deeply into his own person, that is made of form (body), feelings,
perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness,
and found them equally empty.
But to be empty does not mean to be nonexistent.
That is why he said,
"Form is emptiness but emptiness is form."
Emptiness is not nothing.
Suppose we look at this glass.
It looks empty.
But in order for the glass to be empty, it should be there.
In order to be either full or empty, the glass should be there.
So emptiness does not mean nonexistence.
This glass is empty of what?
It is empty of tea,
but it is full of air.
Emptiness is "empty of something."
That question may be very helpful.
So, when we look into this flower, which is described as empty,
what do we see in the flower?
We see the sunshine inside. We see a cloud inside.
You do not need to be a poet to see a cloud floating in the flower.
You know that without the cloud there is no rain, and no flower can grow.
So, it's very clear that this flower is not empty.
It has many things inside.
It's full of sunshine. It's full of cloud.
Then you can see the soil, the earth, the minerals, the gardener.
If you continue, you see the whole cosmos has come together
and helped the flower to manifest as a wonder.
So, in fact, the flower is full of the cosmos.
Why did the Bodhisattva Avalokita say that it is empty?
So, we should ask him,
"Dear Bodhisattva Avalokita, you say this flower is empty.
I want to know, empty of what? It is full of everything."
So, 'empty' means: empty of what?
Or 'full' is: full of what?
Like 'consciousness' is: consciousness of something.
So, the Bodhisattva will tell you:
"Well, you are right. The flower is full of the cosmos.
The only thing it is empty of is a separate existence."
A flower cannot be by herself.
A flower does not have a separate existence, a self-nature.
Self-nature, svabhava.
自性 (Chinese)
Self-existence, self-nature, svabhava.
Everything contains the whole cosmos
but is empty only of a separate existence, of a self-nature.
Because if we remove the non-flower elements from the flower,
there is no flower left.
'Flower', according to Buddhist teachers,
is a conventional designation.
It's only a name: a conventional designation.
Suppose we talk about the Euro or the Dollar.
The Dollar doesn't have a self-nature; it is only a conventional designation.
It doesn't have a self-nature at all.
If everything has a self-nature,
if everything has a self-existence, and does not need others to be there,
then everything will remain the same forever.
Suppose we talk about a child.
A child has no self-nature, no independent existence.
Without the father, the mother, the sunshine, the water, the food,
a child cannot be.
A child is a conventional designation.
That is why a child cannot remain a child forever.
He has to grow into a young man or an adult.
If a child has self-nature, then a child will remain a child forever.
So, nothing has a self-nature, nothing has a self-existence.
Nothing can be by itself.
No self-nature, that is what you touch when you look deeply at everything.
(Bell ringing)
Man, the human being, is a conventional designation.
The human being does not have a self-nature.
Man is made only of non-man elements.
Looking into a human being, we see ancestors.
We have human ancestors, of course,
but we have also animal ancestors,
and we have also vegetable ancestors,
and we also have mineral ancestors.
Man is made of non-man elements.
If we remove all these non-man elements,
animals, plants, minerals, there is no man left.
Man cannot be by himself alone.
Man has to inter-be with animals, plants, and minerals.
That is why, to protect man,
you have to protect animals, vegetables, and minerals.
That is the teaching of the Diamond Sutra.
That's the most ancient text on deep ecology.
Man is made only of non-man elements.
Man cannot be by himself or herself alone.
Man has to inter-be with animals, plants, and minerals.
In order to preserve man,
you have to try to preserve animals, plants and minerals.
That is the teaching of deep ecology in the Diamond Sutra.
When you look into the son,
you see the father, you see the mother, you see the ancestors.
A son cannot exist by himself alone, cannot be by himself alone.
A son or a daughter can only inter-be with parents, ancestors, and so on.
That is not difficult to see.
As a biologist, you can look into the body of a person,
and you see that the person is the continuation of his parents.
All the cells, all the genes
have been transmitted by many generations of ancestors.
If a son gets angry at his father, there is something wrong in it.
There are young men who are so mad at their father,
so angry at their father, that they dare to declare:
"That person? I don't want to have anything to do with him!"
That's nonsense.
Because your father is in every cell of your body.
You cannot remove your father out of you.
The fact is that you are the continuation of your father,
and you are your father.
You cannot take him out of you.
You have no private, separate existence.
That self, the self (atma) does not exist.
A separate existence, some permanent, non-changing entity
- sometimes we call it 'soul' - is not there.
There is nothing unchanging.
When you look deeply into the five skandhas
- form, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness -
you see everything is flowing, everything is changing.
You don't see anything that can remain the same in two consecutive moments,
and therefore a self, a soul, that remains always the same,
does not seem to be something real at all.
There is no unchanging self.
You are empty of a self. You are empty of a separate existence.
Neuroscience can help also.
When we look into the brain, we see a lot of neurons.
They are locking together, they are firing,
they are exchanging information every moment.
There is no neuron that plays the role of the conductor,
the role of the president, the role of the commander.
That is a community of cells that operates like a symphony orchestra,
but there is no conductor.
That's what neuroscience has found out: there is no conductor.
There is a symphony.
In our body there are billions of cells that are working together.
There is no cell that plays the role of the president, of the boss,
of the one who is giving orders.
Therefore, a decision is made, but there is no decision-maker.
A decision is made, but there is no decision-maker outside of the decision.
There is a feeling taking place, but there is no feeler.
There is a perception that happens,
but there is no perceiver existing outside of the perception.
This is very interesting.
I think that practitioners of meditation and scientists can sit together,
and work together, and discover together.
I think that modern science has found out the truth of no-self.
Suppose you talk about the wind,
and you say, "The wind blows."
It looks like there is the wind that does the job of blowing.
It's very funny to say, "the wind blows";
if it's not blowing, it's not the wind.
And we say "the rain falls."
Imagine a rain that does not fall?
If it does not fall, it's not the rain.
So, you can say that there is rain, but you cannot find a rainer.
The same thing is true with our feelings, perceptions, decisions:
there is a decision that is made,
but there is no decision maker existing outside of the decision.
There is a feeling of sadness and of joy,
but there is no feeler standing outside, in the background.
Because there is no self, there is no svabhava,
there is no self-nature; everything is a conventional designation.
Everything depends on everything else in order to express itself,
and that is the teaching of interdependence,
of interconnection.
You cannot be by yourself.
It's impossible to be.
It is possible to inter-be, but it's not possible to be.
That is why the teaching of the Buddha on Genesis
- how the world comes to be - is very easy, very simple:
This is, because that is. This is not, because that is not.
Everything is connected to everything else,
and that is the meaning of emptiness.
Everything is full of everything else,
but everything does not have a separate existence.
That is emptiness.
Emptiness is not something negative.