Within this post, it is my hope to tease out and clarify some of how practices relating to emptiness work. For our purposes, let us describe emptiness practices that fall into two camps.
- Practices for penetrating through ignorance to the direct realization of the true nature of mind
- Practices that evoke, further develop and deepen these types of realizations
Practices for penetrating through ignorance
These types of practices generally should be a primary focus of development for the Dharma practitioner that has yet to experience direct realization of the nature of reality (initial awakening, stream-entry, kensho, etc.) These practices help develop the liberating type of wisdom that comes from clear seeing of certain perspectives (vipassanā that develops paññā).
Taking refuge in the triple gem, and living in line with virtue and the Buddhist precepts are vital as living life in this way sets the conditions that allow the mind to calm, quiet and develop increased capacity for understanding. Many of these practices are also greatly enhanced by the development of tranquilty/stopping (samatha), clarity, unification of mind (samādhi) and in some cases, the states known as jhāna.
If observation could be thought of as a path to liberating wisdom, then the clarity and stability during each moment of observation can be a huge factor in how much impact what is observed carries and how much understanding takes place as a result. This is why tranquility, clarity, and unification of mind, when present, can so greatly aid the speed and depth of the process.
The practices listed below are examples of methods that, when undertaken with patience and diligence, lead to penetration through the dream-like veil of ignorance that the mind operates under prior to awakening.
- Sustained placing the mind on, and returning to, a specific object until samadhi reaches the point of “knowing and seeing things as they are” (as in the Brahmaviharas, and recollection of the Buddha)
- Sustained observation of the fabrication of the perception of “me” and “other” as a sort of container (“inside and outside”, subject and object)
- Sustained inquiry into “Who/what experiences this?”
- Sustained observation of upādāna (fuel or clinging) and what it conditions
- Sustained observation of the 6 elements
- Hardness and softness (earth)
- Liquidity and dispersion (water)
- Warmth and coolness (fire)
- Movement and stillness (air)
- Space
- Consciousness tied to objects
- Directly experiencing and observing the 3 aspects of sense contact coming together for a specific sense door until it is seen through
- Sense object
- Sense organ
- Consciousness of the sense
- Directly experiencing a sense door (or multiple sense doors) leading to realization of “that which experiences”
- Continuously setting conditions for generating a sense of wonderment and “I don’t know”
- Releasing of objectification and conceptualization. This can be accomplished in different ways including using a model based on the Prajnaparamita Sutras (no eye, no visual forms, no emptiness, etc.)
- Generating lack of enchantment through sustained observing of the following behaviors across phenomena:
- Arising, fluxing and ceasing
- Perpetually unsatisfying
- The lack of a “me/I/mine”
- Causality and interdependent relationships
- Disturbance
- Etc.
- Generating lack of enchantment through sustained observation of any of the behaviors across:
- The experiences of body and mind
- The 4 holdings of mindfulness
- Experience of the 5 senses and body
- Feeling tone
- Mental states
- Phenomena
- The 5 aggregates subject to clinging
- Experience of the 5 senses and body
- Feeling tone
- Conceptualization and objectification
- Volition
- Consciousness tied to objects
- Dependent origination
- When this happens, this happens. When this does not happen, this does not happen.
- Etc.
Practices that evoke and deepen the realization of emptiness
Once the realization and penetration through the veil of ignorance takes place, the veil can be broken through again and again by continuing to practice with the types of methods listed above.
There are however, another set of practices that function to evoke, deepen and further develop the realization of the nature of reality that has already been realized. If the previous practices could be thought of as a mining drill, then these practices might be thought of as further excavation once the drill has struck home.
Where the primary function of the prior practices is to lead the mind to realization, these practices function to re-evoke the realization, to directly experience from that perspective, and to deepen and further develop liberating wisdom. As things are seen from this new, increasingly self-less perspective, the old self-centered perspectives and habits are naturally shed and let go of. It becomes apparent that they are not relevant and do not integrate or function within emptiness.
This process is supported by taking and living by the refuges, precepts, repentance of unskillful actions, and development of bodhi mind with the aspiration to help others.
Examples of these practices:
- Observing what thoughts arise out of and cease back into
- Development of the signless/desireless/emptiness gateways.
- Resting in non-doing and non-abiding until the dust settles and mental movement naturally ceases
- Inquiry practices that shift perspective and experience to emptiness
- Letting go of the behavior of disturbance until experience lacks disturbance
Please keep in mind that this is written from the perspective of an overview. It is possible for techniques in the second category can be adapted to, or practiced in such a way to fulfill the needs of the first, and vice versa.
May all beings know peace and ease.