Often considered as advanced practices within their respective traditions, emptiness practices can be greatly supported by setting helpful conditions prior to undertaking them. When the experience is more still, clear, bright and agile, the stability, impact and ease of these practices (and the understanding and realizations they lead to) can be greatly enhanced.
If you wish to practice in alignment with this principle, please follow the instructions below as a guide.
Notes on the relationship between insight practice and emptiness
There is often a direct relationship between the depth of practice that has been done with insight/realization of the “liberating perspectives” or qualities and the capacity for depth and accessibility of emptiness practices.
Serious cultivators interested in realizing emptiness should consider intensive training in some of the following insight practices to further open the doors to emptiness practice as needed.
- Directly contemplating/experiencing one or more of the following:
- Mind/body
- Bodily/verbal/mental fabrications
- 4 holdings of mindfulness
- 5 aggregates of clinging
- 6 sense doors.
- Subjecting one of the categories above to direct observation from one of the following “liberating perspectives”:
- Coming/changing/going
- Unsatisfactory-ness
- This cannot be “me”
- When this happens this happens
- Perceiving and releasing disturbance in experiencing
Each of the liberating perspectives can be found within the experience of emptiness.
Cultivating samatha and samādhi
Samatha (calming and stopping) and samādhi (collecting and stabilizing) are qualities that greatly enhance these paths of practice. Samatha and samādhi could be likened to stilling and purifying water so that there is great clarity when gazing through it. While gazing through stirred up muddy water can be done, much less is learned when doing so.
To cultivate these two qualities, regularly undertake the following.
- Take and live by the Buddhist refuges and precepts. This calms the mind and greatly reduces wandering thought and mental movement.
- While sitting in a safe, stable and comfortable position, let the body relax and settle in alignment with gravity, from the top to the ground, including the tongue and inside of the mouth.
- Place the attention on a suitable primary meditation method and let thoughts go by. (For many, mantra and recitation are initially the most effective.)
- Keep in mind that the cultivation of continuity of awareness plays a pivotal role in many emptiness practices. Return to the meditation method whenever the mind wanders.
- Once the experience reaches a point where mind seems more still, clear, bright, and agile, shift to one of the emptiness practices and continue practicing.
The relationship between samatha, samādhi and emptiness
It is quite common to initially mistake samatha and samādhi for emptiness. To avoid this pitfall, it may be helpful to break them into two distinct categories as follows.
- Samatha and samādhi are generally experienced as a quieting and stabilizing of experience. They are the result of increasingly fine fabrication.
- Emptiness is generally experienced as a change in the relationship to experience. It is the result of the absence of fabrication.
The key distinction of samatha and samādhi being the result of fine mental fabrication, and emptiness being the result of an absence of mental fabrication can help serve as a guide. While samatha and samādhi are generally experienced as quiet and still, emptiness could be characterized as the experience feeling quiet and still, even during the tumultuous activity of daily life.
Samatha and samādhi can be extremely helpful guides toward emptiness, and once they are the predominant experience, the shift into emptiness can happen quite easily and naturally.
Ideal posture for emptiness practice
The 7-point posture of Vairocana can serve as a powerful aid for many emptiness practices. There is no need to view this list as one big instruction. Instead, just try to employ as many of these points as possible in any given session. The more points that are present, the more favorable the body and energetic conditions become for practice.
- Legs in the crossed, half-lotus or lotus position, left leg over the right leg. If this is not possible, then kneeling or seated in a chair with knees at or below the level of the hips.
- Hands forming the cosmic mudra, palms up, the right hand placed flat on the left, near the stomach just below the navel, with thumbs touching lightly.
- Torso and spine kept straight, neither bent nor leaning forward. The lower back is not slumped, the breastbone is lifted so that the diaphragm can move freely.
- Shoulders settled and pulled back to open the torso, but without puffing out the chest. Shoulders, arms and hands are relaxed.
- Neck in a natural position, in line with the spine, with the chin tucked in slightly.
- The teeth should be slightly apart, the tongue gently touching just behind the upper teeth.
- Eyes open or partially open with a relaxed, spread out gaze.
Relax the whole body and let the flesh settle down onto the skeleton, like clothes hanging on a clothes line. This will lead to a comfortable, at ease, relaxed and alert posture that lets concern for the body fade from the experience safely.
Although people sometimes find it easier to meditate with closed eyes, it is generally better to train emptiness with open eyes from the outset of each practice. Closed eyes condition thoughts, daydreams, distraction and often carry an association with dullness and sleepiness. With eyes closed, we do not get into the habit of meditating while being visually conscious. Meditation becomes associated with a seeming ‘other’, inner world rather than being seen as a process of letting go of illusion in all aspects of life.
Visual consciousness is one of the strongest sense experiences for most people. In order to work with it skillfully, there are a few ways of using the eyes and the gaze while meditating. In the classical Vairocana posture the eyes are open but not looking at anything in particular, just resting relaxed on a spot somewhere about an arms length in front of the nose. This brings two benefits: overcoming the power of habitual visual distractions and freeing the mind from the dominating power of visual consciousness.
Relaxation is important. There is no need to stare fixedly or tensely and it is alright to blink. We may intuitively raise the gaze upwards above the level of the horizon or rest the gaze downwards at a 45 degree angle. Over time we will naturally learn how these adjustments affect the practice.
Examples of suitable practices for different individuals
Finding Dharma methods that are a good fit for each cultivator can make practice much easier (and more accessible as well). The Buddha presented many methods for different beings, rarely does “one size fit all”.
The various emptiness practices could be said to be suitable entries for practitioners of varying capacities. Capacity for a certain Dharma door or method can vary; not only from person to person, but also from moment to moment.
Here is a framework for ranking these practices by available capacity.
- Mantra and recitation, letting thoughts go by (most often accessible)
- Following one of the sense doors or aggregates, letting thoughts go by
- Noticing one of the sense doors or aggregates, letting thoughts go by
- Noticing mental activity or an aggregate within expansive awareness
- Noticing all of experience in expansive awareness, letting thoughts go by
- Noticing what feels like “me” moment to moment
- Noticing what is “experiencing”, and what experiences that “experiencing“
- Noticing movement of mind or attention, thoughts dissolve
- Resting into what is experiencing, letting everything go by, no landing
- Living from non-abiding while expressing, living life while resting (least often accessible)
I have often found this framework for types of practices may be viewed a bit like changing gears on a bike. If higher capacity is present, use practices from deeper down the list, if lower capacity is present, use practices from higher up on the list. When a practice is beyond the current capacity we will often feel as if we simply bounce off of it or may find it too intangible or fleeting to work with. When a practice fits the current capacity it will increasingly be found to be immediately accessible once we are familiar with how to properly access it.
At times you may find that there is access to a higher capacity emptiness practice while lower capacity practices remain inaccessible. Simply view this as one of the wonders of past karma and explore. The framework is simply intended as a guide.
Emptiness as a teacher
Once an emptiness practice is accessible and directly experienceable, we begin spending time abiding in emptiness. While abiding in emptiness, realization comes naturally around how this way of experiencing is more resilient and easeful than our old ways of “being”. Whenever formal emptiness practice concludes, notice the old ways of “being” and how they compare to the emptiness experience. All through the day, observe where and how emptiness might be accessible and how it is to live from there. The old (egoic) way of “being” will learn from the new (more empty) way of “being”, and this wisdom will naturally lead to changes in how life is lived and experienced. Over time the whole being is refined and reformed and liberation is increasingly realized.
Emptiness and thusness
When emptiness practices deepen sufficiently, the experience may begin to shift more from an experience that is “empty” of I/me/mine toward deeper realization of non-duality. As this occurs, the perceptions of border, object/subject, and the world in general can begin to deeply fall away. This “deepening” of the realization of emptiness into the non-conceptual and non-dual is sometimes referred to as tathātā or thusness. For some, emptiness comes first and thusness reveals itself later. For others, thusness can be directly experienced with some simple pointing out. This all comes down to karma and capacity. Rest assured that if we continue practicing these methods, the necessary conditions for the realization of emptiness and thusness are being cultivated.
Cultivation frequency
When approaching practice in this way, the primary meditation method can be used as a separate practice done earlier in the day, or simply done first during the same practice period. Emptiness practices themselves, once learned, ideally should be cultivated in four or more periods throughout each day (and eventually throughout each moment of life).
Here is one simple training regimen that I have found works well.
- Morning
- Before noon
- After noon
- Evening
Practice emptiness for whatever period of time possible in each of these four periods, (even if just for 1 minute when busy). This eventually leads to the practice of abiding in emptiness (non-abiding) growing increasingly familiar and naturally integrating all throughout life.
Summary of how to practice
- Select and practice a primary meditation method at the start of the day or practice period.
- Notice when the experience reaches a point where mind seems more still, clear, bright, and agile.
- Begin an emptiness practice.
- Ideally, emptiness is directly experienced four or more times throughout the day and eventually throughout each moment of life.
If you have questions about any of the practices mentioned, or would like to learn in more detail how to go about practicing them, please feel free to contact me.