(The wisdom of the Diamond Sutra) “steals our delusions from us with all the subtlety and skill of a master pickpocket. One day we’re rich, comforted in our certainties. The next moment we’re bereft, deprived of every soothing lie we’d embraced as truth. This is the path of the Prajnaparamita.” –Roshi James Ford
“A ladder is not there to be discussed, but to be climbed.” -- Edward Conze
That makes sense to me in terms of understanding the concept of Emptiness and Form. “Form” can be described as seeing the ladder, the mind recognizing it as the thing we all agree is called a ladder, and thinking about climbing the ladder for whatever reason you for which you dug it out. “Emptiness” might be expressed as just climbing the ladder and doing what needs to be done. A lot of conceptualizing before engaging in life, vs engaging directly in life.
Too often Emptiness is misunderstood as nihilist, its being alleged to refer to the non-existence of anything or a belief in the relative world as merely a dream. (Thank you Nagarjuna, for your take no prisoners approach, which did give Indian Buddhism some of its uncompromising image. Yet he wasn’t wrong.
Assignment: Punch yourself in the face. Was that a dream?
What is a dream is the world seen through our attachments to opinions, beliefs, education perspectives, etc; going beyond name and form and to a realization of phenomena as empty means simply to see beyond the symbols we use and construct to navigate through the relative world, without being attached to them. Our ideas of who we are and what we “own” are also equally fleeting and dreamlike. A cat has no idea we have named her a cat. She has different symbols for to describe herself and her actions, or not at all; she renders our symbols pointless. Forms depend on mutual agreement to have a particular value, like money or a piece of dirt called “Rhode Island.” Sometimes Form is a prison of one.
The cat has its own motives, as do the tree, the worm, and insentient items like houses or gold. Emptiness is that which is beyond our labels, our fears, our various takes on the Three Poisons. We need forms and agreements on phenomena to make it through life; behind those forms exist a space where we are still there, only it doesn’t matter at all what we call ourselves.
We are all interconnected and of the same larger Buddha nature, or spirit, or whatever one chooses to refer to the absolute realm in which Emptiness makes the most sense. Here too there is plenty of room for ignorant or self-absorbed ideas; it is far easier for those stuck in Samsara to believe that other people are non-existent or interconnected, which finding it hard to let go of their own egos. I speak from experience about the attitude that nothing exists independently—though, like you, my “ME” is the last to know, and last to go.
A chronic illness has shaken or made moot several identities that I held on to as a certain proof that my life had meaning or was successful. Yet without them, I am still here. I can no more count on labels to provide meaning for me. I can see the superficial nature of looking to them as lifelines. I can see how there really is an emptiness to all labels; certainly, words like “teacher,” “writer” etc have nothing behind them than what I give and attach to them. Again, even my name is just a convenience for wading through the day, but we need such constructs in the relative world, and, in context, one would seem foolish to act as if they are not needed. It would not be skillful for a practitioner to spend a lot of time on such topics lest they (and worse, the Dharma as related by them) appear deranged or hopelessly bereft of common sense. Again, this is where actions rather than words are the truest expression of the Dharma.
Even more important is how such an understanding affects my relationships with others. Bodhicitta and compassion are certainly aroused by the fact that everyone else, all sentient beings, are just like me: we seek peace, we try to avoid pain and we struggle through a life that offers both with symbols that may help ground us in a relative present but, if clung to, only add to our confusion and dissatisfaction. To truly understand that every being that has existed has suffered as I have, through circumstance as well as through self-inflicted delusion, is a heartbreak that ought to lift one beyond oneself and toward a desire to ease that suffering for others. I won’t lie; I want relief from that as well, but an understanding of Emptiness helps me extend that desire for relief to all. What am I—and you— but a part of the vast emptiness of Buddhanature. Neither of us exist in the sense with which we normally think; all the better for laying down our fears and simply acting spontaneously according to the needs to the moment.
The Diamond Sutra gives a vivid account of how an understanding of the true nature of Emptiness leaves so much space for action, and toward a new responsibility, that of the Bodhisattva. One cannot sincerely attend to the suffering of others without compassion. The desire to help ease suffering, Bodhicitta, is impossible while still stuck in the belief in the independent and certain fact of the self.
The meat of the Diamond Sutra is the breakdown of the Six Paramitas, the core skills and expressions of compassion in action. They are all impossible without an understanding that the world does not revolve around your names and values.
With such an understanding however, we set about to share in the troubles of others and try to be of compassionate and practical use, troubles we may have perhaps ignored in the stress of our own troubles, made worse by seeing them as the most crucial.
The compassionate nature of the sutra, in reminding us of the uselessness of words in the face of action, reminds us also to not become so preoccupied with the truth of Emptiness once we understand it that it too becomes a stumbling block to the full expression of compassion.
There are plenty of opportunities to be a Jackass, even when you are committed to moving beyond your shell of names and dates and opinions. Yet, with practice, you can see that even if you fall off that ladder, you can realize why just a bit sooner than you had yesterday. If not, then get up there and jump off until you get it!