Tag Archives: emptiness

Thinking

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Do you know the difference between having a thought and being aware that you are having a thought?

Do you know the difference between having a feeling and being aware that you are having a feeling?

Yesterday we talked about how the self does not exist and how to personally investigate this in order to feel confident in this conclusion.  People that become obsessed with discovering the true nature of reality (which could be referred to as “knowing or seeing God”) create the causes and conditions for the direct experience of no-self or emptiness.

The direct experience of no-self or emptiness (also known as the Perfection of Wisdom) is what gives us the power to cut the fetters of limiting misbeliefs about the world and reach enlightenment.  Someone that has this insight is an arya or stream enterer.

I tend to identify more with my mind as being “myself”.  Exercises that use the mind to explore the mind are quite useful in loosening up this identification.  Anyone that spends much time watching their mind objectively will tend to not want to identify with the thinking processes of the mind.  In fact, one may conclude, “I am not my mind, it is possessed!”

The mind generates a long stream of judgements, opinions, repetitive thoughts, and the like.  When we disengage from identifying with them, these thoughts can be viewed as simple arisings and passings – much like a breeze that touches the surface of our skin.  They are not us.  They are something that seems to happen to us.

Then, what is left is identification with the observer.  It has become clear that we are not the thoughts that we think and we don’t even generate them consciously.  I was able to get to this point when I realized that I was still identifying with the part of the mind that was watching the thoughts.  “I” was the watcher, the observer, the part that says, “there is a breeze on your arm”.  It took an insight experience for me to blow that identification apart.

Slowly as you practice you will break down identification with self.  It is this dissolution of deceptive reality that leads to liberation.  The road is set before you and all you have to do is practice to reach the final goal.

Gakja

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Gakja is a Tibetan term that refers to “the object we deny”.  It is something that does not exist and could never exist (ultimately).  It is critical to understand the gakja because this is the “thing” that everything is empty of.

If I see you in the hall, coming out of a room and I ask you, “Is the room empty?”  how do you know what to answer?  Perhaps you say “yes” but then I peek in and what I see makes me disagree.  The room we are talking about has a carpet and furniture, but no people.  You say it is empty because “your” gakja is people.  “My” gakja is furniture and I see the room as full because it is full of furniture.

People talk a lot about emptiness in Buddhism and sometimes I think people start thinking that it means nothing.  One cannot talk about emptiness unless they define what they are denying exists.  This is the gakja.  This is the thing that everything is empty of.

In each school of Buddhism the gakja is defined differently.  Here is the breakdown of the different ancient Indian schools of Buddhism followed by a concise definition of their gakja.schools of indian buddhismFunctionalist Gakja:  the self that has no causes

Independents Gakja:  the self that exists independent of its parts

Consequence or Implication School Gakja:  the self that exists independent of my thinking about it or naming it.

Alternate Reality

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Yesterday, I was talking about the placebo effect of antidepressants.  I had started to write about my reaction to the denial surrounding the use of anti-depressants and went down a different thought train than I intended.  So, today I want to get back on track and talk about a new perspective I have been contemplating surrounding anti-depressant use.

It use to be that I lived in a world where I thought there was some truth I could find and adhere to.  For instance, I believed that anti-depressants did not work.  I even had scientific research to back it up. Now, I have an understanding that the world I live in is deceptive.  For instance, I once read research that claimed liquid extracts of feverfew were ineffective in treating migraines.  So, I stopped taking my feverfew tincture and my migraines came back.  So much for scientific research.

But it is not that the research is wrong…

Buddhism, Ho’oponopono, and new age perspectives all concur that the world we see around us is created (fully or in-part) by ourselves.  This means that just because antidepressants don’t work in my world, doesn’t mean they are not effective in other people’s worlds.

This means that I’ve “created” a world were anti-depressants do not work.  I see research that supports that, all my friends that use anti-depressants do not feel better, and I disregard claims that anti-depressants work as “placebo effect.”  And since the world I create is 100% real this is a valid reality.

On the other hand, other people live in a world where anti-depressants work.  Not just placebo work, but actually work.  They get mad at people like me that say their drugs do not work because they have evidence.  They have tried diet, exercise and herbs only to have those treatments fail.  These people go to doctors that know anti-depressants work and they feel better when they take them.  They really do have a brain chemistry imbalance that is corrected with pharmaceutical.  Their world is also 100% valid reality.

My reality is valid and all the alternative realities are also valid.

I have noticed that I spend a great deal of time arguing in support of my perceptions in my head.  I justify what I do by thoughts that support the rightness of it.  I also see others telling each other what to do and what works.  “All of us know what is right.”

I can imagine a true path to non-violence includes accepting that other people’s worlds are different from ours.  Not just their perspectives and experiences, but the actual makings of the world they live in are different.  They are not just apparently different.  They are functionally different as well.

I was once at a scientific conference with some of the big names in physics there.  One of the discussions centered on the problem of being able to replicate research.  For instance, someone (perhaps hypothetical) had developed a process of doing fission to create unlimited energy, but no one else could reproduce the process.  The creator had what it took to manifest this incredible creation, but others didn’t.  His world included fission, while for the rest of us it does not exist (yet).

The crux of the problem was what I just described.  Each person creates their world and if they do not have the karma or beliefs that include certain realities or if they have the beliefs that excludes certain realities then they will not experience them. As far as I know we have the technology to cure all disease, to feed all people, to clean up all pollution.  What stands between us and the Garden of Eden is simply misbeliefs held by the majority.  (That is why I like ThetaHealing so much.  It is a way to remove dysfunctional misbeliefs.)