I. Letting Go of Attachment and Emptiness
(There really is a feeling: when you let go a little, your world opens a little; once your mind becomes more spacious, it really will…)
When you are no longer attached, many things seem to cling to you instead. Ignoring them and saying, “I don’t care,” is entirely different from truly seeing through them and letting go. Ignoring something and saying you don’t care only means you’ve avoided it; one day, it will still make you suffer.
(You have to see through it—see through it completely.)
Some people… some simply grow up and naturally stop clinging: as they get older—by age ten—they are no longer drawn along by toy cars. Once people grow up, they no longer act that way; as the mind gradually matures, they are no longer tossed about by children’s games. Others have genuinely awakened. I think you have all of these—you’ve grown up too.
(I’m still far from that. I watched the video twice, and I really had this experience—it was profound. One part was about “abiding”: not abiding or clinging is an experience, and I really had a bit of a new experience. This cup was simply no longer there—empty; “empty” doesn’t mean the cup immediately disappeared, but that it was no longer in your mind.)
This is still a kind of analysis—the “emptiness” analyzed at the level of consciousness. You say, “I don’t care; as long as I am empty, the cup is empty relative to you too.” Or someone speaks of emptiness and, looking at the cup, sees it turn into nothingness. That’s magic, not emptiness.
Or you say the cup consists of molecules and atoms, and keep analyzing it until it disappears. That’s analytical emptiness; none of this is the emptiness realized by the Buddha.
Emptiness means: in your mind, there are fundamentally no such concepts as “emptiness” and “existence.” If you have “existence,” emptiness remains there; if you have “emptiness,” existence remains there. As long as you have a dualistic opposition, neither side can be broken through. The dualistic level is broken through in the mind—in cognition and at the level of realization; in that person’s cognition, there is never “is it form or emptiness?” They no longer distinguish form from emptiness.
Because you distinguish form and emptiness, you speak of form and emptiness as not two, and say form is emptiness, emptiness is form. If your cognition has completely cleared away the two concepts of “form” and “emptiness,” then form and emptiness truly are not two. In other words, at that point, whether this cup exists or not, or whether you exist or not, is all manifestation; you have completely cleared away the concept and broken through every appearance.
II. Going Beyond Distinctions Between Form and Emptiness
(Still using the conscious mind to analyze and distinguish.)
If you have a form and an emptiness, they cannot be not-two; that is two. There is an appearance of form and an appearance of emptiness, you know? So however you turn it around in there, you cannot get out. However you analyze it, it is not ultimate; in Buddhism, this is called non-definitive. If you have broken through both form and emptiness, it is truly no longer just a matter of understanding; when you look, it is simply this—you are already in that state.
(Some things really can’t be explained clearly however you put them now; you have to cultivate and realize them to a certain…)
They can be explained clearly, too, but saying it is the same as not saying it—it’s saying it for nothing. It can be explained; it’s just that you still can’t understand, because it seems so convoluted to you, with everything going round and round.
Why does it seem convoluted? When form is mentioned, you have the appearance of form; when existence is mentioned, you have the appearance of emptiness, you know? When these two appearances manifest in your mind, and someone tells you about the state in which form and emptiness are not two, you cannot understand because the two appearances block you.
But as the attachments in your mind are let go layer by layer, and you break through both the appearance of form and the appearance of empty space, once every appearance has been broken through, when someone says form and emptiness are not two, you will say, “Exactly—that’s all it is. It’s this simple.” Since you have neither the appearance of form nor the appearance of emptiness, how could form and emptiness be two rather than one?
Only when you have no two appearances can there be not-two; “two” means two appearances. So once you have broken through all appearances, it is one. You do not even have “one,” because you no longer talk about any of this. You talk about this? Everything is complete, everything is complete—manifesting the truth. All one can say is that everything is the complete truth. This truth can be called the appearance of Buddha, the Way—you can call it anything. You can call it the Tathāgata, too.
But realization and non-realization are still different. For example, if you have not realized it, you only understand it conceptually; if you have broken through it in your inner state, that is still different from “returning with realization.” You are only saying that when you have broken through it in your inner state, you will say this world is complete, but it has defilement and purity—it is a completeness that contains both defilement and purity. But once you have realized it, the world manifests as pure; yes, defilement and purity both cease to exist—pure, because you no longer compare them.
III. Purity and Nirvana
(At that point, purity is no longer an appearance; without defilement or purity, it is no longer our ordinary world.)
Purity is also every appearance; it becomes every appearance. In other words, if you have not died or been reborn and are still here, then this world appears before you as permanence, bliss, true self, and purity—as a pure appearance; this appearance manifests to you. At that point, you will discover that the Sahā world is the Land of Ultimate Bliss, and is also the Pure Land.
(Can that state simply be understood as Nirvana?)
Nirvana of the mind—breaking through every appearance is called Nirvana of the mind. You could put it that way, too.
IV. The Big Bang and Awareness
(Teacher, please tell us about Hawking’s string theory.)
When science discusses the origin of the universe, it eventually traces it back to the period of the Big Bang, saying that the explosion produced light, sound, waves—produced everything. But do you know what Buddhism asks in the end? Who knows this Big Bang? Who is aware?
In other words, you begin by saying: this experiment is an explosion; this phenomenon has appeared. Who saw the explosion? The person conducting the experiment. In fact, this is the step science reaches in the end: the person’s eyes are what matter most; this is relative existence.
When this explosion appears, if this person does not exist, the explosion has no effect. In other words, it is because this person, these eyes, take it to be an explosion that it is an explosion. You have become attached to an appearance, believing that the universe came into being in a Big Bang. This is what is called cognition and an established conclusion; but is that really an explosion?
Is this the truth of the universe? Buddhism would say this is an illusion. In other words, even the Big Bang of the universe—including what Taoism calls “a movement of ignorance,” and so on—will, once broken through in the end, be called an illusion.
In other words, there is awareness. What is this awareness? It is formless and without appearance; it is impossible to clear away this awareness. It’s like sitting meditation: at first, we ask you to be aware yet unmoving. Of course, at this point your awareness still has a sense of self, because you are still making distinctions, so this is called “I-awareness”: because you are aware, you say, “Oh, I have distracting thoughts; oh, my mind is scattered; oh, my legs hurt again; oh, whatever it is this time.”
Within this awareness there is always “I feel,” pulled along by sensations. When someone else is in pain, you cannot feel it, so this is not perfect awareness; you feel only your own, right? But gradually, if you remain unmoving, you will slowly discern it clearly: this awareness is actually formless and without appearance.
(If it is awareness, it should have something it relies on; must it be a kind of I-awareness, or someone else’s awareness?)
Start with this awareness; begin your cultivation and realization from this awareness. I have always told you that all teachings are tools to help you awaken to that ultimate formless, featureless truth. Every teaching, once spoken, is no longer the truth. It is no longer the truth, because truth cannot be spoken and language is limited. So what is spoken is something for you to rely on as you awaken.
V. Awakening Is Like Waking from a Dream
What is the state of awakening? Everything I am saying to you now is like telling you about daytime at night. At night, you have never seen the sun rise; I keep telling you in the night what it will be like after dawn: the sun will rise, vast dawn rays will stream out, and I will tell you what red is and what white is.
Because you are in the night, you can still understand; that is not to say it isn’t called awakening. After hearing me, you can imagine: “Oh, so that’s what daytime is like.” But this awakening is imagined, so it has no power. You know?
You also know that when I say the sun rises in the east, at night you imagine what kind of state that is. The state you imagine may even resemble awakening, and you may imagine it very accurately.
But what does it mean that it has no power? You don’t see that when everything belonging to night arrives, you still abandon daytime and go do everything belonging to night, because the things of night pull you along deeply. You feel it is real; daytime seems illusory to you because you are not in daytime.
So everything Buddhism keeps talking about is telling you about daytime at night. And when dawn breaks, everything is right there, exactly as it is, isn’t it? When dawn breaks, that’s how it is—it’s simply waking up.
So there is nothing more to it; you don’t need to analyze anything further. How are you going to prove that the sun rises in the east? What are you proving? At night you keep using nighttime concepts to prove that the sun rises in the east, and then morning comes and you wake up…
Because you want to believe it rises in the east, you have to keep proving it: “Is this what rising in the east looks like? I prove that today it isn’t—it rises in the west; how does it have universal gravitation? Prove that too, prove it again.” The next morning you look, and it has risen in the east; no proof is needed. When daylight comes, many things are the truth, presented before you; but all your concepts—all your concepts—were established while relying on the night.
When daylight comes—I mean, the things I’ve been telling you can be imagined, but this imagined state has no power; it cannot affect your present life, you know? You find it illusory.
The state of realization is what I was just referring to with the Big Bang: what is the state when that awareness finally disappears? If I put it into words, it has no power; instead, it can easily make you attach to an appearance.
(In the Chan School, what kind of state is awakening? You’ve been using the metaphor that awakening is waking from a dream, waking up as a Buddha; what stage is there before and after awakening?)
VI. Awakening Has No Stages
There are no stages, because there are none at all. Awakening refers to the mind; your mind is always in the present moment. In fact, there is no past; past and future are things in the mind. Felt experience is in the present moment.
There is something you are attached to in your life: you want to attain enlightenment, thinking you are an ordinary person who must attain enlightenment. You conceive yourself as an ordinary person. Then, between the two appearances of “you are an ordinary person” and “turning into a Buddha, becoming a Buddha,” lies one of your attachments, because you have become attached to the appearance of an ordinary person and to the appearance of a Buddha.
Actually, every one of us, whether or not we cultivate the Way, is already in the Tathāgata. You have become attached within the sea of true nature, because an attachment to appearances is there, like a knot tied in a rope. So you have become like a sentient being, because the appearance of sentient beings is manifest.
Awakening means that you may have several knots and suddenly untie one; that too is called awakening. Because you are originally within Buddha-nature and originally dwell in Buddha-nature, when that one attachment is untied, you suddenly awaken and realize Buddhahood: you see your Buddha-nature—you come to see your true nature.
Perhaps this opening is not complete, nor is the seeing; then you untie another knot. Sometimes, when one knot opens, the others open along with it; that is more complete. But sometimes there is only a small awakening: one knot opens, while the others seem not to have opened yet, so you continue to awaken.
Because you are originally within the sea of true nature, and Buddha-nature has been here all along; you merely cling a little within it. Let go of attachment, and you return to your self-nature—that is called awakening. You will see the truth clearly and discover that many things in you keep getting entangled in concepts.
Note: This text was prepared from a teaching video by Yang Ning. If it differs from the video, the video takes precedence. Watch the video.