by Peter Holleran


   “Only the sage has the strict right to call this world an illusion. If anyone else does so, his talk is mere babble.” (1) - Paul Brunton (PB)

   "The sravaka is enlightened but going astray; the ordinary man is out of the right path and yet in a way enlightened. The sravaka fails to perceive that Mind as it is in itself knows no stages, no causation, no imagination. Disciplining himself in the cause he has attained the result and abides in the samadhi of emptiness itself for ever so many kalpas. However enlightened in his way, the sravaka is not at all on the right track. From the point of view of the bodhisattva, this is like suffering the torture of hell. The sravaka has buried himself in emptiness and does not know how to get out of his quiet contemplation for he has no insight into the buddha-nature itself." - Shih-Tou

   Nagarjuna's famous commentator, Chandrakirti, went so far as to say that those who take shunyata or emptiness as a point of view were philosophically doomed, and destined "to land in a self-condemned void." Nagarjuna himself said, "Believers in emptiness are hopelessly incurable." One modern writer called it the "suicide of enlightenment." What these men were saying is that traditional attempts to transcend, conquer, avoid, or ignore the relative world as the conceived source of our bondage were even centuries ago inappropriate and fruitless, leading not to true spiritual realization, but rather nihilism and real emptiness of spirit. This is becoming even more evident today. While in this paper we will more or less academically discuss the concept of emptiness, Madhyamika Buddhism or the 'Middle Way' as an attempt to re-align itself with the original absolutism of the Buddha, its elaboration in the doctrine of shunyavada teachings of Nagarjuna, common misconceptions and traditional assumptions on the nature of realization, and also the nature of emptiness in these various traditions, we will also try to be practical and discuss what this doctrine really means in our modern world. "To incarnate or not to incarnate, that is the question" might be our central theme. Out of fear up to this point most have said we have incarnated too much, while out of love others now are saying that we have incarnated too little. This apparent dilemma is really at the heart of our discussion of emptiness, and on the subject of maya or illusion as well.

   This article is fairly long, for which I ask in advance that the reader won't shoot me. There is much to consider here, and this is meant to be a 'consideration'! There will also of necessity be some overlap between this and its companion piece, Maya Is 'Maya', (which treats its subject from the point of view of Hinduism and Buddhism, along with extensive ontological discussion of Islam and Taoism as exemplified by Ibn al 'Arabi and Chuang Tzu - and a bit of esoteric Christianity as well.

   “Real people do not speak or write to no purpose. The reader must pay attention line to line, phrase to phrase, not letting a single word pass by lightly. - Liu I-ming, Commentary on Ch’ang Ch’un’s Journey to the West (13th c.)


   Three ways of looking at 'emptiness'

   'Emptiness’ can be taken in three different ways: one, as a methology of negation, wherein the inherent self-exiting nature of an objective phenomena is seen as illusory, that is, as a dialectical methodology of understanding the non-entitification of things; two, as a meditative trance state of self-existing consciousness without attributes; and, three, as a name for ultimate Reality Itself. As such it is one of the most misunderstood concepts in Buddhism.

   The biggest error is in reifying emptiness, that is, making it into any kind of ‘thing’ whatsoever, however subtle:

   "The Great Way is alive. It is not stuck in the realms of being or nothingness. To be stuck in the realm of being means to be attached to appearances. To be stuck in the realm of nothingness means to be attached to emptiness. Neither attachment to appearances or emptiness is the Way of the creative flow of heaven and earth. Nor are they the sages' Way of true emptiness and subtle being." - Lu Yen, the Complete Reality School of Taoism, 7th century. (2)


   Origins of Madhyamika Buddhism and similarities with Vedanta

   First let it be stated that there are six main schools of Indian philosophy, of which Buddhism is one. All schools of Indian philosophy use Nyaya logic, created by Gautama, and all schools, including Vedanta and Yoga, likewise employ various elements of the Samhkya philosophy of Kapila. The Buddha studied Samhkya extensively, and interesting enough his birthplace, Kapilavatsu, was the center of an ancient monestary of Kapila's. (2a) Further, the Four Noble truths are found in the yoga sutras of Patanjali, and the word 'Nirvana' is found in the Vedas and was not original to the Buddha. Therefore, it is no surprise for there to be much similarity between the teachings of the Buddha and the ancient rishis. Buddha, a Hindu, in his day was a reformer of a decaying Vedic religion, while Guadapada and Sankara also later worked to restore it to its ancient glory. Further, the Hindus recognized the Buddha as the ninth avatar of Vishnu, and early Theravada Buddhism, lacking such a devotional savior figure, adapted itself in Mahayana to that need with its elaboration of the three bodies of the Buddha: Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Nirmanakaya. Tibetan Buddhism adopted kundalini yoga and tantric teachings from Hinduism, so the cross-pollination was nearly complete. All ultimately trace back to the ancient Vedic teachings (which may be the origin of all other great religions as well).

   What was seemingly unique in emphasis in the Buddha's teaching was the doctrine of anatta, or 'no-self', which is where we will then begin.

   Emptiness teachings essentially started with the Buddha, but were rejuvenated by the great sage, Nagarjuna, whose famous Madhyamika Karika, commented on by Chandrakirti, begins with his famous ‘eight-fold negation’: no origination (ajatavada); no cessation; no permanence; no momentariness; no identity; no difference; no bondage; no liberation. If the reader finds similarity of these statements with those of Ramana Maharshi it is no surprise, because the Madyamika doctrines and methology of negation are very similar to those of the Guadapada and the Vedantins. Also for Nagarjuna, the wheel of samsara or birth and death symbolized by dukkha (suffering) is due to beginningless avidya or transcendental illusion which covers the real and projects through its innate thought-forms the world of phenomena. This is nearly identical with the maya doctrine of Vedanta. The difference being that the Madyamika do not positive an absolute Self as the substratum for the empirical reality, but go about asserting the same in a more round about way, while the Vedantins generally assert that maya is a relative power or aspect of the Absolute. Nagarjuna used the four-fold logic rejecting 'eternalism', ‘nihilism', both, or neither.’ Or, in laymens terms, ‘it is, it isn’t, it’s both and neither. His principle purpose was to refute the nihilistic and eternalistic views of the Hinayana Buddhists, who had corrupted the anatman doctrine as well as transcendental absolutism of the Buddha. For the Hinayanists, there had come to be believed that there were no individual souls, but real objects. The Madhyamika view was that both the empirical self and objects were devoid of inherent existence. The question of whether there was an individual soul was left unanswered by the Buddhists, but the Hinayanists converted the doctrine of no fixed empiritcal self to mean no self or eternal essence of any kind. For Nagarjuna, however, there was a transcendental reality, it just wasn’t as it usually seems. So while he deconstructed the universe, using the argument of the Buddha that the universe is beginningless and endless, and something that does not exist in the beginning nor in the end can have no existence in the middle either, therefore, the universe was unreal (an argument also used by Guadapada), Nagarjuna was not content, contrary to popular opinion, to leave it as simply negation (after all he was a great tantric adept who got much of his teachings from the Nagas) but added that the Real wasshivam, or ‘pure bliss,” and beyond all conceptual categories of the mind, what Buddha called pratityasamutpada or what he called as shunyata.

   The argument of the Buddha that there was no beginning and no ending, and therefore no middle, was stating negatively the Western counterpart that truth was in the beginning, middle, and end, i.e., therefore it is one, eternal. However, its advantage was that it voided the substantiality of both the ego and the objective universe, and its realization leads to the indistinguishableness of emptiness and compassion.

   Restating, use of the term shunyata or ‘emptiness’ was particularly emphasized by Nagarjuna who used the term to describe the absolute as having the characteristic of being ‘empty’ or ‘void’ of a self-nature or other eternally permanent characteristics. All phenomena, even spiritual phenomena, are ultimately relatively ‘fleeting manifestations in a stream of endless transformations’. Emptiness can be considered, therefore, a characteristic of existence because it points to the lack of an eternal substance distinguishing one thing from another, while it is also the nature of the individual self. True actualized realization of these two yields a seamless flow of blissful reality. Again, the appearance of ‘essence’, even self-essence, is actually temporary and changing. All that persists is the uncharacterizable absolute – so the realization of the ‘emptiness’ of all impermanent phenomena, even the ‘self’, is the same as the realization of its true nature, which is Buddha-nature (or the same as the Vedantic 'Self').

   According to Buddhist metaphysics, the subtlest element or sixth skhanda is self, self-essence, or consciousness in this relative sense. Although it is the subtlest, most universal and apparently enduring (of the nature of 'clear light'), it, too, is one of the conditioned elements and is therefore part of samsara or transitory phenomena. The Buddha said “There is, monks, something which is neither earth, nor water, nor fire, nor air, neither boundless space, nor boundless consciousness….”. That is why, too, the Buddha taught the doctrine of anatta or anatman, or non-atman, which is essentially the teaching that Nirvana is not to be confused with the jiva-atman or spiritual self (atma or atman in the theosophical and not the Vedantic sense). Beyond all elements (which in early Buddhist philosophy there are seven: four with form and three formless) is Emptiness or Voidness, which is the context for all phenomena and their ultimate nature. The term Emptiness in this ultimate sense, therefore, does not mean that reality or nondual is missing or lacking something, only that its nature is so transcendent that it is not possible to attach any limiting label or characteristic to it. This negative formulation or method of description is typically Buddhist. The Buddha and Nagarjuna chose this method because assigning a positive characteristic tends to have connotations of limitation. For example, 'the 'absolute' may suggests lack of an ongoing process'; 'Brahma' may mean that perfection is here already, and 'God', well, that is a whole other ballgame - more conceptual limitation. So they settled on emptiness, or shunyata, which has no boundaries, yet is not nothing but no-thing, which is not really empty, but indescribable fullness, which is also called nothing! Get it? It is ‘empty’ of conditional or limiting characteristics, yet is the very ground or ‘substance’ of all phenomena. Like any other name for the transcendent reality, of course, it is inherently limited and has strengths and weaknesses when considered only conceptually or outside of a life of practice. Such practice yields more and more the characteristic of life as like a dream, which is a sign that one is getting closer to the reality (not that you can get closer to reality, or that life is a dream); it is an experience that one can have that in itself produces as a byproduct a sense of calm and relief from the dukkha associated with separate existence.

   Just a few words on dukkha. This is a Buddhist version of a common idea in many traditions of an existential core pain or 'wound' of separation - the root wound or pain at the essence of all dualistic experience. This root pain is at the foundation off all relativity, and is embedded in every being, every form, every elemental, every atom and subatomic particle. As the Buddhist's would say, every 'being' and 'element' of samsara is fundamentally rooted in impermanence and dukkha. This comes to full expression and consciousness in beings such as humans who experience their relative existence with self-consciousness, though dualistic consciousness pervades all relativity in some form. So no being or particle of relativity is not rooted in this core existential reality of dukkha or dualistic pain. Even if one attains trance samadhi, they will return to a personality that is still not fully liberated from this core pain. If they go further and acheive sahaja samadhi, then their state of 'ordinary awareness' will have been liberated from this 'core wound', but the remaining karma of their relative nature, as well as the very particles of nature that make up their lower bodies, will still be tainted with this 'core' pain, though now deeply illumined and embraced by the sahaja presence of the liberated soul that dwells within. According to various tantric paths as well as Dzogchen, if the individual goes further in profoundly integrating this nondual state with the relative bodies, they will finally be so deeply and thoroughly liberated from the core pain of dualism that even the very elements that make up the lower nature will be fully embraced in this state, which will result in 'the rainbow body' or 'light body'. This world will not be able to understand and relate to such a being, and so, from the point of view of those still too identified with this world, such a being will appear to no longer exist here. But that is not really true. They 'didn't go anywhere'. They, including their 'bodies', down to its very cells, are just no longer conditioned by the dualism and the core pain or dukkha of relativity/separation.

   The purpose of emptiness teachings is to help one know this dukkha without a doubt as inherent in one's dualistic constitution and be able to lessen its grip. This takes time, with many vicissitudes and trials along the way. It requires a revolution in the innate way one perceives oneself and the world. It is not just a self-contained intellectual exercise.

   The true meaning of the 'Middle Path' was not just the avoidance of the extremes of asceticism, etc., but avoiding the extremes or polarities of sat and asat (being and non-being), one and many, eternalism and nihilism, purity and impurity, as well as avoiding the 'middle' also. Nagarjuna was not a nihilist, agnostic, positivist, or sceptic; he was a spiritual absolutist who accepted a nondual, unlimited, unalloyed blissful Nirvana free of all thought-constructs and not just the negative elimination of suffering. Asanga called it pure self (shuddhatma), universal self (mahatma), and highest self (paramatma). So for all this emphasis on negation the Buddhists also assigned positive terms to reality. Which is only natural as the Buddhist roots are essentially found in the ancient Vedas, same as the Hindus.

   Fortunately, in an insightful talk, Scott Kiloby describes the Middle Way in terms we can perhaps more easily understand, saying simply that it is a (non) position between the extremes of "everything exists independently', and 'nothing exists'.

   It follows from this that bondage and liberation, samsara and nirvana are also, in a sense, unreal. And if bondage is unreal, the attainment of Nirvana, or moksha for the vedantists, is also only an appearance. Time, space, causation, self, object, difference, identity are all constructions of thought which are due to avidya. However, we must accept that Nirvana points to what is real.

   “The arising and the elimination of illusion are both illusory. Illusion is not something rooted in Reality; it exists because of your dualistic thinking. If you will only cease to indulge in opposed concepts such as “ordinary” and “Enlightened,” illusion will cease of itself. And then if you still want to destroy it wherever it may be, you will find that there is not a hairsbreadth left of anything on which to lay hold. This is the meaning of: “I will let go with both hands, for then I shall certainly discover the Buddha in my mind.” - Huang Po (3)

   For the Vedantists, the ‘indescribability’ of Brahman doesn’t means ‘absolute indescribability’, but only indescribability as either real or unreal, both, or neither, which itself brings out the self-contradictory nature of avidya, and as such is its very merit, not a defect. The Vedantins found the shuyavada of its day as regarding everything including consciousness as indefinable and unreal and therefore relational and false; the Vedantins, however, considered Consciousness as pure, eternal, nondual, self-shining, the undeniable foundation of Reality.

   In essence, the Madhyamika method of negation of the not-self was much like that of the Vedantins, in an attempt to get at the underlying essence of Reality. They employed a ‘four-fold logic’ much as did Guadapada: not this, not that, not both nor neither. The chief difference in the two schools was that the Vedantins were not averse to pronouncing this substratum as the Self, in a positive sense, through the use of ‘Maha Vakyas’, such as ‘Thou art That’, ’I Am Brahman’, etc., whereas the early Buddhists had only seen the absence of a fixed empirical self and fell into nihilism, which the Madyamika teachings were designed to correct. By calling the Nirvanic truth - the original Absolutism of the Buddha - ‘Emptiness’, it was not meant to imply that Ultimate Reality was an experiential Void, or a separate state to be known. Rather, ’emptiness’ meant the deconstruction of the empirical self into its constituent elements, or five skhandas, revealing its relative absence or void-nature, with the Reality Itself to be revealed as the obvious [nevertheless, this reality was also sometimes referred to as the Great Void or Emptiness]. This, however, for the Buddhists, was not just a philosophic exercise in discrimination, but,as mentioned above, was to be accompanied by many practical and spiritual disciplines and meditations (indeed, four meditations (dhyanas), four meditative joys (Brahma-viharas), three higher meditations (samadhi) six excellences (paramitas), whereas for the Vedantin, the same was achieved through the philosophic discipline and the transmission of the adept or rishi. It has been debated whether yoga meditation was a necessary adjunct of this or not (see The Question of the Importance of Samadhi in Modern and Classical Advaita Vedanta]. However, to set to rest any doubt that qualifications were required to engage in vedantic study under a master, Sankara says, in his commentary to the Kena Upanishad:

   "The concentration of the body, the sense, and the mind are the means, for it is found that the knowledge of Brahman arises in a man who has attained the requisite holiness by means of purification of the heart through these. Knowledge,as imparted by the Vedas, dawns on one whose mind has been purified by concentration, etc., either in this life or in many past ones, as mentioned by the Vedic verse: 'These things get revealed when spoken to that high-souled man who has supreme devotion towards the Effulgent One, and the same devotion to the teacher as to the Effulgent One' (Sv, VI.23). And this is borne out by the Smrti, 'Knowledge dawns on a man on the eradication of sinful acts.' (Mbh,Sa. 204.8)." (4)

   This Upanishad, somewhat like the Buddhists, also suggested that consciousness was a relative term. In commenting on the verse, "Brahman is consciousness," Sankara states:

   "Truly this is so. But even so, that aspect is indicated by such words as consciousness, not from the intrinsic point of view, but merely with reference to the limiting adjuncts - mind, body, and senses..But in reality, the conclusion will be: 'unknown to those who know well, and known to those who do not know.' (5)

   Thus Sankara, too, points to the transcendental absolute as beyond the categories of thought and conception.

   Nagarjuna, as mentioned, not wanting to be left with no pointer to the absolute, conceeded that it’s attribute was bliss. However, the Madyamikas held to the view of the world as neither real nor unreal, but transcendental illusion; the earlier Buddhists a nihilistic shunya; whereas advaita held that reality cannot be the negation of an illusion, and that maya therefore essentially didn’t exist as other than Brahman. Maya was basically a concession to a lesser point of view that insisted on a causal relation between the absolute and the relative, but from the ultimate point of view, both of these are categories of the mind. Thus, ‘emptiness’ and ‘manifestation’ were meant to be seen as two polarities within relativity, on the principle that ‘something cannot (causally) come out of nothing.’ Those who envision the great Void as the pregnant womb from which all manifestation is born are involved in relative languaging and choosing one side of two relative polarities. The term ‘Emptiness’, however, is also used by some schools of Buddhism to mean the Ultimate Reality itself, beyond all polarities. As such, to repeat (and I realize there has already been quite a bit of repetition, but that is all right and in fact an ancient teaching method!), it is not really an experiential void, although such a state, devoid of distinguishing characteristics, is realizable in meditative trance as nirvikalpa or nirodha. But emptiness is indistinguishable from fullness, and as such is beyond all concepts.


   The Void and Emptiness

   PB wrote:

   “The Void must not be misunderstood. Although it is the deepest state of meditation and one where he is deprived of all possessions, including his own personal self, it has a parallel state in the ordinary active non-meditative condition, which can best be called detachment...After all, even the Void, grand and awesome as it is, is nothing but a temporary experience, a period of meditation...The awareness of what is Real must be found not only in deep meditation, in its trance, but when fully awake.”

   “It is not the annihilation of being but the fullness of being.”

   “That which is called the Void, Emptiness, is not the total annihilation of all things, but the total lack of that matter of which they were supposed to be composed.”

   As applied to a meditative state, he says:

   “The Void is not a mere nothing as ordinarily meant; nor is it something the mind can hold for unlimited periods.”

   But as denoting the ineffable Reality, he writes:

   “The Void is the state of Mind in repose, and the appearance-world is its (in)activity. [In other words, the Void-Mind doesn’t ‘do’ anything; the appearance is not different from the Void. There is no causal relation between them]. At a certain stage of their studies, the seeker and the student have to discriminate between both in order to progress; but further progress will bring them to understand that there is no essential difference between the two states and Mind is the same in both.”

   “In a precise scientific sense, the Void is beyond explanation since it is not really a Void at all. It is a perpetual paradox.”

   “On the one hand there is the emptiness of the Void, on the other had there is the fullness of the cosmos which comes into being to occupy it.” (6)

   PB makes this point in a different way in the following quote:

   "The absence of the ego is the presence of the Overself. But this is only a surface impression in the person's thought, for the Overself is always present." (6a)

   In other words, 'nothing truly 'hides' Reality'! (6b) Further, PB here points out that the true displacing element upon ego-transcendance is not, as is commonly presumed among nondual teachings, ultimate reality or the 'One, but the divine Soul (or Overself), which, too, is of the nature of 'void' or 'empty', while not the deepest principle of 'Emptiness' Itself meant as the Absolute. [More on this important distinction is discussed in PB versus Advaita on the Soul found on this website]. So, Buddhists and Advaitins, do not be too quick to dismiss the notion of soul or a higher individuality as merely ego!

   So one can see that the Void, Emptiness, Shunyata, MInd, Reality is always the case, whether one ‘experiences’ a relative void, the so-called Void as Mind-in-repose, or any of the states of manifestation. As such it is ‘beyond duality and non-duality’ or any such conceptualization (have I said it enough?), as Dattatreya proclaims in his Avadhuta Gita:

   “The whole universe is shining as One,
  Without any split or break, or separate parts.
  The idea of 'Maya' is itself the great delusion;
  Duality and Non-duality are merely concepts of the mind.”

   The ‘empty Void' as void or nothing is also ‘empty’. Thus, one comes to Reality.

   Adyashanti beautifully states:

   "To find out that you are empty of emptiness is to die into an aware mystery, which is the source of all existence. It just so happens that that mystery is in love with all of its manifestation and non-manifestation." (7)

   PB also said:

   "He enters into the mastery of philosophy when he not only sees its truth but also feels it fully and loves it deeply." (8)

   He who thinks that the nature of emptiness, the void or ultimate reality is dry and lifeless needs to think again. While the way through the desert of understanding may be like that at times, IT itself is not like that! Rather, it is home.


   Modern dilemmas about emptiness, and some thoughts on Nirguna/Saguna, and non-duality

   Let's put this in another context. Adyashanti said that the spiritual types are often more afraid of the world than the spirit. There may be many reasons for this: lifetimes of seeking based on the belief that the world is the source of illusion and bondage; a culture that does not welcome one into the world as infinite being-consciousness; a heightened sense of mortality, a wounded ego or psyche. In order to fully embrace the world in a non-dual way, therefore, the seeker must have the realization of himself as infinite consciousness or emptiness. Otherwise, the fear of involvement and pain of limitation will always be there, even if unconscious. Getting 'stuck' in emptiness can, however, lead to a form of dissociation. On the other hand, those more apparently successful in the world, but without realizing emptiness, also remain in some degree dissociated and not fully in their bodies or heart. Neither, it might be said, are living from a condition of 'basic sanity'.

   Some spiritual teachings 'permit' or allow the ego to exist, while basically considering it irrelevant and unreal: they say, "forget all 'personal stories', desires, fears, thoughts, and dreams, they are illusion." However, while this is a bit better, it gets even more subtle: know only consciousness, and don't reject the world, but absorb the world in consciousness - sounds like classic sahaja. But at all costs, however, don't be sullied by actually experiencing oneself alive in a world of limitation and relating to others whom one might not be familiar with in a relative sense rather than just seeing them all as the 'non-dual Self'! This can still be a form of self-protection and hinder a truly integrative non-dual actualization.

   PB emphasizes this 'dynamic' second half of the emptiness equation:

   “A good deal of achievement goes on in the silent solitude of our own hearts, unnoticed and unknown toother men; one day it blossoms into irresistable action, and then the world wonders why.”

   "We fulfil life when we find ourselves in the divine presence unendingly, aware of it and expressing it.” (8a)

   We also suggest this view of things. In this understanding we posit indescribable Brahman, as the absolute or ultimate, and in which there are relative (Saguna) polarities: consciousness/phenomena (maya), emptiness/manifestation, impersonal/personal, etc.. Thus, the realization of emptiness and its inseparability from phenomena is a form of non-duality - but still a 'Saguna' or relative form, with attributes like 'Sat-Chit-Ananda. Nirguna non-duality transcends these characterizations. It is both empty and full, and neither empty nor full. Nirguna has no attributes. Some teachers superimpose 'unmanifest' on Nirguna Brahman. This is one of the most common errors that many nondual philosophers fall into. Nondual 'experiences' can come in all kinds of flavors, being conditioned by the relative aspects of a person's nature. For it is their relative 'self' which focalizes this realization within relativity as a 'nondual awakening' or realization or whatever. So that relative self, in its many layers, will necessarily condition how the nondual is experienced. So sometimes it will feel full, sometimes void-like, sometimes blissful, sometimes sublimely cool, sometimes transcendent, sometimes immanent. And all of these are 'true' and facets of a realization that includes and transcends them all. So it is not unmanifest.  That would be more dualism.

   Nirguna is simply not describable in human terms and has no attributes. This would be true emptiness or Shunyata, the Tao, and only experienced (a relative and inadequate word) in glimpses until a high degree of relative actualization of the non-dual vision is achieved. By this is meant becoming more and more refined and integrative of the non-dual vision with subtler and subtler states of the body-mind - either within or without the body - with more and more universal spiritual qualities like love, compassion, discrimination, and the like becoming part of one's character. This is to begin to live a form of 'enlightened duality' as a bridge to non-duality. In Sufism it is being available to the grace of a master or other liberating presence, and inculcating the virtues, each of which form a 'spiritual station', which is a permanent advance of the soul. It is also what is meant by embodying the Christ Consciousness, which exists in both individual and cosmic forms, as both one's inner conscience and guide (the higher personality) and as a universal enlightening presence within relativity. Even Sri Nisargadatta seemed to be of a mind with this:

   “There is a power in the universe working for enlightenment and liberation. We call it Sadashiva, who is ever present in the hearts of men. It is the unifying factor. Unity - liberates. Freedom - unites. Ultimately nothing is mine or yours - everything is ours. Just be one with yourself and you will be one with all, at home in the entire universe.” (8b)

   [What is interesting is that Maharaj’s teaching here sounds much like Christianity when it speaks of “the true light that lighteth every man who cometh into this world”, and that it suggests there is a ‘liberating presence’ or ‘power’ within relativity, call it Logos, Cosmic Christ, Adi Buddha, Masters, Archangels, the Overself, etc., that is a helping bridge beyond relativity. Moreover, there is a ‘we’ implied in the phrase 'everything is ours’, and where there is a ‘we’ there must be an ‘I’ or form of individuality hiding out also, or, at the very least, it is an open question. So much for the simple ‘absolute beyond consciousness’ or a ‘solid block of reality’ that Nisargadatta is famous for !]

   What we are taking about is basically that aspect of the soul, personal and universal, which seeks enlightenment or liberation, to be of service, etc.. At the highest levels of relative existence one's soul becomes in touch with what in many traditions is called Spirit (i.e., Atman) and becomes even more impersonal and universal and, being less veiled, imbibes the essence of the non-dual more directly. All spiritual traditions have this intermediate phase, means, and methods, bridging the relative and the absolute. All of the planes and bodies of manifestation are illusion from the standpoint of Maya, but reality from the side of the Absolute. The process is, in relativity, of actualizing the Absolute or non-dual. For most, it is a gradual process. There are relative laws which must be respected and also embraced within non-dual understanding.

   One more thing. Some schools maintain that non-duality has to be united, merged, fused, or integrated with duality. This can cause problems. Various stages of spiritual awakening, beyond the stage of awakening to even a little degree to the reality of the nondual, are really just, stage to stage, unfolding realization of the 'true' nature of the nondual. It does not require integrating or uniting nonduality with anything, as some schools suggest. That is just another explanation of what nonduality already means. Nonduality inherently integrates every conceivable polarity, including our own belief or experience that it is somehow different from anything else. So, for instance, if we have an internal nirvikalpa realization, then that is a type of nondual realization, but if our experience of it includes a sense that it is away from the physical world, or requires negating or transcending Relativity to experience, or that it makes us special, or that it is on another plane, and so on and so forth, then it is a limited version of nondual realization. Then, as we gradually ripen the realization, nondual realization 'integrates' with everything, not because it in itself needs to be integrated, united, brought down, or infused. But because our realization of the true nature of nonduality grows, it is experienced as doing all these things. But it is not. That is our story of how we are understanding what we think is happening based on our current level of realization of what nonduality is. But it is all just unfoldment of nondual realization. Imo, any belief or experience otherwise is a misunderstanding of nondualism. For instance, there is no need to unite nonduality with anything. The nondual is already nondual and not separate from 'duality'. The perception of nonduality as needing to be balanced with duality is a misunderstanding of the nature of the nondual. This is potentially a huge problem, and has a domino effect that can cause flaws in the rest of any such system.

   Much more could be said on this, as it is fundamental to an integral vision of spirituality.


   Emptiness, illusion, and non-duality in Islam

   It is not only Buddhism and Vedanta that have their versions of emptiness or maya. It exists in Sufism as well. Rumi often sided with those who spoke of annihilation of self:

   "Dear heart, where do you find the courage to seek the Beloved when you know He has annihilated so many like you before? I do not care, said my heart, my only wish is to become one with the Beloved."

   Medieval sage Ibn Al' Arabi, however, in a passage as eloquent as anything from Advaita, tells us that the experience of Truth is veritably non-dual and not a form of monism, with a radical naughting of the individuality not required:

   "If you know yourself as nothing, then you truly know your Lord. Otherwise, you know him not. You cannot know your Lord by making yourself nothing. Many a wise man claims that in order to know one's Lord one must denude oneself of the signs of one's existence, efface one's identity, finally rid oneself of one's self. This is a mistake. How could a thing that does not exist try to get rid of its existence?...If you think that to know Allah depends on your ridding yourself of yourself, then you are guilty of attributing partners to Him - the only unforgivable sin - because you are claiming that there is another existence besides Him, the All-Existent: that there is a you and He...Our Master, the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), said: “He who knows himself knows his Lord.” He did not say: “He who eliminates himself knows his Lord!” (9)

   Shaikh Mawlay Al Arabi ad Darqawa confirms Ibn 'al' Arabi's insight:

   "Extinction also is one of thine attributes. Thou art already extinct, my brother, before thou art extinguished and naught before thou art annihilated. Thou art an illusion in an illusion and a nothingness in a nothingness. When hadst thou Existence that thou mightest be extinguished?" (10)

   One only feels the needs to get rid of something if he believes it is real. The ego is in the category of being neither real nor not real, therefore, to try to get rid of it is a fruitless, yet paradoxical, task. It is a trick of the ego to convince you to try to get rid of it, but it is also a trick of the ego to convince you not to try to get rid of it! Neither side is right; better to embrace and transcend while also trying to develop and perfect it, as PB and others have advised.

   For the Sufi, the mystery is not as simple a matter as rejecting illusion and affirming reality, as the illusion is an important aspect of the soul becoming conscious of Itself - the search for the 'hidden jewel of the divine treasure'. It was an illusion for Arabi, however, to think that one was ever separate from God, for we would have no being or consciousness if we were truly apart from or other than the Reality. Called a 'son of Plato' for his indebtedness to neo-Platonic philosophy, he believed in the Oneness of Being-Perception and also the Creative Imagination of the Intellectual, which is the closest he got to a concept of maya. W.J. Austin writes:

   "Thus, ultimately, whether we throw ourselves into the infinite ocean of cosmic "illusion," in conformity with the all-creating Will, or whether we annihilate our identity in the absolute truth of His identity, in conformity with the all-commanding Wish, we can never be, in reality, other than the Real, on pain of absurdity."

   "[Arabi] said, "It is part of the perfection of being that there is imperfection in it." (11)

   Therefore we are not the first to suggest such an expansive form of non-duality.


   Thoughts on the ego and emptiness

   The growing consensus, then, seems to be that the ego and/or personality is and/or must be wedded to “consciousness” for a true existence to be actualized. It is too easy to say that the ego is 'empty', for what is it exactly? An "I"-thought? A 'bunch of thoughts'? A 'fire-breathing dragon'? What is its function? Is it really only negative and illusion?

   anadi writes:

   "Many seekers are confused and not able to comprehend the apparent paradox of transcending the ego without annihilating it. In Buddhist psychology, there is a concept of so called five skandhas. This concept is missing the elemental understanding that our body-mind operates as an alive and coherent organism of intelligence in a purposeful and meaningful way. The ego cannot be found anywhere as such, for the one looking for it - is the ego. it is too close to be found, but certainly it is always there."

   "The ego-personality not only participates and promotes the shift of our being into the deeper dimensions of reality, from the state of presence to resting in the Absolute, but it also allows us to comprehend our post-Enlightenment situation. Enlightenment is not the end of our growth. The understanding of the Enlightened state and its relation to the ego as well as to the manifested reality is constantly evolving. The ego and Enlightened state co-exist in a very interesting way - they relate to each other...Even after realization, the ego and our essence are in a very rich and dynamic relationship - they are simultaneously present."

   "Those masters who claim that they have no ego, prove to have a certain psychological ignorance; or they're using the term in an improper way. They are most likely victims of certain idealistic, linear and simplistic logic. The transcendental logic embracing the apparent paradox (the co-existence of the ego and the egoless state), goes beyond this simple logic in the apperception of the truth which is not conceptual but alive. The goal of Enlightenment is not to eliminate the ego, but to enlighten it. How could we possibly enlighten it if we deny its very existence? To enlighten the ego is to create within the personal intelligence a clear understanding that our personality, with all its limitations, and our timeless essence, is an indivisible, dynamic whole. It is here that the humility, intelligence and the highest spiritual realization meet.  Ego, the operative center of our personality, even after melting with the Source, must face this never-ending challenge of fulfilling the dynamic balance between its participation in the manifested reality and of resting in the Absolute. The absolute dimension and human perspective are truly one. But although they are one, they give birth to one another in the continuous process at arriving at wholeness." (12)

   So, this debate about the ego and the faculty of reasoning has been going on a long time. Rumi decried reason as taking one to hell. Ibn Arabi, on  the other hand, felt that, in its proper use, Reason along with what he called Imagination could (along with a few other things, like the virtues, devotion, etc.) take one to the Intellectual or the Nous, the World-Mind. But, practically speaking, why do we have a problem, especially with the ego? Here is another way of looking at it.

   We are first born, according to the Sufis, into the stage of egotism, where everything is about 'me': food, sustenance, comfort, etc.. We may at first, it is true, as the psychologists say, have no sense of existence apart from the mother, and then explore the outside world, and only at age two or so experience the arisal of a self-referral in the mind, but it is still 'all about me'. We gradually learn to reason and discriminate and appreciate the presence of others and a world outside of ourself. In this necessary evolutionary  stage we are really expanding, but also generally lose something precious: not only contact with the 'angelic realms', but also our innate love of ourselves. Therefore we hold on tighter to what we feel will fill that sensed hole or lack or emptiness. Our  wounded ego develops or continues its age-old habits: 'bad' ones, and also efforts to 'become good'. Traditionally the path has then been portrayed as a battle against lower tendencies: vasanas, 'nafs' in Sufism, 'the mind is the slayer of the real', and all that. And there is good reason for this: blind identification with phenomenal reality is binding and painful. So we are told to identify with Spirit and get rid of the "I", or find a bigger "I". Unconsciously we first take to that quest as a way to fill the emptiness, not realizing we must at some point go into it in order to become human. This understanding is given in most mature paths, but the ego finds ways to co-opt the understanding for its own sake.

   However, realizing that emptiness, that consciousness, is still only half-way to completion. We must then integrate that with the world to become whole. Now, this can be a long haul, or somewhat shorter if we can embrace both sides simultaneously, Overself/consciousness and self/ego, which is not necessarily easy, because of a lack of self-love in a positive sense, and lack of a supportive culture in which to have such reflected back to us. To some extent that is changing, thank God. We do need a base in consciousness to have the real well-being to so embrace the world, however, so until that is stabilized and integrated there is an inevitable battle, to some extent, with both our old self-centeredness, and also with allowing the more positive side of the ego to exist. So, we in our fear run from existential emptiness, but it is that emptiness that not only allows everything to be, but its realization allows us in human terms to embrace the relative world in a real, living way.

   The ego, therefore, is certainly 'empty' of inherent existence, but it has real relative existence; it is also inseparable from the 'emptiness' of consciousness, as Soul, which in turn is inseparable of the 'emptiness' of Ultimate Reality.


   Sankara's and Buddhist methodology: epistemic, not ontological negation

   Sankara's method of 'neti, neti' (‘not this, not this’) is also often misunderstood. In it the sheaths or upadhis are supposedly rejected one by one as 'not-self' in order to reach the Self. Guadapada, his predecessor, had often, in fact, as previously mentioned, been accused of being a 'crypto-Buddhist' as the dialectic used by him was nearly identical to that of the Madhyamikas. However, the doctrine of the five sheaths in the Tittireya Upanishad, which forms part of the material which Sankara drew from, never once mentioned negating a sheath as not real or as not-self. Rather, the method of analysis there was wholistic, in which one successively realized each sheath as the Self, incorporating each in turn within the other, until nothing was known apart from the bliss of the Self. Sankara used a provisional negation, an epistemological method of negation, yes, as a first stage to find the self apart from the world, which some have interpreted as ontological negation, looking for an essence apart from that which was not real. But, in non-dual truth, there is no such separated essence per se, as nothing is not-real or known apart from the Self. The Self is the negation of a negation, realized in the second stage of the Vedantic approach where the world is known as Brahman. That is, Sankara would use 'neti neti' to strip away one's attachment to everything perceivable; then, when one had become so detached, he would ask one to reintroduce the negated elements into the one Self. "Brahman is real, the jiva is mithya (neither real or unreal, that is, apparent or relatively real), the jiva is Brahman' is how the formula actually read. The emphasis on 'neti neti' was more on negating the limits on the Self rather than trying to negate or eliminate the world. For even after realization of the Self, the sage would still see the world of duality like other men, only as not apart from the Self and this not objectively real in itself. Sometimes Ramana Maharshi, for instance, would say things that implied that for the sage whose jiva-hood was gone there was no world, thus misleading some people into an incorrect view of non-dualism.

   A bhakti method, on the other hand, such as espoused by Anandamayee Ma, would say 'wohi, wohi' ('all is He') rather than 'neti,neti'. Either way works in the end.

   [As mentioned above, we still have to solve the conundrum of whether the Self, Atman, and Brahman are the same, or not. The Vedantic traditions are confusing. This is discussed at greater length in The Primordial Ground: Part Two, and The Great Uniqueness on this website].

   Sankara, then, like many teachers in different traditions, such as Dzogchen, for instance, used a two-phased approach, in which the ultimate realization was attained through a pinnacle shift and/or practice after certain preliminaries had been achieved. For Sankara, one endowed with dispassion, discrimination, mental discipline (composed of six factors, including arguably the most important, shraddha or faith in the words of the scriptures and the teacher), and a burning desire for liberation, then went through a mental discipline. First the world is declared and analyzed as unreal (impermanent, or lacking inherent reality; mithya), then Brahman is declared as the real (and sometimes experenced as such through yogic trance, but not in 'pure' advaita), then Brahman is declared to be the world. [Supposedly this lets one see the jiva and world as none other than Brahman also. The difference in phrasing is significant, because seeing the world as Brahman would imply actually living as if that were so. The usual Vedantin doesn't really do this, but still somewhat holds back to avoid lingering 'contamination. More on that later]. This total procedure or method is said to yields a nondual result. In the sutra forms of Buddhism, first one analyzes the five skhandas or aggregates in order to find the self as 'empty', which in turn must then also be seen as empty - or real. In the more fast track school of Dzogchen, while one is to have already engaged or embodied the preliminary or ngondro practices of virtue, samatha ('calm abiding') and vipashyana (insight meditation), the 'introduction to the view' or important transmission of the non-dual awareness (rigpa) is given at the start by the guru and becomes one’s primary practice, ‘self-liberating' all conditions as they arise and as one more deeply integrates the nondual vision. Thus, even here, as in traditional Vedanta, the role of the guru is essential in transmitting truth.

   The Upanishad in this case essentially gave a positive declaration of Truth from the beginning, then an analysis of relativity. The Buddhist approach to a degree is the reverse: first analyze relativity, then practise based on a vision of truth (right view). The end result, however, is the same: a transcendental truth beyond all categories of thought.

   It must be pointed out that the path of Vedanta does not negate the existence of the ordinary world, instead it has always given it a relative reality, just as do the Madhyamikas, who remain ontological idealists but empirical realists, insisting on reconciling the 'two truths' (absolute and relative), the law of karma or dependent origination, and emptiness, and the tendency of some non-dual teachings to insist that there is no 'doer', or 'no one to do anything', can often lead to confusion and spiritual stagnancy. One antidote to this potential problem of the popular 'awareness' teachings, are, in fact, the 'emptiness' teachings, which are logical and practical in their investigations. As Greg Goode writes:

   "There are three main reasons for not refuting conventional existence.  One is that conventional existence, according to Middle Way Buddhism, is not the cause of suffering.  Therefore, there is no necessity to refute it.  Two, not refuting conventional existence allows Buddhism to be able to “speak with the world” by accepting what the world accepts. Three, not refuting conventional existence provides a way for Buddhism to present the Four Noble Truths and the eight-fold path to the end of suffering.  Even though the Buddhist teachings are vast and profound teachings, they are still conventional existents.  By not refuting conventional existence while indeed refuting inherent existence, Buddhism itself can tread the Middle Way between the extremes of existence.  If conventional existence were refuted along with inherent existence, the Buddhist path would not be possible since nothing would be said to exist.  Refuting conventional existence would err on the side of nihilism.  Retaining conventional existence avoids this extreme."

   "On the other hand, if inherent existence were not refuted, then too the Buddhist path would not be possible.  Inherently existent things are independent of everything and therefore causeless, untouchable and eternal.  If things existed inherently, they would be forever frozen in place, and no change or progress along the Buddhist path would be possible.  Suffering entities would forever remain suffering entities.  For Buddhism not to refute inherent existence would err on the side of eternalism.  Avoiding both extremes is the Middle Way." (13)

   If one is established in the witness position he has achieved disidentification with himself as an 'entity'. Thus his self is seen as ‘empty’. Yet turning away from appearances or the world assumes that the appearances and the world are separate from empty awareness (a primary dualism). It may be a necessary first step, getting established in the witness. But to go thus from knowing 'who' one is (the dis-entificaton of consciousness) to knowing 'what' one is (embodied non-dual consciousness) take a further process. It may occur spontaneously, if the witness identification is strong (see Greg Goode on collapsing of the witness into non-dual awareness), or it may take a passage through fear, followed by a radical letting go, as well as metaphysical understanding - or, for some, perhaps just a withering away of the search. It is the harder of the two steps, according to PB, and could take a long time after the exclusive inner self or witness is found. The first advaitic step alone, stabilization of the true witness, is profound, and, as Anthony Damiani once forcefully told me, "could take you fifty years!" In other words, there is no time limit to it, and also no modern trick or technique to fast-track one to rapid success. It is an individual matter, as profound as the fruition of the mentalistic discipline, the realization of the 'emptiness' of objects or the 'de-objectification' of the external world, transforming age-old habits. And, for most of us, it cannot be done in a cave; we must learn swimming in water.


   Taking emptiness teachings to heart

   This is because it is not merely an intellectual exercise, but one that requires some effort, patience, endurance, feeling, and discrimination in daily life with all of its ups and downs, twists and turns. Therefore, it is said traditionally that to be truly ready for emptiness teachings requires that one burst into tears at the mere mention of the word 'emptiness', or that its contemplation will make ones 'hair stand on end'. The Dalai Lama has even said that if studying the teachings of emptiness doesn't at some point turn your world upside down one has not taken the teachings to heart. Traditionally, there was given a warning to disclosing such a teaching:

   "This profound subject should be taught to those who in the past have repeatedly established in their minds the propensity for understanding emptiness, and not to others. This is because, although those [others] may have managed to study the scriptures that teach emptiness, with their mistaken preconceptions about emptiness, teaching it to them will be utterly useless. it is utterly useless because some of them, those who have no expertise, refute emptiness and go to unfortunate realms. Others, thinking that the meaning of emptiness is that phenomena do not exist, first generate the mistaken view that is nihilistic in regard to cause and effect. Then, without turning away from this false view, it grows larger and larger until, as a result of this, they are reborn into the Avici Hell...One goes to Avici not only by having a nihilistic attitude in regard to emptiness, but also by having a nihilistic attitude in regard to cause and effect. A multitude of reputable sutras and sastras all agree that to view causality as nonexistent is the cause of losing the roots of all of one's merit, and is also the cause of the degeneration of one's vows." ! (14)

   I consider this a scare tactic 'disclosure statement' for medieval Buddhist teachers when speaking to many different levels of students! It is similar to teaching to beginners that there is no separate self, before they have even exercised and inquired into such a self. In this day and age, however, such teachings can no longer be held back. Nevertheless, in the Madhyamakavatara it states:

   "Even though still at the stage of ordinary beings, when [some people] study emptiness, they experience great rapture and wonderment internally. Arising from this great rapture, their eyes well with tears, and the hairs of their body stand on end. Those beings have the seed of the perfect Buddha's mind. They are the vessels to whom reality is to be taught. it is to them that the ultimate truth should be taught." (15)


   Combining Buddhism and Vedanta

   We should add that for 'awareness' teachings, Consciousness, being noumenal, is not refutable (unless one considers it to be a 'thing') and therefore it is compatible with the teachings of emptiness. Anthony Damiani argues that one must combine the viewpoints of both Vedanta and Buddhism, consciousness and emptiness to get a clear picture:

   "Soul in its nature or essence is of an unchanging consciousness. The ego, which is part of the World-Idea [a term used by PB. For a precise explanation of PB's terminology, which the reader will found scattered throughout this paper, please click here], is constantly changing from moment to moment. You've got to explain that. You've got to explain the Buddhist position and the Vedantic position. One is a psychological one and the other is more metaphysical. Understand the nature of consciousness that the ego represents - that is from moment to moment, and that would be the Buddhist position. Understand the nature of the consciousness which is always abiding, never changing, and that would be the Vedantic position. Now the two of them are together in every and any situation that you care to think about....If we say that the World-Idea - the world and all the bodies in it - is the product of this Mind which, from instant to instant, is manifesting this world, then body and the world have to be changing from moment to moment. And we're speaking about consciousness. I'm speaking about this body which is manifesting from instant to instant. I'm speaking about consciousness manifesting from instant to instant. That means that my body is this consciousness manifesting instant to instant. Inside that - and this is a colloquialism - inside that is this light of the soul which doesn't change. This is the light, so to speak, that becomes aware of change. It itself is unchanging. And I've got these two things together." (16)

   Damiani argued that the arguments of Vedanta (i.e., Atman/Brahman, the Self) really should be combined with those of Buddhism (anatta or no-self) to gain a complete picture of truth. For the 'idealistic' view of Vedanta - where the Self is asserted as the transcendental Reality to be known through direct insight and reliance on revealed scriptural pronouncements, or Maha Vakyas, and the jiva is considered to be phenomenal illusion - comes to the same ultimate conclusion as the more 'realistic' Buddhist analysis where the phenomenal self is investigated and found to be impermanent, leaving Nirvana as the transcendental Reality. Thus, Brahman of Vedanta and Nirvana of Buddhism point to the same truth. This somewhat analogous to Parmenides and Heraclitus of ancient Greece, the former saying that everything is always the same, and the latter saying that all is flux. One is speaking of the essence and one of the appearance.

   Because the anatta or 'no-self' doctrine of early Buddhism had given rise to a doctrine of nihilism, however, Sankara came along with a mission of rejuvenating the earlier Brahmanical Vedanta and purifying India of such degenerated doctrines of Buddhism. His formulation of Vedanta, like other paths, required the unerring guidance of a competent realized teacher who has embodied the teachings and can dispassionately and impersonally transmit grace, in the appropriate time and manner, to each individual aspirant. It wasn't a do-it-yourself path. Moreover, for Sankara there was no fundamental difference between bhakti and jnana. He even described bhakti as devoted inquiry into the nature of the Self. In the introduction to the Kena Upanishad he writes:

   "May my limbs, speech, vital force, eyes, ears, as also strength and all the organs, become well developed. Everything is the Brahman revealed in the Upanishads. May I not deny Brahman; may not Brahman deny me. Let there be no spurning of me by Brahman, let there be no rejection of Brahman by me. May all the virtues that are spoken of in the Upanishads repose in me who am engaged in the pursuit of the Self." (17)

   Who is the 'me' referred to by Sankara here?!

   Earlier, Nagarjuna, seminal figure in Mahayana Buddhism and "emptiness" teachings also :

   "distinguished the easy way of Faith [or devotion, bhakti] from the hard way of Wisdom." (18)

   For those whose reasoning powers are limited in directly understanding emptiness, he said that if they devotedly follow the teachings of the Tathagata (on impermanence, the noble eight-fold path, compassion, etc.) they will come to an understanding of it gradually by faith:

   "The self-arisen ultimate is to be understood by means of faith." (19)

   However, the essence of the direct path to liberation for the Mahayanists is the practice and understanding of emptiness or selflessness. This, however, can be misunderstood. Selflessness is ultimately also selfless, just as emptiness is empty. It is beyond categories of thought. That is why to speak of 'no-self' or 'the Self' are basically attempts to point towards the inconceivable, from within relativity. It is difficult to speak of these things, and neither alternative adequately expresses the richness of truth. Each contains its own problems, and require the epistemological discipline, "how do you know?", for one to even begin to understand.

   Another way of looking at the matter is that of combining Advaita with Emptiness teachings to produce a clear result. 'Emptiness' logic will show the inherent interdependency of all phenomena, their lack of an inherent self-existence, and therefore the non-existence of an inherently independent phenomenal self, while Awareness teachings will show the 'empty' or noumenal substratum of Consciousness in which phenomena simultaneously arise. Phenomena are not conscious, but are the actualization of the World-Mind's World-Idea projected through the Soul or Consciousness, seated in the human heart, with which, upon Realization, they are non-separate, including one's very body itself. How to realize that condition? Ah, that is the most important thing, isn't it? We will touch on that, we must, but this is overall more of a philosophical essay to save the reader perhaps years of intellectual slogging through various old traditions.

   A possible problem with awareness teachings is that their 'idealism' can lead to an avoidance of the world (but shouldn’t) while emptiness teachings, not being so idealistic (since they view any mind, or consciousness, or substratum, as 'empty'), actually in a sense 'liberate' the world while asserting its non-inherent reality, or reality only as dependently arising conditions or phenomena. One can take then emptiness teachings as a path unto themselves - the Middle Way of Mahayana Buddhism, as taught by the Buddha, Nagarjuna, as well as the Dalai Lama - or as an aid to the second half of the quest as taught by PB, the first being realization that one is consciousness, and the second being the realization of the non-separate nature of that consciousness with the world of manifestation. Either way or in combination one comes to selflessness, compassion, and non-duality.

   Scott Kiloby, once again, speaks to the tendency for those into non-dual teachings, after disidentifying with self, other, the body, and their story, to still cling to the notion of an absolute (as an object), and thereby dismiss or avoid the uniqueness of all things. This talk is part 5 of a series, The Unfindable Inquiry, which he advises one to start from the beginning, but in the context of what we are discussing it seems appropriate to include this segment here. He has a real skill in simplifying difficult concepts.


   Untangling terminology among Tibetan schools

   There is room in the traditions for some confusion, for different Buddhist schools speak of ‘dependent origination’ and ‘emptiness’ in different ways. For instance, the Gelugpas say the mind is impermanent, while the Kagyupas and Nyingmapas say it is permanent. There is no contradiction, because the former is speaking of the relative mind in the world of objects, while the latter means the absolute mind beneath or behind objects. The ‘mind’ in this instance is the same as the Self of the Vedantins. Similarly, the Gelugpas refer to everything as subject to ‘dependent origination, while the Kagyupas and Nyingmapas do not. For them, absolute reality is beyond dependent origination, for Reality does not arise from ignorance. Again, merely a conceptual difference [sometimes it is called 'dependent origination', and sometimes 'interdependent origination'; it basically means the same thing].On the nature of the Void, the Gelugpas speak from the point of view of non-buddhas, and focus on Void or appearance one at a time. Thus, the Void is a state. The Nyingmapas and Kagyupas, as well as Dzogchen, speak from the point of view of the buddhas, and do not separate the Void from appearance. Finally, in regards to realizing the clear light awareness of voidness, the Gelugpas speak of ‘self-voidness,’ and focus on the lack of inherent self-nature in the object perceived, while the Kagyupas, Nyingmapas, and Dzogchen practitioners speak of ‘other-voidness, and stress the direct meditation on the clear light mind itself. There, too, they differ in approach. The Gelugpas teach a gradual process of eliminating the grosser levels of mind in order to reach the clear light mind, while the others go directly to the meditation on the clear light mind without dissolving the grosser levels first. However, even here, they usually have had experience with various energy practices (i.e., kundalini yoga, etc.) and thus face little resistance in dissolving the grosser levels automatically as they adhere solely to rigpa or the clear light void-mind itself. Finally, for the Gelugpas, ‘voidness’ actually refers to ‘voidness’, while to the Kagyupas and Nyingmapas ‘voidness’ is totally non-conceptual and beyond words.

   To complicate things a bit further, the Advaitins use the word atma in the sense of the transcendental subject, pure consciousness, while the Buddhists use the word atma to mean an eternal individual substance, which they reject while retaining its empirical truth. Yet they also do not mean to deny the so-called absolute self, only denying that it falls within the categories of thought. To attempt to do so, said the Buddha, was to land in a 'wilderness of views' (ditthi-gahana), a 'jungle of theories' (ditthi-kantara), or in the 'net of thought constructions'. Indeed, shunyata itself is not a view, but the transcendance of all views (drsti-shunyata). Those who make it a view become 'hopelessly incurable' and 'philosophically doomed', because they deny the relative, empirical world, ending up with truly nothing. While thought is not the real, as a relative tool (samvriti) it can still indirectly point towards the truth. There is, in fact, no non-dual path! There are only relative means to point towards the non-dual. And paradoxically, for the Mahayana Buddhists, while emptiness is the transcendance or repudiation of all views, it is still important to have the 'right view'!


   The Buddhist question of balance

   On the essentials, however, all of the above Tibetan schools have a Mahayana or Madyamika basis and are thus in fundamental agreement. This problem of diversity of interpretation doesn’t exist in Advaita Vedanta so much, except for those extremists who argue that the world doesn’t exist at all. As mentioned, this was never the position of Sankara, who, like the Madyamikas, always gave the world a relative or provisional existence, ending with the positive conclusion that the world is non-dual Brahman.

   The basic Mahayana path is the backbone of all Tibetan schools. The Dalai Lama thus emphasizes virtue, concentration, and insight:

   "This pattern of training in the path, training first in ethics then in meditative stabilization and then in wisdom is not just a pronouncement of the Buddha but accords with the actual fact of experience in training the mind. In order to generate the view realizing emptiness in any strong form, never mind that special level of mind called special insight realizing emptiness, it is necessary that the mind not be distracted, that it be channeled, that it be brought together and made powerful. Thus in order for the wisdom consciousness to be powerful and to be capable of acting as an antidote, it is necessary for the consciousness itself to be channeled. Thus meditative stabilization is needed for wisdom."

   "In order to have meditative stabilization, in which there is a quieting of internal mental distractions, it is necessary prior to that to restrain coarser types of distraction of body and speech. Thus one engages in practices of ethics that involve restraint of these coarser activities of body and speech in order to lay the groundwork for meditative stabilization. Thus ethics is first, meditative stabilization second and wisdom is third in the order of the three trainings. This is certified by experience.” (20).

   The Dalai Lama once said that if he had to choose between teaching about emptiness, or teaching about karma, he would choose the latter. What he meant by this is that if he had to choose (which he doesn’t) between focusing exclusively on a 'direct pointing' approach that emphasized nondual awakening, the so-called direct path, or focusing on the relative aspect of the teaching, which is based squarely on appreciating the story of the path, the process of becoming, the karmic processes of cause and effect, of cultivating character and virtue, of cleansing karma/thought-forms/vasanas, of healing trauma, of going through dark nights and the kind of karmic cleansings that Milarepa went through guided by Marpa, laboring, surrendering, suffering - he would chose the latter because that is where most people are at. Many so-called direct path teachings do not recognize the profound relative truth of the necessity, for most people, of much of this kind of thing. They often just want to gloss over it all. People who are having a hard time 'getting it' are made to feel they are doing something wrong, not forgetting their personal story, or simply dramatizing their ego. Whereas it is not recognized by many that the very coming to the teaching, meeting the teacher, and the awakening to truth are to large extent karmically determined. The Dalai Lama was not saying forget such paths, but was expressing the simple truth that between these two approaches, the so-called 'karmic' teachings are much more universally relevant and practically wise, and the direct teachings by themselves are of value to very few.

   Karma Changchub Thinley puts it in another way:

   "I’ve also seen many folks shun basic bodhicitta practice for practices that deal in a more head-on way with emptiness; more secret practices, higher ones, implying that loving kindness is basic. Actually, it can be excruciating to try to be there for others. Kindness in the face of adversity, or aversion for that matter, is not as easy as reading a book about it. It can be much more convenient to rest in the thought that “my self-centeredness doesn’t exist, it’s empty of any self-nature”- therefore it’s unnecessary to really look at it in the face to see where it’s coming from." (20a)

   Like everything, these views must be balanced, and tailored to the individual. A good quote on glimpsing emptiness, as taught in many direct path teachings, with the caveat that it is still a half-way house to full recognition of what emptiness really is, is given by Anam Thugen:

   "When we leave mind alone, we arrive at a point where mind dissolves and where we know nothing and we are left innocent like a newborn child. Then the ground of all things reveals itself. Emptiness reveals itself, just like when the clouds move away, the majestic mountain reveals itself. Then we glimpse the ground of all things without any veils, barricades, or walls between our consciousness and the truth itself. We glimpse it just as we glimpse everything around us. Then absolute truth is transparent, immediate, and luminous. But glimpsing the truth is just the beginning of our unfolding process of inner awakening. What is required is recognition of the truth, and that recognition is the supreme realization that liberates us.” (21)

   To get to this recognition means that even a 'direct' path is a 'gradual' path, in that we must use skillfull means, and even 'lesser' practices, when we are not so easily able to glimpse 'emptiness' or presence. This is what the Dalai lama was talking about. Perhaps one needs to use mindfulness, or samatha practice, or japa, or karma yoga, when direct seeing is not possible or happening. This is not a sign of weakness. The 'best practice' is not necessarily the 'highest practice', it is whatever is true for us in any moment. In most cases, the direct teachings are supplemental to a fundamental traditional life of practice into which they become integrated gradually, not a complete path themselves. We need a raft to get us to the other shore. What did the Beatles sing? "I'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in, to keep my mind from wandering..where it will go o o o..." Were they not speaking of mindfulness?! This is one example of adapting as the need requires. Also, when even the Dalai Lama won't say if he is realized, it makes one think before declaring that any new technique, anti-technique, teaching or anti-teaching guarantees one a rapid road to Nirvana.

   "To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue." - Buddha

   Views of modern teachers on emptiness

   Here are some views from several contemporary teachers. anadi says:

   “Emptiness is another name for the absolute, the uncreated energy. Certain mystics have realised that the original void or emptiness is the ultimate. This realisation is however not complete, as emptiness is not the whole of the ultimate. The secret within the absolute is the presence of the divine dimension. The divine is simply the heart of emptiness and, in truth, the very meaning of the absolute. The absolute represents the being aspect of the ultimate reality. The beloved is the unity of emptiness, love and inexplicable intelligence.” (22)

   Is this really unique? Long ago it was said in the Heart Sutra, “form is emptiness, emptiness is form.” What is different for anadi is that ‘emptiness’ as the absolute state (a term of Sri Nisargadatta’s) is ‘beyond consciousness,’ or rather, the ground of being in which consciousness 'consciously recognizes its own absence', no doubt quite a paradox. Thus, by this explanation, emptiness is not consciousness as is commonly presumed. Traditionally, according to Mahayana Buddhism, the glimpse of emptiness is the first of ten stages to full enlightenment. It is recognised that the underlying nature of all these steps or stages is effortless, non-conceptual awareness. That is the precondition for progress. It is progress of the soul, not the ego [my emphasis]. Furthermore, it is taught in the Mahayana tradition that fixating on non-conceptual awareness may grant one rebirth in one of the formless realms, which themselves are still within conditional existence. Chandrakirti, said that those who considered ‘emptiness’ as a state were “philosophically doomed and destined to land in a self-condemned void!” This is what anadi and Nisargadatta have said about consciousness or awareness: by itself it is still in the realm of the (uncausally) created, per se, not the Uncreated. So, according to this view, among some of both the traditional as well as contemporary teachers of non-dual consciousness, it appears, there may be legitimate, but partial understanding: consciousness and form are polarities, inseparable from one another, but there may be more to reality than just consciousness. This is a complex argument found in detail in the four-part series Dual Non-Dualism on this website.

   Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche gives a more traditional explanation:

   "Emptiness, the ultimate nature of Dharmakaya, the Absolute Body, is not a simple nothingness. It possesses intrinsically the faculty of knowing all phenomena. This faculty is the luminous or cognitive aspect of the Dharmakaya, whose expression is spontaneous. The Dharmakaya is not the product of causes and conditions; it is the original nature of mind...Emptiness of mind is not a nothingness, nor a state of torpor, for it possesses by its very nature a luminous faculty of knowledge which is called Awareness. These two aspects, emptiness and Awareness, cannot be separated. They are essentially one, like the surface of the mirror and the image which is reflected in it."

   Adyashanti speaks of 'radical emptiness':

   "To the extent that the fire of truth wipes out all fixated points of view,  it wipes out inner contradictions as well, and we begin to move in a  whole different way. The Way is the flow that comes from a place of  non-contradiction - not from good and bad. Much less damage tends to  be done from that place. Once we have reached the phase where there  is no fixed self-concept, we tend to lead a selfless life. The only way to  be selfless is to be self less - without a self. No matter what it does, a  self isn't going to be selfless. It can pretend. It can approximate  selflessness, but a self is never going to be selfless because there is  always an identified personal self at the root of it."

   "This is radical emptiness - where everything is arising spontaneously.  There is no more need to discriminate with the mind between what  seems to be the right thing or the wrong thing to do. In ego-land it's  helpful to have an ego that can discriminate between right and wrong,  but at a certain point, that's not what you are operating by. You are  operating by the flow of the Tao, which is a higher order of  intelligence. You don't need to intellectually discriminate anymore  because the Tao discriminates without discriminating; it knows without  knowing; it moves without moving. There is no sense of being  enlightened or unenlightened. Since there is no self, there is nothing to  be enlightened or unenlightened."

   "We can talk about enlightened beings and non-enlightened beings, and  conceptually that has a use. But when there is no self, when there is  radical emptiness, the whole enlightenment thing is sort of irrelevant  because reality has become conscious of itself, which is enlightenment.  That's what is often missed. People believe that enlightenment is an  improvement on reality, like becoming a super human being or  God-knows-what. But enlightenment is when reality is awake to itself  as itself within itself." (23)

   Is this 'radical emptiness' - something new - or just basic 'emptiness', as decribed by Nagarjuna and the Buddha? I think it is the latter, with the word 'radical' put in there to make it clear for the new student that emptiness is not some kind of experiential 'nothing' by a 'somebody'. He elsewhere points out clearly that emptiness is not empty, but full, and that it 'is in love with its manifestations'.

   He certainly has it right that emptiness requires that 'the fire of truth wipes out all fixated points of view'. The question is, how eager is one to enter that fire, and by what means?


   Levels of emptiness?

   V.S. Iyer points out in his commentary on the Mandukya Upanishad:

   "Advaita...uses the term "unborn," in reference to the Atman, only to refute those who say it is born, i.e., created, produced. So we say it is "uncreated" in reply. For "birthless" is only a word, i.e., a thought...not the truth. It is a thorn to pick out the thorn of causal-grounded ideas." (24)

   Thus, the ‘unborn is also used in two ways: one, as the unmanifest polarity to the manifest, and, two, as Ultimate Reality itself. This is another possible confusion when studying the Buddhist doctrines.


   It has also been argued in different schools that there is a difference between states of emptiness, or awareness as reflected within the psychosomatic organism, and the great emptiness of the absolute, the beyond, which is much deeper. That there is a profound distinction between the void nature of the soul and the void of the absolute. The Taoists speak of transmuting human essence, vitality (chi), and spirit into purified yang-spirit (shen) which unites with the great Void or cosmic yang-spirit resulting in immortality. The Tibetan Buddhists speak of a meeting of the true ‘nature of the mind’, or the 'Child Luminosity', with the 'Mother' or ‘Ground Luminosity’ at the time of death, in which one has a first opportunity for liberation before sojourning through the bardos and eventual rebirth. Among the different schools within the Vajrayana and Dzogchen traditions, they sometimes distinguish between the mind of clarity and the clear light of reality. According to Lama Yeshe:

   "With the arising of the clear light, this very subtle mind mixes indistinguishably with emptiness in an experience of inexpressible bliss. For such a person, death has become the precious opportunity for perfecting the wisdom of nonduality." (24a)

   Great sages who have awakened to the subjective nature of the mind, such as Ramana Maharshi, Bankei, and Milarepa, didn't spend years in meditation, contemplation, and in some cases the company of other sages deepening, completing, and confirming their enlightenment for nothing. It is not the labor of a few weeks. Nor is it a mere cognitive shift in identity, however attractive that argument may seem. It is certainly that, but there is much more, and there are many elements necessary, including, not only understanding, but profound surrender and an energetic shift or transformation, requiring the help of grace. However, the world is waking up; it may not be as hard as it used to be. New paths of enlightenment are emerging, or are they? Are new paradigms emerging, that can streamline one's quest by fifty-fold, as some seem to suggest, or is there just a streamlining of existing traditions, and an illusion of a new paradigm? This question is gone into in more depth in Why We Need A New Vision on this website.

   Yet here is what Chang Po-tuan wrote one thousand years ago in the most important book of the Complete Reality School of Taoism, "Understanding Reality":

   "The essence of true thusness is naturally real being as is - there is no effort involved at all. It is not material, not void. It is what is called unconsciously following the laws of God...If in spite of having understood it you do not know how to cultivate and refine it, your life does not depend on yourself and still depends on fate - when your time is up, you have no support, and cannot escape death and reincarnation...Not giving up the work of gradual cultivation after sudden enlightenment..you dissolve aggregated conditioning...In ancient times, after the sixth patriarch of Ch'an Buddhism had gotten the transmission of the fifth patriarch, he hid among hunters, mingling with ordinary folk, integrating his illumination, thus perfecting true attainment. Tzu-hsien realized complete pervasion suddenly, but he knew in himself it wasn't the ultimate, and he needed the transmission of Hsing-lin to attain the great achievement. People usually think it is just a matter of cultivating the great medicine, or that if one realizes true thusness this itself is enlightenment. Then what did the fifth patriarch transmit to the sixth patriarch, since the latter had already realized "there is originally not a single thing"? And why did Tzu-hsien seek out Hsing-lin after having suddenly realized complete pervasion? So we know that all-at-once understanding and gradual cultivation are both necessary. It may happen that one suddenly understands first and then gradually practices, or one may first gradually cultivate and then suddenly understand. Essence and life must both be cultivated; the work requires two stages."

   "The path of cultivating essence is the path of nonstriving, nondoing...The path of cultivating life, this is the path of striving, doing. Practicing the Path is for oneself, practicing virtue is for others. Practice of the path has an end, but practice of virtue has no end. Therefore after spiritual immortals completed the Path, they always fulfilled three thousand meritorious deeds."

   "If you reject the world, there is no Tao." (24b) One might say that the illusion, in one sense, is that there is Being without Becoming; Emptiness, even a 'Full-Emptiness' (rather than an 'empty' witness, as some ancient versions of advaita assert as the nature of the Atman), in which to luxuriate, without seamless integration of that Emptiness with the world.

   Something to think about. What does this really mean? It means, I might suggest, that dissociation, world-denying asceticism, 'other-worldly' ascension, or choosing the 'unmanifest' over the 'manifest' are not true ways of realization, but a historical development that served its purpose - for several millenia - in breaking us away from primitive shamanism and identification with nature, but now promise only to, at best - if one has extreme talent - grant one a blissful 'spiritual vacation' for a still finite period of time, or at worst, as Chandrakirti said, 'land oneself in a self-condemned void!' How to get out of this predicament? By, paradoxically, going into it. Frankly, that means pain. It means having no options left but to 'descend' from dissociative means into the pain of being a conscious human being. This separate and separative self is itself a product, in a way, of the entire evolutionary development that produced the experiment of trying to 'get out of here', or trying to 'control what is here', depending on one's leaning. It means entering the 'hole' to become 'whole.' What 'hole'? The existential hole or dukkha at the core of our separative sense of being. Alas, few as yet really want this, because the distractions and options of avoidance are so compelling that few even feel it. Even great saints and mystics don't always want this, depending on the success they have in reaching their particular kind of ecstatic freedom. This, to borrow a phrase from singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, is for "rainy day people," or those who have been disheartened by the search to 'escape', and are willing or have no choice but to simmer in their own pot until the sun of their true being breaks out. This is what is meant by the term 'incarnational spirituality'. No separation. This, I propose, is one modern interpretation of what 'without the world, there is no Tao' might mean.


   This is also why ascetics can not generally realize truth - they leave the world. And whatever you leave comes back to bite you, except your delusions.

   Dependent Origination, the five skhandas, and traditional teachers on emptiness

   In Buddhism, the twelve links of dependent or interdependent origination (pratityamatpada)describe these workings of cause and effect. To end the bondage to the cycle of rebirth (but not necessarily to repeal or end the cycle itself - which the Solitary Realizer, but not the Bodhisattva, may want to do) is to see the point at which the links of interdependent origination can be cut. For instance, feeling gives rise to craving, and craving gives rise to clinging; if the mind is stilled, feeling is stilled, craving ceases, and clinging ceases as well. An analysis of causation in which every cause is seen to be the result of another cause, and thus are all 'interdependent, is also a part of this. However, it is not as easy as it might seem. As the Buddha states in the Samyutta Nikaya:

   “Even so, though a noble disciple has put away the five lower fetters [including the sakkayaditthi, the belief in something permanent in the five aggregates], yet from among the five groups of grasping the subtle remnant of the conceit of the ‘I’, an attachment to the ‘I’, and the lurking tendency to think ‘I am’ is still not removed from him.”

   And in the Digha Nikaya, after his disciple Ananda said that the concept of interdependent origination was easy, the Buddha replied:

   “Do not say that, Ananda. The teaching of interdependent origination is indeed deep and subtle...It is because of not understanding and not penetrating this Dhamma that this generation...does not go beyond transmigration.” (25)

   Sustained contemplation and grace are necessary to remove this conceit of ‘I’. The links of interdependent origination reveal the ‘emptiness’ and interconnectedness of all things, that is, the lack of a permanently existing entity or self anywhere. The realization of all things being interconnected gives rise to Bodhichitta, or universal love. The way of the Madhyamakas is the path followed by the Dalai Lama. His Holiness gives a very succinct description of these teachings:

   “Ignorance is conquered by understanding the interdependence of all phenomena, or, in other words, “interdependent origination.” So what is the meaning of interdependent origination? “Whatever is dependent on something else, that thing is not independent,” adds Aryadeva. We cannot talk about a self in any other sense apart from this. That means that something that comes about in dependence on something else is not an independent entity. Hence, this “self” is not an independent entity...And that which is interdependent is called empty. This is the Madhyamaka, or middle path...Nagarjuna said, “For me, emptiness is equivalent to interdependent origination. Whatever is interdependent, that is empty..As long as there is attachment to the Five Skandhas, there will be clinging to a self.” The individual identifies with the skandhas as being 'I'...Yet, there exists no such substantial self. It is empty of substantial existence. There has never existed a self that the individual can base is or her pride on...The Buddha said that the idea that things arising from causes and conditions are existent is ignorance.” He also said that something that is not dependently arisen does not exist. Therefore a non-empty thing does not exist.”

   This is typical speach of the Gelugpa sect, where dependent origination is spoken of in relationship to the phenmenal world. For the Kagyupas and also in Dzogchen, the clear light void mind of reality is independent of this chain of dependent origination. They emphasize the absolute, not the relative. Thus, the Dalai Lama must add:

   “Non-existence, however, does not exist either. Unless this is clear, the refutation of existence is just words. The skandhas, the basis of our notion of a personal self, do not exist at all. This does not mean that no individual exists. If there were no individuals at all we could not speak of samsara and nirvana, of happiness and suffering. Thus the absence of a self contradicts our direct experience. We do exist in some way. But the basis on which a self is imputed does not have the slightest true existence.”

   “There is, however, what is called “nominal existence” or “merely a name.” There is something that the name refers to, but that thing cannot be found. Merely a name is found. It is quite odd, isn’t it? This is the “emptiness of emptiness” or natural emptiness. Nirvana can also be analyzed in this way. Although nirvana is a very famous thing, it is actually the emptiness of nirvana that is found, not nirvana itself.” (26)

   One might also say that this realization reintegrates the ‘five skhandas as 'not-non-self’, but rather inclusive of the self. That is how the higher Vajrayana/Dzogchen schools look at it. But provisionally, as a methodology of discrimination, the negation of the skhandas comes first. That is the Madyamika way. That is also the Upanishadic way of 'neti, neti'. Some awareness teachings say finding the "who" comes before the "what", but deconstructing our ages-old naive realism - viewing the external world objectively - comes first in Buddhism. PB called this the 'mentalistic' discipline, a complete turn-about in perception that can take lifetimes to make real for oneself. This approach also comes naturally to a child: first he is interested in what is outside him, only later does he make a self-referral. Without this grounding in emptiness, seeing things as devoid of inherent self-existence, as changing mental impressions arising in consciousness, simply meditating on the source of the self often isn't enough to truly liberate and free us of the 'innate mind' that gives us our basic sense of self - a sense of self we even share with animals. That is, we can't fully eliminate the sense of subjectivity unless we first eliminate the sense of objectivity. mKas grub dGe (1385-1438), disciple of Tsong kha pa, argues:

   "From among these two, [that is, from among the subjective aspect eliminated by means of the path and the objective one refuted by means of reasoning] the chief thing to be refuted is the object, [that is, the incorrect mode of existence,] and not the subject, [the mind grasping at this incorrect mode of existence] for unless one undermines this mode of existence as it is grasped by mistaken conceptualization no other method brings an end to this mistaken conceptualization. Having witnessed the understanding of that [mode of existence], one ascertains that in fact [things] do not exist as they are apprehended by the mistaken conception; and by the force of constantly meditating on this, one is able to destroy from the root the very seeds of mistaken conceptions." (27)

   Both of these tasks can be achieved through emptiness teachings, but combining emptiness teachings with awareness teachings is another and logical way to go. To add another perspective to the analysis and rejection of the skandhas and their re-assimilation as part of reality, PB writes:

   "In contacting the Overself, he does not really sense a bigger "I." He senses SOMETHING which is. This is first achieved by forgetting the ego, the personality, the "I". But at a later stage, there is nothing to forget for then he finds that the ego, the personality, and the "I" are of the same stuff as this SOMETHING." (27a)

   Thus, the 'empty' skandhas, once having gone through the discipline, are known as also part of Reality.

   Remember, the Dalai Lama did say that we “exist ‘in some way”. The Buddha, in the Diamond Sutra, also pointed out that exactly because of the teaching of the Void (‘No-thing exists’) that every-thing exists in some manner. And His Holiness once said, “He who denies his own existence is a fool.” PB echoes him when he writes:

   "If he himself is a mere nothing who does not exist, who then is it who takes all the trouble to prove it?" (27b)

   This must be understood in the right way. It is not ‘understanding’ or knowing per se, but beyond both knowing and not-knowing dualistically considered. Just like with all conceivable polarities. It is 'beyond' duality and nonduality, being and becoming, emptiness and manifestation. It Is what it is. This 'we exist in some way' is why one who has realized the 'full-blown' nature of emptiness wants to help others. Why would he do so, if there are no others, no 'self' even? One could say because that is simply the nature of the non-dual reality itself, or you could say because 'he' or 'she' still feels that there are others who don't know that there are no others! You could also say because such a man or woman's heart bleeds for humanity and all creation. This is why many emptiness teachers for centuries have said that even though understanding and practicing the emptiness or the lack of inherent existence of a person is the basis of the path, it is also necessary to practice awakening the boddhicitta or altruistic mind [not as a means to relieve one's existential despair or emptiness, which must be felt and known well as the essential human condition and as a right of passage to one's true nature, but because, as it is an aspect of one's true nature and therefore where 'one is headed' anyway, one may as well practice it ahead of time even though one may inevitably fail! You can't fail, and you can't do it wrong], which they (the Mahayanists) call 'the superior method', leading to full buddhahood, or one who has achieved the 'four stages': stream-enterer (awakening to emptiness or no-self of phenomena and personhood), once-returner, non-returner, and Arhat). mKhas grub dGe said:

   "The elimination of the obscurations to omniscience cannot be accomplished by wisdom alone. It requires that the wisdom that perfectly meditates on the selflessness of phenomena be conjoined in a complementary way to the inconceivable special features of method that belong to the Mahayana." (28)

   In other words, without one needing to accept hyperbole, he means the combining of understanding emptiness ('ultimate emptiness', 'emptiness of essence', and 'emptiness of emptiness' !) as well as the law of karma as explained in the doctrine of dependent origination, and the cultivation of boddhicitta. [Note: if one's heart sinks at the immensity of such a task, through all of these readings, I suggest that he may actually be close to making real progress on the Way. It takes real ripeness to reach such a stage. We must while examining these heroic historical expositions hold them lightly in our hearts and minds; we stand on the shoulders of giants, but may not have to go through what they went through in a distant place and time].

   The Bodhicittavivarana of Nagarjuna states:

   "Having realized that all phenomena are empty
    We still rely on the doctrine of karma and effects.
    Among all amazing things, this is the most amazing.
    Among all astonishing things, this is the most astonishing." (29)

   He also emphasizes that philosophical reasoning, understanding impermanence, even "understanding the refutation of the fact that subject and object are different substances [the doctrine of non-duality]", (30) is not the same as meditating on the selflessness or lack of inherent existence of all phenomena, and will not be enough to make a significant dent on the 'innate mind' of self that we have had for countless ages. At best we will temporarily quiet the obscurations to clear-seeing:

   "At the time of realizing selflessness, the notion of a permanent self is eliminated;
   But in this regard we do not in the least regard the apprehension of the self to be permanent as the apprehension of an ego;
   Hence, it is quite surprising that you should claim that understanding such a naive kind of selflessness
   Can subsequently destroy the view of a self." (31)

   mKhas grub dGe wrote sarcastically of the 'quietist' practitioners of his time and their illusions of attainment and lack of insight, especially those who didn't have the necessary foundation method and understanding of 'emptiness':

   "All of these great dialecticians who argue on a variety [of topics], such as the emptiness of self and the emptiness of other, and on whether reality truly exists, do not differ in the least when it comes to practicing the meaning of the profound [emptiness]. Whether they believe that they are practicing the idiot's meditation of not training in anything whatsoever, the practice of the great Master of the Tripitaka, or that they are practicing the profound completion stage of the anuttarayoga tantra, they all concur on this one point: they posit that no [mental] object should be established, that the mind should apprehend nothing. This will be seen to be a great den of iniquity when looked upon by those of sharp faculties...They hold [to the doctrine] that to create nothing within the mind is to meditate on reality, and thus err in so far as they end up not being able to meditate on selflessness. They repudiate the practice of the path that is the counteractive measure against the way in which [we] grasp at a self, the root of cyclic existence. They exert themselves in a kind of practice that does not the slightest harm to the way we grasp at self. Hence, one should be aware of the fact that although many of our own Tibetan practitioners pride themselves on having meditated assiduously on reality for the whole of their lives, that they have not managed to put even the slightest dent in their grasping at a self... Because they believe that when it comes down to meditating on reality one ought not to create anything in the mind, they must of necessity believe that when they set forth reality they ought not to set it forth even in terms of selflessness. In the same way, they must accept that one ought not to put forth even a theory of reality...This is an infinite source of faults..."

   "The great meditators of today, who are inexperienced at guarding against mental excitement or lethargy, even if they attain single-pointed concentration on the nature of the mind, by meditating on silence and blankness as their object, they are in actuality accumulating a subtle form of mental lethargy. By accustoming themselves to this for long periods of time, the dispersion of air (rlung) within their bodies gives them a certain type of lightness and ease in action. It seems as though they are abiding like space in the midst of space, or as if, having pushed their minds into a state of nakedness, they are emerging from the skin of a snake. It appears to them as though they are making their home on the pinnacle of Mt. Meru and that they are no longer solid as before, but are now like a rainbow. This leads to extreme elation and to thinking that one has traversed a variety of stages and paths, causing these masters to claim that the teachings of the Mahamudra, which perceives the nature of the mind are the most important and profound instructions of the Buddha, that they are the teachings which will allow one to attain the state of buddhahood in this very life."

   "In response to this the great lord Tsong kha pa and most of his followers have stated that the single pointed equipoise on the nature of the mind is only a slight mental avoidance of the self of the person or the self of phenomena and is only a slight break in the proliferation of conceptualization in regard to other things. Hence, they say it does not eliminate on the least either the delusion or the self-grasping that has arisen innately from beginningless time in samsara, since it does not in the least negate the object that appears in grasping at true existence...So please distinguish carefully between not meditating on a self and meditating on selflessness!" (32)

   Sound slightly familiar? Lest the practitioner get into arguments over whether Hinayana or Mahayana (or Vajrayana) is better or the sole way to enlightenment, or the worst error - the reification of emptiness - mKhas grub dGe adds many examples from existent scripture to redirect the vagaries of attention and understanding, such as to the fact that the emptiness of inherent existence is to be affirmed to be the ultimate liberating force, and that as such even reality is 'truthless' - meaning empty. Example of this was given in the Lankavatara Sutra where, perhaps most important for the trenchant criticism of the sravakas and pratyekabudha's desire for liberation for themselves, thus effectively taking them 'out of circulation', instead of being bodhisattva's dedicated to lives of service, understanding that true liberation is liberation of the whole and not only the part, it also mentions that certain teachings of the Buddha were meant as 'provisional' ones to prevent great fear from arising in those not ready to face the full brunt of emptiness, such as by speaking of a tathagatagarbha, or buddhahature, that everyone 'has': a pure, clear light, as a 'nonconceptual object', where in reality no such 'thing' exists inherently. This point was also made by PB who wrote:

   "The Long Path is taught to beginners and others in the earlier and middle stages of the quest. This is because they are ready for the idea of self-improvement and not for the higher one of the unreality of the self. So the latter is taught on the Short Path, where attention is turned away from the little self and from the idea of perfecting it, to the essence, the real being." (33)

   Yet, even in this quote the teaching of the self as unreal is provisional (!), for where in the continuum of our personal self, our inner subtle psyche or soul nature, and our 'real' Conscious-Being can we separate out one part and say 'this is ourself'? It is all ourself. We do exist. The self as unreal is only from the empirical point of view. PB repeatedly points out that there is some form of 'higher' or 'true' self, even though it is 'shrouded in mystery' and not easily defined in words:

   "It is hard to tell in words about the wordless, hard to formulate in intellect-born phrases what is beyond the intellect. To say that the higher self is or is not individualized is to distort meaning and arouse misconception."

   "It is a kind of impersonal being but it is not utterly devoid of all individuality."

   "The Overself [Soul] is an emanation from the ultimate reality but is neither a division nor a detached fragment of it. It is a ray shining forth but not the sun itself." (33a)

   He seems to be saying that it is paradoxically distinct but not separate, in contrast to the dictionary definition of individuality as being 'distinct and separate'. Even the Buddha, while teaching anatta or 'no-self' - meaning no inherently existing empirical self - in order to refute the eternalists, did not explicitly denounce the existence of such a soul:

   "Even in this present life, my brethren, I say that the soul is indefinable. Though I say and teach thus, there are those who accuse me falsely of being a nihilist, of teaching non-existence and annihilation of the soul. That is what I am not, and do not teach." (33b)

   PB even goes so far as to say that while the ego is displaced from its place of sovereignty in the realization of the Overself, it is not altogether lost; after all, it is the Overself's projection:

   "He enters into a state which is certainly not a disappearance of the ego, but rather a kind of divine fellowship of the ego with the source."

   "The ego is lost in an ocean of being, but the ego's link with God, the Overself, still remains...He loses his ego in the calm serenity of the Overself, yet at the same time it is, mysteriously, still with him." (33c)

   So what is empty, and what is not, becomes somewhat hard to define.

   Moreover, the teaching that there are no inherently self- existing external objects, which PB held as well, is a traditional provisional one, to revert the mind back from excessive outward attachment, with the intention that eventually one would see that the mind that perceived those objects was empty of self-existence, and so 'attachment' was also a provisional teaching, being only an accompanying polarity of non-attachment. The essential instruction, however, was that tathagatagarbha, emptiness, 'foundation consciousness', all were 'empty' - non-conceptual - and yet denoted and affirmed ultimate Reality. Nagarjuna thus provisionally states, while fully intending to point towards the truth in the end:

   "Since the compounded does not exist, how can the uncompounded exist?"

   "When there is nothing that is not empty
   How could emptiness be said to exist?
   In the absence of something
   How can its opposite exist?"

   "The Conquerors have taught emptiness
   To be the eradication of all views,
   For they have taught that those who perceive emptiness
   Have nothing to prove."

   "The Great Victor opposed
   Both the view of self and selflessness."


   PB call to our attention the need to hold the 'two truths', or what he calls 'the double standpoint', in mind simultaneously if all is to be right with us. In other words, as physicist Niels Bohr once stated, "Human beings are both actors and spectators in the world drama":

   "from the first [the relative] standpoint we see the necessity and must obey the urge of undertaking this quest in all its practical details and successive stages. From the second one, however, we see that all existence, inclusive of our own and whether we are aware of it or not, dwells in a timeless, motionless Now, a changeless, actionless Here, a thingless, egoless Void. The first bids us work and work hard at self-development in meditation, metaphysics, and altruistic activity, but the second informs us that nothing we do or abstain from doing can raise us to a region where we already are and forever shall be in any case. And because we are what we are, because we are Sphinxes with angelic heads and animal bodies, we are forced to hold both these standpoints aide by side."

   "Only by accepting the double standpoint concurrently, rejecting neither the Real nor the Illusory, can we achieve Truth's wholeness." (33d)

   And further, in line with the Taoist quote above on performing 'one thousand meritorious deeds', befitting an enlightened person, which the Bhagavad-Gita seconds in advocating 'karma yoga' both before and after realization or obtaining jnana, PB writes:

   "He cannot dwell in that magical state without transforming his experience in the world so that in some way or other it serves God's purpose, thus turning even outer defeat to inner victory." (33e)

   'A dialectic on self and emptiness'

   That the last verse is so is because both self and selflessness are opposites and relative to each other. A true way to speak of it might be to say 'no-no-self' (since self and no-self are mutually conditioned opposites), but, since even 'no-no-self' is still somewhat conditioned by the complementary nature of the previously negated opposites, we must posit a final 'no [no no-self]' as the affirmation of a true transcendental reality. Isn't that great? That is how Chuang Tzu would handle it (as discussed further in "Maya Is 'Maya' " on this website). And, for that matter, we must do the same with 'emptiness'. If we first posit 'form', and then negate that as not being the reality, we posit 'emptiness'. But then, since 'emptiness - considered as 'no-thing' - is only emptiness relative to form - or 'some-thing' - we must negate that and posit 'no-emptiness'. Finally, since even 'no-emptiness' bears the conditioning of the previous two negations, we must make a final negation, affirming the reality, as 'no [no-emptiness]' ! If truly meditated on this can become more than a mere exercise in logical dialectic. It might even take your head off.

   Next, we must also do the same thing with the notion of subject-object. First we start with naive realism that posits an object 'out there'. But since that is never seen without a subject or perceiver to perceive it we then posit a subject by and in which the object is seen. We don't remain stuck in subjective idealism like Bishop Berkeley, however, and realize that since even this 'subject' is an subtle object or arising to consciousness or awareness, we must posit no subject-object. Some say this is non-duality and the transcendence of distinctions. Lest one think this is the final negation, however, since this no subject-object is still conditioned by the prior negation of subject-object, we must then posit no [no subject-object]. In other words, the consciousness we felt to be the very ground of reality is also seen to be a concept and 'empty', and it gradually ceases to hold our interest and falls away. This final negation gives us 'rivers are rivers, and mountains are mountains again', as the Zen saying goes. Not in logic, but in Reality. Fear of 'contamination' is gone. The Sun is shining through all.

   While we are on this topic, we must make mention that following our logic we must say that the five skhandas are 'empty', the chakras are 'empty', the 'Logos is 'empty', and even Ramana Maharshi's famous 'Amrita Nadi' are 'empty'. In regards to the latter, Ramana proposed a terminal bend of the sushumna nadi from the sahasrar chakra back down into the heart felt relative to the body to be on the right side. However, once realized, that 'center' of the heart becomes 'no-center', and any Amrita Nadi or Atma Nadi vanishes into or becomes indistinguishable from the all-pervading conscious radiance of Being. There is, thus, no need for repetitive experiences of this type to prove or achieve anything. Nor is it absolutely necessary to have this experience even once. It is only a yogic possibility.

   Yet, since, as we have seen, the true position is not 'emptiness', but 'no [no-emptiness], all of these structures do continue to exist in some way, for a time at least. Thus, a realizer can still be a yogi if he wants to or has the talent for it. There is no problem with that, no more than there is a problem with a tree, or a person.

   A garland of verses on emptiness

   "The Buddha is the essence of true emptiness which comes from nowhere and goes nowhere. True emptiness is not empty; so its body is most subtle. The essence of true emptiness basically has no body, but because it includes subtle existence, that subtlety is its body. Emptiness without this subtlety is nihilistic, indifferent emptiness; it is not the real emptiness of Buddha. How can it be omnipresent, how can myriad phenomena present no obstacle? because of its subtle nonvoidness, the body is omnipresent, all-pervasive; because it is empty yet real, myriad phenomena cannot obstruct it. Because it is omnipresent and unobstructed, it is also called the completely pervasive reality eye...IF YOU UNDERSTAND THE TRUE REALITY EYE WHICH IS COMPLETELY PERVASIVE, THEN YOU WILL KNOW THE TRIPLE WORLD [the desire, form, and formless realms] IS YOUR HOME."

   "BUDDHA IS MIND, MIND IS BUDDHA: "MIND" AND
     "BUDDHA" ARE BASICALLY ILLUSIONS.
   IF YOU KNOW THERE IS NO BUDDHA AND NO MIND, THIS AT
     LAST IS THE REAL BUDDHA OF TRUE SUCHNESS.
   THE BODYLESS BODY IS THE REAL BODY; THE FORMLESS
     FORM IS THE TRUE FORM.
   NOT MATERIAL, NOT VOID, NOT NONVOID, NOT MOVING,
     NOT STILL, IT DOES NOT COME OR GO.
   NO DIFFERENCES, NO SAMENESS, NO BEING OR NONBEING,
     IT CANNOT BE GRASPED OR ABANDONED, CANNOT BE
     LISTENED TO OR LOOKED AT.
   INSIDE AND OUTSIDE ROUND AND BRIGHT, IT PERVADES
     EVERYWHERE."

   "WHAT A LAUGH MY MIND IS - LIKE A DUNCE, LIKE A
     BUMPKIN,
   NOW UNMOVING, NOW EBULLIENT, CALMLY LETTING THINGS
     BE AS THEY MAY.
   I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO CULTIVATE SPIRITUAL PRACTICE,
     YET DO NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG."

   "Even sages have the human mind, and even ordinary people have the mind of Tao. Sages have the human mind in that they cannot annihilate perception; ordinary people have the mind of Tao in that they have moments of lucidity." - Chang Po-tuan

   "Do not rely on those who think they are Tathagatas or sravakas,
   Who accept themselves to be pratyekabuddhas or to be the King of the Doctrine.
   There is nothing to be obtained!" - Nagarjuna

   "Subhuti spoke: Oh sons of the gods, if we say that even nirvana is like an illusion,
    then what need is there to mention other phenomena?"

   "Subhuti, what do you think, does he who is a stream enterer think to himself,
    'I have obtained the fruit of stream enterer'?"
   Subhuti spoke: "No Lord, he does not. And why is that? Lord, it is because he has entered nothing.
    It is because of that that he is called a stream enterer." - Buddha

   "The boddhisattva understands that even consciousness is truthless." (34)

   Yet this emptiness is the reason everything can exist. It is also said to be synonymous with nirvana or reality:

   "Even though nirvana is profound,
   It is expressed by words.
   Nirvana is not to be found
   And neither is the word nirvana findable.
   Neither the word nor nirvana can be found.
   In this way it is empty phenomena that reveal nirvana."

   "If what arises due to the condition of ignorance
   Is analyzed with proper knowledge
   One will perceive nothing,
   Whether arising or ceasing,
   The phenomena perceived then
   Is the actualization of nirvana."

   "If everything was not empty
   Nothing could arise or cease.
   And it would follow for you
   There would be no four noble truths.
   Where emptiness is possible
   There everything is possible." - Nagarjuna (35)

   This latter must not be misunderstood: emptiness is not the source or cause of phenomena or fullness; rather, the two are inseparable, and reality - what might be called 'true or ultimate emptiness' - is beyond both, as an earlier quote from PB implied.


   Some points from Dzogchen

   This is made the most clear in Dzogchen where all lesser practices than that of direct seeing of the nature of the mind - where possible according to the capacity of the student - are rejected as being bound to cause and effect. This includes the sutra teachings of the Hinayana and Mahayana, the way of the bodhisattvas, the lower and higher tantras (i.e., kriya/kundalini yoga, mahayoga, anuyoga) - all except "the treasure chest" of Ati Yoga or Dzogchen: rigpa, or pure and total consciousness beyond judging and analyzing. This seeing, they say, is our true nature, both the goal and the way. Just remember that it is a living process, and not only an intellectual or mind-based one - although that is all too often the traditional communication. The seminal Dzogchen text (centuries old) , Kunyed Gyalpo, states:

   "Understand well! The teaching of the supreme source, teacher of teachers, whereby there is no need to train oneself in order to progress through the various levels, is not appropriate to all and is difficult to grasp...As all the phenomena of existence are one single thing in the ultimate dimension of the unborn, there is no distinction between the various levels of realization. Understand that there is only one level...For fortunate practitioners of the supreme yoga who have appropriate karma, there is no view, no commitment, no spiritual action, no level, no path, no generation of altruistic commitment, no meditation on cause and effect, no sadhana, no antidotes. They see that neither the absolute nor the relative exists and in this way they understand the fundamental condition of the mind." (36)

   This is a pinnacle teaching and practice; it is not for everybody. Take heed of the notation that it depends on favorable karma. In the West we readily sympathize with a line from Carrie Fischer's book, Postcards from the Edge, "Instant gratification takes too long"! Everyone wants the 'best' or 'highest' practice, but the best or highest practice is the one which one is actually capable of practicing in any moment. As Anthony Damiani once said, "you can't kid the Soul." Therefore, we will present (without implicitly or explicitly recommending it) a simplified, gradual approach to a practice founded in emptiness later that makes more sense to many students. For now, however, we are still at the stage of defining and understanding. Namkhai Norbu summarizes the nature of the primordial state from the Dzogchen perspective:

   "Self-arising wisdom, the essence of all the Buddhas, exists prior to the division of samsara and nirvana and is beyond the limits of transmigration and liberation. As it transcends the four conceptual limits [the dualism of "birth and cessation," of "eternity and nothingness," of "being and non-being," and of "vision and emptiness"] and is intrinsically pure, this original condition is the uncreated nature of existence that has always existed, the ultimate nature of all phenomena. It cannot be identified with a stable and eternal substance allowing the assertion "It is thus!" and is utterly free of all the defects of dualistic thought, which is only capable of referring to an object other than itself...As its essence is the purity of original emptiness, it transcends the limits of being an eternal substance: it has nothing concrete and no specific characteristics to display. As its nature is self-perfection, it transcends the limits of nothingness and non-being: the clarity of light is the pure nature of emptiness. Thus, this natural condition of primordial enlightenment, which is the immutable state of dharmakaya, does not entail subdivision into samsara and nirvana. Self-arising wisdom, primordially empty, is in a condition similar to space, and it pervades all beings without distinction, from glorious Samantabhadra down to the tiniest insect on a blade of grass. For this reason the total state of dharmakaya, the inseparability of the two truths, absolute and relative, is called "the primordial Buddha." (37)

   Remember, this is our natural state, not far away - and perhaps more impossible to believe than to actually see. Yet it is apparently difficult to see, which is why the Dzogchen masters try so hard to point it out. Dzogchen is transmission-based, it must be repeatedly emphasized, and a teacher is necessary.


   Emptiness in Taoism

   An example of emptiness is given in a poem from 'Lu Yen's Stanzas' that illustrates how many Taoist masters absorbed Ch'an Buddhism. Considering its ancient shamanistic roots and later cultural exchange with Buddhism, it is not surprising that Taoism has taken many forms, which can be basically be reduced to three: alchemy (both false and true, including tantra), yoga meditation ('cultivating the 'golden elixer' between the eyes and raising the transmuted 'essence, vitality, and spirit' up the 'central channel'), and purely philosophical. Lao Tzu appears to have been an example of the latter, and Chuang Tzu a combination of both of the last two. Lu Yen, while the great forerunner of the 'Complete Reality School' of Taoism, which combined Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism, here gives evidence of preferring the latter purely spiritual mind-only approach to that of the inner yogic cultivation of the 'essence':

   "To those who know the secret,
   'There's not a single thing'.

   [A reference to the Diamond Sutra stressing the essential voidness of phenomena]

   "They learn to give things up
   And simply practise stillness.

   All day long they battle with
   six robbers called the senses
   Until they recognise that shapes
   And forms are totally void,
   Then awaken to the truth
   That 'there's not a single thing',
   That the 'magic mirror stand'
   Exists only in the mind.

   [A reference to Hui-neng: 'there is no mirror to be polished', that subject and object, pure and impure - exist only in the mind]

   "When sense reaction's cut,
   Self-transformation follows.
   Then stillness dawns, and form
   Is recognised as void." (38)

   [A reference to the Heart Sutra, i.e., the realization of non-duality]

   Lu Yen taught that emptiness was an obstacle in Buddhism in that it could lead to quietism and nihilism, that true emptiness is not 'empty', nor does it truly void anything, and, further, that 'forgetting emptiness to return to reality - that is refining emptiness.' (39)

   He made it clear, however, what a mystery this thing called 'The Way' really is:

   "If you consider it substantial, still all substance is empty. If you consider it empty, still all emptiness is substantial...The substantiality within emptiness cannot be called substantial, the emptiness within substantiality cannot be called empty. Substantiality is not to be considered substantial, emptiness is not to be considered empty; yet though they are not to be considered empty or substantial, ultimately they are not nonexistent. Now empty, now substantial, it is difficult to express in words. Now empty, now substantial - it is subtle indeed."

   "Though you cannot consider it empty, it really is empty; though you cannot consider it substantial, it really is substantial. It cannot be called alternating emptiness and substantiality, yet it is really none other than alternating emptiness and substantiality. Ultimate indeed is the mystery of the Way! It has no name or form. So profound are its depths that it is difficult to fathom." (40)

   He also gives some practical advise:

   "The Tao is always to be practiced in the midst of daily life. Stop talking about lofty wonders and the empty void. Just carry out the human Tao, and there will be no shame in your heart. When you fulfill your nature, you'll know heaven and earth are the same...All things are empty, but essence is not void...Before you know true emptiness, do not speak of emptiness. If you cling to emptiness, you will lose the inner self...The Tao is entered by way of sincerity, When you reach complete sincerity, the Tao is not far off. Therefore a classic says,"Before practicing the way of immortality, first practice the way of humanity." (41)


   The voice of science

   Interestingly, while not exactly speaking of the same thing as ‘emptiness’ or the void (whether meant experientially or as the ultimate Plenum), even science is telling us that what we consider to be ‘nothing’ is nothing of the sort:

   “No matter how remote, every inch of our universe carries a mysterious "dark" energy that is pressing out in all directions. We're not sure how it works, but across this same patch you will also find threads of gravitational force stretching to every part of the universe, while deep down, in impossibly small subatomic nooks and crannies, there's a riot of coming and going, a quantum flux, with little clouds of matter popping in, then out of existence, like summer storms. A patch of "empty" space may look empty, but in fact, its nothingness contains all kinds of invisible somethings. "Empty" is always hiding secrets.”

   “The universe doesn't tell what it's hiding, though it's hiding a lot. All those planets, stars, moons and great clouds of dust we can see are a small percentage of what's actually there. Most of the universe is made of "dark" matter that neither emits nor absorbs light. So most of what's going on in the universe looks like, well...nothing.”

   “We are surrounded by Nothing. Everywhere we go, we have no idea what we're not seeing. We don't know what gravitational fields look like, what dark matter looks like, what quantum foam looks like... but what the scientists and the artists are telling us, in their very different ways, is that if we lean in, and pay very close attention, sometimes what looks like Nothing is the best place to find the most interesting...somethings.” (42)

   Can one see how they say we are but picking up pebbles on the seashore of knowledge?

   Another way of looking at the whole issue of emptiness and illusion, one and many, as well as dependent origination, from the point of view of science (including 'spiritual' science) is through a term used by Ken Wilber but which was originally coined by Authur Koestler 1967. A holon, neuter form of holos "whole") is something that is simultaneously a whole and a part. A classic example of a sequence of holons in a 'holarchy' would be subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, bodies, micro-ecologies, meso-ecologies, or planetary biosphere. One could also delineate various types of spiritual holarchies, such as for the archangelic kingdoms related to nature, and so on. In this way of thinking, the aspect of a holon's nature that is individual reflects its own capacity to be semi-independent within the system, but at the same time this individuality participates in a larger pattern of interrelationships, some of which give profound shape and context to the very nature and existence of individual holons that make up the larger holons. In a very profound sense, all holons cannot exist without at least aspects of the holarchy of which they are a part, so that in that sense they are not fully independent, and so true individuality has a type of meaning, but not the simplistic sense of separateness or independence, which even in relativity, is an illusion. Holon theories blend individuality, hierarchies, ecologies, systems, and larger wholes, into an understanding of complex intedependent individuality. If one reads Reimagination of the World one will be introduced by David Spangler to a radically expanded view of the 'higher worlds' than the standard, more static traditional hierarchical versions, such as in the seven-stage model of the Puranas, also found in most schools of yoga as well as Sam'khya/Vedanta philosophy. In Spangler's investigations of these realms he has found beings and presences whose identities span different dimensions at once, and that also transcend our understanding of the notion of individuality versus a group or whole. Also the notion of 'presences' that themselves make up 'dimensions', and that what takes place in so-called 'lower' realms affects the 'higher', and that a quantum or post-quantum view that is senior to but does not exclude that of a hierarchy is needed to navigate these worlds and understand something of the beings that reside therein. So as part of our totality that includes the human, personal self, our deeper psyche or soul nature, and our essence as Conscious-Being, all of which we are called and impelled by Nature to incarnate here (lest we forget in the midst of this theoretical discussion), the 'intermediate' realm alone is quite complex and equally mysterious to the great mystery of Being itself. While not of immediate concern for our awakening or Self-realization, it is part of our eventual complete and integral destiny. And while traditional teachings of spirituality usually opt for exclusive identification with either the subtle soul nature or the Conscious nature alone, but how can we draw a line of separation between these three aspects of one whole? We are all of that, and in a holarchy of other such holons! This is a fascinating subject for another essay.

   One literary example of the method of emptiness is given us by the famous Sherlock Holmes:

   "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" !


   A traditional Dzogchen comment, then some simplification from PB

   mKhas grub dGe is straightforward where the two truths, absolute and relative, and the twin teachings of dependent (or interdependent) origination and emptiness are leading us:

   "The ultimate goal toward which every Mahayanist strives is the unity of the dharmakaya and the physical body. To obtain them, one must rely on the inseparability of methods that accumulate the two masses of merit and gnosis into a combined whole...Unless one has truly found certainty in regards to the workings of dependent arising whereby causes give rise in an orderly way to their individual effects, the accumulation of one's mass of merit will not be accomplished faithfully and from the heart..If one has not found certainty as to the fact that no phenomenon whatsoever has even the smallest atom of inherent existence even nominally, one will not be able to accumulate the true mass of gnosis [and] there is no way one will be able to assimilate the two masses into a combined whole. Such also is the fate as regards the accumulation of the two masses in that they will not be able to be accomplished by those who proclaim that "in our own system we accept no causality whatsoever, it being a temporary expedient for the sake of others." So finding this certainty, which is the deep belief in the ways of causality, is what the sutras call the mundane correct view; and the unmistaken ascertainment of emptiness is called the supramundane view." (43)

   Can we simplify this ancient exposition a bit? Yes, I certainly hope so (!), but by outlining it from various angles more doubts can potentially be created. However, it might be said: every thing (object) has no inherent existence of its own, it arises interdependently, and in mind; the perceiver (subject) of things also arises in mind; the mind (or consciousness) itself is empty of inherent existence; and what is left is reality! Assuming you have honored the relative reality in the process (the meaning behind the traditional notion of 'accumulating a 'mass of merit', which includes the inclination of other beings and intelligences to help you). The only conflict that may arise is between awareness teachings that maintain that consciousness is inherently self-existent and irreduceable, and emptiness teachings that say that consciousness itself is a subtle self-essence that itself is 'empty'.

   PB simplifies this idea of emptiness for us also. He equates emptiness with mentalism, also saying that all perceived objects are arising in mind, whether personal or Universal, and are therefore constantly changing with no inherent self-existence; however, they are real insofar as they do arise in and as Mind itself. They are not illusion per se. To become converted to this radical turnabout in one's perception of the world - from materialism to mentalism - is something that takes a long time to make one's own, due to the habits of ages and ages of seeing in another way:

   "A further result of this contemplation of the world as the great Void is that the work done by mentalistic study is advanced still further, for not only are the things experienced by the five senses seen to be only thoughts but the thoughts themselves are now seen to be the transient spume and spray flung out of seeming Emptiness. Thus there is a complete reorientation from thoughts to Thought. Instead of holding a single thought or scenes of ideas in perfect concentration, the practiser must now move away from all ideas altogether to that seeming emptiness in which they arise. And the latter, of course, is the pure, passive, undifferentiated mind-stuff out of which the separate ideas are produced. Here there is no knowing and discriminating between one idea and another, no stirring into consciousness of this and that, but rather a sublime vacancy. For the Mind-essence is not something which we can picture to ourselves; it is utterly formless. It is as empty and as ungraspable as space." (43a)

   [This could be interpreted in two ways. One, is that of the realization of what can be called the 'Fullness-Emptiness', or pure Consciousness (as contrasted with an experience of 'the empty Witness', or traditional Atman as interpreted in some forms of advaita), characterized as deathless and birthless, realization of what you have always been, radiant, timeless, the real, etc., and a further, uncontradictable true Emptiness, which is the integration of that blissful pure Consciousness-Being with the World-Mind's manifestation. This is full nondualism, which, within relativity, can still be immeasurably deepened, even while the realizer in his essence and more and more in his humanness stands imperturbably serene in the midst of any such changes. This 'Emptiness' is 'full' of the two essential 'perfection's of the Buddha: wisdom and compassion (karuna).

   To make mentalism or emptiness, which can be taken as synonyms inasmuch as they take away the fixed material view of the world - to make this one's own takes a long time. Anthony Damiani explained it like this: for eons as primitives we have look at getting our dinner 'out there; now we have to deconstruct that naive view! Thus is nothing but a revolution in our consciousness. "To appreciate the teaching that the world is an appearance is immeasurably easier than to establish its actuality in consciousness."

   "The road from mentalism as conception to mentalism as a conviction is a long one."

   "No man becomes a confirmed mentalist save after many doubts and some lapses, after strenuous reflections extending over years, and mystical intuitions manifesting in spite of himself. The strangeness and mystery of this doctrine are too baffling to be overcome either easily of quickly."

   "Through the disappearance of the world during mystical meditation he finds out its non-materiality. This is the Glimpse. [Note: this is not the only way to find out its non-materiality; it was how PB discovered it, but it can be accomplished purely through the jnana approach of the mentalistic discipline itself] But with his return to the world his glimpse changes into a memory only. How to establish it permanently, this harmony between inner vision and outer world, is discoverable only when living and active in the world yet thoroughly understanding the mentalistic nature of the world."

   "Such development comes only after many births. And since this truth has to be lived, it must be in practice and not only in theory. Before a man comes to this truth, this mentalism, much time is needed to enable his mind to develop and receive it."

   He also makes the point that understanding emptiness or mentalism is a key to an ethical life:

   "It is because men are deceived by their senses into accepting materialism that they are deceived by their ego into committing sin. Mentalism is not only an intellectual doctrine but also an ethical one."

   "Even though he knows that it is like a dream, he must live, work and act, love, strive and suffer as if the dream were true."

   He refutes the nihilists also, just as do the Mahayanists:

   "If he himself is a mere nothing who does not exist, who then is it who takes all this trouble to prove it?"

   Further, like the Dalai Lama above, he explains a multifactorial approach required to understand and actualize these teachings of mentalism or emptiness:

   "If, however, by profound thought, deep meditation, and other preliminaries, you have removed some of the obstacles which surround and entrap most people, then you may be more likely to let light dawn within you. You may get the shattering experience of the mentalist revelation: many more discoveries will then be made. You will discover that the world is a form taken by consciousness. You will learn the meaning of the void."

   And that is:

   "He discovers the nothingness (no-thing-ness) of matter."

   "The manifest is Mind, and so is the Void." - Tilopa

   However, and this is where the synthesis of emptiness and awareness teachings comes in. One first asks the "What is the world" question before raising the "Who Am I"?" one. That is, one understand the mentalistic or 'empty' nature of the world of objects, including the empirical person, and then finds the source of the 'I'. It can be, and traditionally has been, done in the reverse order, but this way has its advantages:

   "When the mind withdraws from its creations after understanding their mentalness and looks into itself, it discovers the final truth. But when it does this prematurely - that is, before such inquiry into the world's nature - it discovers a half-truth: the nature of the "I".

   When the world is deconstructed first it becomes easier to integrate that understanding with the inner void-nature. And one also comes to understand, although here we step beyond Buddhism, a transcendental relationship of Soul and God:

   "The mystic is usually satisfied in enjoying [the] inner stillness whereas the philosopher needs also to know where it emanates from."

   He offers a few more quotes on understanding mentalism and the nature of the quest to round out the discussion:

   "He can come into this knowledge by correct deep thought or by purified cleansed faith or by the influence of someone else who has discovered it."

   This is why in a path such as Buddhism there are different means of approach, and why the teacher, guru, or guide is also of such importance.

   "The thought of the external world comes from the Universal Mind (God) originally, while thoughts which pertain to personal characteristics come out of the subconscious tendencies developed in previous incarnations. In both cases the power which initiates thought is outside the conscious self but for that very reason is irresistible. The work of the Spiritual Quest is to enter into co-operative activity with God, on the one hand, and to conquer those subconscious tendencies, on the other."

   This latter phrase I find hard to agree with anymore. 'Conquer' is such a divisive term, and as hard as trying to empty the ocean with a teaspoon. In fact, PB himself once said it! Subconscious tendencies will certainly be purified and transformed, but not by our noble intentions and Herculean efforts. When our Conscious nature awakens, after seeing our essential helplessness, - through spiritual help - an irresistable force, call it the Divine, call it Nature, call it Being, will do it for and through and as us. Here PB concedes to using old language of a great uber-masculine 'battle' with ourselves. If you think you can do it, try and see.

   "How hard for the average mind to grasp this central fact, that the World-Idea is the world-creation...the World-Mind does not need to make an effort in order to make a universe, does not in reality have to do anything at all, for Its thought is the thing. Some mystics and most occultists have failed to perceive this. Their realization of the Spirit did not bring with it the full revelation of the Spirit. This is because they have not thoroughly comprehended - usually through lack of competent instruction - its utter emptiness. Nothing can come out of the Universal Mind that is not mental, not even the material world which men believe they inhabit and experience."

   "The World-Idea is thought by the individual mind and, in the process, inevitably shaped according to its limitations. But the first cause and ultimate source of that idea cannot be this mind. For the idea is "given" to it."

   "It is not enough to say that the world is man's idea. We need to know why he has it at all. To be sufficiently explained, his world-idea must be brought into relation with the World-Mind's World-Idea, because his individual mind is inseparably rooted in the World-Mind."

   "It is on account of this union existing between the individual minds and the World-Mind that we are forced to give our attention to the world-idea."

   How close we are getting to the idea of the fact that all things are 'empty, including the ego, and that we are forced to see the world and its source as one, manifestation and the void as one! This is the emptiness teachings in modern language. Thus mentalism proves why there must be God. Yet we have not said how any of this is accomplished. The impression may still unfortunately be that it can be attained through pure intellection, the 'head'. But of course that is a partial understanding, which does not take into account the connection of the body and Consciousness and the great spiritual 'Heart' that Ramana Maharshi introduced or re-introduced to a modern world, albeit in somewhat limited and still 'dissociative language. So there is one thing more, which PB points toward:

   "He only is worthy of the name philosopher who not only possesses a knowledge of mentalism [emptiness], and understand it well, but who reverently lets the higher power be ever present in, and work through, him. Otherwise he is only a student of philosophy."

   "He is a scientist to the extent that he respects fact, a metaphysician to the extent that he wants reality, a religionist to the extent that he recognizes a higher power."

   Yes, a higher power. Even Sri Nisargadatta talked about it earlier. Did one think that emptiness was going to wipe that out? That is a large discussion in itself, which for now the reader will be left to chew on for himself. Just know that all traditions speak of a liberating presence(s) or power or agency within relativity. Remember also that PB said that the very Overself or Conscious principle will make a 'mystical union with one's own body.' This is of most importance. I find it unfortunate only in that he didn't have time to flesh that out in much greater detail. In my opinion, that is a key quote of his, with deep significance. It is also important to look at it in another way, that 'we', in fact, will make such a union with our own body. Don't tell me we are already united with it. We haven't incarnated too much, as some if not most (life-negative) traditional teachings will say; rather, we haven't incarnated enough! We may have 'carnated' (a bad joke, implying we did something 'fleshly' wrong by just being here!), but not yet fully in-carnated. There is a big and sacred difference. This is not to say it is something we can directly try to do, no, that is not what is being implied. Nor do we say to 'stop seeking,' or 'do nothing.' That is just a way to keep belief alive in the mind while fundamental suffering continues.

   Where emptiness comes into the picture here lies in the inner attitude of the enlightened soul. As PB said:

   "Others may believe that he stands in the great Light, but he himself has no particular or ponderous self-importance." (44)


   More on Taoism and the Great Way

   In Taoism we find a more poetic emphasis on this same transcendence of the categories of the mind, and the seamless nature of life. Chang Po-Tuan (11th century), of the Southern sect of the Complete Reality School, wrote:

   "It is not form, not void, yet both form and void. It is not being, nor nonbeing, yet both being and non-being. Form and void interpenetrate, being and nonbeing cannot be established; this is ineffable existence within true emptiness...There is a secret method of summoning and absorbing the primordial: beckoning fulfillment by emptiness, you see the emperor of the void...When the mind of Tao is not obscured, the human mind vanishes...Nondoing is not sticking to indifferent emptiness; When you are able to avoid negligence and obsession both, rooting out the seeds of repeated birth and death, right in the center there is just one spiritual youth...Harmonizing illumination, merging with the ordinary world, is the secret celestial mechanism...With a peal of thunder, the gate of heaven opens, and out leaps the indestructible immortal person...Transformation without end, unfathomable spiritual wonders." (45)

   [Translation: the void is not empty, the real is eternal and glorious. "When the mind of Tao is not obscured, the human mind vanishes" - when the mind of the sage becomes one with the World-Idea, understanding and perceiving the truth of mentalism, the 'what', or emptiness, of Nature, the little mind surrenders its sovereignty as the 'great uniqueness', the Primordial or Universal Man is realized].

   And Lu Yen tell us that even after finding the Way and achieving 'non-doing' (a coveted achievement in Taoism and various nondual schools, signifying alignment with the Way), then there is much still to achieve; the life of a Taoist in his school was not just sitting on a mountaintop cultivating immortality:

   "This true transmission is received individually from a teacher; there is an opening up in the darkness, resulting in clear understanding. Once you are capable of clear understanding, you eventually realize the hidden mystery. Upon realizing the hidden mystery, you know the Great Way. This is called knowledge and is regarded as attainment. When you attain this ultimate mystery, then nondoing is finally possible."

   "Even if you have attained nondoing, you should still carry out undertakings, fulfilling them and realizing their proper results. After many undertakings, you should accomplish worthy deeds, fulfilling them completely and realizing their proper results...Observe what people who arrived did to enter the way. They strove mightily, as if they feared they wouldn't reach it, and looked all over for elevated Real people to teach them the mysterious wonder..Such was their sincerity that they moved the Real People to teach them the essential, and thus they were able to attain penetrating understanding, without distortion..But still they were not complacent: they mixed in with the ordinary world and carried out various undertakings and performed various deeds in the cities, towns, and villages. Thinking their works were still shallow, they made yet broader commitments, to carry out unlimited undertakings and accomplish unlimited deeds. They vowed that all people through the ages, those with knowledge and those without, would hear of the Great Way and ascend to the ultimate goal...People of true enlightenment perform deeds of true enlightenment." (46)

   "A man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a Heaven for?"

   One final angle to emptiness pointed out by Wang Che of the Northern sect of the Complete Reality School regards the transcendence of the 'three realms' of desire, form , and formless. He says:

   "When the mind forgets thoughts, you transcend the realm of desire. When the mind transcends objects, you transcend the realm of form. Do not cling to the view of emptiness, and you transcend the formless realm. When you detach from these three realms, your spirit lives in the homeland of the immortal sages, your essence is in the realm of jadelike purity"i.e., [true openeness]. (47)

   PB has pointed out that the experience of the great Void in meditation is still, after all, only an experience, and that it has a counterpart on daily life, which is the attitude of detachment. That is all right as a provisional teaching. However, he was still referring to detachment from the world of form. While in itself necessary, I ask, ultimately and really, what is wrong with attachment? or desire? It is part of the relative reality, and also part of how we learn to love and know ourselves as conscious beings. This quote of Lu Yen suggests benefits during life and after death from not even clinging to the experience of emptiness (or non-attachment) as so conceived.


   Theravada Buddhism and emptiness: the contemplative states

   An excellent description of some of the experiential stages of varying forms of ‘emptiness’ from a Theravada perspective is given in the book Samana by the venerable Luangta Maha Boowo (1913-2011). This may really get you down, so take it as an example of a traditional path to realization, the rigours of which are not possible for many active people today, especially in the West. It is the relative stages of samadhi and emptiness that I find of relevance here, not the monastic way! He writes (and this is a long but I think worthwhile autobiographical excerpt; those who are pressed for time may skip forward to the next dotted line):

   “When the mind settles down into total stillness, you could say that the mind is empty, but it’s only empty in samadhi. When the mind withdraws from samadhi, the emptiness disappears. From there, the mind resumes its investigations and continues with them until it gains expertise in the proper use of samadhi. Once samadhi is strong, wisdom steps up its investigation of the various aspects of the body until it sees them all clearly and can remove its attachments concerning the body once and for all. At that point, the mind begins to be progressively more empty, but it doesn’t yet display a complete emptiness. As long as it hasn’t gained total proficiency, images will still appear within it as mental pictures. The images within the heart then begin to fade day by day, until finally they are gone. No mental images appear either inside or outside the heart. This is called an empty mind.”

   “This kind of emptiness is the inherent emptiness of the mind that has reached its own level. It’s not the same as the emptiness of samadhi. The emptiness of samadhi lasts only as long as we sit in samadhi. But, when the mind lets go of the body, because of the power of its mindfulness and wisdom that are fully alert to the internal images, this is called the emptiness of the mind on its own level. This emptiness, gained through wisdom, is lasting. When this stage is reached, the mind is truly empty. Even though the body appears, there’s simply a sense that the body is there. No image of the body appears in the mind at all. Emptiness of this sort is said to be empty on the level of the mind – and it’s constantly empty like this at all times. If this emptiness is Nibbana, it’s the Nibbana of that particular meditaor or of that stage of the mind, but it’s not yet the Nibbana of the Buddha. If someone were to take the emptiness of samadhi for Nibbana, it would simply be the Nibbana of that particular meditator’s samadhi. Why is it that these two sorts of emptiness aren’t the emptiness of the Buddha’s Nibbana? Because the mind empty in samadhi is unavoidably satisfied with and attached to its samadhi. The mind empty in line with its own level is likewise unavoidably absorbed in and attached to that sort of emptiness. The mind must then take that level of emptiness as its object until it passes beyond it. Anyone who calls this emptiness Nibbana is actually attached to this emptiness without realizing it. When attachment is involved, how can this sort of emptiness be Nibbana?”

   “If we don’t want to settle for this level of Nibbana, we must take a thorough look at feeling, memory, thought and consciousness until we see them clearly and in full detail – because the emptiness we’re referring to is the emptiness of feeling, in that a feeling of pleasure fills this emptiness. Memory recognizes it as empty. Thoughts take this emptiness as their preoccupation. Consciousness is aware of an internal emptiness. So this level of emptiness becomes the emptiness of the mind’s preoccupation.”

   “If we investigate this emptiness, seeing it clearly as a mental fabrication, we will open the way by which we are sure of transcending it someday. Investigating in this way, the truth of the mind will gradually reveal itself. The mind is then sure to find a way to shake itself free. Even the underlying basis for these fabricated things will not be able to withstand mindfulness and wisdom. Mindfulness and wisdom of a radical sort will slash their way in – just like a fire that burns without stopping when it meets with fuel – until they have dug up the roots of all conditioned things. Only then will they stop their advance. On this level, the adversaries to the Nibbana of the Buddha are that to which the mind is attached: the sense that, “My heart is empty,” “My heart is at ease,” “My heart is clean and clear.” Although we may see the heart as empty, it’s paired with a non-emptiness. The heart may seem to be satisfied, but it’s merely the other side of dissatisfaction. The heart may seem clean and clear, but it dwells with defilement – without our being aware of it. Thus emptiness, ease and clarity are the qualities that obscure the heart because they are the signs of becoming and birth. Whoever wants to cut off becoming and birth should thus investigate these things with wisdom so as to let them go. Don’t be possessive of them, or they will turn into a fire that burns you. When your wisdom digs down into these three lords of becoming as they appear, you willcome to the central hub of becoming and birth, and it will disintegrate from the heart the moment wisdom reaches the foundation on which it is based. The ultimate form of emptiness arises when those factors are ended through the power of wisdom. No signs of any conventional reality will appear in that emptiness at all. It is an emptiness different from the other forms of emptiness we have passed through. Whether that emptiness can be called the emptiness of the Buddha, or whose emptiness it is, I’m afraid I can’t say, other than that it’s an emptiness that each meditator can know directly only for him or herself alone.”

   “The ultimate emptiness has no time or season. It’s absolutely timeless. The emptiness of samadhi can fluctuate and change. The emptiness of the formless or imageless level [when the emptiness reached in samadhi has been extended into ordinary life] which serves as our path, can change or be transcended. But this emptiness exclusively within oneself [the Nibbana of the Buddha] doesn’t change – because there is no self within this emptiness, and no sense that this emptiness is oneself. There is simply the knowledge and vision of things as they are – seeing this emptiness in line with its natural principles as they actually are, and seeing all phenomena as they actually are. Even moral virtue, samadhi and wisdom – the qualities we use to straighten out the heart – are realized for what they are and let go in line with their true nature. Nothing at all remains lurking in the nature of this final stage of emptiness. Please reflect on these three kinds of emptiness and try to attain them in your practice. Especially the last form of emptiness, which is emptiness in the principles of nature, beyond the range where any other person or any conventional reality can become involved with it ever again. Our doubts, ranging from the beginning levels of the Dhamma to this ultimate emptiness, will finally be resolved, with our own knowledge and vision acting as judge.”

   I encourage the reader to explore the rest of this book, especially the chapters on the artfull interplay between concentration/mindfulness and skillfullness/wisdom as well as meditation in the Buddhist middle way. In the final excerpt he clears up the historical wrong impression or even wrong translation of the Buddha's use of the term 'desire', which can be stated more correctly as 'selfish desire'. [However, even that is a subject for much exploration, as it is a potentially divisive and negative term in itself, for what is not selfish? Moreover, there is a time and place for everything]:

   “So, go ahead and desire. Desire to gain release from suffering. Desire to gain merit. Desire to go to heaven. Desire to go to Nibbana. Go ahead and desire these results as much as you like, because they’re all part of the path. It’s not true that all desire is craving. If we don’t allow any desires because we think that all desire is craving, then it’s as if we were already dead. Nothing is accomplished in life without desire. That’s not what it means to eliminate defilements and craving. Such a person is nothing special, nothing special at all, because he’s a dead person. A person who isn’t dead has to want this and that - just be careful that you don’t go wanting in the wrong direction, that’s all. If you want in the wrong direction, it means craving and defilement. If you want in the right direction, it’s the path, so make sure you understand this! The stronger our desire, the more resolute our persistence will be. Desire and determination are part of the path, the way to gain release from suffering. When our desire to go to heaven, to attain Nibbana or to gain release from suffering is strong, making us brave in the fight, then our persistence, our stamina and our fighting spirit are pulled together into a single strength by our intention to attain Nibbana and be released from suffering. These factors keep working constantly with no concern for the time of the day, the month or the year.”


   [While I understand this venerable master's meaning, I find the teaching about desiring to avoid suffering potentially damaging, as there is unavoidable suffering in just being human that must be owned, endured, and understood deeply, and not just bypassed through with a pre-conceived Buddhist explanation and methodology, which may no longer be appropriate for our times. There is nothing wrong with being strong, it is a good quality, but there is also a necessary spiritual 'death' and rebirth that can, in some cases, be bypassed through too much willful effort and not enough acceptance. This must be said, although a full exposition is beyond the scope of this paper. Sorry].

   Emptiness, Fullness, and Life Purpose

   As the path outlined in the above long quote is rather steep (!), as promised we will make one more try at simplifying this whole consideration as it works out in practice - especially with Westerners in mind. First, emptiness' is neither self nor no-self. It is our true nature, which transcends the concepts of both self and no-self. Further, it is not just emptiness, but a 'full' emptiness; that is to say, it holds all things, including both 'selflessness' and a 'healthy sense of self.' For many of us, this healthy sense of self did not develop properly, but was wounded and suffers from unworthiness or a deficiency syndrome. Jack Kornfield points out that for many western seekers often one of the first things to do is to reclaim a healthy sense of self - not perfection, but at least to a workable degree. The spiritual process, of course, is not linear; the positive reclamation and strengthening of 'self' and the understanding of 'emptiness' can evolve together in a spiralling fashion, and more often should. As PB said, 'the spiritual evolution that requires us to abandon (or see through) the ego runs parallel with the mental evolution that requires us to develop it'. So, all of this can unfold in any order, and usually simultaneously is best; what is important is not to exclusively neglect or negate the relative self in pursuit of an idealistic higher self, or empty void-self, or else one may find he has mistaken true emptiness for a psychological form of deadness! And, moreover, one may also avoid feeling the even more fundamental existential wound of true naked dukkha that is at the heart of our human nature through too much willful effort at forms of spiritual 'transcendance'. That being said, Kornfield summarizes one form of this process. I must mention that there are certain Buddhist 'purists' who criticize this approach as granting unnecessary attention to psychological factors. However, Kornfield studied with many Buddhist masters for years, as well as Sri Nisargadatta and Papaji, and has a good grasp on the western psyche, so I feel confident in his judgement:

   "If our sense of self is unhealthy, our spiritual work is initially a work of reclamation and healing. This means understanding and releasing a deficient or wounded sense of self and reawakening the lost energy and authentic connection to ourselves. When we have reclaimed some measure of ourselves, the next task becomes the further development of character, of our wisdom, strength, skill, and compassion. This development is described in the teachings of the Buddha as the cultivation of the skillful qualities such as generosity, patience, mindfulness, and kindness."

   "The development of self then leads to a more fundamental level, the discovery of true self. This is the discovery that the positive qualities of character that spiritual life works so hard to cultivate are already present as our true nature...We do not have to improve ourselves; we just have to let go of what blocks our heart. When our heart is free from the contractions of fear, anger, grasping, and confusion, the spiritual qualities we have tried to cultivate manifest in us naturally. They are our true nature."

   But there is one thing more of great importance:

   "In awakening our Buddha nature, we find that there is one further aspect of self to understand, the need to honor our personal destiny...The intentions of many lifetimes creates a specific character and destiny for each of us according to our karma. This needs to be recognized...The universal qualities of our Buddha nature must shine through each of us, evolving out of the individual set of patterns in each person. This unique set of patterns we could call our character, our destiny, our individual path to fulfill. To discover our destiny is to sense wisely the potential of our individual life and the tasks necessary to fulfill it. To do so is to open to the mystery of our individual incarnation... In this we can bring together our practice, our particular tasks in our family and community, fulfilling our capacities, our gifts, and our heart as a unique individual. As we do so, our individual nature reflects the universal."

   "Then when these qualities of Buddha nature and personal self are combined with a deep realization of the emptiness of self, we can be said to have fully discovered the nature of self. This true self is both unique and universal, both empty and full...The great capacities of love, unique destiny, life, and emptiness intertwine, shining, reflecting the one true nature of life." (48)

   [This important topic is discussed in detail in The Great Uniqueness on this website].

   "Your work is to discover your work and with all of your heart give yourself to it." - Buddha


   Vedanta and emptiness

   Approaching this from another angle, a non-Buddhist one, James Swartz gives us a detailed look at the strategy of Shankara, and how to distinguish between various 'states' of emptiness. Instead of a three-stage vedantic process, he outlines a four-stage one. In the first stage, one engages the discriminative method of negation ('neti, neti') in order to disidentify with objects. Then the mind becomes sattvic, discrimination having led to dispassion, enabling one to have an experience of the Self in the sattvic mind. It is not the Self, but a reflection of the Self in the mind. It may be experienced as emptiness, silence, a sense of nonduality or oneness. This would be a form of the witness consciousness or sakshin. It is a very valuable state, because it allows deeper inquiry into the Self. Then, in step two, one identifies with the subject, by asking, "who experiences this silence/emptiness/etc.?" An important key epistemological question to cut through all doubts about experience throughout this process and to avoid short-circuiting the answer is "how do I know that I know?" The identification with the isolated subject then becomes the knowledge that one is consciousness:

   "Experience of the Self is not enlightenment, but it can lead to enlightenment if the intellect can assimilate the knowledge - "I am awareness" - that arises when the attention is turned within and the mind is sattvic."

   He then makes the interesting comment that direct knowledge can actually come in Savikalpa Samadhi [the reflected experience of the Self], "because you are there, ignorance is there, and the vision of the Self is there, so the akhandakhara vritti [the unbroken 'I-Am-the-Self' thought] can destroy the ignorance and set you free...if you identify with it". (49)

   The problem with this experience, says Swartz, is that if you are not very dispassionate and do not have at least a rudimentary self-knowledge you will be so overwhelmed by the vision of the Self that you will not grasp its significance and will not therefore be freed. In other words, one mistakes an experience for the true 'emptiness' of the Self. (50)

   At stage two, the full awareness of the Self, however, the so-called 'Atman and Brahman are one' declaration, is not yet possible, because there is no awareness of the Mind's projection (the World or World-Idea) there, with which to be reintegrated; hence the value of the waking state.

   Thus, in step three, according to Swartz, one who is identified with the subject as consciousness, now takes back all of the objects he negated in step one, seeing them as non-separate from the Self, thus completing 'neti' and 'itti'. This can take a long time, because of the force of the outgoing vasanas. PB would say that the stable realization of this condition “makes Real” the relationship (but not identity) between the Overself [Atman] and Mind Alone [Brahman]." He and others, such as Plotinus, believed there were several levels of deepening of this transcendental relationship. However, this is a realization of nonduality, or 'emptiness'.

   Swartz adds a step four, wherein he says one truly attains moksha, which is realizing the relationship between the pure Self and the objects, which he characterizes as the realization, "the objects are me (the Self), but I (the Self) am not the objects", which are insentient and only a superimposition of the Self's own maya. This is supposedly pure spontaneously self-verifying Knowledge for which the question, "how do I know that I know" no longer applies. This is the end. This step is also a difficult one, and, I may say, also a controversial point. For something Vedanta doesn't logically explain [which they admit is impossible, and is why they posit a transcendental ignorance called maya, or avidya for the Buddhists, the source for all mental concepts and logic] is where does this insentiency - an attribute of the objects - come from? Is it just maya, or is there a 'transcendental substance, 'mula-prakriti, that we must also make room for in our philosophy? Yet, that, too, like maya, is just a guess to explain the unknown. So, then, do we just follow 'Shiva' approaches like Vedanta, emphasizing consciousness/awareness, wisdom, discrimination, equanimity, Self and formlessness, or, to be truly balanced, and therefore more nondual in our actualization/expression, must we not also embrace the 'Shakti' aspects as well, and not just as something to be observed, disidentified from, and transcended, but in a deeper, more nondual way, which we find more in traditions like Taoism, Vajrayana Buddhism, or certain Hindu Tantric/Advaita schools? Step four in a way almost seems to bring us back to step two, still somewhat dissociated from the phenomena, still wanting to reside as the 'still ocean' and not be affected by the 'waves', but, of course, Swartz would say not really. Yet, "How do I know that I know that 'I am the Self'?" might still be asked, for a question arises, is there still a Soul there that I am simply missing in my expectation of an impersonal Consciousness? There seems to be few teachings around that really do an incontrovertible job of addressing, in a nondual context, a good relative understanding of the nature of 'selfhood' in higher stages of realization. I do sympathize in that these are very hard things to talk about. But I don't personally find very useful systems that opt out and resort to simplistic notions like 'no-self' or 'there is only the Self', for reasons which will be discussed in the next article, really part two of this one, called "Maya Is 'Maya' ". But basically the reason is that as depictions of realization they are too static, and also simply not as non-dualistic in practice as they purport to be in theory, especially advaita, and therefore perhaps not so suitable for the emerging spirituality we are being drawn towards. How does one know, further, as Swartz maintains, that 'the Self is the world' but 'the world is not the Self'? What does that really mean? We are - I am! - suggesting that so-called advaita teachings contain a subtle dualism, in theory, but especially in actual, practical living. They are still, despite their stated goal of non-duality, still trying to escape conditionality and karma as our ancestors have for several millenia, a model that is 'getting long in the tooth'. Just because something is five thousand years old does not mean it is the complete truth. 

   So, anyway, there is negation, followed by identification, followed by affirmation, and a final understanding. Swartz says that this is described as realization of Puroshottama in Chapter 15 of the Bhagavad-Gita. Maya is rooted in Brahman, therefore one can make the statement, Atman and Brahman are one. If it were otherwise, one could not. Guadapada says that "the multiplicity of empirical experience in this universe is due to the very nature of the Effulgent Being. Whatever one experiences is only non-dual Brahman...That we see duality is due to our ignorance. This ignorance (maya) does not exist from the standpoint of reality. Maya is only an explanation of creation given by those who hold creation to be a fact. 'None is in bondage, none liberated, this is the ultimate truth.'" (51) Later post-Sankara vedantists postulated that Maya is not just an 'sublating explanation', but the power of Brahman or Isvara Itself. This is to reify Maya. However, this issue of Maya and the relationship between Atman, Isvara, and Brahman is very complicated in Vedanta and will be dealt with in the upcoming essay on Maya. In any case, the 'Self' is beyond an experience of silence or non-silence, emptiness or non-emptiness.

   It needs to be added, that even great advaitic scholars are not unanimous that there is a strict identity between Atman and Brahman, that is, they remain non-committal over whether or not there is a higher individuality, one or more souls, one or more witnesses (sakshin). The Buddha was silent on such questions. The important point, as Chandradhar Sharma comments on Mahamahopadhaya Pt. Anantakrishna Shastri's Shatadusani ("Century of Merits") is:

   "'Advaita' does not mean formal identity; it means, on the other hand, 'transcendental unity', which is beyond all categories of thought including the category of unity and shines as their ground-reality." (52)

   What that ground-reality is remains mystery and paradox. We cannot so easily say there is no soul or no God or that these are only illusions created by an absolute's own maya. mKhas grub dGe wrote six hundred years ago:

   "There is a very great difference between logical reasoning not finding something and it finding it to be nonexistent." (53)

   Further, when did Sankara say that the Self is fully realized?

   "The self is truly know when it is known along with each state of consciousness." (54)

   In this quote he most likely was referring to the three states of waking, dream, and sleep, but I would ask whether or not we should what is considered 'super-conscious' states as well? This implies a fully integrated actualization of the realization by the 'perfect man'. Don't be too disheartened; 'we' don't have to perfect our human selves, in fact, we can't. But, in some sense, it is also our destiny, the archtype of our incarnation, to be the unique being that only we can be.

   Anthony Damiani once said that if you say that the ego is 'empty' [even if correct in 'theory'] one haven't even seen it yet, that just because one can't find it doesn't mean it isn't there! Just so, anadi says that simply because the Buddhist and Advaitists don't find the Soul doesn't mean it isn't there either. We are in deep waters here. PB, I feel, was onto something by reformulating the old terminologies with his concepts such as Mind-Alone, World-Mind, and Overself (or Soul). And this brings us to part two of this series, on the subject of Maya.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   But first, these gems:

   “When the mind is at peace,
   the world too is at peace.
   Nothing real, nothing absent.
   Not holding on to reality,
   not getting stuck in the void,
   you are neither holy nor wise, just
   an ordinary fellow who has completed his work.” - Layman P'ang (55)


   “I saw You and became empty.
   This Emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
   it obliterates existence, and yet when It comes,
   existence thrives and creates more existence! “ - Rumi


   "When one sees that form is empty, one realizes great wisdom and no longer dwells in samsara.
   When one sees that emptiness is form, one realizes great compassion and does not dwell in nirvana." - Fa Zang


   [The trick is to really see it]

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Maya Is 'Maya'


1. Paul Brunton, The Notebooks of Paul Brunton (Burdett, New York: Larson Publications, 1988), Vol. 13, Part 1, 1.43
2. Thomas Cleary, trans. and edited, Vitality, Energy, Spirit: A Taoist Handbook (Boston: Shambhala, 1991), p. 241
2a. One may well ask, why this ubiquitousness of Samkhya philosophy in all schools of Indian philosophy, including both Yoga and Vedanta? Could it be because it is the most ancient teaching for knowing the body, its various components, and the various functions of the mind? Why would Vedanta incorporate it if knowing the source of the 'I'-thought as Consciousness were all one needed to realize? Could it be because while that may be the shortest path to obtaining a 'glimpse' it overlooks much and may not yield the deepest enlightenment possible? Something to ponder.
3. John Blofield, The Zen Teachings of Huang Po (New York: Grove Press, 1959, p.
4. Swami Gambhirananda, trans, Kena Upanishad, with the Commentary of Sankaracharya (Kolkata, India: Advaita Ashram, 2009 (1980), p. 60
5. Ibid, p. 29
6. Brunton, op. cit., Vol. 16, Part 1, 8.186-188; Vol. 13, Part 1, 5
6a. Ibid, Vol. 14, 3.58
6b. Except, except......?!

"Although it is the very heart of human beings, the Overself is very far from their present level of consciousness. Nothing could be closer yet this is the supreme paradox of our existence and the strongest enigma confronting our thought." (Ibid, 3.6)

7. from Non Dual Highlights
8. Brunton, op. cit., Vol. 13, Part 2, 5.129
8a. Ibid, Vol. 14, 2.43, 45
8b. Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, I AM THAT (Durham, North Carolina: The Acorn Press, 2008), p.
9. Jerry Katz, ed. Essential Writings on Non-Duality (Boulder, Colorado: Sentient Publications, 2007), p. 59 10. Martin Lings, A Moslem Saint, p. 137
11. R.J. Austin, trans., Ibn Al' Arabi: The Bezels of Wisdom (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1980), p. 39-40
12. Aziz Kristof (anadi), Enlightenment Beyond Traditions (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidas, 1999), p. 77-80
13. For much more please see Greg’s website Emptiness: Buddhist and Beyond.
14. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, trans., A Dose of Emptiness: An Annotated Translation of the sTong thun chen mo of mKas grub dGe legs dpal bzang (Shakti Nagar, India: Sri Satguru Publications, 1993), p. 32-33
15. Ibid, p. 33
16. Anthony Damiani, Standing In Your Own Way (Burdett, NY: Larson Publications, 1993, p. 127-129
17. Gambhirananda, op. cit., p. 2
18. Edward Conze, Buddhism, Its Essence and Development, p. 144
19. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, op. cit., p. 227
20. The Thirty-Seven Practices of Bodhisattvas, Preliminary Teachings to the Kalachakra Initiation, 1989
20a. http://ganachakra.com/
21. Anam Thuben, The Magic of Awareness (Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Press, 2012), p. 91
22. Aziz Kristof, The Human Buddha (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidas, 1999, p.
23. Adyashanti, reference misplaced
24. V.S. Iyer, Commentaries, Vol. 1 (edited by Mark Scorelle, 1999), p. 268
24a. Lama Thubten Yeshe, Introduction to Tantra (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1987), p. 110
24b. Thomas Cleary, trans., Understanding Reality by Chang Po-tang (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1987), p. 153, 132, 146, 123
25. K.N. Upadhyaya, Buddhism, Path To Nirvana: A Perspective (Punjab, India: Radha Soami Satsang Beas, 2010), pp.
26. Living Wisdom with His Holiness The Dalai Lama, (Boulder, CO: Sounds True, 2006), p. 106-109
27. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, op. cit., p. 128
27a. Brunton, op cit., Vol. 14, 5.47
27b. Ibid, Vol. 13, Part 3, 4.139
28. Cabezon, op. cit., p. 254
29. Ibid, p. 112
30. Ibid, p. 198
31. Ibid, p. 130
32. Ibid , p.112-113, 401
33. Brunton, op. cit., Vol. 15, Part 1, 4.6
33a. Ibid, Vol. 14, 3.888, 3.401, 3.319
33b. Alagadupama Majjhima, 1, 135
33c. Brunton, op. cit., 6.265, 6.266, 6.267
33d. Ibid, Vol. 13, Part 1, 2.5, 2.13
33e. Brunton, op. cit., Vol. 16, Part 1, 2.256
34. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, op. cit., p. 167, 105, 236, 238, 224
35. Ibid, p. 171, 243, 98-99 36. Namkhai Norbu and Adriano Clemente, The Supreme Source: The Kunjed Gyalpo (Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion Publications, 1997), p. 210, 152
37. Ibid, p. 20
38. John Blofeld, Taoism: The Road To Immortality (Boston: Shambhala, 1985), p.63
39. Thomas Cleary, Vitality, Energy, Spirit: A Taoist Handbook, op. cit., p. 94, 273
40. Ibid, p. 99
41. Ibid, p. 178-180, 103
42. Two Ways To Think About Nothing by Robert Krulwich
43. Cabezon, op./ cit., p. 96
43a. Brunton, op.cit., Vol. 15, Part 1, 8.115
44. Brunton, op. cit., Vol. 13, Part 3, 4.39, 4.40, 4.85. 5.12, 5.13, 4.10, 5.19, 4.139, 5.128, 5.107, 4.225, 4.54, 4.50, 5.87, 3.56, 3.57, 3.96. 3.97, 3.98; Part 2, 5.24, 5.39, 4.205
45. Thomas Cleary, trans., The Inner Teachings of Taoism by Chang Po-Tuan, Commentary by Lin I-ming (Boston, Massachusetts, Shambhala, 1980), p. 76, 111, 115-116, 45-46
46. Thomas Cleary, Vitality, Energy, Spirit, op. cit., p. 78-79, 103
47. Ibid, p. 135
48. Jack Kornfield, A Path With Heart (New York: Bantam Books, 1993), p. 205-212
49. James Swartz, How To Attain Enlightenment (Boulder, CO: First Sentient Publishers, 2009), p. 175

50. Greg Goode gives a different view than that of Swartz on awakening, from what has come to be known as the 'direct path', which has ancient roots with Hui-neng and some of the Ch'an masters and in modern times with Shree Atmananda Krishna Menon. He contrasts that with the understanding given in the traditional Hindu Vedanta/Yoga teachings. To be fair, he does not deny the truth of Vedanta, but offers a different way of looking at things. He starts (excerpted from his above-linked article) with a brief discussion of how these two paths treat the subject of deep sleep:

   "In a nutshell, the direct path is the only path I know of that treats deep sleep the way it does. Traditional Advaita Vedanta (of which the Tripura Rahasya is an expression) treats deep sleep as a very subtle covering, but a covering nonetheless. The direct path treats deep sleep as your nature - witnessing awareness with no objects."

   [Note: A classic vedantic/yogic explanation for our apparent nescience in deep sleep is that the first covering of the Atman, the anandamaya kosha, is active, giving us the 'memory of bliss' upon awakening, but the vijnanamaya kosha is not active, so we have no knowledge of this in sleep itself, only inferring so upon waking. Yogic schools such as Sant Mat argue that in dream one's attention falls to the throat center, where one is subconscious, and in deep sleep to the navel, where one is unconscious, while the Kriya path of Paramahana Yogananda asserts that during sleep the astral and causal bodies detach from the outer senses and retire to the internal organs, the spine, and the subconscious mind. The direct path apparently refutes all of this].

   "[The] Tripura Rahasya...is seeking to posit the mind as the site of awakening - traditional Advaita Vedanta speaks of the "akhanda akara vritti," [which Swartz mentioned] which is said to be the mental modification that causes awakening. Awakening is definitely said to happen in the mind, being a modification of the mind. So the mind must be active for this to happen."

   [V. Subramanian offers an explanation of this event:

   "It is the jiva that experiences ignorance, samsara. it is this jiva that strives for knowledge. Ultimately it is this jiva that gets the realization. it happens through a peculiar vritti (transformation of the mind) called akhandakara vritti. When due to prolonged practice, the mind takes on the 'form' of Brahman [the 'undivided'], there occurs the destruction of the ignorance located in the jiva and thereby the jiva gets liberated. Once this happens that person is no longer jiva, but Brahman....It is the False self that gets the realization. This marks the end of the false and just the 'Self' remains"]. (56)

   Goode continues:

   "The direct path is different - awakening is spoken of inspirationally and rhetorically - but it is not seen as a true biographical event, especially one that requires explanation. An awakening event, like any event, would be a phenomenal event. But as such it is a mere appearance in awareness, so it can't be a real, functioning portal through which you transcend phenomenality. From the beginning there was no such need."

   "This is why according to the direct path, none of the dramatic stories you hear, including the one in this interview, can be taken seriously as events, or need to be. So there is no need to postulate a locale where the event takes place. There's no place there! So there's no true awakening event. Instead, all is wakefulness!"   PB also appeared to be of this school:

   “A man never leaves Consciousness...Whether asleep or awake, wrapped in himself or out in the world, his essential being remains what it is...Every man is conscious being, even in deep sleep.” (Vol. 13, 3:183,18 )

   However, he seemed to be of two minds about it:

   "When a man falls totally asleep, when no thoughts and no dreams are active, he has withdrawn (or more accurately been withdrawn) into the centre of his being. He can go no farther inwards. He is really alone with the Overself but, being unable to harmonize with it, the principle of consciousness is not active." ! (source misplaced)]

   Goode:

   "This is why in the direct path, deep sleep is not seen as a covering of the mind, but as an interval during which you are present even though the mind is not. One of the exercises in the direct path is to contemplate how every experience is like deep sleep."

   The issue of sleep is a complicated and profound one, and we are only dipping our feet in the waters here. As even the sages disagree, this will be covered in greater detail in a future article. There is real divided line among teachers and traditions whether there is awareness there or not, 'before' enlightenment. The direct path doesn't recognize an event of enlightenment, but states that awareness is always present; vedanta 'sort of' recognizes an event; anadi most definitely says that the state of presence or awareness isn't there until it is recognized, and that only the most advanced sages are 'aware' in deep sleep. Greg concludes that deep sleep thus shows us that we are consciousness without objects, and therefore the consciousness in which objects appear, and as an after-thought adds, "Isn't the self Nirguna?" To me this is an oversimplification of a deep topic. It also ignores the important issue of further development, even divinization of the personal or soul nature, after the realization of one's conscious nature, by assuming that once one sees that all is consciousness the game is over. This really requires an extended discussion all its own. More along these lines is gotten into in "Maya Is 'Maya'". So, Is the self Nirguna? For the answer could be yes or no. Yes, if Nirguna really means an absolute beyond all relativity, or an absolute as actualized within rel;nd form, impersonal and personal, and so forth. If the Self as emptiness/awareness is 'empty', for instance, can we say that it is it Nirguna? It is a fair question, and I fully apologize if it is confusing! [Atmananda himself in his later works preferred to use the term ‘I-Principle’ rather than ‘consciousness’ as the fundamental (Subjective) Experience (anubhava), as he felt the term conscousness too subject to misinterpretation and confusion].

51. Swami Nikhilinanda, trans., The Mandukya Upanishad with Guadapada's Karika and Sankara's Commentary (Kolkata, India: Advaita Ashram, 2010), p. xviii
52. Chandradhar Sharma, The Advaita Tradition in Indian Philosophy (Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass, 2007), p. 233
53. Jose Ignacio Cabezon, op. cit., p. 151
54. Gambhirananda, op. cit., p. 38
55. Stephen Mitchell, ed., An Anthology of Sacred Poetry, "The Enlightened Heart" (New York: Harper & Row, 1989)
56. as quoted in: Dennis Waite, Back to the Truth: 5000 Years of Advaita (Winchster, England, O Books), p. 190