How Is the 2nd Discourse Connected with Emptiness?

How is the emptiness of the five skandhas, as taught in the 2nd discourse, connected with emptiness? 

I am not sure exactly what prompted me to ask the question, “How, exactly, is the Buddha's teaching connected with emptiness?” but I am glad that something did. Investigating the connection with emptiness seems to be a good way of leading oneself in the direction of greater clarity in regard to what the Buddha's teaching exactly is.

The Heart Sutra begins by describing the Bodhisattva Free-In-Reflection as he deeply reflects that the five skandhas – SHIKI, JU, SO, GYO, SHIKI – are totally empty.

The five skandhas are the five aggregates, or the five constituent parts, viz:

SHIKI = rūpa, bodily form, matter

JU = vedanā, feeling

SO = samjñā, perception

GYO = saṁskārāḥ, habitual doings

SHIKI = vijjāna, consciousness.

And so the Buddha taught the group-of-five in the 2^nd discourse that the five skandhas are totally empty of anything that can be called a self.

Seeing this, the noble disciple grows weary of form, feeling, perfection, doings and consciousness; through weariness he becomes dispassionate, and through dispassion he is liberated, so that there is nothing more for him to do.

As they listened to this teaching, the group-of-five monks' minds, through not clinging, were freed from the polluting influences.

First Connection – Emptiness as a Principle

In the first instance, the five skandhas being empty of a self is the principle of emptiness. With reference to the five skandhas, which are empty of self, the Buddha introduces the principle of emptiness – though he does not yet speak explicitly of emptiness.

Second Connection – Emptiness as Dispassion

In the second instance, the Buddha says that the noble disciple becomes dispassionate. And being dispassionate (virāga) means being empty of rāga, being empty of redness, being empty of the red taint of passion, in short, being empty of passion. In the second phase, Gudo Nishijima would say, emptiness is the balanced state of the autonomic nervous system.

Third Connection – Emptiness as Liberation from Habitual Doings Born of Ignorance

In the third instance, the Buddha teaches the group-of-five that through dispassion the noble disciple is liberated. And this liberation, synonymous with arhathood, is described using the following traditional formula which occurs again and again in the Pali Suttas:

Khīṇā jāti
"Destroyed is (re)birth,

vusitaṁ brahmacariyaṁ
lived is the spiritual life,

kataṁ karaṇīyaṁ
done is what was to be done,

nāparaṁ itthattāyā’ ti 
there is no more of this mundane state." 

What exactly is the connection here with emptiness?

What, in actual practice, is the connection between the liberation in which nothing remains to be done, and emptiness?

This, for me, is where the teaching of FM Alexander has come in incredibly handy.

One vignette that stands out in my mind played out in the teaching room of Alexander's niece Marjory Barlow. She asked me to show her what I meant by the instruction I had been given in Japan to keep the neck bones straight by pulling in the chin. Marjory took one look and said, “There is no freedom in it.” And she was right – there was no freedom in it, and nor had there been any freedom in it. There had been a whole lot of fixing going on.

I have been going on about the Alexander Technique for more than 20 years now. To be frank, I seem to have recapitulated the situation circa 1961 when I was screaming from the pain of a twisted testicle, whereupon a locum doctor prescribed for me a course of antibiotics, and the screaming continued for however many hours it took for the testicle – its blood supply having been cut off – to atrophy. 

Considering the extent to which I have used anger as my fuel on this quest to get back to the real essence of what the Buddha taught, it is surprising that, if nowhere else, I have got, relatively unscathed, to the age of 56. 

When I came back to England at the end of 1994, aged 34, to train as an Alexander teacher, I did so because I intuited that it would be a step towards greater clarity in regard to what the Buddha taught. 

But my Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima wrote to me from Japan in 1996, "I hope you come back to Buddhism." Not only did he express this view, but he acted on it. Thus I found out in 1997 that Gudo and a small group of his Dharma-heirs had got together and made a joint decision, metaphorically speaking, to cut the rope from which a member of their team -- yours truly -- was distantly dangling. 

What is the secret of Zen? The secret of Zen is non-doing.

The secret of Zen is just to sit. And just sitting is sitting which is empty of -- or liberated from -- habitual doings born of ignorance.

This is the connection between the Buddha's teaching and emptiness which my late Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima failed exactly to see. And failing exactly to see this connection with emptiness, that noble disciple of the Buddha failed, on some level, to be liberated.

Thus, more than a pinch of cosmic irony was in play when Gudo wrote, in his Introduction to his own translation (using the term loosely) of MMK:

“Some individuals may insist that when trying to understand true Buddhism we should refer only to the words of Gautama Buddha himself as preserved in the most ancient strands of the Pali Canon, the oldest written records of Buddhism. [MC: Who exactly are those straw men?] But I cannot agree. Although Gautama Buddha certainly founded and established Buddhism, it is not by any means certain that the recorded texts reflect either what he actually said or, more important, how what he said was understood by those who learned directly from him. To be truthful I have begun to doubt whether Gautama Buddha's Buddhist teachings themselves have ever been properly understood.”

In Gudo's thoughts in his old age, the Pali Suttas were faulty but the true teachings of Gautama Buddha were contained in his own brain. In fact, it turns out that the true teachings of Gautama Buddha are very faithfully preserved in the Pali Suttas, while the thoughts in Gudo's brain were faulty. Those thoughts of his were fabrications, mental doings born of ignorance. When he wrote to me of his hope that I should come back to Buddhism, those words of his were verbal doings born of ignorance. And above all, when he used his fingertips in the Zazen Hall to pull the chins of his students several inches backwards, those doings of his were doings born of ignorance. 

So if anybody would like a conspicuous example of what Nāgārjuna meant in MMK26.10, voilà.

saṁsāra-mūlaṁ saṁskārān avidvān saṁskaroty ataḥ. avidvān kārakas tasmān ...

The doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus does the ignorant one do. The ignorant one therefore is the doer...

Fourth Connection – Not Clinging even to Emptiness

In the final analysis, the Mahākhandhako records not only what the Buddha taught but also what the group-of-five monks realized in their own practice and experience:

Idam-avoca Bhagavā,
The Glorious One said this,

attamanā pañcavaggiyā bhikkhū Bhagavato bhāsitaṁ abhinanduṁ.
and the group-of-five monks were uplifted and greatly rejoiced in what was said by the Glorious One.

Imasmiñ-ca pana veyyākaraṇasmiṁ bhaññamāne,
Moreover, as this sermon was being given,

pañcavaggiyānaṁ bhikkhūnaṁ anupādāya āsavehi cittāni vimucciṁsu,
the group-of-five monks' minds, through not clinging, were freed from the polluting influences,

tena kho pana samayena cha loke arahanto honti.
and at that time there were six worthy ones in the world.

To recap, that the five skandhas are empty of self is

1. The Buddha's first teaching of the principle of emptiness.

2. Not only a principle to be studied intellectually, but a Buddhist truth whose seeing is connected with the emptiness which is dispassion.

3. Liberation itself, as the Buddha taught it – an act of knowing emptiness, in which are caused to cease those habitual doings which are the root of suffering in saṁsāra.

4.  None of the above.  Even emptiness might be something to be abandoned. 

How is True Samādhi Connected with Emptiness?

How is balanced stillness (samyak-samādhi) connected with emptiness? 

In the Lesser Discourse on Emptiness as I have translated it, the Buddha draws a distinction between the idea of balanced stillness of the mind without a meditation object (animitta cetosamādhi), and the reality of being here, grounded in this very body, susceptible to six senses, having life as a condition. 

Here the connection with emptiness is that the latter reality is empty of the former idea.

When in Fukan-zazengi Zen Master Dogen wrote of just sitting and being caught by the still state (tada taza o tsutomete gocchi ni saeraru), he was talking from the standpoint of the latter reality – that reality being empty, for example, of attachment to any idea of what samādhi, the still state is.

In the same spirit Dogen wrote:

Although there are myriad distinctions and thousands of differences, we should devote ourselves solely to Zen practice in pursuit of the truth. 

(Banbetsu sensa to iu to iedomo, shikan ni sanzen-bendo subeshi.)

And these words are very reminiscent of what the Buddha himself is recorded as saying at the end of the Mahāgosiṅgasuttaṁ, The Greater Discourse in Gosiṅga:

“All have spoken well, Sāriputta, each in his own way. Hear also from me what kind of bhikkhu could illuminate the Gosiṅga Sāla-tree Wood. Here, Sāriputta, when a bhikkhu has returned from his almsround, after his meal, he sits. Folding his legs into the lotus posture, directing his body up, establishing mindfulness to the fore, [he resolves]: 'I shall not break this sitting posture until, through not clinging, my mind is freed from the polluting influences.' That kind of bhikkhu, Sāriputta, could illuminate the Gosiṅga Sāla-tree Wood.”

When Nāgārjuna in MMK26.11 says that the stopping of ignorance is because of the bringing-into-being of just this act of knowing, or because of the cultivation of just this wisdom (jñānasyāsyaiva bhāvanāt), the wisdom in question is wisdom in regard to emptiness. At the same time, the act of knowing in question is the act of knowing this true samādhi which is sitting doing itself, being empty of clinging.

So this, it seems to me now, is how true samādhi is truly connected with emptiness. True samādhi is truly connected with emptiness through the practice of just sitting.

And to produce a translation of MMK that clarifies just this connection, it strikes me this morning, is what I have been working towards for the last 35 years – not least by finding time for sitting, as a general rule, four times every day. Though I can't help feeling that I have fucked up royally in many regards, that standard I have kept, largely under the influence of Master Dogen's teaching of the essence in Fukan-zazengi.

My teacher saw that one way to connect true samādhi with emptiness was through a neuro-physiological explanation of balance. In that explanation, emptiness is the just the state of plus-minus zero which is the balanced state of the autononomic nervous system.

More fundamentally, however, the connection between true samādhi and emptiness is through sitting which is empty of all bullshit explanations of samādhi.

I think the closest Sanskrit equivalent to “bullshit explanation,” incidentally, is prapañca.

Hence, for a free translation of MMK's introductory verses: 

a-nirodham an-utpādam an-ucchedam a-śāśvatam |
an-ekārtham a-nānārtham an-āgamam a-nirgamam ||
Not a cessation, not an arising; not nihilism, nothing eternal; not meaning one thing, not meaning many things; not an arriving, not a going away...

yaḥ pratītya-samutpādaṁ prapañcopaśamaṁ śivam |
deśayām āsa saṁbuddhas taṁ vande vadatāṁ varam ||
there is pratītya-samutpāda which, as the benign cutting of bullshit, he the Fully Awakened Sambuddha taught. I praise him, the best of speakers.

Ostensibly what is thus described as the cutting of bullshit (or, more politely, the ending of conceptual elaboration) is “dependent arising” – i.e. pratītya-samutpāda as a middle-way teaching on causality. But pratītya-samutpāda can also be literally translated in such a way – e.g. by the words “a complete springing up, by going back” – as to suggest just sitting itself.

How is True Mindfulness Connected with Emptiness?

How is true mindfulness (samyag-smṛṭi) connected with emptiness?

The Sanskrit samyag-smṛṭi which means true remembering, true mindfulness, or true awareness, was rendered into Chinese with these two characters, 正念, pronounced in Japanese as SHO-NEN.

正 means true or right.

As a pictograph, 念 combines the two elements 今, which means now, the present time, and 心 which means heart or mind.

Dogen used the characters正念 in his first version of Fukan-zazengi, in the phrase 正念分明, which I translated a few years ago as “true consciousness is distinct and clear.”

In translating 正念 like this as “true consciousness,” I was mindful of my teacher's teaching that 正念 means, in his words, our consciousness when our our autonomic nervous system is balanced.

My late Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima felt very strongly that what Zen Master Dogen was expressing with the characters 正念 was just balance of the autonomic nervous system.

To the extent that I agreed with him in this matter, I was Gudo Nishijima's friend and loyal student, his blue-eyed boy even. To the extent that I disagreed, I was a non-Buddhist, a kind of demon, a fish he would rather not have caught.

So this for me has been more than an abstract philosophical question. It has been more of an existential question, more a matter of life and death:

How is samyag-smṛṭi, 正念, true mindfulness, connected with emptiness as the Buddha really taught it?

If we understand (a) that samyag-smṛṭi, 正念, true mindfulness is just the balanced state [of the autonomic nervous system], and (b) that emptiness, as the state of plus-minus zero, is also just the balanced state [of the autnomomic nervous system], there is thus established a very powerful connection between true mindfulness and emptiness. Following this track there is not so much a connection as complete identity. True mindfulness (samyag-smṛṭi) and emptiness (śunyatā) are two words for the balanced state of the autonomic nervous system.

But if we trust the Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasuttaṁ as a reliable record of what the Buddha said – and, on the basis of studying it and reflecting on it, I definitely do trust it – in that sutta the Buddha taught mindfulness as not so much a state as a practice.

I submit that, for example, in the section on in-and-out-breathing, true mindfulness as practice is connected with emptiness in the following four ways:

• 1. Via the emptiness of not trying to be right

"While breathing in long, he knows “I am breathing in long”,
or, while breathing out long, knows “I am breathing out long”;
or, while breathing in short, knows “I am breathing in short”,

or, while breathing out short, knows “I am breathing out short.”

Knowing that a short in-breath is short, et cetera, means letting a short in-breath be short. In Alexander terms, the instruction is inhibitory. 

Then what, exactly, is inhibited? The ignorance of trying to be right. The idea that there is such a thing as being right. The tendency to intervene in a top-down manner to improve a situation and thus, ironically, by the law of unintended consequences, to make the situation worse. In short, what is to be inhibited is what Alexander called "end-gaining," or sometimes "fixing." 

Only when we understand this can our practice be empty of what Alexander called “end-gaining.” That said, even when we think we have understood already, there may be levels of depth of understanding of which we remain unaware. The end-gaining to be inhibited, in other words, is always liable to lie further back than we had hitherto realized. 

When it came to breathing, Gudo Nishijima and FM Alexander were ostensibly on the same page. Both understood that breathing was a natural process that, when conditions were right, could best be left to take care of itself. When it came to how to go about establishing those right conditions, however, Gudo Nishijima's conception of correct posture, and FM Alexander's teaching of letting the head go forward and up to let the back lengthen and widen, were chalk and cheese. Which is to say that Gudo Nishijima's approach to correct posture tended more in the direction of end-gaining, whereas FM Alexander's approach continued to be based on that emptiness which is the inhibition of end-gaining, i.e., that emptiness which is true freedom from trying to be right.

Gudo Nishijima understood well in theory the principle of not trying to be right – he heeded Master Dogen's instruction not to think good/bad, not to care right/wrong. But in practice he encouraged his students in sitting to try to be right.

Gudo Nishijima also emphasized – again heeding Master Dogen's teaching – the oneness of practice and theory. So it was a case of theory and practice being the same in theory, but not always in practice.

In making this criticism here, what am I up to? What is the point of endeavoring to demonstrate that my teacher's teaching was wrong? In making that criticism am I free of trying to be right? Or am I, deep down, still just trying to be right? 

Whichever is the case, I think that implicit in while breathing in short, he knows “I am breathing in short”, is recognition of the truth that trying to be right makes us wrong. 

So true mindfulness is connected with the emptiness of not trying to be right. 

In Marjory Barlow's words: "Let it all be wrong!" 

• 2. Via the emptiness of the whole body reflecting

“Being thoroughly aware of [or with] the whole body, I will breathe in”: like this he trains;
“being thoroughly aware of [or with] the whole body, I will breathe out”: like this he trains. 

These words of the Buddha bring to my mind what Marjory Barlow would sometimes say to me after working for some time with me lying on my back with knees bent on her teaching table – “That's it. The whole body informed with thought.”

Gautama's Buddha sabbakāya and Marjory's “whole body” are the same words in two languages.

My teacher Gudo Nishijima, I am sure, would have objected to the expression “informed with thought.” His teaching was that the whole body in Zazen should be liberated both from feeling and from thinking.

But this objection would have been based on not understanding what Marjory meant by “with thought.” “With thought” didn't mean abstract or intellectual thinking. “With thought” meant with preventive direction, as expressed in verbal orders “Let the neck be free, to let the head go forward and up, to let the spine lengthen and the back widen, while sending the knees up to the ceiling.”

In any case, when practice of true mindfulness is connected with the emptiness of the whole body reflecting, the point might be that what is absent, in that emptiness, is reliance on partial feelings, reliance on partial thoughts, and mal-coordination between body parts.

In theory, again, Gudo Nishijima always taught that in Zazen “we need not think anything, we need not feel anything...” But Gudo in practice, in his ineffable ignorance, encouraged his students to make a big effort to “keep the spine straight vertically,” which involved – for any student sincere/stupid enough to follow Gudo's teaching conscientiously – a severe mal-coordination of body parts. I know whereof I speak.

• 3. Via the emptiness of non-doing

“Causing bodily doing to cease, I will breathe in”: like this he trains;
“causing bodily doing to cease, I will breathe out”: like this he trains.

According to Margaret Goldie, an Alexander teacher who was particularly close to FM Alexander in his last days, FM Alexander would latterly say in his teaching, “choose to be quiet throughout the whole self.”

The emptiness that FM was thus expressing was an absence of “doing." 

Cf. Marjory Barlow's “the wrong inner patterns are the doing that has to be stopped.”

People misunderstand the Buddha's instruction as tantamount to saying, “Calming the breathing, I will breathe in,” so that practice of mindfulness is somehow tied up with breath control.

But if we study the Buddha's words as the Pali records them, the practice, or the training, is expressed by means of the quotation particle ti –

"passambhayaṁ kāyasaṅkhāraṁ assasissāmī" ti sikkhati,
“......................................................................”: like this........"
passambhayaṁ kāyasaṅkhāraṁ passasissāmī" ti sikkhati

“......................................................................”: like this........

So the practice or the training is in the remembering, or in the mindfulness, of what is contained within the quotation marks, like this: 

“causing bodily doing to cease, I will breathe in” 

“causing bodily doing to cease, I will breathe out.”

What then, exactly, is expressed by “causing bodily doing to cease, I will breathe in” ?

I think what is expressed is a kind of resolution, or decision, or choice. Hence, in FM Alexander's words, “choose to be quiet throughout the whole self.”

Here and now the practice is to be clear in that choice, and the breathing will (assasissāmī and passasissāmī are future tense) take care of itself.

My Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima was not without deep intuitive understanding of this principle. Thus when Zen Master Dogen in the opening sentence of Shobogenzo records  that the buddha-tathāgatas possess a subtle method which is supreme and free of doing (無為), Gudo translated 無為 as “natural.” And insofar as "natural" means free of artificial interference, "natural" is accurate enough. 

Again, in connection with the breathing, my Zen teacher was clear that our task was not to try to control it, but rather to leave it be, focusing not on breathing but rather on keeping the spine straight vertically.

Gudo thus understood that there was nothing we could do, by direct top-down intervention, to make our breathing more natural. Sadly, however, his wisdom concerning what is natural did not extend to the matter of “correct posture.” When it came to keeping the spine straight vertically, my teacher's teaching was that we should just do it, maintaining a certain tension in the muscles around the lumbar spine, and pulling in the chin so as to impart a stretch to the muscles at the back of the neck. Thus, in pursuit of the truth of freedom from doing -- latter-day Japanese Zen masters in their ineffable ignorance have taught -- we should do this, do that, and do the other.

• 4. Via the emptiness of just sitting

And how, monks, does a monk dwell in the body contemplating the body?
Here, monks, a monk who has gone to the wilderness, or has gone to the root of a tree, or has gone to an empty place, sits. Folding his legs into the lotus posture, directing the body up, and thus establishing mindfulness to the fore, he, just being mindful breathes in, and just being mindful breathes out...

This paragraph is the beginning of the section on in-and-out-breathing in the Mahāsatipaṭṭhānasuttaṁ, but in a sense it might also express the ultimate end-point of practising mindfulness. Which is to say that the beginning and end of practising mindfulness, for a person who aspires to follow the Zen buddha-ancestors in just sitting, might be to fold one's legs into the lotus posture and keep directing the body up.... until such time as the body directs itself up.

“Stop doing the wrong thing,” FM Alexander used to say, “and the right thing does itself.”

“You are all perfect,” Marjory Barlow echoed, “apart from what you are doing.”

How Is Seeing Straight Connected with Emptiness?

How is seeing straight (samyag-dṛṣṭi) connected with emptiness?

Seeing straight (or “right view”) is one of eight branches of the eightfold middle path which the Buddha set out in the first discourse, known as the Setting Rolling of the Wheel of Dharma – Skt: Dharma-cakra-pravartana-sūtra. 

The conclusion of Nāgārjuna's MMK, expressed in its final verse, is that there is no such thing as a right view; rather the Buddha taught the Dharma in the direction of abandoning all views (sarva-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇāya). For this reason I avoid the usual translation of samyag-dṛṣṭi as “right view” and prefer the translation “seeing straight.”

But there are such thing as wrong views – in which phrase “wrong” might be superflous, in the sense that all views are wrong views. The connection between seeing straight and emptiness relates in particular with the two views -- the polar opposite views on causality which the Buddha clarified in detail in the fourth discourse, and later, again, in the Kaccāyana-gotta-suttaṁ. 

In Chinese/Japanese those two views are known as

常見外道 (JOKEN-GEDO), lit. “constancy-view off-of-the-way," and 

断見外道 (DANKEN-GEDO) lit. “cut-off-view off-of-the-way.”

常means constancy, eternity.

断 means severance, being cut off.

見 means seeing, view.

外道  is given in the dictionary as: non-Buddhist teachings; non-Buddhist ; heterodoxy; unorthodoxy; heresy; heretic ; demon; fiend; devil; brute; bad person ; type of fish one did not intend to catch.

These definitions of 外道 are all very unfortunate., stinking as they all do (with the possible exception of the fish) of religious intolerance. 

I remember my Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima proclaiming, circa 1992 or 1993, just after he started studying MMK in Sanskrit, that the Buddha's teaching (“true Buddhism”) is not a religion but a philosophy. At the time I was under the strong impression that the Buddha's teaching was just to sit, but I duly noted the conclusion that my teacher had come to that the Buddha's teaching was not a religion. 

Habitually, however, my teacher continued to manifest in his attitude what certainly looked like religious intolerance. He tended to dismiss anybody who did not agree with his own view (= “true Buddhism”) as a non-Buddhist. This eventually came to include me, who my teacher felt had abandoned true Buddhism in favour of the FM Alexander Technique. I turned out in the end, evidently, to be the type of fish my teacher never intended to catch. 

I most certainly do not believe in God, but if I turn out to be wrong in this non-belief, I will agree with believers in Him that He must have a great sense of humour. Because cosmic irony is everywhere at play. 

The Sanskrit word rendered into 外道 (GEDO) and thence "non-Buddhist," was probably  tīrthika or para-tīrthika (MW: “the adherent of another sect”). The Pali equivalent is titthiya (PED: “an adherent of another sect”). 

Again these definitions in the Pali and Sanskrit dictionaries are unfortunate in their implication that followers of the Buddha's teaching belong to one sect, whereas a follower of other teachings belong to "another sect." 

As the Dalai Lama has truly said, “Sectarianism is poison.”

This echoes what Zen Master Dogen emphasized in Shobogenzo. People who claim to be followers of Master Dogen's teaching, and in the same breath proclaim themselves to belong to the Soto Sect, might not necessarily know what they are talking about.

As reflected in the following verse from the Dharma-cakra-pravartana-sūtra, spoken by the Buddha after he had Set Rolling of the Wheel of Dharma, sectarians in the Buddha's view where more or less on the level of Māra:

Gambhīraṁ durdṛśaṁ sūkṣmaṁ Dharmacakraṁ pravartitaṁ,
The deep, hard-to-see, subtle Dharma-Wheel has been set rolling,
Yatra Mārā na gāhante sarve ca paratīrthikāḥ. 
Which the Māras, and all the sectarians, cannot grasp.

This rant against sectarianism, however, is itself somewhat of a digression. The question I have set myself, the question to come back to it, is: 

How is seeing straight (samyag-dṛṣṭi) connected with emptiness?

And the most obvious answer, to come back to it, is that seeing straight is in the middle way between two extreme views of causality.

The first view is known

in Pali as sassatadiṭṭhi, eternity-view, eternalism;

in Sanskrit as śāśvata-dṛṣṭi, eternity-view, eternalism;

in Chinese/Japanese as 常見外道 (JOKEN-GEDO), lit. “constancy-view off-of-the-way.”

The second view is known

in Pali as ucchedadiṭṭhi, cut-off-view, annihilationism, nihilism;

in Sanskrit as uccheda-dṛṣṭi, cut-off-view, annihilationism, nihilism;

in Chinese/Japanese as 断見外道(DANKEN-GEDO), lit. “cut-off-view off-of-the-way.”

In the middle way between these two views is the Buddha's teaching of dependent arising.

In the eternity view, an entity that exists independently, as a thing unto itself, or as a Being unto Himself – the supreme example being God – would be immune to change. According to the teaching of dependent arising, no such thing exists. No such Supreme Entity exists. All things that do exist are empty of independent existence as things unto themselves. A flower, to use Tich Naht Hahn's memorable example, is full of the sun which shone on it, full of the cloud that rained on it, and full of the gardener who dug the soil for it. A flower is full of the whole Universe. It is empty of only one thing: its own independent existence as a flower. And because of lacking such an immutable and separate existence, a flower is a very transient thing, not eternal. 

In nihilism, at the other extreme, when God has been destroyed and people turn out not to live and work together, as first hoped, happily ever after, then for a while nothing may seem to have any meaning. Even the most beautiful of things -- having been loved, for example, in a flower bed in a garden, or having been loved between the sheets in a double bed -- is empty of her own independent existence as a beautiful thing. That being so, illusions of perfection having been dashed, what is the point now of getting out of bed in the morning and bothering to make any more effort? 

According to the teaching of dependent arising, it is precisely because all things are empty that all things are amenable to change. And because all things are amenable to change, we can all progress, or regress, in the direction of deepening our understanding of the four noble truths.

So seeing straight, philosophically speaking, is intimately connected with emptiness -- in the sense that dependent arising and emptiness are synonymous. 

At the same time, in his Instructing of Kātyāyana, before he gets onto the philosophical teaching of dependent arising, the Buddha seems to begin by cautioning against emotional attachment to the conception that I have/am a self.

Thus when Kātyāyana asks “Seeing straight, seeing straight, is spoken of, Venerable Sir. In what way, Venerable Sir, is there seeing straight?”, the Buddha answers first with reference to the emptiness of no self:

“This one [who sees straight] does not tend to join in and become attached, does not tend mentally to take a position, does not tend to identify and unconsciously go along with; he neither attaches to [the view], nor takes as a position, that 'I have a self.'”

This is as per the second discourse, in which the Buddha causes the group-of-five to understand that the five skandhas to which we cling ignobly, and with which we identify as if they were our self, are in fact totally empty of anything that could be called a self.

There again, the aspect of not becoming attached is also connected with emptiness as praised in the third discourse – emptiness as dispassion, emptiness as a condition in which the fires of afflictive emotion have stopped burning.

It is not until the fourth discourse that the Buddha outlines one by one the twelve links in the 12-fold chain of the dependent arising of suffering.

So seeing straight and emptiness may be connected with each other in many ways, but for the present, on the basis of the first four discourses, I submit that seeing straight is connected with emptiness in these four ways:

1. Seeing straight is connected with noble, i.e. selfless, motivation.

2. Seeing straight is connected with a dispassionate condition of body and mind.

3. Seeing straight is connected with deep philosophical understanding of dependent arising, in the middle way between two views.

4. Seeing straight, in the final analysis, is connected with sitting in lotus as an act of knowing emptiness -- i.e. not only philosophical understanding of the dependent arising of suffering, but physical realization of freedom from those habitual doings which are born of ignorance. 

In other words, because seeing straight (samyag-dṛṣṭi) is itself dependently arisen, it is inseparable from...

thinking straight (samyak-saṁkalpa),

talking straight (samyag-vāk), 

true action (samyak-karmānta), 

making a clean living (samyag-ājīva), 

true endeavour (samyag-vyāyāma),

true mindfulness (samyak-smṛti), 

balanced stillness (samyak-samādhi).

Again, because this seeing straight (samyag-dṛṣṭi) is thus inseparable from true mindfulness (samyak-smṛti), it is inseparable from the act of knowing which, having gone to an empty place, is to sit, crossing the legs, directing the body up, et cetera...

And just this act of knowing (jñānasyāsyaiva), which is inseparable from seeing straight, which is synonymous with seeing reality (tattva-darśana), which is inseparable from reality realizing itself (tattva-darśana), is what Nāgārjuna is referring to in MMK26.10-11, when he writes:

saṁsāra-mūlaṁ saṁskārān avidvān saṁskaroty ataḥ |

avidvān kārakas tasmān na vidvāṁs tattva-darśanāt ||10||

avidyāyāṁ niruddhāyāṁ saṁskārāṇām asaṁbhavaḥ |

avidyāyā nirodhas tu jñānasyāsyaiva bhāvanāt ||11||

The doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus does the ignorant one do. The ignorant one therefore is the doer; the wise one is not, because of seeing reality (tattva-darśanā). In the cessation of ignorance, there is the non-coming-into-being of doings. At the same time, the cessation of ignorance is because of the bringing-into-being of just this act of knowing (jñānasyāsyaiva). 

Verses 10-11 of MMK chap.26 thus, to my mind, contain the ultimate answer. They are akin to e = mc2. But how useful is it for a child to know that a formula like e = mc2 is the answer? Not so useful, unless the child understands the process that led Einstein to the conclusion which e = mc2 expresses. 

So one way of seeing MMK is as containing Nāgārjuna's workings leading to the conclusion expressed in MMK26.10-11.. And so what I am doing now, with  this study of the first four discourses and related teachings, is a sort of laying the ground in preparation for showing the workings that led Nāgārjuna eventually to write: 

The doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus does the ignorant one do. The ignorant one therefore is the doer; the wise one is not, because of the realization of reality (tattva-darśanā). In the cessation of ignorance, there is the non-coming-into-being of doings. At the same time, the cessation of ignorance is because of the cultivation of just this wisdom (jñānasyāsyaiva). 

Post Script

"What is seeing straight in four phases?" That is the kind of question I often asked my old Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima, in the process of translating Shobogenzo into English. The Shobogen (True Dharma Eye) of Shobogenzo (True Dharma Eye Treasury), indeed, is a kind of poetic description of that instrument of seeing straight which is Zazen. 

My teacher's answer, I think would have been along these lines: 

1. At the first phase, seeing straight is the viewpoint of the will to the truth. 

2. At the second phase, seeing straight is a kind of intuitive reflection of the autonomic nervous system, when the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves are in balance. 

3. At the third phase, seeing straight is a state of action in which there is no separation between subject and object. 

4. At the fourth phase, seeing straight is just the realization of reality (tattva-darśana) in Zazen. 

What I have done in the above post is endeavor to clarify further how these four aspects of seeing straight are connected with emptiness. 

If I have succeeded to any extent, to that extent credit should go to my Zen teacher Gudo Nishijima who pointed me in this direction. At the same time, in a strange twist of irony, the credit has to be shared with several Alexander teachers whom my Zen teacher evidently regarded as non-Buddhist fiends and brutes. 

Sometimes I give myself a laugh while I am sitting by hearing Alexander's instruction "to let the neck be free, to let head go forward and up," and I remember Gudo Nishijima walking up behind  his victims in the Zazen Hall, putting his fingers on our chins, and pulling our neck columns back several inches, so that the spine might be "kept straight vertically." 

The doings which are the root of saṁsāra thus did the ignorant one do. 

What wisdom is, in the end, I do not know so decisively. But I know it is not that. 

Truly to understand what I am getting at, one way or another, people reading this will have to understand why I have continued to criticize my Zen teacher so severely. My teacher had in abundance the will to the truth of a noble person. He did not lack for compassion. But when it came to the knowing of emptiness, in terms of the non-coming-into-being of habitual doings (saṁskārāṇām asaṁbhavaḥ), he was not as wise as he thought he was.

So one side of the story was a fault in my teacher's teaching. But the other side of the story has to do with the strength of my reaction to sensing that fault, seeing that fault, and being unable to get past that fault. 

Did I deserve to be caused to suffer so bitterly in the ignorant hands, and in the service, of a teacher as unskilfull and as arrogant as all that?

You bet I did.

Then why, even now, do I continue to feel so angry? If I am willing to confess that I was only getting my just deserts, wherefrom all this continuing anger towards a person who was not as wise as he purported to be? 

The answer to that question, I am sure, is related with my medical history -- maybe a story for another day.

The Four Discourses in the Round, Being Connected with Emptiness

In his book Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nāgārjuna, The Philosophy of the Middle Way, David Kalupahana sets out to show that MMK is “a superb commentary on the Buddha's own Kaccāyana-gotta-sutta, a commentary in which Nāgārjuna upholds every statement made by the Buddha in that discourse, bringing together more material from the other discourses as well, and then clearing the water muddied by the speculations of some of the metaphysicians of the later Buddhist tradition.”

I agree with that characterization of MMK.

When the dust cover of DK's book asserts that MMK is “a grand commentary on the Buddha's Discourse to Kātyāyana,” however, that is over-stating the case.

True, The Instruction of Kātyāyana is worthy of special attention as the only discourse which Nāgārjuna in MMK cites by name:

kātyāyanāvavāde cāstīti nāstīti cobhayam |
pratiṣiddhaṃ bhagavatā bhāvābhāva-vibhāvinā ||MMK15.7||
In The Instructing of Kātyāyana, both “It exists” and “It does not exist” 

are denied by the Glorious One who clarified the existence of existence and non-existence.

But it might be truer still to revere MMK as the clarification of the Buddha's teaching itself, which is everywhere connected with emptiness, and taught by way of the middle. And so it has been, connected with emptiness and taught by way of the middle, from the very beginning.

The middle practice, or eightfold middle path, as taught in the first discourse, is connected with emptiness, for a start, via seeing straight (or “right view”; samyag-dṛṣṭi), via true mindfulness (samyag-smṛṭi) and via balanced stillness (samyak-samādhi).

Then the second, third and fourth discourses are, by way of the middle, just the teaching of emptiness.

In the upcoming series of posts I will review these connections with emptiness one by one, asking again: 

How is seeing straight (samyag-dṛṣṭi) connected with emptiness?
How is true mindfulness (samyag-smṛṭi) connected with emptiness?
How is balanced stillness (samyak-samādhi) connected with emptiness?

How is the emptiness of the five skandhas, as taught in the 2nd discourse, connected with emptiness?

How are dispassion and liberation, as taught in the 3rd discourse, connected with emptiness?

How is the 12-fold dependent arising of suffering, as taught in the 4th discourse, connected with emptiness?

My conclusion will be that not only in The Instruction of Kātyāyana was the Buddha's teaching connected with emptiness. Rather, the Buddha's teaching was connected with emptiness from the very beginning, as revealed in an evolution of the four discourses which is both gradual and, in the way that the various strands interweave with each other, perfectly elegant.