… all very deluded!
I was struck last night while listening to my Shifu explaining the first verse of the Eight Realisations of Great Beings Sutra (pdf), just how distorted our grammatical structures are and how inadequate they are to explain the concept of Śūnyatā. It is, of course, this fundamental inadequacy that gives rise to the conundrums and kōans of Zen Buddhism. When one says that the 5 skandhas, being Form, Feeling, Conception, Volition and Consciousness (Discernment), contain no self, then we are immediately cast back into the confusion of trying to define the self.
How does one explain the concept of no-self when constrained to a language that reflects our collective ignorance? Here is an example:
When you see some chocolate (Form), the sensation arises within you that it is sweet and pleasant (Feeling), that brings to your awareness the recognition of the concepts of sweetness and sweet foods (Conception), leading to the impulse or desire for you to eat the chocolate (Volition), prompting you to consider and determine whether or not you will eat the chocolate (Consciousness or Discernment).
A basic teaching of the Buddha is that all of phenomenal existence is empty of any intrinsic, separate or enduring existence, which is the concept of Śūnyatā. Yet in the example above, we have layers of confusion in which the elements of ego-identity, the 5 skandhas, are explained in reference to the ego-identity, also known as the false-self. In short there is no objective way to describe Śūnyatā using the constraints of modern language.
When all things arise, abide for a time, then recede; are dependent on causes and conditions through each of those states, yet have no intrinsic, fundamental or independent reality of their own, how can the ignorance that perceives such things subjectively be informed of the objective reality of Śūnyatā using subjective language?
Instead, we see attempts at explanations being more or less confused, with kōans and parables left by the enlightened as markers only of a road less travelled, a path that leads to enlightenment. Unfortunately, the confusion in those that attempt to follow can see these explanatory ideas misunderstood and turned into dogma to be repeated while the profundity of the concepts indicated are lost or ignored.
Instead, if one recognises their own ignorance and works to bring to the fore their true nature of pure awareness, concepts of ego and the subjective-self seem to recede. Indeed, is it not a higher truth that even our greed, anger and ignorance have causes and conditions that can be eliminated to foster one's enlightenment simply by recognising Śūnyatā?
Did you see that? Again, trying to explain objective reality using subjective terms!
This is why it is said that Buddhism is only a path; it is not a destination for its explanations can only go so far before, like a raft crossing a river, they eventually have to be abandoned when the other shore is reached. For those mired in dogma who find the raft of their crossing comfortable and are not prepared to leave it behind, the other shore will never be attained no matter how close it appears.
Definitive explanations cannot be provided using subjective ideas and language. Do such subjective concepts have to be abandoned to perceive Śūnyatā everywhere and reside in pure, undistorted awareness?
How mysterious are these concepts that cannot be express in words.
He who knows (the Tao) does not (care to) speak (about it);
he who is (ever ready to) speak about it does not know it.
He (who knows it) will keep his mouth shut and close the portals
(of his nostrils). He will blunt his sharp points and unravel the
complications of things; he will attemper his brightness, and bring
himself into agreement with the obscurity (of others).
This is called 'the Mysterious Agreement.'
(Such an one) cannot be treated familiarly or distantly; he is
beyond all consideration of profit or injury; of nobility or
meanness:--he is the noblest man under heaven.
Verse 56, Tao te Ching
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