Suchness

[White Lotus]

Noble Pema, i have opened a new thread, with no wish to derail the thread on Dhyana. We can discuss suchness here. You said...

Well, my friend, I'm afraid that enjoying many wonderful cups of tea, breathing in and exhaling out just naturally, and stopping to smell the flowers has been enjoyable for me, but it has not been liberating. Of course, the Buddha and his lineage heirs never said it would be, so I can't fault them. What they said would liberate was generating merit and cultivating the wisdom that knows the emptiness of the self and the emptiness of phenomena. So that's what I'm working on.

But tell me something: There are many tea, flower, and breathing enthusiasts in the world and yet they continue to experience an "I" and a notion of "other" and they continue to have attachment, aversion, or indifference toward these "other" phenomena (and even toward the "I," actually), so they suffer and continue to be reborn over and over again in samsara. You talk about accepting things just as they are and enjoying them or not enjoying them, and that that is "suchness" and is supposedly liberating. But others do this, yet it isn't liberating for them. How is it that it works differently for you? In other words, why is that liberating for you but not for them?

Let me tell you what the Middle Way school of Mahayana says about suchness: that which is suchness has no birth, no time of enduring, and no cessation, and it is free of any elaboration. This means it is beyond the extremes of existence, nonexistence, both (existence and nonexistence simultaneously), and neither (existence nor nonexistence simultaneously) and free of any ideas about it (because ideas or notions are innately and inescapably fabrications and not suchness itself).

As soon as you apprehend an object and label it as something - tea, for example - you have left the realm of suchness because you’ve got ideas. In labeling it, whether you realize it or not, you’re ascribing a sense of existence to it. Then you're further reinforcing its truly existent status in your mind when you make a judgment of good, bad, or indifferent about it, a judgment that is based solely on your own karma, not some objective reality. So what you are apprehending is in fact the dependently arisen object and your karmic judgments about it, not the object’s suchness (aka the fact that it is dependently arisen and was never truly born to begin with, does not truly endure, and does not truly cease).

So basically, what you’re doing is substantializing suchness as if it were a truly existent substrata to self and other, which in direct conflict with what the Buddha taught in the sutras and what his lineage heirs taught in the shastras.

Finally, let me state that I understand and have complete faith (based on both reasoning and meditation) in the explanations about how phenomena are perfect just as they are. However, I also understand that that is view language, not path language. There is a big difference. There is how things actually are - the view - which is how we'd experience reality were it not for our obscurations and negative karma, and there is reality as we currently experience it and have some work to do - i.e., "the path." In terms of "the view," there's no difference and no path to tread, but from the POV of "the path" - or where we are experientially - there's quite a gap. And it can't be bridged immediately just by labeling phenomena and our experience of them as "suchness." I mean, suchness is just a nice sounding word.

[White Lotus]

i cannot claim to be any kind of expert on the theory of suchness. i just know it in my daily life. i agree with what you are saying. it is perfect, but i would say that it has the appearance of being defiled/impermanent. but in reality suchness is always with us as our dharmakaya. it is our very body, and not only what we perceive. the dharmakaya is the body of all things. as a totality it can be called 'one'. there is no separation. there is no difference. it is also the embodiment of truth, since things are truly what they are. this does not detract from the fact that they are empty.

some may be feeling that my comments are not 'orthodox'. if that is so... please point out where i am not orthodox. i have no wish to slander the truth. if i seem to oversimplify that is simply because i believe in the simplicity of the path. it is just knowing your own nature. what could be more simple. people over complicate.

knowing your own nature is knowing suchness, knowing all things is knowing suchness, since suchness is the embodiment of all things.

Pema said...So basically, what you’re doing is substantializing suchness as if it were a truly existent substrata to self and other, which in direct conflict with what the Buddha taught in the sutras and what his lineage heirs taught in the shastras.

i am free to substantialize suchness if i wish to, but attaching to no particular position i wont do that today. whether substantial or not... it remains empty. but i wouldnt say it was a substrata. if i am to substantialize suchness, i would say it was the only strata, and fundamentally emptiness. substance is emptiness, emptiness is substance. to deny substance is to be nihilistic. to deny substance is to deny emptiness. if you want to do that, your free to do that, in the buddha, all dharmas are true. everything about reality is true, including every embodiment of every doctrine. all is the same, there is no difference (samata). one.

as you imply, words can be seen as unhelpful. falling short of a formless descritption of prajna paramita, but conversely even the word 'you', or 'cat', or 'log', embodies the whole truth. being dharmas, of which ultimately there is only one dharma... the dharmakaya. there is no difference. (samata). all is the same. all is one.

please note, that this is my own experimentation with things. i hope it is not heterodox. i dont believe it is. i try to keep things simple.

best wishes, White Lotus. x

what is there to say?
you already know yourself.
why complicate the simple.
everyone is a buddha,
but not everyone knows this.
you already have it, so what
are you seeking?!

this is it,
this person, is suchness.
this world, is suchness.
you cant get away from it.
everything is just so.
empty. so.

[Pema Rigdzin]

White Lotus,

You're right, it is simple: according to Mahayana doctrine, suchness is unborn, does not abide, and does not cease, and it is free of any and all elaboration. As soon as you have ideas about it, you effectively cut yourself off from it - in terms of your experience - even though one could never be truly cut off from the nature of self and other. Let me repeat. Once you entertain any idea at all about suchness, you're caught in ordinary mind which is ruled by karma and habit patterns and all manner of obscurations. The only way to know suchness is by way of nondual, non-conceptual primordial wisdom, which is our true nature. Ordinary mind cannot be liberated by thinking about a concept we label suchness or by labeling self or outer phenomena "suchness." It's just a word that way. This need to tap into one's primordial wisdom is the central project of the Madhyamaka, which synthesizes the Prajnaparamita, as it focuses on negating the actual existence of outer phenomena and inner mind - though not that these things nonetheless appear and function, or how they appear to do so as they're ordinarily perceived. According to either main school of the Mahayana, the suchness in tea is not in its tea-ness but in the fact that it is either a display of Mind (in Mind-only) or in that it is merely a dependent arising - in other words, as it's a compounded, impermanent dharma, there's really no tea! But there is the undeniable appearance and experience of tea, so it is not nihilistically, absolutely nonexistent.

I'm afraid what you've been saying about suchness is in fact your own invention. What you've said does not match with what is said in the sutras or shastras. Dharmakaya or "all things" are not said to be "one." That is said to be a wrong view. Only the view which is no view is said to be the correct view, and that is the view without clinging to either one or many, free of all conceptual elaboration. What you're advocating is covering up suchness with illusory stains of concepts.

The thing about the empty nature of mind is that it is absolutely free. Free, almost to a fault, one might say, because it does not discriminate between being free to manifest as delusion or as wisdom. So there is freedom there to confuse itself and lose its way, and when that is one's reality - as it is for all us samsaric beings - then simply using that deluded mind to label its perceived objects as suchness or other lofty labels is only really child's play and doesn't get the job done. One has to get rid of the delusion, then the wisdom of suchness will be uncovered in all actuallity.

[muni]

White Lotus,

You're right, it is simple: according to Mahayana doctrine, suchness is unborn, does not abide, and does not cease, and it is free of any and all elaboration.

One has to get rid of the delusion, then the wisdom of suchness will be uncovered in all actuallity.

Yes.
The struggling apprehended analytical views or just like it is: unapprehended.
Creation teaness or artlessness in what just is.

[Ngawang Drolma]

i cannot claim to be any kind of expert on the theory of suchness. i just know it in my daily life. i agree with what you are saying. it is perfect, but i would say that it has the appearance of being defiled/impermanent. but in reality suchness is always with us as our dharmakaya. it is our very body, and not only what we perceive. the dharmakaya is the body of all things. as a totality it can be called 'one'. there is no separation. there is no difference. it is also the embodiment of truth, since things are truly what they are. this does not detract from the fact that they are empty.

some may be feeling that my comments are not 'orthodox'. if that is so... please point out where i am not orthodox. i have no wish to slander the truth. if i seem to oversimplify that is simply because i believe in the simplicity of the path. it is just knowing your own nature. what could be more simple. people over complicate.

Hi White Lotus,

Here is one way you can consider it. If I accept that I am empty of an inherently existing self but rather, part of a whole, this follows a certain logic. For example I could say that I am but a single drop of water drifting with a sea of the dharmakaya.

There is still a "selfing" process going on. I'm still identifying, but rather than as a whole person I'm identifying the drop and the sea. But it's still a form of self-identification. One of the goals is to break through these patterns of self-identification, and there is no essence or One.

Things are not truly perfect just as they are for us right now, they're a process of our deluded habit-minds that continuously relate to dependently-arisen objects in a dependently arisen world. That's another barrier to break through. In the Pure Lands of various different Buddhas, a cup may not look like a cup, it might look like a lotus or a vajra depending on our ability to see things as they truly are. That last example is not from any text, it's just to try to illustrate my point about deluded vs. clearer perspectives.

I hope that makes sense I know you addressed Pema but I'm offering my one cent here.

Kind wishes,
Laura

[White Lotus]

Noble Pema, what you are saying is largely what i agree with in analysis, but why not just make a cup of tea. analysis of what suchness is, or of what a cup of tea is, misses the experience of suchness, which is just what it is. just so. so.

we overcomplicate the experience, why not just be with the experience in its simplicity. dont try to get anything out of it, just see it and taste it as it is with no expectations.

this is it! making a cup of tea is enlightenement. eating cornflakes for breakfast is enlightenment. theres nothing in it. it is just what it is.

yes, oneness is not always a helpful description, but it is nontheless a way of seeing reality as 'the' thing we see, taste, touch, smell etc.

on a final note, your analytical/theological understanding of the way things are is to me quite profound. but still it is caught in the paralysis of analysis. i try to keep things basic, but often find myself too getting caught up in analysis sometimes and miss the beauty and simplicity of what is. the dharmakaya, is there to be experienced. it is as you say beyond all analytical descriptions, but not direct descriptions of experience. poetry can capture our experience better than analysis in my own opinion.

best wishes, White Lotus. x

a river in full flow,
may be aware of what it contains,
but it is still a river.
i am Tom, you are Pema.
you know yourself perfectly.
so what is this 'own nature' to know?
(what isnt it?!)

ps. i will be with my folks over Easter, so may lapse in my responses to posts.

[Pema Rigdzin]

:namaste: Noble Pema, what you are saying is largely what i agree with in analysis, but why not just make a cup of tea. analysis of what suchness is, or of what a cup of tea is, misses the experience of suchness, which is just what it is. just so. so.

we overcomplicate the experience, why not just be with the experience in its simplicity. dont try to get anything out of it, just see it and taste it as it is with no expectations.

this is it! making a cup of tea is enlightenement. eating cornflakes for breakfast is enlightenment. theres nothing in it. it is just what it is.

yes, oneness is not always a helpful description, but it is nontheless a way of seeing reality as 'the' thing we see, taste, touch, smell etc.

on a final note, your analytical/theological understanding of the way things are is to me quite profound. but still it is caught in the paralysis of analysis. i try to keep things basic, but often find myself too getting caught up in analysis sometimes and miss the beauty and simplicity of what is. the dharmakaya, is there to be experienced. it is as you say beyond all analytical descriptions, but not direct descriptions of experience. poetry can capture our experience better than analysis in my own opinion.

best wishes, White Lotus. x

a river in full flow,
may be aware of what it contains,
but it is still a river.
i am Tom, you are Pema.
you know yourself perfectly.
so what is this 'own nature' to know?
(what isnt it?!)

ps. i will be with my folks over Easter, so may lapse in my responses to posts.

WL,

You say I'm overcomplicating "the experience," yet what could be less complicated than total absence of conceptual elaboration? My whole point, and Mahayana Dharma's whole point is that as soon as your ideas enter the picture, they shroud suchness and it's as if it were lost. Poetic words can often be an excellent finger pointing to the moon, but we mustn't be satisfied just sitting in awe of the finger. I suppose you might respond with something like "but the beauty of the finger is no different than the moon," in which case I'd say you're missing the point. The finger is thinking about dharmakaya, the latter is the wisdom of the dharmakaya.

You've really been largely missing my main point, too. During post meditation, yes, you should go about things just like you're saying, recognizing that all is like an illusion, the seemingly good or bad or neutral, because it's all empty yet clearly appearing. Things are perfect just as they are because, on the ultimate level, all dharmas are unborn, unenduring, and unceasing - they're suchness, or emptiness. What I'm talking about is (1) not conflating that post-meditative mind training in recognizing everything as like an illusion with actually experiencing suchness and (2) recognizing the need during meditation time to meditate according to absolute truth, free of any conceptual fabrications or views. It is said that one who does not meditate in this way will not attain buddhahood.

[catmoon]

Um basic question here. Where does the term "suchness" originate? Does it just mean "emptiness"?

[Pema Rigdzin]

Catmoon,

Yup. Just another way to speak of the true nature of all phenomena, which are unborn, unabiding, and unceasing, even as they clearly appear.

[White Lotus]

"but the beauty of the finger is no different than the moon," in which case I'd say you're missing the point. The finger is thinking about dharmakaya, the latter is the wisdom of the dharmakaya.

i like the beauty of that finger... a master once said, why focus on the moon when you can see all that heavenly glory! it may be missing the point, but i think actually theres something very profound in that little finger! but yes, suchness is to be experienced not talked about too much. but its fine to say... cup of tea!, cup of tea! now and again.

suchness is emptiness... all things are emptiness, but suchness as it is seen, heard, and tasted, is right before your eyes. things just as they are (without conceptualizing about what that means). keep it simple. you can elaborate if you want but it wont get you nowhere! (as we say in London).

There is still a "selfing" process going on. I'm still identifying, but rather than as a whole person I'm identifying the drop and the sea. But it's still a form of self-identification. One of the goals is to break through these patterns of self-identification, and there is no essence or One.

this is why in the process of becoming a buddha, one may pass through the state of being Brahman Atman/Samata... a drop of water dissolved in the ocean of the universal consciousness. but this brahman still has vestiges of a self, though it is no longer atomistic, but diffused. any vestige of a self needs to vanish.

it says in the Pali sutta Nipatta 761 "The holy ones know it as highest bliss, the personality's 'cessation'. Repugnant to worldly folk but not to those that clearly see."

ultimately nothing has any self... self is just an appearance, just as mountains and clouds are appearances. ultimately it is emptiness we are talking about.
any notions of self are impermanent and have no independent or fundamental reality or existence of their own... if i talk of Suchness as being 'one' that is because 'the' thing (Dharmakaya)we see, hear, touch and taste is fundamentally a unity or sameness, but that is complicating things and getting into the realms of theory and analysis (unhelpful). if you find 'one' unhelpful ditch it (but the fourth patriarch Seng Chan used it in Hsing Hsing Ming, so does Ashvaghosa in the "Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana" Shastra which talks extensively on Suchness). if its unhelpful ditch it.

best wishes, White Lotus. x

a drop of water in the ocean.
a bubble in a glass of fizzy water.
ocean and glass must ultimately
dissolve. emptiness and form must
vanish. nothingness and emptiness
must be emptied.
take no position. take any position.
whats the difference.
all this is just chatter.
you already are as you already are.

[Pema Rigdzin]

:namaste:

"but the beauty of the finger is no different than the moon," in which case I'd say you're missing the point. The finger is thinking about dharmakaya, the latter is the wisdom of the dharmakaya.

i like the beauty of that finger... a master once said, why focus on the moon when you can see all that heavenly glory! it may be missing the point, but i think actually theres something very profound in that little finger! but yes, suchness is to be experienced not talked about too much. but its fine to say... cup of tea!, cup of tea! now and again.

suchness is emptiness... all things are emptiness, but suchness as it is seen, heard, and tasted, is right before your eyes. things just as they are (without conceptualizing about what that means). keep it simple. you can elaborate if you want but it wont get you nowhere! (as we say in London).

Again, there is thinking about dharmakaya and there is dharmakaya. From the POV of one's own experience in samsara, the fact that deluded thinking is not other than dharmakaya is really irrelevant. That is view language, not path language. And again, no meditation on absolute truth, free of all conceptual elaboration, no buddhahood.

this is why in the process of becoming a buddha, one may pass through the state of being Brahman Atman/Samata... a drop of water dissolved in the ocean of the universal consciousness. but this brahman still has vestiges of a self, though it is no longer atomistic, but diffused. any vestige of a self needs to vanish.

Sorry, but Brahman, atman, and universal consciousness are each refuted by every strain of Buddhist thought. No disrespect to our Hindu brothers and sisters of various traditions, but we simply disagree with them on this and logically refute it.

if i talk of Suchness as being 'one' that is because 'the' thing (Dharmakaya)we see, hear, touch and taste is fundamentally a unity or sameness...

You're just reifying dharmakaya again... and without two, there cannot be one.

[White Lotus]

bless you Pema.

Again, there is thinking about dharmakaya and there is dharmakaya. From the POV of one's own experience in samsara, the fact that deluded thinking is not other than dharmakaya is really irrelevant. That is view language, not path language.

then dont think... just experience.

And again, no meditation on absolute truth, free of all conceptual elaboration, no buddhahood.

nice!

Sorry, but Brahman, atman, and universal consciousness are each refuted by every strain of Buddhist thought. No disrespect to our Hindu brothers and sisters of various traditions, but we simply disagree with them on this and logically refute it.

we refute that ultimately there is a self, because we see that ultimately there is no self, though there may be experience of a self on a relative level. this experience is empty.

You're just reifying dharmakaya again... and without two, there cannot be one.

what do you mean by 'reifying' dharmakaya?
yes, without two there cannot be one, since there is no two, it is logical to say that there is no one. this however is on a fundamental level. on the level of experience, i would still prefer a cup of tea to a poo.

best wishes, White Lotus. x


seeking truth,
i see nothing.
but there being nothing
i still see something.

[muni]

Experiences, cup of tea are all play of what is never formed. It is just okay.

[White Lotus]

Muni I like your short remarks! they are almost invisible, but often say something interesting!

Muni said:-
Yes.
The struggling apprehended analytical views or just like it is: unapprehended.
Creation teaness or artlessness in what just is.

we can say what we want! what we want is what we seek for, what we seek for is what we find. some are averse to being and non being, as dulisms. thats fine if they want to be averse to dulisms and attached to non dualism. not on mondays, or fridays.

Muni said:-
Experiences, cup of tea are all play of what is never formed. It is just okay.

if things are never formed, emptiness is never unformed. this is to fall into the extreme of nihilism.
but if you see that things are never formed. then it is just so. never formed. seeing never formed is smelling the coffee beans. just as it is. but, i ask you seriously Muni... have you ever actually seen that it is unformed? to say that it is never formed may well be the case if thats how you have tasted the coffee. and yes, it does seem like a dream sometimes, but that does not mean that is is a dream, or that it is unformed.
these are only words? or has this sunset actually being tasted?

with respect, from White Lotus. x

perfect in a kiss.

[muni]

Dharmakaya: unborn, unformed. No label (solidifies habitual tendencies) will explain or prove.

Intellectual disturbed state of mind or simple cutting through minds' creations.

[White Lotus]

noble muni,

Dharmakaya: unborn, unformed. No label (solidifies habitual tendencies) will explain or prove.
Intellectual disturbed state of mind or simple cutting through minds' creations.

unborn, unformed. un labeled, yet constantly born, formed and labeled in everything.

no need to see the root of perfection. the surface will do just fine. i love sniffing flowers.

simple cutting through. the only delusion is that we are 'unenlightened'.

bowing before the buddha,

white lotus. x

its just so simple, people miss it.
the complicated ego likes to tie
the obvious up in knots. just see,
taste and smell, then the root of
suchness, the secret is fully revealed.

[muni]

Once there was a documentary in very high speed filmed about the grow of a jungle (plants, animals). There appeared no any possibility to grasp to a thing as the impermanence of the changing dynamic stream was just like dreamlike energy. In that play of interdependent relationship, no apprehended thought could freeze.

All phenomena are an expression of wisdom, all colors of attachment and aversion are my own delusions.

[White Lotus]

Noble Muni,

Once there was a documentary in very high speed filmed about the growth of a jungle (plants, animals). There appeared no any possibility to grasp to a thing as the impermanence of the changing dynamic stream was just like dreamlike energy. In that play of interdependent relationship, no apprehended thought could freeze.

it is just like a dream. not only that, i find i am always forgetting. it cant be grasped and perhaps thats why some people compare it to illusion or dream, not so much because it is impermanent, though this is important too.

All phenomena are an expression of wisdom, all colors of attachment and aversion are my own delusions.

you can say they are an expression of wisdom, but being an expression of wisdom, why do we call them delusions. 'delusions' is just a word, so too is wisdom, actually things are just so. so, lets keep it simple. theres nothing more to it. wisdom is so, ignorance is so. who dares to speak of wisdom and ignorance?
is it not just so? so. but i dont mind... do what you want, think what you want and say what you want. you are after all a fully enlightened buddha and arguing with you would be a wast of our time.

best wishes, White Lotus. x

[Pema Rigdzin]

:namaste: bless you Pema.

Again, there is thinking about dharmakaya and there is dharmakaya. From the POV of one's own experience in samsara, the fact that deluded thinking is not other than dharmakaya is really irrelevant. That is view language, not path language.

then dont think... just experience.

Well, ordinary experience involves solidifying a subject who's latching onto a subject, and thus duality, and thus ordinary deluded consciousness, not wisdom.

You're just reifying dharmakaya again... and without two, there cannot be one.

what do you mean by 'reifying' dharmakaya?
yes, without two there cannot be one, since there is no two, it is logical to say that there is no one. this however is on a fundamental level. on the level of experience, i would still prefer a cup of tea to a poo.

Reifying the Dharmakaya means making it into an object, as if it were a thing one could grasp onto dualistically with the mind. It is not like this at all. Also, if there's a difference between the fundamental level and the level of your experience, then your experience is not suchness. It's just dualistic experience that is either good, bad, or neutral, depending on your karma.

[muni]

"you can say they are an expression of wisdom, but being an expression of wisdom, why do we call them delusions." White Lotus.


Phenomena are unchanging absolute nature; empty and appaering, appearing and empty, they are not deluded. The deluded percieving mind is, in duality of no existing solid show.

Simple isn't as simple. the habitual tendencies are like a piece of hard paper roll. Make it flat and by one moment one loses hands on it, like losing awareness, the paper roll is back to its old habit.