Emptiness: A Practical Course for Meditators LESSON 7 READING: Introduction, Chapters 14, 15, & 16 Wisdom Pubs, Inc. -- Not for Distribution PART II: PHENOMENA Wisdom Pubs, Inc. -- Not for Distribution Wisdom Pubs, Inc. -- Not for Distribution 14. A LUMP OF FOAM Every existence is a flashing into the vast phenomenal world. —Suzuki Roshi1 SO FAR WE HAVE EXPLORED emptiness primarily as it relates to the notion of a self. We have investigated what is real in our experience and discovered the selfless, changing, and unsatisfying nature of the sense bases and aggregates. We have taken for granted the existence of these components, but we have not yet explored in detail in what way they exist. The Dalai Lama puts it this way: “The essential nature of things is not in question. But it is important to clarify the manner in which things exist.”2 In this section of the book—on phenomena—we will return to the objects of the six senses to investigate the question, In what way do these objects, these phenomena, exist? At this point we are less interested in the specific properties of objects, such as whether the breath is long or short, whether a sensation is ach- ing or stabbing, or whether a mood is of annoyance or impatience. We are more interested in the object’s cycle of existence: its process of arising, persisting, and passing away. When the thing is, how is it existing? Is it substantial, solid, stable, lasting, graspable? Or is it insubstantial, light, disintegrating, fleeting, tenuous? We’ve seen that we mistakenly give a sense of stability and permanence to our body and inner life through the idea of an ongoing self. We’ve also noticed that we Wisdom Pubs, Inc. -- Not for Distribution project onto the world around us an assumption of permanence and solidity. We are not saying whether these are true or false; we’re only noticing the assumptions we carry. Concepts, it turns out, play a key role in creating this assumed stability. We look outside and see a tree. By naming it “tree,” we have a fixed, unchanging concept of what it is. If we walk up and touch it, the trunk feels hard and solid, further confirming the sense of its stability. We take for granted that it exists out- side and independent of us. From childhood on, everyone around us has talked and acted as though the physical world is solid and stable. Perhaps the excep- tions were science teachers who told us that matter is mostly empty space, but that didn’t seem to affect their way of being in the world or make them any happier. Where science primarily treats the physical world as something that exists independent of us, Buddhism does not. In the Buddhist approach, the domain for appraising the physical world is through our direct experience. Totality in Buddhism means the eye and sights, the ear and sounds, the nose and smells, the tongue and tastes, the body and sensations, and the mind and mental phe- nomena. By investigating the world through our direct experience, we can find the wisdom we need to come to the end of suffering. Investigating the world through the physical sciences leads to many useful inventions but not necessarily to the end of suffering. So instead of conceptualizing “tree” as an object independent and outside of us, we are more interested in noticing our sight or touch or smell of the tree, and then how we relate to those direct experiences through the mental factors of perception, feeling tone, craving, grasping, and becoming. This is an exten- sion of meditation practices we are already familiar with. We want to investi- gate the objects of the six senses, both inner and outer, to see how they exist. We will explore them in the order of sounds, smells, tastes, sensations, thoughts and mind states, and sights. We’re not doing this just out of intellectual curiosity or to create some new technology, but to learn about suffering and its end, in order to benefit ourselves and others. SOUNDS It may be helpful at this point to review the instructions for meditating on sounds at the end of chapter 3. Once you’ve connected to the sounds around 176 PHENOMENA Wisdom Pubs, Inc. -- Not for Distribution you, begin to notice the ways in which they manifest. In paying attention to a sound, can you notice it in the moment it arises? If you don’t notice its begin- ning, start paying attention to it as soon as you do notice. Then investigate its stage of persisting. Does it stay exactly the same, or does it change in pitch or volume or location? Is it just one sound, like the ring of a bell that slowly fades, or is it the repetition of similar sounds, like a woodpecker tapping on a tree? With each sound you are able to discern, notice its duration. Is there any sound that lasts long enough to be grasped, or are the sounds more like musical notes: as soon as you perceive one, it’s already ending and the next is arising? With each sound you notice, pay clear attention to its ending. In one moment, something audible can be heard, and in the next moment, nothing. Can you detect this transition? Continue meditating in this way, noticing how various sounds arise, persist, and pass away. This meditation gives a clear sense of the insubstantiality of sounds. Most pass quickly, and it’s difficult to take hold of them. When we pay attention, we can usually discern the end of each sound. Many are momentary and end as soon as they are noticed. It is rare for a single sound to last very long. Some, like those from traffic or a chainsaw, seem to be ongoing, but as we pay closer attention, we hear that even those sounds are changing moment to moment. It’s seldom possible to find anything steady or fixed to land on in the field of sounds. Sound is mostly in flux, fleeting and insubstantial. This absence of anything concrete to hold on to is the sign of their emptiness. There is nothing solid in sounds. SMELLS AND TASTES We’ll consider these two senses together, because they are so similar. We’ll use the term smell to describe our inner experience and the words odor, scent, or fragrance to describe the external cause of the smell. Often it is not possible to detect any smell or taste in the present moment of experience, so we’ll need to explore these senses when they visit us. This is often at mealtimes. Next time you are preparing or being served a meal, pay attention first to any smells that arise. Investigate the smells in the way we did with sounds. Can you notice the first moment of contact, the first moment you experience that you are smelling something? How long does it last? Does it stay constant or change from moment A LUMP OF FOAM 177 Wisdom Pubs, Inc. -- Not for Distribution to moment in either strength or fragrance? As you pay attention to a smell, does it remain as clear as it was at first? Due to a phenomenon called habituation, the smell from a scent weakens after ongoing exposure to it, although the smell sense recovers quickly when the scent is taken away.3 Notice the ending of the smell, which could come from habituation, moving away from the odor, or a change to the source of the odor. Investigate taste in a similar way. When you are eating, notice the first taste you experience after putting a bite of food into your mouth. Does the taste change if you let the food stay on your tongue? Does it change as you chew the food? Stay with the experience of taste as you continue to chew and then swal- low the food. As the taste changes, does it change just in intensity or does the flavor also change? How long does a single taste continue? Can you notice the moment that taste ends? Exploring in this way, you’re likely to find that smells and tastes are even less substantial than sounds. These are subtle experiences, ephemeral, fleeting, and hard to pin down. Still, from the amount of money consumers spend every year on pleasant smells and tastes, these two senses seem to exert a significant influ- ence on us. Worldwide, the perfume industry brings in $29 billion a year,4 and restaurants bring in $2.1 trillion a year.5 Despite our sometimes obsessive rela- tionship to them, tastes and smells, like sounds, are characterized by emptiness, by a lack of solidity, by their ungraspable nature. SENSATIONS The investigation of sensations, or the sense of touch, brings us into the direct experience of our body. We usually take the body for granted as though it were an independent object in the world in much the same way we take a tree for granted. If we reflect for a moment, however, we realize we only know the body by experiencing it as an object of the five physical senses. We know its existence in the same way we know all physical objects: because we can see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, and touch it. It is curious that the physical sense doors (eye, ear, nose, tongue, tactile system) are both parts of the body and the ways by which the body is known. As for specific senses, the sounds, smells, and tastes of the body are not 178 PHENOMENA Wisdom Pubs, Inc.