If your mind wanders here and there, you must be more mindful. In Pali this is called yoniso manasikara, which can be translated into English as “attend to the root.” You must always learn to go to the root (yoni). The Buddha gave a meaningful simile regarding this starting place for all that is. If you threw a stick or rock, a dog would likely run after it. That dog would either bite it or bring it back to you. A lion would not run after the stick or the rock. He or she would run after you instead! The lion goes to the root, while the dog runs away from it. Unmindful people go after sensory objects and get bewildered. Those who are mindful, on the other hand, want to find the root of the entire process.

♦

From Impermanence in Plain English by Bhante Gunaratana and Julia Harris (Wisdom, 2023). Reprinted with permission.

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I have found a simple image from one of my teachers hugely helpful: “The mind will get filled with qualities like mindfulness or lovingkindness moment by moment—just the way a bucket gets filled with water drop by drop.” As soon as that image appeared in my mind’s eye, I clearly saw two powerful tendencies. One was to stand by the bucket lost in fantasy about how utterly exciting and wonderful it would be when the bucket was filled, and while lost in the glories of my someday enlightenment, I am neglecting to add the next drop. The other tendency, equally strong, was to stand by the bucket in despair at how empty it was and how much more there was to go—once again not having the patience, humility, and good sense to add one drop exactly in that moment.

Because I’ve used this image in my teaching, I’ve heard variations on my own fantasies. Often people come to me and say “I tend to completely overlook my own bucket to peer into someone else’s to see how well they’re doing. Is theirs fuller than mine? Is it emptier? What’s going on over there?” 

Comparison is disempowering. It dissociates us from our own potential. 

Often people say “I think my bucket has a leak.” My response: “These buckets don’t leak.” 

Mindfulness and lovingkindness are not objects we can either have or not have. We can never lose them. We may lose touch with these qualities of heart, but right here and now we can recover them. It is each moment of recovery that adds a drop to the bucket. In every single moment, regardless of what is happening, we can be mindful, we can be compassionate. In an instant, the mind can touch these qualities again, come to know them again. In that sense, the bucket is completely full with every drop. 

Excerpted from Finding Your Way: Meditations, Thoughts, and Wisdom for Living an Authentic Life by Sharon Salzberg (Workman Publishing) © 2023.

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When I first came to Sojoki Temple in San Francisco, I was surprised by the formality of the practice. I had never encountered anything like it before. As a matter of fact, I always tried to avoid any kind of formality, so I can understand why many newcomers are put off by it. But intuitively I knew that I had to do this, and when I experienced my teacher Suzuki Roshi’s composure, his magnanimous mind and totally informal presence, I began to appreciate the limitations that the structure provided. I came to understand that we are always practicing under various restrictions and limitations.

There are rules for everything. The laws of gravity are determining every move we make. I once saw a photo of a light plane stuck nose first into a tree. The caption said “The laws of gravity are strict and unerring, and must be precisely obeyed.” Gravity is pulling us down, and our life force is welling us upward. The interaction and balance of these two forces control our physical body, as well as the way we think and feel. We are all living under the influence of this fundamental restriction as well. When we examine our life, we can see that we have other restrictions and boundaries—inner restrictions, outer restrictions, mental, social, emotional, imaginary restrictions, restrictions of circumstance, time, truth and falsehood, conditioning, fear, and self-deception, to mention a few.

So the question is, how do we find our freedom within the restrictive parameters of our life? Caught by partiality, ignorance, circumstances, emotional exaggerations, and cerebral dead ends, our freedom is compromised and our suffering increases. Top athletes need strict rules and discipline to accomplish their goals, as do scientists and artists. A painter has to be able to find complete expression within the parameters of a canvas. A musician must find complete expression using a limited number of notes. People get up in the morning and go to work on time.

Zen students also have patterns that enable their practice. These patterns, which some see as formalities, allow access to a gate of a fence around an empty field. When the gate is open to the empty field, we can leave the false barriers aside—the conditioning, the fear, the self-deception—and return to the field of our original unbound nature, beyond form and emptiness. Within the so-called formality, we can find our perfect informal freedom. As our practice matures, we are able to find that freedom in every circumstance and make it available to others as well.

 ⧫

From Seeing One Thing Through by Sojun Mel Weitsman, reprinted with permission from Counterpoint Press.

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As the Buddha describes the workings of the mind, a moment of experience builds from the incoming information of sensory input and gradually becomes more complex. The mind is not a preexisting thing but an unfolding interactive process.

When a sense object impinges on a sense organ, an episode of awareness occurs—consciousness emerges as an interaction between the body and its environment. This moment of contact also gives rise to a feeling tone, which is to say the sense object is felt as pleasant, painful, or something in between. 

At the same moment the sense object is felt, it is also perceived, which is to say that we interpret what it is in light of past experience, conceptual knowledge, and language. Perception is a form of “making sense” of what we are seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, touching, or thinking, labeling it in some way so it fits into the story we are always creating and living.

Next, we are likely to “think about” that object and that story. Once we have an image or a word in mind, we can turn that over and reflect upon it. This is where our powers of recognition, association, prediction, and imagination show themselves. These thoughts then serve as further inputs into the system, building upon and interacting with one another to weave the tapestry of a rich inner life.

But sometimes this process gets carried away, and this is where papañca comes in. Sometimes the thoughts come in such profusion that it can feel relentless and even overwhelming. Sometimes we just can’t stop thinking about things, or we can’t stop ruminating with the same patterns of thought over and over. This is papañca—perhaps you have experienced it yourself?

The word is based on the idea of something “spreading out,” or proliferating, much as weeds might take over a garden or spilled water might spread out to cover a table. The mind, which at its best can be a powerful tool for examining and understanding the world, becomes an out-of-control train hurtling relentlessly down the track. This affliction seems widespread in the modern world and is both a source and a symptom of much stress, anxiety, and unhappiness.

Papañca can be managed, just as a wild elephant can be tamed. It requires patience, discipline, kindness, understanding, and many of the states of heart and mind that are cultivated with the practice of mindfulness.

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You can’t simply dictate the heart. Lovingkindness, goodwill, and compassion naturally arise from our meditation practice, but feeling compassion is not the end of the path. The next step is love in action.

The disarming power of metta (lovingkindness) and karuna (compassion) is this onward-leading interplay of appropriate responses. This great medicine of the heart and awareness has the capacity and the power to nurture your inner life, creating belonging like nothing else, revealing more of our humanity, more of our kindness. And as we deepen into the nonself nature of interbeing, leading to the sure heart’s release, it’s that inner and outer transformation grounded in the power of our dharma practice and awareness that can lead to engagement. It’s ultimately knowing that love liberates. Maybe with this type of engagement with the world, we can effect collective change.

With our practice firmly grounded in the noble eightfold path and embodying metta and karuna, there are many ways to express love in action on a day-to-day basis: reaching out to friends and family to support them, seeking support, and voting. It’s beginning the day with the intention of noticing our projections we have of others. It’s becoming familiar with our habits and patterns and conditioning so that we can uproot them. It’s serving the community in a variety of ways, whether that’s direct frontline action, making calls, writing letters, or writing checks. It’s starting where you are with what you have.

Feeling compassion is not the end of the path. The next step is love in action.

One of my favorite childhood memories is of my grandfather, who was a deacon at a church. He would give what was called the report on the sick and the shut-in, as they called it at that time. He would start off like this: “Our brothers and sisters are shut in but will not be shut out of our hearts.” This church program that he led was called The Good Samaritan, and the Good Samaritans were those folks who served those who were sick, who were in need, without resources, food, money, who could no longer come to church because of old age or because they were living in a senior home. Some were grieving and mourning, others incarcerated. There was this team from the community attending directly to these folks, bringing food, cleaning houses, maintaining yards and property, praying for them, singing to them, talking with them, so that they always remained a part of the community and were resourced and connected.

Their names would be read, and all the hands in the church would be connected, touching in this symbolic radiating of goodwill and kindness, allowing themselves to be touched by the misfortune and the suffering of others. My grandfather always said that his role with the ministry was to know them and to embrace them heart-to-heart.

Years after my grandfather died, I received a few of his notes, and one of them said: “One day, I will surely die, and I’ll die having known a good life and having tended to my heart, yet I could still love more. And I would especially love others more. And I would let this love express itself as a concern for my neighbors, my friends, and everybody that I come in touch with over the phone and then my letters to the prisoners. I would let this love permeate me, overcome me, overwhelm me, and then direct me as we attend to the community.”

That’s love in action.

There are many ways to express love in action, and they begin with mindfulness. They begin with awareness. They begin with our ability to touch our suffering and the suffering of others. They begin with the heartfelt wish: May all beings—including us—be happy, and may all beings be free from suffering. May all beings be happy and peaceful. May they be safe and protected. May they live with ease and well-being. And may all beings awaken and be free.

Practice

I invite you to settle in as best you can in whatever posture you’re in. Notice your bottom on the cushion or your back against the chair, unclench your jaw, lower your shoulders, and take a couple of deep breaths. I invite you to come into stillness, closing your eyes if you’re comfortable, and when you’re ready, take a few slow, deep breaths, letting the breath ground you, arriving right here and right now.

Bring to mind someone in your life who’s having difficulty; someone that you care about. Still connected with breath and body, take a moment to sense the nature of their difficulty and what that might be like for them. See if you can look at the world from this person’s eyes, feel with their heart; see if you can get a sense of what it’s like from the inside—what it’s like to be living in their circumstances. Staying connected to breath and body, ask yourself, What’s the hardest thing for this person? What’s most disappointing? What’s hurtful or scary? What’s the most challenging situation this person is living with?

Still connected to breath and body, sense and feel underneath the words that arise from the point of view of that person. What’s the belief here—that I’ll never get what I want? That I’m failing? That I’m somehow unlovable? How does this person feel that experience in their heart? From the inside out, you might get a sense of what, in this place of vulnerability, they most need or want.

There are many ways to express love in action, and they begin with mindfulness.

Now come back to your own presence, but still sensing that you can feel this person within you as you’re breathing in and breathing out, contacting that vulnerability. With the outbreath, see if you can offer a bit of what’s needed. Perhaps that person needs to be cared for, or they wish to be understood. See if you can breathe in their pain, and as you breathe out, offer your presence and tenderness. Offer your care. “May you be held in the arms of compassion. May you be free of pain. May you be well.” Or maybe simply offer: “I’m sorry, and I love you.”

Feel in your heart this vulnerability and sense the possibility of widening your awareness to include all those who might be suffering in the same way, all those who might be experiencing the same rejection, the same feelings of disappointment or failure. Breathe in for all those who are suffering and allow yourself to be touched by their current vulnerability. Breathe out, letting the heartbeat transform their sorrow: “May all beings be free of suffering. May all beings be free of pain and sorrow. May all beings be well. May all beings be at peace.”

Feeling the heart space, recognizing awareness and whatever is moving through you right now—whether that’s tenderness or numbness or tiredness, happiness, or sadness—just let those feelings arise and pass like waves unfolding in this very tender and open heart. Then, when you’re ready, you can open your eyes.

May you be happy and peaceful. May you be safe and protected. May you live with ease and well-being. And may we all awaken and be free.

♦

Adapted from Devin Berry’s Dharma Talk, “Metta and Karuna: Two Heart Practices to Cultivate in Meditation and Daily Life”

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We must learn to speak with love again. This is a thing that can be done in a practice community where brothers and sisters practice loving speech every day. There are pacifists who can write protest letters of great condemnation but who are incapable of writing a love letter. You have to write in such a way that the other person is receptive toward reading; you have to speak in such a way that the other person is receptive toward listening. If you do not, it is not worth the trouble to write or to speak. To write in such a way is to practice meditation.

♦

From True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart by Thich Nhat Hanh © 1997 by Éditions Terre du Ciel and Unified Buddhist Church, Inc. Translation © 2004 by Shambhala Publications. This edition published in 2023. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc.

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Buddhist traditions agree that when Shakyamuni Buddha attained enlightenment, he was sitting in contemplation beneath the Bodhi tree. In that sense, we can say the Buddhist teachings sprang from meditation. The Buddha understood that body and mind are not separate but one, and meditating while sitting is an expression of nondualism.

In our Jodo Shinshu tradition, practicing meditation is frowned upon and considered a futile attempt at gaining spiritual awakening through “self-power.” Instead, we are urged to rely on the “other power” of Amida Buddha. This is most commonly done through nembutsu (reciting “Namu Amida Butsu”). 

Despite being a Shin priest, for many years I have sat daily in meditation. It helps me to understand Jodo Shinshu and follow the nembutsu path. My practice is the kneeling form of sitting called seiza, Japanese for “quiet sitting.” This posture of meditation, which is easier than the full lotus position used by many meditators, is not limited to any one school or sect, nor is it attached to a particular form of meditation. It was popularized by Okada Torajiro (1872–1920), who made no boasts or claims about seiza beyond telling people to simply do it. Okada Sensei greatly respected Shinran Shonin, the founder of Jodo Shinshu. Okada Sensei said, “Seiza nurtures faith constantly after awakening (Jpn., gogo no choyo).”

Seiza sitting was not unknown in Jodo Shinshu before Okada Sensei took it up. Other practitioners also devotedly practiced seiza meditation, including the notable Higashi Honganji and Nishi Honganji teachers Daiei Kaneko and Yoshikiyo Hachiya.

Years ago, I asked my teacher, Reverend Norimasa Hachiya: “Sensei, Jodo Shinshu teaching focuses on nembutsu alone. Why do you practice seiza so diligently?” He replied: “For me, seiza cultivates the proper attitude to listen to the buddhadharma quietly without hakarai (a calculating mind). For Jodo Shinshu followers, this is most important.”

His father, Reverend Yoshikiyo Hachiya, often said: “Without doing seiza, I cannot realize the dharma.” At the Takakura lecture hall at Higashi Honganji headquarters in Kyoto, he would encourage audience members to sit seiza before his dharma talks. In that way, they would cultivate the proper attitude for understanding buddhadharma through both body and mind.

Diligent seiza practice helps focus the body and spirit on the hara, also called tanden (lower belly), considered in Japan and China to be the center of a person’s spiritual and physical energy. When “Namu Amida Butsu” spontaneously arises in my mind or comes out of my mouth, it naturally resonates from my hara. The hara is where one realizes “no hakarai” (mind of “no calculation”). As my teacher said, an uncalculating mind that is free of preconceived notions is better able to listen to and perceive truth.

Nembutsu is therefore an expression of an uncalculating mind that quells the ego and allows us to enter the vast ocean of Buddha wisdom. A daily practice of seiza helps nurture the nembutsu spirit to counter the turbulence of this world and the countless blind passions with which we run amok. 

Morimoto Shonen Roshi, a Rinzai Buddhist master who was greatly admired by the scholar D. T. Suzuki, once said in a letter:

When we first consider Jodo-shu or Jodo Shinshu, they seem like schools of the “Easy Path.” Actually, it’s quite difficult to have faith (shinjin). Rennyo Shonin praised the devout follower Doshu for “consistently maintaining right faith” (shonen-sozoku). He was none other than a devoted practitioner of seiza. Seiza is the form and attitude of “consistently maintaining right faith.” Seiza itself is shonen-sozoku . . . because it is not one’s own practice, but rather, the meditation of Shakyamuni and other Buddhas in the ten directions, past, present, and future.

Rennyo Shonin (1415–1499) is considered the second founder of Jodo Shinshu. In The Sayings of Rennyo Shonin (Goichidaiki Kikigaki), he praised the devout follower Doshu as follows:

Although Doshu listened to the teachings constantly, he listened as if hearing them for the first time and he was grateful. Most people wish always to have something novel; but a person of faith feels everything is fresh and new, even if constantly repeated. Regardless of how many times they hear the teachings, they do so with open ears.

“If one entrusts oneself to Amida,” said Rennyo, “one’s entire body is wrapped in Namu Amida Butsu.” This means a true follower of the nembutsu way is filled with gratitude and joy.

Like Doshu, a person who truly has faith consistently maintains a mind of right faith. Many follow the “easy path” of Jodo Shinshu, but few become like Doshu. This type of realization is cultivated best by “sitting” rather than by reading books or listening to others.

I believe all Buddhist teachings spring from the sitting meditation (zazen) of the Buddhas. This is also true for Amida Buddha’s Great Vow (hongan), the essence of Jodo Shinshu. Zazen is a vital force that penetrates all and manifests itself in seiza.

Meditating beneath the Bodhi tree, Siddhartha Gautama attained enlightenment. Many years later, in a Tendai Buddhist monastery on Mount Hiei, Shinran Shonin practiced shikan meditation (“concentration” and “insight”; Skt., shamatha and vipashyana), which helped him nurture the power and energy of the hara. With this spiritual foundation, he was able to understand the words of his teacher Honen, “Just recite the nembutsu,” without a calculating mind. That’s why each and every day, I do seiza.

♦

Adapted from “Meditation and Jodo Shinshu” on higashihonganjiusa.org. 

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The second of the five hindrances is ill will (vyapada), which arises when we carelessly turn our attention to that which provokes our dislike. Although we most readily recognize ill will as hostility, it can also manifest as aversion, causing us to push against or turn away from that which we want to avoid. The result is an agitated, troubled mind.

The sutras say it’s like gazing into a pot of boiling water. As the water churns and seethes, it prevents us from seeing our reflection clearly. Not seeing, we misperceive ourselves and others. Our viewpoint becomes narrow, which leads us to constrict and defend. Therefore, the primary remedy for ill will is to allow the water to become calm by cultivating lovingkindness (metta). We can also meditate on the four immeasurables of lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, since any of these will cause the feeling of ill will to dissipate. Although we’re all capable of holding conflicting emotions, it’s actually impossible to be simultaneously hostile and loving in our thoughts. Metta is the primary antidote for ill will and the confusion that accompanies it, because it truly is like the rays of the sun, as the Buddha said. It radiates, illuminating everything in its path. 

• Tip: The first step in working with ill will is to look at it closely. The most challenging aspect of ill will—or any of the other hindrances—is that it’s intoxicating. A part of us wants to be hostile—which means we must make room for the part of us that would rather be free. Stop, look, and wait. Then watch as ill will, unheeded, fades.
• “An aspect of investigating ill will is to discover the beliefs that support it. Why do we believe it is important or pertinent to remain with these thoughts and motivations? How might we believe that aversion will benefit us? Why might we believe that ill will is justified?” –Gil Fronsdal
• “Keep in mind that the layers of conditioning on a person have made them difficult to handle, just like the layers of dirt on a cloth. Perhaps they have faced hardship unknown to us. . . . What matters is that we see that someone is suffering. We can offer them our loving-friendliness.” –Bhante Gunaratana
• Tip: If you feel yourself caught in a loop of aversion or hostility, try turning to a friend for help. Good friendship can be a powerful balm for our negativity. A noble friend can help us gain perspective or simply listen attentively as we acknowledge our struggle. They can remind us that whatever we’re going through will pass.
• “We must find a way to abandon the hindrance of ill will directly, without waiting until circumstances change and we get the justice, retribution, or redemption we’ve been craving. We have to work on ourselves.” –Domyo Burk 

♦

This is the second installment of our series on the five hindrances—sensual desire, ill will, sloth/torpor, anxiousness, and doubt—and their respective antidotes. A printable version is available here.

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To access wonder, find ways to be naturally mindful and curious. Pay complete attention, like a child observing a butterfly for the first time. This requires humility. You must be willing to become fully absorbed in the present, setting aside ideas about what you know and what will come. Intellectual analysis, comparison, and craving corrode wonder. They block your capacity for connecting with the raw experience of the moment—be it marveling at the morning light glinting off tile, the aroma of a cup of hot coffee, the voice of an old friend, or the hummingbird sipping from a summer flower.

♦

From Your Heart Was Made for This: Contemplative Practices for Meeting a World in Crisis with Courage, Integrity, and Love by Oren Jay Sofer © 2023. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc.

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I’d like to talk about emptiness as a way of perceiving. The writer Gay Watson explores a translation of sunyata—first offered by T. Stcherbatsky—that is far richer than the mere lack that “emptiness” connotes: relativity. All phenomena arise in dependence, or relative to, conditions; or, per one interpretation of quantum theory, they exist solely in relation to being observed. Since, according to this interpretation, our act of perceiving is fundamental to the fabrication of our constructed reality, I wonder, could this be one reason the Buddha included perceiving (samjna) in the five aggregates as an essential constituent of our conscious experience?

The word emptiness tends to bring up an image of a dark abyss, a black hole, and people think, “There’s nothing! It’s all empty.” Or worse yet, “Nothing matters.” But relativity, as this translation suggests, means that what we perceive is relative and relies on our framework of recognition (e.g., biological, evolutionary, cognitive, psychological, and sociocultural). It also depends on all the causes and conditions that have supported its existence.

For example, given dissimilar sociocultural conditioning, a member of the East African Maasai tribe would have a different perceived reality in front of a laptop on Zoom than a Silicon Valley engineer would. More radically, different sentient beings have distinct umwelts, or experiential worlds, where their understanding of reality is shaped by their specific biological and cognitive characteristics. The perceptual world of a dog consists of an exceptionally complex landscape of smells and high-frequency sounds, all of which are absent from our subjective reality. Furthermore, whatever is perceived in these disparate umwelts is not independently existing but codependently arising based on many causes and conditions. The creation of a sound requires a vibrating source with the appropriate properties, a medium through which sound travels, energy to create the vibration…just to name a few. Underscoring the immense scale of interdependence, the astronomer Carl Sagan famously said, “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.”

Therefore, what we perceive as reality is neither real—reified, fixed, independently existent—nor nonreal. Just as a dream is neither real nor nonreal, so is life. Everything is a dream, but it’s not just a dream—a dismissive stance that veers into nihilism. Life is a dream, and it’s not a dream. In this practice, we neither take an ontological stance that things are rigid as we perceive them to be nor do we deny their existence—neither of the extremes is helpful. The Middle Way of sunyata is to honor relativity and avoid the extremes of independent, reified existence on one end and nihilism on the other.

The late great teacher Rob Burbea talked about life as theater. Imagine you have a front row seat at an engaging play and are fully immersed in the story. You feel the pain, joy, and frustration of the actors. And yet, you realize that it’s theater. Each actor has a role to play. It’s not real! But if we think it’s just theater, we demean the value, the beauty, the grace of the art form. Life is theater in its most beautiful and sacred sense. We can engage with life—this theater-like dream—knowing that we are playing a character in relation to all other characters. The script is not fixed. It has infinite possibilities, albeit each with varying probabilities. And we have an incredible gift: the freedom to choose our perspective, the way we see.

While our minds might crave certainty, relativity invites us to open up to a whole range of possibilities. In this openness, different perceptions can be explored. We’re always looking in a particular way, after all, never putting our lenses down. For example, we can become aware of how we are perceiving, fabricating our reality, starting with moment-to-moment subtle recognitions of arisings in the body-mind and expanding to the stories we concoct about ourselves, others, and the world. Paying attention with interest and curiosity often naturally shifts our perspective. Or, we can intentionally try on (but not force) perceiving from the spacious vantage point of love and letting go, which is the opposite of contraction, clinging, and separation—aka selfing.

Selfing is clinging to negative self-preoccupation. However, developing a healthy sense of self that has integrity and is upright, confident, and beloved is necessary for this path of awakening. It’s often said that you must first know and love the self—“this being who is me,” with all its conditioning, neuroses, and particularities—before you can let it go. If we try to relinquish this self before developing a sense of confidence and care, our practice becomes mired in spiritual bypass. Using sunyata as a hammer to squash and get rid of the self, as some well-intentioned practitioners subconsciously attempt, is painful. Let’s remember the Middle Way. There is this dear being who navigates life, suffers, loves, loses. And yet this is not the whole view. There are more dimensions. Instead of fixating on the perception of my self and my life through a straw—“This is me, this is what I want, this is what I hate, this is me, me, me”—can we expand our perspective to see with love and humor, 360° internally and externally, not taking this self-sense too darn seriously? Remember life as sacred theater.

While navigating different perspectives, it’s also important to maintain flexibility. If I see a friend, it’s not helpful to say “Numerous causes and conditions are giving rise to an image of you being recognized and delight being experienced” instead of “I’m glad to see you!”

On the other hand, if I’m feeling annoyed, it might be helpful to access other ways of looking. I can see that this friend, just like me, experiences causes and conditions responsible for creating the person that they are. I can recognize their narrative. I could have been born as them and they could have been born as me. In some ways, I am them. We are entangled as we codependently arise in this mess together. We’re not separate. It’s not me versus them. It’s us.

We are entangled as we codependently arise in this mess together.

I notice the impermanent and dreamlike nature of our interaction, and in that moment, my heart opens to tenderness for both of us. We are co-creating and living this mysterious dream together. Or, in the words of Nagarjuna: “Whenever there’s a belief that things are real, desire and hatred spring up unendingly; unwholesome views are entertained, from which all disputes come. Indeed, this is the source of every view; without it, no defilement can occur. Thus, when this is understood, all views and all afflictions vanish entirely. But how may this be known? It is said that when one sees that all things are dependently produced, one sees that all such things are free from birth.”

In Pali, the term yathabhuta nanadassana is often translated as “seeing things as they are.” But this translation posits an ultimate, correct way of seeing things, whereas a more appropriate translation is “seeing things as they have come to be” or as they have come to be seen. Bhuta is the past participle of the verb “to be.” So instead we could say, come and see things as they have come to be perceived, as they have dependently coarisen in our seeing. And when we see in this way, there’s an opening. Emaho! Marvelous! This way of seeing makes life even more mysterious, precious, sublime. It expands the heart in the beauty and generosity of letting go rather than clinging to rigid assumptions and presumptions.

Ultimately, emptiness—as a non-fixed, nonfabricated way of looking—and love and compassion are intertwined. One leads to the other. Love and compassion are particular ways of looking. When we look with kindness and benevolence at ourselves, others, and the world; when we cultivate the way of seeing that is metta, love with no strings attached, we loosen the sense of self and tune our ability to see its fabricated nature. The arrows of love and emptiness fly both ways.

Some years ago, I dedicated a year of my life to the practices of the heart, in particular to metta and compassion. It was a wonderful practice period that gave rise to many insights, including one that I rarely talk about because it’s hard for me to put into words. It was an opening into a perspective that may be described as a glimpse into the “mind of grace.” It was a perspective of complete love and unconditional compassion for everything beyond time and space. No separation, no boundaries, no self—love infused with emptiness, emptiness infused with love. I humbly offer an invitation for you to explore the interchangeable nature of love and emptiness for yourself.

It is said that awakening is an accident, and when we keep practicing, we become more accident-prone. So keep practicing, so that different perceptions pop up when you least expect them and they gradually become readily accessible. Keep relaxing the habitual patterns of perception, and try to see, without forcing, through the eyes of love and nonseparation. You might then notice that you’re looking at every human being as if they are your kin—sibling, mother—and you want to be of service, to help, to heal. But know that you can never go back, because there’s now a crack in self-preoccupation, and the crack is where the light gets in, as Leonard Cohen beautifully said.

Trust your own ability to see—because you can. The Buddha said that if it weren’t possible to awaken, he wouldn’t have shared the teachings. So take heart. Borrow trust—from a friend or teacher who’s further on the path, if you need it—and then verify for yourself how love and emptiness are intertwined.

None of this is heady or meant to be figured out by analysis. It’s meant to be practiced, to be known experientially, firsthand. Find out what happens when you widen your view, consider the causes and conditions of your or someone else’s perspective, or intentionally infuse generosity of spirit into your way of seeing. Maybe the heart releases into more freedom, more care. We can know for ourselves that compassion is the natural response of the heart to suffering. When we’re not entangled in selfing, we want to alleviate pain, to help, to be of service. Ehipassiko. Come and see for yourself.

♦

This article is adapted from a dharma talk given in April 2021 titled “Emptiness: The Womb of Love and Service.”

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