"Seeing That Frees" -- a great book about Buddhist emptiness

Shamil Chandaria's talk on the Bayesian Brain and Meditation that I wrote about recently is a gift that keeps on giving. For on one of his slides there was a small image of a book by Rob Burbea, Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising.


I recall that Chandaria mentioned it briefly, but he certainly didn't dwell on the book. I figured, correctly as it turns out, that the book was in line with the ideas about the brain that Chandaria was talking about, so I decided to order a copy from Amazon.

It took a while to arrive, maybe because Seeing That Frees was published in Great Britain by Hermes Amāra Publications. I just looked up the publisher, which must be part of the Hermes Amāra Foundation. 

The Hermes Amāra Foundation (HAF) was established in 2019 at the request of the late Buddhist Dharma and meditation teacher Rob Burbea (1965 - 2020). Its main role is as custodian of his extensive body of teachings, which exist in the form of audio talks, interviews, online seminars, podcasts and the book Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising. HAF also exists to support the teachers and community of practitioners (sangha) engaging with Rob's teachings.

Burbea died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 54. I feel grateful that he wrote such a magnificent book before he died. This morning I read the first 28 pages, which comprise the "Orientations" section. I've read many books about Buddhism, including several about emptiness. 

Burbea's writing, thinking, and approach are exceptional.

I can tell that much already and am looking forward to making my way through the rest of the book. It definitely is a classic in the Buddhist genre. His foundation has many examples of his writings and talks, so that's another way to learn about his approach to Buddhism.

It's fascinating that the book (The Experience Machine) I wrote about in "Our brains don't see reality as it is, but as it's predicted to be," along with a couple of follow-up posts, is so compatible with the notions of emptiness and dependent arising in Seeing That Frees.

When modern neuroscience and ancient Buddhism end up with the same conclusions even though one has a scientific approach and the other a philosophical/spiritual approach, that gives me more confidence that both are pointing to something true about reality and the human mind.

Plus, in just the first 28 pages my own mind was blown by what Burbea said. Here's some excerpts from those initial chapters, which end with some mind-blowing passages that I found strikingly original, though solidly within Buddhist teachings. It just was a fresh way of looking at emptiness for me.

Revered in the tradition as the 'crown jewels' of the Dharma, the Buddha's teachings on emptiness and dependent arising point and pave the way to the most beautiful possibilities for us as human beings. Their realization brings a truly radical revolution in our whole sense of existence in a way that opens up a profound and extraordinary freedom.

Emptiness -- in Pali, sunnata, in Sanskrit, sunyata, which may also be translated as 'voidness' -- is deep and subtle, however, not easy to see or explain, and in many respects it is even counter-intuitive.

...It might also be imagined that voidness is some kind of thing that can be obtained, but it is not a thing. Nor is it a state of mind or a state of consciousness. 

...We assume, in a way that involves no thinking, that our bodies or this book, for instance, exist independently of other things and independently of the mind that knows them. We feel that a thing has an inherent existence -- that its existence, its being, inheres in itself alone.

Believing then that this real self can really gain or lose things or experiences which have real qualities, grasping and aversion, and thus dukkah [suffering, discontent, pain], arise inevitably. 

...We can, at least for now, define emptiness as the absence of this inherent existence that things appear to naturally and undeniably have... A thing is 'empty' of its seemingly real, independent existence. And all things are this way, are empty. This voidness is what is also sometimes termed the ultimate truth or reality of things.

...Unquestioningly but mistakenly then, we intuitively sense and believe in this inherent existence of phenomena in 'real' experiences of a 'real' self in a world of 'real' things. Now, in itself, this may strike some as a rather abstract or irrelevant piece of metaphysical philosophizing. 

But as alluded to earlier, the complete dissolution of this error in our sense and understanding of things is the deepest level of what the Buddha calls the ignorance or fundamental delusion (Skt: avidya; Pali: avijja) that we share as sentient beings. We cling, and so suffer, because of the way we see.

...But we do not cling to what we know is not real. Thus when, with insight and wisdom, we realize that something is illusory in some sense, we let go of any clinging to it -- of chasing it, trying to hold onto it, or trying to get rid of it. Since clinging brings dukkha, in this release of the clinging there comes release and freedom from dukkha. 

...A ferocious and hungry-looking tiger appears in front of you seemingly about to leap. The distress of a reaction of terror there would be quite understandable. But if you notice on closer inspection that this tiger is not real, that it actually is a holographic projection with accompanying sound recording from a nearby hologram projector, the fear and the problem simply dissolve.

...The Buddha's assertion that things are beyond existing and not existing is not easy to fully comprehend. One of the keys that can unlock our ability to realize, more than just intellectually, this mystical way things are is tied in with an important way in which our holographic tiger illustration is limited.

For that illustration gives no suggestion of a certain aspect of the illusory nature of things -- how all appearances are fabricated by the mind. 

...A 'lie' is a 'fabrication' we say. And this is also the fullness of the Buddha's meaning. When he proclaims that things are fabricated, he is declaring much more than the simple fact that they were put together from other building blocks as causes and conditions. He is pointing more radically to their illusory nature.

...The world of inner and outer phenomena is, in some very important sense, 'fabricated', 'fashioned', 'constructed' by the mind, so that it is somehow illusory, not real in the way that we assume, and not independent of the mind that fabricates it.

...As the Buddha discovered, not even appearances, but the 'whole show' is fabricated, including the mind with its various factors and its consciousness. Thus he also declared the illusory nature of any and all awareness, any consciousness of anything. 

...It is not that while everything else is fabricated by the mind, the mind itself is somehow real, a really existing basis for the fabrication. The mind, whether conceived as mental processes or 'Awareness' -- even the awareness that we can know as vast and unperturbed, that seems natural and effortless -- is also fabricated in the process.

We find, in the end, that there is no 'ground' to fabrication.

And as if that were not cause enough for amazement, we eventually also recognize, taking this exploration of dependent arising deeper and deeper still, that even this profound realization of the fabricated nature of all phenomena is only a relative truth.

Fabrication itself is empty too. Ultimately, it turns out we cannot say that things are fabricated, nor that they are not fabricated. We cannot even say that they arise and cease, nor that they do not arise and cease. 

What we come to understand is that the way things truly are is beautifully beyond the capacities of our conception. Practicing with dependent arising forms a thread, though, that can be followed to such great depths. For in doing so, insights of greater and greater profundity are progressively opened, until this thread ultimately dissolves even itself. It leads and opens beyond itself.

...What the Dharma thus teaches, and what we will discover for ourselves as practice evolves, is that absolutely everything is empty, without exception.

The self is empty. So too is the body, and the whole material world, together with its constituent elements, its subatomic particles, fields, and forces. Also all our inner experiences, emotions, and thoughts, and even whatever experience we might have through 'bare attention' that so much seem as if they are 'direct experiences' of 'things as they are' -- indeed, whatever is perceived, as the Buddha said, is empty.

...While at first these may have seemed strange ways of looking at things, and still probably involve some effort, the mind begins to gravitate towards exposing the emptiness of this and that, of situations and perspectives that we would have solidified before.

To the heart is revealed a sense of beauty in the open, space-like nature of things. More able to shift ways of looking, less locked into any perspective, it wants to see the emptiness. Gradually conviction builds, based firmly on our experience.

Comments

[SantMat64]

If the "all you need is emptiness" method is the complete and final answer to life's problems, then the where's the evidence that's this is so?

Buddhism has been around for 3000 years, and a worldwide survey of Buddhists shows they're no happier than the average person. In fact, most Buddhists go to their Wat or Temple to pray to deities. They're not doing vipassana.

I've been to more than a few vipassana oriented centers. Some of them lay, some of them stocked with rigorous monks. Again, these people are by and large not any happier than the lot of us.

That said, no doubt there is a value in seeing the impermanence of thoughts and things. But let's be honest, it's demonstrably NOT an absolute value.

That's because impermanence is not an absolute truth, but a relative truth. The technically correct fact that everything is in flux does not mean that thoughts are always false and things do not really exist.

If that were not so, we'd all be Buddhas or Ramana Maharshis. We're obviously not. Moreover, can you name a living Buddha or Ramana Maharshi in today's world? If you can't, then what does that say about the actual practicality of investing in the emptiness philosophy?

I've always thought it funny that Buddhist teachers like Joseph Goldstein giggle when the subject of actually achieving enlightenment arises. As if actually succeeding in truly realizing emptiness was absurdly unrealistic. One wonders, if becoming enlightened is such a remote possibility to Buddhist teachers who've been meditating on emptiness for 50 years, do they really believe what the preach about emptiness being our reality? Or not?

And so, we can read Buddhist texts and get a hit off of them, no doubt about that. We can get a similar hit with Path of the Masters or The Secret Doctrine or The Book of Mormon.

Words are the most popular intoxicant in human history.

But that feeling of grandeur and truth generated by words is short lived, as if whatever we feel on the meditation cushion.

[Brian Hines]

SantMat64, it's difficult to judge the value of a philosophy or way of life. Many find Buddhism deeply meaningful. I sure do. But there are many ways to practice Buddhism, just as there are many ways to practice any form of spirituality, including Sant Mat.

Many, if not most, followers of Sant Mat meditate very little, if at all. So is Sant Mat a failure because its followers don't practice the most important part of what the teachings say? No, because spirituality is an individual affair. I enjoy Buddhism. It makes sense to me and helps me be a better and happier person. If you don't like Buddhism, that's fine also.

[Spence Tepper]

Hi SantMat64
You asked
"One wonders, if becoming enlightened is such a remote possibility to Buddhist teachers who've been meditating on emptiness for 50 years, do they really believe what the preach about emptiness being our reality? Or not?"

Realization of that emptiness is their enlightenment. And their ecstatic joy.

It's a beautiful step on a ladder that is also empty and without steps. This is not so much an objective statement as a subjective one that suggests the experience in that moment of realization: the Satori moment.

It can't be taken as a literal truth, as a finite dualistic concept, because, as D. T. Suzuki wrote, the emptiness contains all possibilities. What he pointed out is that, crucial to all Zen, is the Satori experience, without which there is no Zen. And, not coincidentally, no Sant Mat.

Brubea concludes, "To the heart is revealed a sense of beauty in the open, space-like nature of things. More able to shift ways of looking, less locked into any perspective, it wants to see the emptiness. Gradually conviction builds, based firmly on our experience."

Inevitably that experience of emptiness becomes ecstatic and draws the awareness beyond the illusory boundaries we typically see.

For the Satsangi, it's the pull to go within. When the emptiness around us becomes so evident and strong that we can see the hollowness in everything simply by looking at it. And it becomes so apparent it's painful and ecstatic. It becomes unbearable to do anything else but go within to that inner ecstacy that is drawing us in and up, triggered by the vision of emptiness all around and within. And then, like Brubea, we see the entire creation holographically, a great projection where every point contains the whole and nothing exists in any of it.

It's a stage. Not the whole journey. But a wonderful open, empty space containing absolutely nothing, filled with joy and infinite possibility of the next moment.

[Ron E.]

‘Emptiness and dependent arising’. Two terms that sound very enigmatic but are actually quite reasonable, if not obvious expressions of life as it is.

Dependent arising is simply stating that everything is dependent on other things, that nothing exists in isolation; whether it is physical or mental, all is intricately connected. One could go into the metaphysical concepts of birth, death and rebirth to explain who we are and where we come from (originated from) but as far as I’m concerned that road opens up fields of unnecessary speculation and conjecture.

Emptiness is also a factual statement. We habitually invest everything with an essence and identify it as that. A tree becomes an object with the observer being the subject. A tree is no longer a dynamic living process interacting with the air, soil, microbes, insects, birds and animals and us, thought makes it into a thing separate from me.

The same goes for ‘me’, my ‘self’. Thought assumes that I am a separate, autonomous being. Ignoring or unconscious of the fact that what I call ‘I’ only exists in relationship to everyone and everything else. Modern neuro-research and (some) Buddhist thought clearly points out that what we call ‘me’ is simply a moment-to-moment dynamic ever-changing process. My ‘self’ then is an on-going construct, a construct that is empty of any permanent thing.

Bluntly put, there is no ‘essence’ to anything, whether that is a tree, a rock, a bird or a human. For the sake of convenience, communication, personal security and generally through habit, we divide life up into this and that, thereby separating ourselves from each other and the world in general. This isolation becomes the root cause of much of our conflicts and consequent suffering.

This is my understanding of the Buddhist concepts of emptiness and conditioned arising.

[Ron E.]

And I would add that as far as these concepts of emptiness and dependent arising go: seeking is ultimately futile. It is not until one realises that there is no seeker, nothing to seek, nothing to be attained that will make you happy or fulfilled – or enlightened, that all becomes clear - to no-one.

All such activity is the ‘self’ continually trying to become something: it is the illusory self’s habitual attempts to placate and make substantial that which experience and thought has created.

[Sidhartha]

“Emptiness”?? Such a cerebral concept…

[Brian Hines]

Sidhartha, I used to also think that Buddhist emptiness was a cerebral concept. But as I learned more about this key Buddhist teaching, which really is central to all of Buddhism, and more importantly was able to experience the reality of emptiness in my own life, the idea became very real to me.

It's a beautiful idea, and a beautiful reality. Also, very scientific. Nothing possesses inherent existence all by itself. Everything is part of a mutually connected network of causes and effects, conditions, that works to produce both the world outside and the world inside of us. It's a reflection of oneness lying behind the world's diversity.

It means that we are not the isolated independent creatures that we so often feel we are, but an integral aspect of the whole universe.