Peace and Emptiness

In September, the seasons change. The mountains brim with wild fruit and mushrooms. The year begins to point towards an end. The shallow dance above the void seeks a space unpolluted by time, by sorrow, by joy. Despite our heartbreak and our acts of foolishness, somehow a perfect source remains intact.

Taking refuge in that perfect source involves recognising the nature of our own minds. In Tibet, the word for mind is sem. Sem also encapsulates the concept of a soul. It exists beyond temporal constructions of the self, adopting an infinite number of shapes in the Ocean of Confusion (Samsara). Realising the threefold nature of sem - emptiness, clarity, and awareness - is said to help us find inner peace. We only suffer because sem has failed to recognise itself. All of us are composed of Buddha nature. The world of illusions has merely separated us from that perfect source.

Why is Sem empty? Sem is empty because it cannot be seen, touched, smelt, heard, felt or perceived in any way. It exists beyond the time-space continuum and does not fade or transmute as material things, such as bodies, fade and transmute. Unlike other forms of Buddhism, which, like stoic philosophy, emphasise rejecting conflicting thoughts and emotions, the Vajrayana tradition maintains that watching the conflicting emotion and perceiving its inherent emptiness is sufficient for the emotion to liberate itself into primordial awareness. This meditation technique is called liberation through recognition. It is a kind of passive transformation, since the conflicting state is said to “liberate itself by itself” through the act of awareness.

As the daytime sky is inseparable from the light that makes it blue, so emptiness is inseparable from clarity.  Since emptiness and clarity are inert, generating neither beneficial or negative action, they cannot generate thoughts or conflicting emotion. The true nature of sem is therefore a source of bliss and peace. Our own awareness of the emptiness-clarity of sem completes the equation. The emptiness-clarity-awareness of sem is the philosopher’s stone of Vajrayana. Out of this seminal insight flows more complex practices, such as deity generation.

In his book, Profound Buddhism, From Hinyasa to Vajrayana, Kalu Rinpoche extolls the virtue of emptiness: “If we meditate on the threefold nature of emptiness, clarity, and intelligence of sem, we meditate with the freedom of a bird flying in the sky. Nothing obstructs its path. It can go wherever it wants. Our meditation then will be efficient, but in the opposite case, we are like a creature with many legs cramped in a very small space.”

Another popular metaphor for sem is the ocean. Conflicting emotions and thoughts are similar to waves. Waves form in the ocean and are reabsorbed by the ocean. Similarly, all thoughts and emotions proceed from sem and are reabsorbed by sem. In our ordinary, anxious states, the winds and the currents agitate the waves, causing the waters to churn. Only when the waters are still may we see the depths with clarity. Establishing peace of mind is therefore vital to self-understanding. It accompanies the mantra that adorns the gateway to the classical world: know thyself.

Amid the slogans of today’s “Be Positive” times, there exists a dangerous tendency to repress conflicting thoughts and emotions and celebrate images of positivity, however superficial. Social media is a perfect example of this tendency. Instagram and Facebook are rife with images of people adopting postures that represent happiness. It is rare to find photos of ugly or awkward situations or expressions of existential crises. In less than a hundred years, the West has replaced monotheism with the worship of the self and mirrors. The gods we paint on the acropolis walls are no longer humanoid beings, they are simply humans.

Vajrayana resists the tendency to repress negativity. Conflicting emotions and thoughts should never be shunned. Under the right conditions, their powerful energies can actually be beneficial. Thoughts of doubt, anger, and jealousy occur throughout our life. We do not need to make them disappear, but simply watch them and recognise their essence, attempt to learn from them. The five poisons lead to five wisdoms. Knowledge and conflict are in constant dialogue with each other. Gampopa, founder of the prominent Kagyu school, compared meditation to fire. The more conflicting thoughts and emotions the practitioner encounters during meditation, the stronger the primordial fire will shine.

Emotions are vital expressions of the life-force that flows within us and in the world around us. Embracing them, harnessing their power, recognising their essence, transforming their negative qualities into primordial insight, is a path to peace.

I wrote this poem several years ago:

As high as heaven, a cloud cobbled sky,
An infinite emptiness that is
Some splendid theatre house for dreams,
Where actors rushing through inward mazes
Unwind fevers spun by instinct,
Searching for a perfect centre
Of truth, of love, a white and healing light,
Expelling spells of inertia,
Cast in sleeping years,
When you were a lonely isle of tears,
Cracks deepest when they drew you most apart.

As high as heaven, the sky roof covers mind.
Were you to be born again,
Your freedom would be no different.
Tomorrow is today,
Yesterday a prelude to this song,
Life a sequence of suffering,
Waiting for a timely release,
Finding or losing a path to peace.
We seek enlightenment relative to experience,
Boiling with the promise death brings,
Reborn each morning as the robin sings.