Q: How does desire lead to birth?
A: Each time there is a desire there is another birth. You plant wantingness, wanting to do something, wanting to grasp something. Then that desire to grasp also invites something further. Birth here means the birth of further confusion, further dissatisfaction, further wanting. For example, if you have a great desire for money and you manage to get a lot of it, then you also want to buy something with that money. One thing leads to the next, a chain reaction, so that desire becomes a kind of network. You want something, want to draw something into you, continually.
The experience of shunyata, seeing precisely and clearly what is, somehow cuts through this network, this spider’s web, because the spider’s web is woven in the space of desire, the space of wanting. And when the space of shunyata replaces it, so to speak, the whole conceptualized formulation of desire is completely eliminated, as though you had arrived on another planet with different air, or a place without oxygen at all. So shunyata provides a new atmosphere, a new environment, which will not support clinging or grasping. Therefore the experience of shunyata also makes impossible the planting of the seed of karma, which is why it is said that shunyata is that which gives birth to all the buddhas, all the awakened ones. “Awakened” means not being involved in the chain reactions and complications of the karmic process.
Q: Why is it that so many of us have such a strong tendency to not see things as they really are?
A: I think largely because we are afraid that we will see it.
Q: Why are we afraid of seeing it?
A: We want an umbilical cord attached to the ego through which we can feed all the time.
Q: Can this understanding of “emptiness is form” be attained through the practice of meditation techniques or must it come to us spontaneously?
A: The perception of shunyata is not achieved through the practice of mental gymnastics; it is a matter of actually seeing it. It could be perceived in sitting meditation or it could be seen in life situations. There is no set pattern to producing it. In the case of Naropa, the great Indian yogi, he perceived shunyata when his master took off his sandal and slapped him on the cheek. That very moment he saw it. It depends upon the individual situation.
Q: Then it is not something you go looking for?
A: If one is really keen, really devoted to finding it, completely devoted to understanding it, then one has to give up looking for it.
Q: I have some difficulty reconciling the concept of shunyata with what is going on right now.
A: When you have a shunyata experience, it does not mean that you cease to perceive, cease to live on Earth. You still live on the Earth, but you see more precisely what is here. We believe that we know things as they are. But we only see our version which is not quite complete. There is much more to learn about the true subtleties of life. The things we see are a very crude version of what is. Having an experience of shunyata does not mean that the whole world completely dissolves into space, but that you begin to notice the space so that the world is somewhat less crowded. For example, if we are going to communicate to someone, we might prepare ourselves to say such and such to calm him down or explain things to him. But then he comes out with so many complications of his own, he churns out so much himself, that before you know where you are, you are completely confused by him. You share his confusion rather than having the clarity you prepared at the beginning. You have been completely absorbed into his confusion. So shunyata means seeing through confusion. You keep precision and clarity all the time.
Q: And with this experience, you are still alive in this world?
A: Yes, of course! You see, enlightenment does not mean dying. Otherwise, enlightenment would be a kind of suicide, which is ridiculous. That is the nihilistic approach, attempting to escape from the world.
Q: Is an enlightened person omniscient?
A: I am afraid this is a mistaken conclusion drawn from the Yogacharin one mind theory, a theory which has also appeared in other religious and philosophical traditions. The idea is that an enlightened person has become the one mind and so knows everything that ever was, is or could be. You always get this kind of wild speculation when people involve themselves with “mystery,” the unknowable. But I am afraid that there really is no such thing as the one mind.
Q: How is one to begin to see what is?
A: By not beginning, by giving up the idea of a beginning. If you try to affirm a particular territory—my experience—then you are not going to see shunyata. You have to give up the idea of territory altogether. Which can be done, it is not impossible. It is not just philosophical speculation. One can give up the idea of territory, one can not begin.
Q: Is it part of not beginning to try for so long that one gives up from exhaustion? Can one give up before one has tried? Is there any shortcut? Must the monkey go through the whole process of banging himself against the walls and hallucinating?
A: I think we must. Sudden enlightenment comes only with exhaustion. Its suddenness does not necessarily mean that there is a shortcut. In some cases, people might experience a sudden flash of enlightenment, but if they do not work their way through, their habitual thought patterns will resume and their minds will become overcrowded again. One must make the journey because, as you said, at the point where you begin to be disappointed you get it.
Q: This seems to lead back to the Hinayana path of discipline. Is that correct?
A: Yes, meditation is hard work, manual work, so to speak.
Q: Having begun, it seems that there is something to do.
A: There is something to do, but at the same time whatever you are doing is only related to the moment rather than being related to achieving some goal in the future, which brings us back to the practice of meditation. Meditation is not a matter of beginning to set foot on the path; it is realizing that you are already on the path—fully being in the nowness of this very moment—now, now, now. You do not actually begin because you have never really left the path.
Q: You described enlightened people as being free from the karmic chain. I would like to know what you meant by that, because it seems to me that they create a new karmic chain.
A: The word “karma” means “creation” or “action”—chain reaction. For example, by looking toward the future we plant a seed in the present. In the case of enlightened people, they do not plan for the future because they have no desire to provide security for themselves. They do not need to know the pattern of the future anymore. They have conquered the preconception of “future.” They are fully in the now. The now has the potential of the future in it, as well as that of the past. Enlightened people have completely mastered the restless and paranoid activities of mind. They are completely, fully in the moment; therefore they are free from sowing further seeds of karma. When the future comes they do not see it as a result of their good deeds in the past; they see it as present all the time. So they do not create any further chain reactions.