Understanding the Wisdom of Emptiness to Help Humanities[Wednesday, 10 November 2010]

His Holiness The Dalai Lama speaking on “The Heart Sutra” in Niihama, Japan, on 10 November 2010. Photo/Taikan Usui

Niihama, Japan:
His Holiness the Dalai Lama filled both the morning and the afternoon
of his fourth day in Japan on Wednesday, a warm and blue-skied autumn
day, with vigorous and highly rigorous teachings on essential Buddhist
concepts.    Bursting with energy, he strode into the hall in
Niihama for his morning teaching on the Heart Sutra twenty minutes
early, and began by asking the audience (of about 400) to join him in
reciting the sutra.  Then he penetrated deep into the sutra to dig out
its meanings, of a cause “even before a Darwininan jellyfish and the
Big Bang” and the difference between conventional and ultimate truth,
He outlined the three levels of suffering: the most obvious one, of
mental and physical pain; the suffering of change; and what could be
called “all-pervading suffering,” through the ignorance we’re born
with. Sometimes these two subtler levels, he said, are harder to
discern.The cessation of suffering, he said, is achieved “not
through compassion, not through love or patience. But through wisdom,
the ability to cut through delusions.” There are three basic categories
of teachings, he explained: the first has to do with ethics; the second
with concentration, or meditation; and the third with wisdom. The Heart
Sutra belongs to the third.Returning to his hotel for a
convivial lunch on its top floor, the bright November sun flooding in
through picture windows, gazing out onto the hills that surround
Niihama, His Holiness then went back to the same hall, again a few
minutes early, to devote his afternoon talk to “emptiness.”

Very soon,
he was outlining complex philosophical ideas, having to do with the
“relative truth” of seeing someone as an enemy or a friend, and the
importance of seeing things as they really are. “Emptiness doesn’t mean
nothingness,” he explained (in Tibetan throughout). “It doesn’t mean
that we don’t see anything.” But where is the “I” we talk about? When
we say, “I am sick” or “I am well,” what “I” are we referring to? The
hand is not the head, the head is not the foot.    Likewise,
when we look at a flower, we’re looking only at the petals, or the
roots, the particles. As when we look at a statue of the Buddha. When
our consciousness is clearest, upon waking up, is the best time, His
Holiness said, to investigate yourself, and see what is the difference
between the “self” and consciousness itself. People don’t always want
to learn about emptiness, he stressed, but it’s very helpful for
getting rid of a delusive sense of self. And if you understand
emptiness, you can develop the aspiration to cut through the cycles of
existence.    Then His Holiness walked out into the golden
light of a shining late afternoon, and returned to his hotel to pursue
his investigations.