177 - Unconditional Strength and Gratitude: The Medicine of Suchness

The medicine of suchness is life-saving, because even the happiest and most fortunate human life inevitably contains suffering. And sometimes – in our personal lives or in the wider world – we face terrible things that arouse anxiety, depression, fear, despair, or rage. Our climate and ecological emergency is one such terrible thing, bringing us face to face with loss on a scale never before contemplated by human beings. Our Zen practice offers us suchness as a medicine that can alleviate our despair and help us access strength and gratitude.

Quicklinks to Outline (Sorry for incomplete text):
Taking a Moment to Bear Witness: Gulf Stream Collapse
Review: The Two Dimensions of Reality as a Background for Suchness
The Dependent Dimension of Reality
The Independent Dimension of Reality
Suchness
How to Perceive Suchness
Not Misusing the Medicine of Suchness

Taking a Moment to Bear Witness: Gulf Stream Collapse

Today’s topic falls in practice category I call Taking Care, which means doing something that nourishes, strengthens, and sustains us. For a moment, though, I want to spend a few moments Bearing Witness, which – along with Taking Action – is one of the three ingredients of a sustainable and generous life. Bearing Witness means opening ourselves up to suffering in the world – just witnessing, acknowledging we are not separate from anyone or anything, letting the truth touch and move us, temporarily setting aside all questions of what we can or should do in response, or whether there’s anything we can do at all.

Take a breath and just bear witness: Climate crisis: Scientists spot warning signs of Gulf Stream collapse

The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) current, of which the Gulf Stream is a part, is already at its slowest point in 1600 years, and there are signs it may be nearing a shutdown. “The collapse of the AMOC can have a globally catastrophic impact. Parts of western Europe and eastern North America that were warmed by the currents would experience a massive decline in their temperatures, resulting in severe climate events. The last time the AMOC entered a weakened state, it triggered a mini-ice age over the Northern Hemisphere near the Atlantic Ocean that lasted a millennium. The sea levels would also surge following the collapse of the stream near the North Atlantic coast.

The weakening of the AMOC would lead to disruptions in rain patterns in South America, Africa and even, South East Asia. Due to its complex nature, the AMOC would even trigger a rapid meltdown of the ice sheets in the Antarctic, while disrupting the rains and weather patterns that sustain the Amazon forests. Additionally, 0.7 gigatons of carbon will no longer be sequestered annually by the AMOC, as it halts.

“It’s something you just can’t (allow to) happen,” added Boers (from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany)

Shut down in 10 years? 100 years?

Precautionary principle… we think the CEE is about losing endangered species and everything getting gradually hotter, but we can adapt. Sadly, we’re destabilizing massive, complex systems with implications far beyond what we can predict or comprehend.

We can get philosophical – earth will survive – but as Yad, a young climate activist from Poland said during an online event called Youth on Fire yesterday: trust yourself. Contemplate the unimaginable disruption of our country’s future… your children’s future… ecosystems and other living things… get in touch with your natural fear and grief. What does that feeling inspire you to do? Probably not get philosophical about how a billion years from now earth might be brimming with a whole different set of living things…

Breathe, absorb, Bear Witness. Just to do this is important, apart from any question of what you can do about it, or should do about it…

Sometimes what seems most appropriate, give this practice a try: Offering a prayer of sorts, even if you don’t believe in a divine being who able to respond to you. “May humanity learn to love one another and live in harmony with nature…”

Review: The Two Dimensions of Reality as a Background for Suchness

OK, on to today’s topic: “the medicine of suchess.”

Zen teaching (actually, Chan): Two truths. Reality has two dimensions, both of which are true simultaneously. For spiritual liberation, personal peace and equanimity and unconditional joy, it’s extremely valuable to wake up to both dimensions.

The two truths are called many different things: Absolute and relative, essential and contingent, unconditioned and conditioned. (I have a chart on the ZSP website about this. Click here.) Language is very tricky though… the words we choose can bring extra baggage that’s inappropriate for the reality they’re trying to convey.

It’s essential to convey these aspects or dimensions of reality are not two separate things. You don’t go “into” one realm. There aren’t things that are true in one realm and contradicted by the other. You can’t be in one dimension. You are always in both, and while the qualities of each dimension may appear to be contradictory when we try to describe them, they are not. They are mutually dependent, simultaneous.

Bear with me, this can at first sound pretty philosophical, but what I’m talking about is of immense practical and personal value to us in our lives and practice.

My current preference for language: Dependent and independent dimensions of reality.

Remember: ONE reality. I like the term dimensions because it strongly suggests you can’t have one dimension with the other. And that what we’re talking about is real, not just about a mindset or perspective.

The Dependent Dimension of Reality

The dependent dimension of reality we are fairly familiar with. This is the dimension of space and time. Because it is the dimension of space, it is the dimension of boundaries and differences. My body, your body. I am here in Oregon, you are in Pennsylvania. I am short and you are tall. By their very nature, all differences and boundaries are relative, contingent, dependent: Short is relative to tall, here is relative to there, in differentiating my body from yours, by definition “my body” depends on “other bodies.”

Because the dependent dimension of reality is also the dimension of time, it is the dimension of causation. What I do affects you. Everything we do has some result, which then functions as a new cause.

The dependent dimension of reality is not a lesser dimension. It is very true, and always true, no matter how profound your spiritual realization. This is the dimension of practice, morality, relationship, love, learning, growth, birth, old age, disease, and death. This is the realm of interdependence, which we can awaken to more and more through our practice, by opening our hearts: We recognize just how incredibly interdependent we are, challenging our cherished ideas about a separate, inherently existing self-nature.

The Independent Dimension of Reality

What’s left for the independent dimension of reality, then?

This is where it gets a little tricky, because language and concepts are part of the dependent dimension of reality. Using dependent tools to communicate about the independent dimension of reality is inevitably going to confuse the issue! Communication occurs in the dependent dimension… and yet, what are we going to do? It is extremely rare for human beings to awaken to – and recognize the significance of – the independent dimension of reality without some guidance from other human beings, so we must communicate about it. This is why we call Zen teaching “a finger pointing at the moon.” The moon is the independent nature of reality, and our words are the finger. We can’t give one another the experience of seeing the moon, but we can help one another by pointing – as long as we don’t mistake the finger for the moon.

That said… let’s talk about the independent dimension of reality. To start off, even to call it a dimension is misleading because it has no dimension. Remember, the dependent dimension of reality is the dimension of space and time. Therefore, the independent dimension is not about space or time. How can that be?

Of course, we can’t exist outside of space and time. But that’s not a problem here, because the dependent and independent dimension of reality are always simultaneously true. When we perceive the independent nature of reality we don’t flash out of existence or get transported into some alternate reality. We still exist in space and time, in the dependent dimension.

However, when we perceive, or take refuge in, the independent dimension of reality, we forget about space and time. Or, more accurately, for a moment space and time are no longer front and central the way they usually are. There is only right here, right now. It becomes clear that you are a pivot point of aliveness, and reality is a seamless whole. Shunryu Suzuki Roshi called this “things-as-it-is…”

Right here, right now has no reference point. It isn’t compared to anything, so no matter how terrible our situation may be in a dependent sense, it isn’t terrible right here, right now. Things are just as they are. Because space is irrelevant, so are boundaries. The sound of the bird or the traffic outside your window is not separate from you. The breeze and the suffering child on the other side of the world from you are part of the same reality as you. Everything is in motion together, and the trajectory is not the point – as if you captured a picture of a gymnast in the air, mid flip. Along the independent dimension of reality there it makes no sense to discuss good or bad, because that is about comparison and causality. Questions of how good a person you are, or how good your practice is, are utterly meaningless – like applying for a job and asking the interviewer whether it matters that once as a child you had a bad haircut.

Suchness

Setting aside for a moment how you perceive things-as-it-is, what’s so important about perceiving it? A dimensionless dimension, where good and bad and relationships are irrelevant?

Here’s the incredible thing Buddhists have discovered, the reason it is important to keep the practice alive and share it with others: Things-as-it-is – the independent, dimensionless dimension of reality, right here right now – is amazing, miraculous, healing, indescribably beautiful, sustaining, and impossibly intimate.

We might imagine that the absolute aspect of existence, in which there is no you versus me and therefore even the concept of love is irrelevant, would be a nihilistic void. There would be nothing; without dependent value or characteristics, there would be no meaning.

But this is not the case. Not at all. In fact, things-as-it-is needs no reference points or justification. Existence, life itself, is a profound miracle, and we as individuals are irreplaceable participants in it.

One word we use for this radiant quality of the independent dimension of reality is “suchness.” Without comparison, without judgment, things are such. Such = “a fundamental, intrinsic, or characteristic quality or condition.”[i] And suchness (alt. thusness) is not bleak, stark, or meaningless. It is universal liveliness.

At the same time, as soon as we conceive of suchness, we start concretizing it. We make a thing: Have you perceived suchness or not? What did it look like? Do you walk around in the dependent dimension of reality or the independent dimension? We get confused and embroiled in dependent thinking.

Suchness cannot be captured, but it most definitely can be experienced. That experience is a profoundly valuable medicine for our emotional, psychological, and spiritual ills. It is an antidote to despair, depression, anxiety, self-judgment, fear, anger, and all the rest. It is incredibly grounding, because it gives us a place to stand that is completely independent of conditions. It is inspiring and encouraging, because we can appreciate how life, no matter how it turns out, is a miracle. We feel gratitude and belonging.

How to Perceive Suchness

Perceiving the independent nature of reality is not a superhuman spiritual attainment. It doesn’t take great striving. It’s not about straining to pierce through the veil of ordinary reality to some secret dimension. However, it’s not necessarily easy to perceive it either, because it requires us to relinquish, at least momentarily, our preoccupation with the dependent dimension of reality. We have to momentarily let go of who and what and where we are. We have to let go of dwelling on the past and worrying about the future. We have to let go of perceiving ourselves in relationship.

This is where the term “emptiness” comes in. We say things are “empty” of inherently-existing self-nature. The term empty implies the absence of something we expect to be there, like a glass is empty of water, or a room is empty of people. We are empty in both the dependent and independent sense. In the dependent dimension, we are infinitely interdependent with everything else and have no fixed self-essence. In the independent dimension, there is no separation, so no separate “you” who would have an inherent self-nature or want to hold on to it. Waking up to emptiness is recognizing the absence of something you assumed was there, opening you up to perceiving suchness.

How do we work on perceiving emptiness, and thereby open up to suchness? We practice this in our zazen, repeatedly loosening our grasp on the dependent aspects of our existence in order to be right here, right now. We challenge our ideas about reality by studying the teachings, listening to talks, and discussing the Dharma with others. Throughout the day, we hold the question of the independent dimension of reality: What is it? Where is it? What am I missing when I’m all caught up in my dependent concerns? And during meditation retreats we set aside as many dependent concerns as we can and settle into right here, right now as wholeheartedly as possible.

But our perceptions of the independent dimension of reality may come at any time. Our practice simply lays the groundwork, preparing us and opening us up. You may be looking at a sunset, or listening to your child read a story, or holding a mug of tea, or falling asleep at night. Generally speaking, the moment itself is utterly mundane. Describing it to others later can sound rather ridiculous or unremarkable: “I was riding the bus, and suddenly I realized I wasn’t separate from any of the other people riding it.” Or, “As I watched the steam rise from my cup of tea, I knew everything was just as it should be.” A typical response to telling someone this might, “Oh that’s nice.” As if you just had a nice thought.

But a person of practice will recognize the significance of your experience. For a moment you perceived suchness, a truth about reality that is every bit as true as the dependent dimension we are usually focused on. You can’t hold on to these moments of perceiving suchness, but that’s okay. They change us forever. Just one moment can sustain us for many years, if not a lifetime, especially when we recognize and honor its significance.

Not Misusing the Medicine of Suchness

Both dimensions are simultaneously true, like an object exists in three spatial dimensions. There is no such thing as a two-dimensional object in terms of space. The fact that I am 5’2” tall does not contradict the fact the I am one foot thick. I have to be both.

Similarly, it makes no sense to say “in the dependent dimension such-and-such is the case” or “in the independent dimension such-and-such is the case” as if you can leave one dimension and go into the other. Is also a mistake to think that if you haven’t had a conscious, remarkable of experience of “awakening” to the independent dimension, you only exist in the dependent dimension. This is the kind of dualistic thinking caused by language and concepts, our primary tools for communication.

Yet it is incredibly useful to recognize the different qualities of each dimension and be able to live in a way that acknowledges, and is in harmony with, both.

To use the medicine of suchness to deny the need to behave morally, carefully, and compassionately is utter delusion, and dangerous. It happens. “There is no good and bad, there is no difference between self and other, there is no suffering.” Therefore, I can sleep with my students, or steal from others, or turn a blind eye to the struggles of suffering beings. This is like saying I can walk out on a highway without concern because I only exist in two spatial dimensions.

We need to be careful about using the medicine of suchness as a way to dull our grief, fear, and pain for our own sake. If we misuse this medicine, we may conclude this moment, right here, right now, is precious no matter what, and therefore a moment in the middle of the annihilation of global human civilization will also be precious no matter what, and therefore that annihilation is not a problem. We can go on enjoying our lives as they are and just rely on the medicine of suchness to get us through the rough times.

All the way along, the dependent dimension will also be true. Our well-being is intimately tied to that of every living thing on this planet, and to kill is to kill the Buddha. If we deny this aspect of our lives, we will only be half alive.

But when we are caught up in anguish and fear, when despair is knocking at the door or has already settled on our chest, the medicine of suchness can save our life. We can take a few breaths, center ourselves in our bodies, and recall the independent dimension of reality. Things-as-it-is in all of its luminous suchness, where existence itself is miracle enough.