What do Buddhists mean by the terms “Suchness” or “Thusness”? Over the millennia, Buddhists have employed many concepts to point us toward Reality-with-a-Capital-R, because awakening to Reality is profoundly liberating. This series of episodes discusses five classic descriptions of Reality. In Episode 229 I talked about the first of these, Emptiness (One Reality, Many Descriptions Part 1: Emptiness). In this episode I explore Suchness, or Thusness.
Read/listen to Part 1 or Part 3
Quicklinks to Article Content:
Awakening to Reality-with-a-Capital-R
One Reality, Many Descriptions
Thusness or Suchness as the True State of Affairs
Leaning Into the Gaps in Our Mental Map
The Wonder of Suchness
The Liberation of Thusness
The Two Truths Teaching
We Are Not Separate from Suchness/Thusness
Awakening to Reality-with-a-Capital-R
This is the second episode in my series on Buddhist descriptions of Reality-with-a-Capital-R. The whole idea in Buddhism is that reality is not the problem, it’s our minds that are the problem. Most of us walk around in a self-centered dream most of the time, causing stress and suffering for both self and others. This isn’t a sin, it’s just a side-effect of having brains and bodies that evolved to maximize survival and reproduction for our distant ancestors. Unfortunately, tendencies favored by natural selection were not necessarily those which 1) allow us to form accurate perceptions of reality, or 2) lead to lasting happiness for ourselves or others. Fortunately, humans also evolved the capacities for self-reflection and spiritual practice, allowing us to awaken to Reality-with-a-Capital-R, transcend the limitations of genetics and conditioning, and thereby live much more liberated and compassionate lives.
Waking up to Reality is not an all-or-nothing thing, although we certainly can experience profound and dramatic shifts of perspective on occasion. Reality is multi-dimensional, infinitely complex, and constantly in flux. It is something we live as opposed to something we observe at a distance. Still, our relationship to the true state of things can range from complete ignorance to inspiring intuition to partial clarity to intimate familiarity.
An analogy might be helpful to illustrate degrees of “knowing” the truth about a full, multi-dimensional reality. Imagine you are fascinated by New York City and want to learn all about it. At one point in your life, you didn’t even know it existed. Then you learned where it was and read some of its history. You watched documentaries about it, plus all the movies and TV shows you could find which supposedly took place there. At this point you know a lot more about the city than you once did. Finally, you manage to visit. For a week, you go to all the main tourist attractions – the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn bridge, central park. Now you’re really getting to know New York – the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and full-body experiences. You make a habit of visiting regularly and explore more and more of the city. Eventually you get a job and move there. Living there every day gives you a whole new appreciation for the city and its people, for better or worse. Still, no matter how long you live there, your understanding of New York won’t quite compare to someone who was born and raised there.
Our perception of Reality-with-a-Capital-R is like this. We may gain inspiration and some measure of liberation just by hearing Reality described. Over time, personal experience colors in and fleshes out what was previously just an intellectual understanding. With practice, we can get more and more intimate with Reality, developing a capacity to wake up from our self-centered dream at any moment, look around us, and perceive things without the filter of our mental map.
One Reality, Many Descriptions
Although descriptions of Reality don’t offer us much liberation unless we also practice, they are extremely important in Buddhism. Unless our teachers – past and present – told us there was more to see, we probably would never look beyond the constraints of our limited, self-centered views. Unless they pointed out what to look for, we might miss it, or assume we already found it.
As I discussed in the first episode of this series, Buddhist teachers have come up with many ways to describe Reality, but it’s just one Reality. Sometimes all the different Buddhist concepts and terms can seem daunting, as if liberation is achieved once you master a long list of complex philosophical teachings. However, all the teachings are essentially pointing at the same thing, although different teachings emphasize different aspects of Reality.
To illustrate the relationship between Buddhist teachings and the Reality they are pointing to, in the last episode I used the analogy of trying to describe a sunset. You might measure the light intensity and color changes for the last half hour before the sun sets. You might write a poem about it, paint a picture of it, or photograph it. Any of these portrayals of the sunset will end up emphasizing some particular aspect of it, because by their very nature such expressions can never capture or convey the entire reality of the event. The descriptions of the sunset are different but also overlap in terms of subject matter and intent.
Various Buddhist descriptions of Reality are like this. I’ll briefly review the five classic descriptions I’m covering in this series before moving on to today’s topic, Suchness.
Sunyata, or Emptiness, points to the falseness of the self-nature we project onto all phenomena, including ourselves. All things and beings share the quality of Sunyata, or being empty of self-nature. I discussed Emptiness in the last episode, emphasizing that it does not mean empty of meaning or worth, but free from the limitation of an autonomous, independent, inherent, enduring self-essence. Everything and every being exists in vibrant freedom, in and of itself, while at the same time each thing is fundamentally boundaryless and therefore not separate from the rest of Reality.
Tathata, or Suchness, points to the luminous, miraculous quality of all things in and of themselves, which we perceive once we awaken to Emptiness.
In future episodes, I’ll discuss:
Buddhata, or Buddha-Nature, which celebrates the existence of all beings and things, without which there would be no awakening.
Mind-with-a-capital-M (not the discriminating mind), a teaching which points to the fact that we are not separate from anything in the universe, and that it’s possible to partake actively in a much more expansive Reality than we usually do.
The Two Truths, or the Absolute (Li in Chinese), paired with the Relative (Ri), which points to different ways we interact with Reality, and the importance of expanding our experience beyond the Relative but also not pitting one truth against the other.
Thusness or Suchness as the True State of Affairs
I have discussed Suchness on the podcast before, in Episode 139 – Suchness: Awakening to the Preciousness of Things-As-It-Is and Episode 177 – Unconditional Strength and Gratitude: The Medicine of Suchness. I will try not to simply repeat what I’ve said before, but I’m also not going to worry too much about avoiding overlap. In this episode I’m discussing “Suchness” or “Thusness” as one of many teachings pointing us toward Reality, and what particular aspect of Reality this concept is emphasizing. Like a painting of a sunset over the ocean might emphasize the way all the colors in the sky are perfectly reflected in the water, Suchness is pointing us toward an aspect of Reality it is important for us to experience directly.
In Episode 139, I said Suchness is “how everything is experienced when you see it’s empty.” So, awakening to Suchness is dependent on awakening to Emptiness. You might think awakening to Emptiness would be a largely negative thing, even if such awakening frees us from fear and self-absorption. After all, it’s about recognizing what’s not there – namely, the inherent self-essence we project on to most beings and things, especially ourselves. Like realizing a glass is empty of liquid, we are empty of enduring self-essence.
Okay, so maybe Emptiness means it doesn’t make sense to worry about ourselves so much, but what’s next? Without self-essence is everything also devoid of meaning, of life, of being-ness? Are we like machines made out of flesh, acting out programming with no designer or operator, surrounded by a more or less random assortment of objects? Fortunately, amazingly, the answer to these questions is a resounding no.
The only thing that is missing from Reality-with-Capital-R when we awaken to Emptiness is the mental map we have created to have a sense of control over it. What’s left? Everything else, wondrous in its own-being. Everything is simply thus. It’s only the discriminating mind that finds things lacking.
You’ll notice that I have used both the terms “Suchness” and “Thusness” so far. That’s because both terms are translations of the Sanskrit tathata, or of later versions of this concept, renmo (Chinese) and inmo (Japanese). In his glossary accompanying his translation of Japanese Zen master Keizan’s Denkoroku, T. Griffith Foulk offers the following definitions:
thusness (Sanskrit tathata). An expression that indicates “things as they are,” but without saying what they are like. A way of referring to reality in and of itself, which is beyond the reach of any ultimately true linguistic designations. Frequently translated as “suchness.”
such (Chinese renmo; Japanese inmo). (1) A Chinese colloquialism dating from late Tang times that was originally an adverb meaning “in this way,” “this,” or “so.” It also came to be used as an indefinite pronoun translatable as “this kind of [thing],” or “such [a thing].” (2) In the literature of Chan/Zen, the term “such” is also used as a synonym of “thusness.”[i]
Leaning Into the Gaps in Our Mental Map
Questioning our mental map of reality is necessary for us to perceive suchness. We need to practice sitting and letting go of all willful mental discrimination. Gradually, we become comfortable with a different way of being and become able to perceive things without reference to self.
Perceiving suchness isn’t necessarily something that happens to us during a profound and dramatic moment on the meditation seat, although it might. Instead, the opportunity to experience this aspect of Reality-with-a-Capital-R may come at any moment. As we go about our lives, momentarily we may perceive gaps in our mental map – moments of silence, moments without narrative, assumptions, resistance or grasping. We are more likely to experience such moments if we regularly meditate, and practice mindfulness consistently in our daily life. However, sometimes a sudden change in the landscape of our life may leave us, at least temporarily, without a useful mental map.
At first these gaps in our mental map may seem vaguely distressing. Things may seem stark, or foreign. The simplest things – the carpet, the wall, our hand, our breath – may appear as things we’ve never perceived before. Everything may seem strangely disconnected from us, because before everything was neatly knitted together in our self-centered narrative and now we don’t know how to relate to it.
When people encounter these gaps outside the context of practice, they usually try to rebuild their mental map as quickly as possible. The territory around us may change unexpectedly but we can start rebuilding our map quite quickly. Our disorientation in the meantime is viewed as inevitable discomfort or pain, a symptom that will go away once we recover.
But Buddhism suggests that we move toward these gaps, and then relax into them and explore them. As Leonard Cohen sang in his song “Anthem,” “There is a crack… in everything/ That’s how the light gets in.”[ii]
The Wonder of Suchness
When we lean into the gaps in our mental map, when we are courageously present even when we aren’t clinging to a sense of control or a sense that we know, we have the opportunity to perceive “things-as-it-is.” Things-as-it-is was a phrase used by Shunryu Suzuki Roshi. I quoted from him in Episode 139 but I’ll go ahead and share this quote again because it’s so brilliant:
Small mind is the mind that is under the limitation of desires or some particular emotional covering or the discrimination of good and bad. So, for the most part, even though we think we are observing things-as-it-is, actually we are not. Why? Because of our discrimination, or our desires. The Buddhist way is to try hard to let go of this kind of emotional discrimination of good and bad, to let go of our prejudices, and to see things-as-it-is.[iii]
Of course, Suzuki Roshi’s phrase is not grammatically correct because it mixes plural and singular. Instead of saying “things-as-they-are” he said “things-as-it-is,” but I do not think this was simply because he spoke English as a second language. Reality-with-a-Capital-R is exactly as Suzuki Roshi’s phrase describes – simultaneously one, seamless Reality, and the independent manifestation of an infinite number of beings and things.
When we awaken to suchness, we perceive things and beings and situations in their Own-Being – their own unique manifestation as opposed to their relationship to or utility to us. A mug that we usually only see as something to hold our tea, or perhaps something we enjoy looking at, or something associated with a good memory we have, we suddenly perceive as an amazing thing unto itself. It doesn’t matter if the mug is beautiful, tacky, expensive, or lying in a garbage heap. The mere existence of it, independent of any self-centered narratives, desires, or views, is as remarkable as the Big Bang.
When we are open to Thusness, it can seem like everything is alive in a certain sense – like each and every thing is speaking to us, although not by using words, or even conveying any kind of message. Each thing is simply speaking, expressing, it’s Being, with its being, by being. Suchness is often described as “luminous” and “bright,” not so much because things appear physically light instead of dark (although sometimes they do), but because of the way Own-Being seems to shine radiantly out of everything.
In his essay “The Reality of All Things,” Zen master Dogen describes Reality this way (this translation by Kaz Tanahashi):
Actualizing buddha ancestors is reality thoroughly experienced. Reality is all things. All things are reality thusness; original nature thusness; body thusness; mind thusness; world thusness; cloud and rain thusness; walking, standing, sitting, and lying down thusness; sadness, joy, motion, and stillness thusness; staff and whisk thusness; taking up the flower and smiling thusness; inheriting dharma and giving predictions thusness; studying and endeavor of the way thusness; pine purity and bamboo joints thusness.”[iv]
Because each and everything is Thus, we are also Thus, and all things share this luminosity. Utterly free from evaluations based on relative judgements, not subservient to externally defined purposes, everything is luminous, complete, and precious. Independent of our expectations, judgements of good or bad, and our ideas about the way things “should” be, things-as-it-is is absolutely miraculous. Even if human beings destroy themselves through climate change and ecological destruction, which they seem hell-bent on doing, things are Thus. Dogen mentions cloud and rain thusness, inheriting dharma thusness, and bamboo joints thusness, so of course there is also human folly thusness, missed opportunity thusness, and grief thusness.
The Liberation of Thusness
The shift from our limited, self-centered view of the world to one that includes Suchness is massive and transformative. At first, we may think we have glimpsed a special realm or attained a special state, but this is wrong. Over time, when we integrate our insight, we realize that things-as-it-is envelopes every cell of our being, and always has. It is only our small mind that gets in the way of our perception of it.
Direct, personal experience of the Suchness aspect of Reality is immensely liberating. 12th Century Korean Seon master Chinul, explained in “Secrets of Cultivating the Mind” (translation by Thomas Cleary):
…in the state where all things are empty, open awareness is not obscured; this is not the same as being insentient. The release of your own spirit is the pure substance of your mind, with open awareness of empty silence. And this pure, open, tranquil mind is the supremely pure luminous mind of the Buddhas of past, present, and future. It is also the essence of awareness that is the root source of all living beings. Those who realize this and keep to it sit in one suchness and are immutably liberated.[v]
It is so easy for us human beings to be imprisoned within our small, self-centered worldviews. Before awakening, we think that view is the extent of Reality. When our lives are going well, we may feel okay. Difficult circumstances, however, may make our lives torment. Even we’re not miserable, we feel inexplicably ill-at-ease, wondering whether we’re missing something essential, anticipating the loss of everything we care about, or suffering in sympathy with other living beings.
When we expand our perspective to include the Suchness of things-as-it-is, we find out that everything is okay after all. We are like actors in a play who have suddenly realized they are in a play. Previously, we were thrown into anguish when our character suffered misfortune or failed to achieve the object of our longing. Now, we continue to act our part but it’s impossible to take everything quite so personally. Instead, we can engage in the play with joyfulness and curiosity. Once we know for ourselves that we live in a single, bright, seamless Reality populated by an infinitude of miraculous manifestations of Own-Being, the drama of our personal life takes on secondary importance.
The Two Truths Teaching
Now, the first question that arises for people around the teaching of Suchness is, “What about…!” What about all the suffering and injustice in the world? Are you saying that it’s precious?! Miraculous? Does Thusness mean we shouldn’t discriminate good from bad? Should we take the medicine of Suchness so we can feel equanimity in the face of injustice and destruction?
This leads us to another description of Reality, the Two Truths teaching, which I discussed in depth in Episode 74 and 75, on Sekito Kisen’s Sandokai: The Identity of Relative and Absolute. I will also revisit this teaching in a future talk as part of this series, but suffice to say for the moment that according to this teaching, Reality has two aspects. These are often called “absolute and relative,” but they go by many names (such as essential and contingent, whole and particular). As I’ve discussed before, I like the terms “dependent dimension” and “independent dimension.”
The dependent dimension is the dimension of space, time, and causality. Along this dimension there is most definitely harmful versus helpful, self versus other, just versus unjust, moral versus immoral. The dependent dimension is the obvious one, along which our life unfolds. The independent dimension isn’t really a dimension at all, at least not physically. It is only right here, right now. It is things-as-it-is – the seamless, boundaryless Reality of this moment. It can’t be grasped, because the moment we grasp it, it has already passed and we are just making discriminations along the dependent dimension of reality.
The central message of the Two Truths teaching is don’t ever set the independent dimension against the dependent dimension, or vice versa. That is not how reality works. Both dimensions are simultaneously true and do not interfere with or obstruct each other in any way, just like each of the spatial dimensions. The fact that I am 5’2” high does not contradict the fact that I am 1 foot thick. Indeed, if I had no depth or width, I would not have any height.
The Two Truths means that you have fallen into an intellectual trap as soon as you find yourself denying the dependent dimension (e.g. causality, the need for morality and hard work, the need to discriminate helpful from harmful) because of the beauty of Suchness, or you find yourself denying the beauty of Suchness because of the reality of the dependent dimension (suffering, injustice, pain, loss, etc.).
It takes training to hold the two aspects of Reality in your mind at the same time. We need to stretch our capacity, increase our tolerance for ambiguity, and let go of our need to understand and control everything with our small minds. As Chan master Sheng Ts’an said in his poem “Faith in Mind” (translated by Chan Master Sheng Yen):
The Way is perfect like great space,
Without lack, without excess…
If the mind does not discriminate,
All dharmas are of one suchness…In the Dharma Realm of true suchness,
There is no other, no self.
To accord with it is vitally important;
Only refer to not-two.
In not-two all things are in unity;
Nothing is excluded.[vi]
Before we can embrace the Two Truths, the perfection we sometimes glimpse seems at odds with the horror and misery we know the world contains. When we no longer set the independent dimension against the dependent dimension, we see how something can be horrible and not excluded from things-as-it-is. This is surprisingly comforting and gives us great strength as we engage with the world and try to be of benefit.
We Are Not Separate from Suchness/Thusness
Perhaps you are nodding when I describe Suchness, having experienced it for yourself. Perhaps you feel like you have no idea what I’m talking about and the whole concept seems very inaccessible – like a special dimension you have yet to access, or a transcendent spiritual state you have yet to attain. As soon as we name something “Suchness,” we create a problem because our minds are naturally dualistic, making “me” into one thing and “Suchness” into another.
In the Platform Sutra, the monk Chi Ch’eng illustrates to the Sixth patriarch that he has understood the patriarch’s teaching by saying (translation by Price and Mou-lam):
To hold that there is a Tathata (Suchness) for us to aim at or to return to
Is another example of ‘Impure Dharma.’[vii]
The Sixth patriarch approved of what Chi Ch’eng said, so clearly it is a misunderstanding to imagine some “Suchness” that we should awaken to. How then are we supposed to awaken to Suchness? This is not a simple matter.
I recently quoted from a Dogen fascicle in my Episode on Bodhi-Mind, which relevant again here. In fact, this fascicle is called “Thusness.” (Translation by Kaz Tanahashi):
One day [Yunju] said to the assembly, “You are trying to attain thusness, yet you are already a person of thusness. As you are already a person of thusness, why be worried about thusness?”
…[Dogen continues] Because of thusness, you arouse a boundless aspiration for enlightenment. Once this aspiration arises, you let go of what you have been playing with. You come forward to hear what you have never heard and realize what is not yet realized. This is not at all self-doing. Know that it is so because you are a person of thusness.
How do you know that you are a person of thusness? You know it because you want to attain thusness. As you already have the face and eye of a person of thusness, do not worry about thusness now. Even if you worry, it is thusness not to be worried about.[viii]
If we throw ourselves into practice, the process will take care of itself and Thusness will become apparent of its own accord. Even our struggles are included.
I’ll end by once again sharing a piece of wisdom about Suchness from scholar Thomas Kasulis, which I found quoted by Taigen Dan Leighton in his book, Just This Is It: Dongshan, and the Practice of Suchness. Regarding the Japanese term immo, Kasulis says:
This term is often improperly construed substantially and metaphysically as “Suchness.” [But it] is not a thing; it is a way things are experienced.[ix]
Read/listen to Part 1 or Part 3
Endnotes
[i] Foulk, T. Griffith, Editor-in-Chief. Record of the Transmission of Illumination, Volume II: A Glossary of Terms, Sayings, and Names pertaining to Keizan’s Denkoroku. Translated by T. Griffith Foulk with William M. Bodiford, Sarah J. Horton, Carl Bielefeldt, and John R. McCrae. Tokyo, Sotoshu Shumucho and Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press, 2021.
[ii] https://www.google.com/search?q=leonard+cohen+crack+in+everything
[iii] Suzuki, Shunryu. Branching Streams Flow in the Darkness: Zen Talks on the Sandokai. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1999. Page 29-30.
[iv] Tanahashi, Kazuaki, trans., ed. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo. Boston, MA: Shambala Publications, 2010. Chapter 51.
[v] Cleary, Thomas, trans. Minding Mind: A Course in Basic Meditation. Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, 1995.
[vi] Sheng Yen. Faith in Mind: A Guide to Chan Practice. Dharma Publishing, 1987.
[vii] Price, A.F. and Wong Mou-lam (translators). The Diamond Sutra and the Sutra of Hui-Neng. Boston, MA: Shambala Classics, 2005.
[viii] Tanahashi, Kazuaki, trans., ed. Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dogen’s Shobo Genzo. Boston, MA: Shambala Publications, 2010. Page 519
[ix] Leighton, Taigen Dan. Just This Is It: Dongshan and the Practice of Suchness. Boston, MA: Shambala Publications, 2015. Page 9.
Picture Credit
Image by israelbest from Pixabay
