Cracking the Walnut, page 6
We all object to Nāgārjuna and say that while the action of going is happening there is going. How could there not be? The action of going proves that there is a time of going in the present moment, which means that there is an action of going and a time of going; going has a framework—the time of going.
How do we understand the word “go”? To go in this case means to go out of sight: having been something, to become nothing. There is going and arriving, but where do you come from? In your mind you think that at birth, you automatically become something from nothing. You have a concept of coming into existence or of coming into being. Previously something did not exist, and then, automatically, it started to exist. “Arriving” means this: it was not before, but now it is. And what is “going”? Going means going out of existence.
In the teachings of the Buddha, nirvāṇa is non-arriving and non-going. As far as our daily life is concerned, we perceive arriving and going. This is the conventional truth. Looking deeply, however, we see no arriving and no going. This is the ultimate truth. Nāgārjuna’s purpose was to throw open the hatch of conventional reality so that we can see into the depths of ultimate reality. The Diamond Sutra says that wherever there is a sign (an object of perception) there is deception. We are caught in and deceived by the sign arriving and then going. Nāgārjuna says: “Dear friend, don’t be deceived! Let me tear apart the veil of notions.” He uses dialectics in order to show us that what we call “arriving” does not truly exist and that what we call “going” does not truly exist either.
There are many ways that lead us to the truth. The Vijñānavāda school examined the characteristics of phenomena, while the Dharma-nature tradition examined the underlying essence. Nāgārjuna used the method of dialectics.
In the second verse Nāgārjuna presents to us objections of people who reflect our own misunderstanding. Just like them, we also understand that when we haven’t yet gone, there is no going, and that when we have gone, we also cannot see the going but that, clearly, at the time of going, the going is really there. How could we say otherwise?
Nāgārjuna continues: “How, at the present moment of going, could there be a going?” How could it be possible that at the time of going we can see the truth of going? Before a woman has gone, she is still alive. When she passes, we say she has gone. But while she is on her deathbed, she is not going anywhere; she is still alive. The time of going in the present moment is an idea and so is the going. Before we go we do not see going, and after we have gone we do not see going. Even at the time of going we do not see it!
The practice of meditation requires us to look deeply. There are things that a superficial look will not reveal. When we speak of “going,” we mean there is both a goer, who performs the action of going, and the action itself, which is the going. If there isn’t a goer, how can there be going? We are getting in touch with a basic Buddhist teaching: there is neither an actor nor an acting. Going is an action. The subject who goes and the act of going are based on the premise that there is a present time of going. For the whole time of the action there is presumed to be an actor and an act.
In Plum Village we usually learn that the past has already gone, the future has not yet come, and there is only the present moment. We come close to following the doctrine of Nāgārjuna’s opponents when we say that there is no past and no future, that there is only the present and that we have to live the present moment deeply. However, when we say this we are aware that we are speaking in terms of conventional truth and not of the ultimate truth. According to the conventional truth we are eating and we are going to bed; we use personal pronouns like you, we, and I to distinguish one person from another. But if we tear apart the net of conventional truth, we are able to see the ultimate truth.* The language of the second verse employs the conventional truth. Nāgārjuna does not deny conventional truth, but he wants to tear it apart to reveal the ultimate truth.
The theories of the Sarvāstivāda School represent analysis at its peak. These theories say that reality is simply atoms (aṇu) and instants (kṣaṇa) in an attempt to prove the teaching of no self. According to this theory there is nothing eternal, enduring, or unchanging. When faced with the problem of how these atoms and instants relate to each other to give the impression of a continuous life force, the Sarvāstivāda school resorts to a theory of self-nature (svabhāva).
Consider again the example of the woman. When she is young she is called a girl, later she becomes a wife, a mother, and in the end even a grandmother. Therefore, although the girl, the wife, the mother, and the grandmother are four different roles, there is something underneath that connects them—the self-nature. This teaching is dangerous and can devalue the Buddhist teachings. The idea of a self-nature can lead people to conclude that a self underlies all the things we consider nonself.
Nāgārjuna was perturbed by this and so in the first chapter of the Verses on the Middle Way he aimed his bayonet at a self-nature. When we say someone goes, there is clearly an entity that does not change, at least for the time that the going is happening. Once we establish a subject, we establish a self.
If we are in touch deeply with the present moment, we see that it contains the past moment and the future moment. We see that the past has not gone anywhere at all! It is still complete, right there in the present moment, and it has the form of the present moment. Our happiness and suffering from the past are in the present moment. If we are in touch deeply with the present moment, we are also in touch with the happiness and the suffering of the past. If a past wound has not yet healed, it is still there. Some unkind words spoken to our mother are still there unless we have taken the time to transform them and to begin anew.
If we touch the present moment deeply, we can also be in touch with the future. In Plum Village we learn that to worry about the future is useless—the way to ensure a beautiful future is to take good care of the present moment. Taking care of the present is the only way we can build a future. Although the future has not yet come, we can already be in touch with it. Everything we do for the present, we do for the future. To be in touch with the present is to be in touch with the past and the future. This is the view of interbeing. We do not simply say, “The past has already gone, the future is not yet there, there is only the present moment.” Our present moment cannot exist independently from the past and the future. Even though we say that the past has already gone and the future is not yet here, the truth is that our practice reveals that the past and the future are found in the present moment. This insight of the Avataṃsaka Sutra—that the one contains the all—is followed closely in Plum Village; it helps us not get caught in the notions of permanence or a self.
When we hear the Buddha say that the past is no longer there and the future has not yet come, we have to understand his words intelligently. If we think that the Buddha negates the past and the future and only recognizes the present, we have not understood. Past, present, and future are all ideas. The correct understanding is that the past contains the present and the future; the present contains the past and the future.
The American philosopher William James, in his work The Principles of Psychology,* discussed the notion of the present moment. He wrote that the present is not a knife-edge with no duration. The present always has its own duration. We sit on that duration of time as on a saddle looking at the past and the future.†
Nāgārjuna’s opponents argued that there is a person who is going during the time of going, even if that time is no longer than ten or twenty milliseconds. However, according to the teachings on impermanence, the person who was going in the previous instant is not the same as the person who is going in the following instant. Thus in contemplating the time of going we see that there isn’t really a person going. If there is a person who is going, then there is a self, but if there is not a person who is going, how can there be the act of going?
In 1968 I came up with a poem called “The Great Lion’s Roar” while I was in the British Museum. This poem came from my insight and not from fanciful imagining. The poem begins like this:
Clouds float, white clouds float;
the sweetbriar blooms.
Floating is the clouds;
blooming is the flower.
If there were not the cloud, how could there be the floating? And if there were no flower, how could there be blooming? How could we understand this stanza without knowing that it arose from meditation? The poem continues:
One sweetbriar blossom opens.
White clouds float in clusters.
Without clouds there is no floating;
without flowers there is no blooming.
Clouds are the floating.
Flowers are the blooming.
If there is no subject, there is no action, but if we acknowledge there is a subject, we also acknowledge a self. In reality that acknowledgement is not correct, because everything changes at every moment. If finding the subject is not possible, how can there be an action?
How could the fact of going be there during the time of going? This means: How, at the time of going, can you find the action of going? If there is no fact of going, how can there be a time of going? If, as it seems, there is no act of going, how can there be a time of going?
When we look at an unlit match we cannot see the flame. When we strike the match we see a flame and we say, “The flame has arrived!” If the flame exists, it has come from somewhere into existence. We ask: “Where did the flame come from?” It arrives as a real entity from a place of nonexistence. “It arrives” here means from nothing it becomes something. Arriving means coming into existence. In the action of arriving there must be a subject which arrives, but where do we find this subject? Who are you? Why have you come here? Who am I? What brought me here? That is our gong an.* Someone comes, but who is that someone? It is like the gong an in the Chan school: “Who is reciting the Buddha’s name?” Those who practice this gong an should know that Nāgārjuna also practiced like this; he can help us practice it successfully.
The flame is gone! Do we feel some regret or miss the flame? Where did the flame go? Did it really go? Was there a time of its going? And how long did it take to go? We are restless people, busy making a living, building our houses, looking for work, and taking care of our children. Do we have time to look deeply into concerns like this that are so essential to our lives? We are alive, but we do not know who we are. The flame comes as if it were a self. It is still there, but we know that tomorrow, or in the next moment, it will not be there anymore.
Now the flame has gone. Before it went, we did not see its going. Now that it has gone, we do not see its going. When it went, we did not see a time of going, not even if that time was only a millisecond. Why? Because there is no subject that goes, and thus there is no action of going.
The Manifestation-only school found a way to reveal what Nāgārjuna shows using dialectics. Manifestation-only means there is only manifestation—there is no arising or coming into being; there is no destruction, there is only hiding. There is no coming and no going. The Manifestation-only way of looking is a different way of looking that can help us understand this. We ask, “Where is the flame?” “Who are you? You will come, but where will you come from?” We say, “You will be born and then you will die.” This is how we see things. In truth, if we look carefully we see that nothing is born and nothing dies, nothing arrives or goes away. When certain conditions come together, you manifest; when conditions are no longer sufficient, you hide. The Manifestation-only way of looking helps us to see this. If you look deeply according to the Manifestation-only school teachings you will also see the nature of no-coming and no-going in everything.
When an acquaintance or a loved one hides we do not weep, because we know that it is not a departure. It is not that they have become nothing after being something. They have not gone out of existence. When they are manifesting we do not say they have come into existence, and when they die we do not say they go out of existence. We only say that somebody has gone out of existence because we grasped onto the idea that they were really existing while they were manifesting. When they go into hiding we cling to the idea that they no longer exist.
No coming and no going is the practice of freedom—of nirvāṇa. There are people who translate the word nirvāṇa into English as freedom. Freedom is freedom from ideas; it is not being in the grip of ideas of being and nonbeing, of coming and going. Nāgārjuna has his way of helping us to find freedom and likewise Asaṅga, a founder of the Manifestation-only school, has his way of helping us to find freedom. I also have my own ways of helping you to find freedom; for example by writing calligraphy that reads: “You are not a creation, you are a manifestation.”
The term manifestation can help us to overcome our ideas of birth and death and our ideas of coming and going, but if we are not cautious we can still become caught and think there is someone who is manifesting. We have to see manifestation in the light of impermanence and nonself to dwell in the insight of the Buddha.
Let’s try practicing by contemplating a flame. Normally we see the flame in terms of signs—that is, based on its usual appearance. Are you able to see the signless nature of the flame? Can you see the flame in the sulfur, in the wood, and in the oxygen? We know that without oxygen the flame would not be able to manifest. We need to be able to see the flame apart from its usual appearance. The same is true for the Buddha. We need to be able to see him in a signless way. The Buddha taught:
If you see me in form,
or search for me in sound,
you are practicing the wrong path,
and cannot see the Tathāgata.*
This is to say that the people who want to see the Buddha by looking at his outer form or find him by listening to his voice are going on a mistaken path and will not see him. The verse tells us to look for the Buddha with the eyes of signlessness. We have been looking with the eyes of signlessness for the flame; once we can see the flame in this way, then we can also see the Buddha and ourselves. We find the flame, the Buddha, and ourselves by looking deeply to see that the flame cannot be contained in the mental boxes called coming or going, still there or no longer there, being or nonbeing. Only when we see this are we able to see the nature, or suchness, of the flame. Once we have seen the flame in this way we will also be able to see the Buddha, our beloved, and our enemy in the same way. Our mind will then be completely empty, no longer in the grips of any idea or notion. We will be able to say, “My dear little flame, I have seen you! Your nature is neither being nor nonbeing, neither birth nor death. When conditions come together we see you. When we see you we do not have ideas that you exist or do not exist. When you manifest, we perceive that you are not being and at the same time you are not nonbeing, so when you cease to manifest what reason is there for us to cry? We see very clearly that your reality does not come or go, and we are no longer caught in the ideas of coming and going.” This is a great freedom!
To practice the Buddha’s teachings is a great happiness; it gives us a good chance of being in touch with the freedom we call nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa lies in the present moment. The flame abides in nirvāṇa. We long for or miss the flame because we are not there with it in nirvāṇa.
4. It is a mistake to say that there is going
during the time of going.
Without going, how could the time of going
go by itself?
若言去時去
是人則有咎
離去有去時
去時獨去故
The time of going here represents the actor who is doing the action. There must be a subject who goes in order for the going to take place, but we cannot see any subject going! Instead of a subject that goes, the opponent in verse 2 says that the going takes place only with the time of going. Thus we would have to conclude that it is the time of going which goes, and not the subject of the action which goes. By illustrating this absurdity, Nāgārjuna drives his opponent into a place where they have nothing more to say.
There are three ideas: the idea of something that goes (the subject of the verb), the idea of going (the verb), and the idea of the time of going. During the time of going we have the impression that these three things exist. Looking with the light of impermanence and nonself, we see that there is no one going. If there is no one going, how can there be going? How can there be what we assume is a time of going? Is there any good reason for saying that the time of going goes on its own?
Now we will practice looking with the light of manifestation, non-manifestation, and conditioned co-arising. When we look at the flame carefully, we see that it does not really arrive. In the idea of arriving there must be something arriving, and if we say that there is something arriving it means that it already existed before arriving. If it already existed, it does not need to come into being. We learned this in the last chapter: If the effect is already present in the conditions, it does not need to arise anymore. In this chapter, Nāgārjuna is not using the word “arise” but rather the word “arrive.”’
If there is arriving, there must be something arriving! If there isn’t a subject of the verb, how can there be the verb? If there isn’t a cloud, how can there be floating? And if there isn’t a flower, how can there be blooming? Thus the idea of arriving is unreasonable unless there is something arriving. However, if there is something arriving (arising), then that thing has already arrived and there is no longer any need for the action of arriving.
Right now we are caught in the idea that the flame exists. We are not aware that a flame, seen in the light of conditioned co-arising, is being born and dying in every moment. Its nature is impermanent and nonself, it is neither being nor nonbeing, neither arriving nor going. We are caught in the idea that the flame has arrived and that it exists. Due to this idea, we later become caught in the idea that the flame has gone and that it no longer exists. If by looking into the flame we are able to see its nature of no arriving and no going, of no being and no nonbeing, then, after the flame no longer manifests, we will not be caught in the idea of nonexistence or departure and we will not need to lament or to grieve. We know that what we call going is simply going into hiding.
