Guo Gu, contributor to the “Glimpses of Buddhanature” function within the Fall 2023 situation of Buddhadharma, shares the apply of contemplation of listening to, a apply rooted in a way for awakening attributed to the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara.
Photo by Franco Antonio Giovanella on Unsplash
In a part of the Shuramgama-sutra, the Buddha invitations twenty-5 completely different bodhisattva practitioners to elucidate to the remainder of the meeting how that they had reached awakening. When it’s Avalokiteshvara’s flip, the bodhisattva offers an outline of his technique of apply, the contemplation of listening to. The sutra says:
Thereupon Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva rose from his seat, prostrated himself along with his head on the ft of the Buddha and declared: “I nonetheless keep in mind that lengthy earlier than numbers of eons numerous because the sand grains within the Ganges, a Buddha known as Avalokiteshvara appeared on the planet. Under Him, I gave rise to the Bodhi Mind. I used to be instructed by Him to enter samadhi by the use of the listening to, considering, and practising. At first, amidst the stream of listening to, the thing of sound ceased. Having stilled the listening to [of sounds], the attributes of sounds and silence additionally ceased to come up. Gradually progressing on this method, the listening to and that which was heard ceased. Even when that state by which every part had come to an finish disappeared, I didn’t relaxation. Then, consciousness and the objects of my consciousness have been emptied, and when that strategy of emptying my consciousness was completely perfected, even that emptying and that which had been emptied ceased. Then, arising and ceasing ceased to be; excellent extinction [i.e., nirvana] manifested.
Avalokiteshvara started by listening to all of the cries of the world, which is sound, however then the sound disappeared. That’s the primary stage of Avalokiteshvara’s apply, when the thing of sound ceases to be.
His description presents six levels of apply:
- Amidst the stream of listening to, the thing of sound ceased.
- Having stilled the listening to of the sound, the attributes of sounds and silence additionally ceased.
- Gradually progressing this fashion, listening to and that which is heard ceased.
- Then consciousness and the thing of consciousness have been emptied.
- And when that strategy of emptying the attention was completely perfected, even that emptying and that which has been emptied ceased.
- Then arising and ceasing ceased; excellent extinction, nirvana manifested.
What do every of those levels imply?
The First Stage
First, sound ceased. What this implies is that the meditator has stopped making distinctions between sounds and silence. In truth, silence is a sound from the standpoint of listening to. The listening to school can hear what we sometimes contemplate to be sounds, like birds chirping or vehicles driving by, however it will possibly additionally hear silence, or the absence of particular sounds. As one meditates on listening to—versus sound—the excellence between sounds, or between sounds and silence, will finish. One will merely be experiencing listening to. At first, sounds will not distract. As discriminations and wandering ideas diminish, sounds can even diminish, leaving solely silence. The undeniable fact that that is the primary stage shouldn’t counsel that that is simple. Usually, we’re continually pulled by sounds, and on the idea of that, give rise to all types of discriminations. So attending to this stage requires regular focus.
The purpose we hear particular sounds is as a result of we selectively, by means of our discrimination, grasp at and reify the sounds that look like outdoors of us. The unusual fragmented thoughts grasps at these sounds, makes an attempt to determine them, and locations them in relation to our sense of self. However, on this meditation, you could begin by listening to a delicate, regular sound. However, as soon as the thoughts settles, you will need to strive to not deal with the sound however on the listening to itself. Why? Because sounds are perceived as a consequence of our discriminating thoughts. However refined the discrimination is, it nonetheless hinders the event of deeper focus. So once we begin by listening to a sound, the thought is to simply let the sound come to you. Be like a sound-absorbing board, absorbing any sound again to silence.
At this primary stage, as you loosen up your physique and floor your self into the sound, focus will develop. Proceeding like this, you could really feel like there’s a physicality to sound, and listening to the sound can really feel like you’re embodying the sound—like it’s going by means of you, subtly vibrating in you. As discrimination diminishes, sound will start to fade, leaving you with simply listening to. As the thoughts turns into extra simplified, concentrated, and unified, one hears silence. There is not any factor that’s heard. Into this stream of experiencing listening to, there isn’t any longer any “object of sound.” Just silence. That’s the primary stage.
The Second Stage
In the second stage, the attributes of sound and silence stop. It’s value understanding what this stage represents as a result of it’s a deep apply that cuts in opposition to our habits of thoughts. Unfortunately, the English phrase “attribute” doesn’t fairly seize the complete which means and nuance of the phrases utilized in Chinese or Sanskrit. In Sanskrit, there are two phrases associated to the idea of “attribute,” every with their very own which means, generally overlapping. One is nimitta, and the opposite is akara. These phrases confer with elements of our expertise. For instance, on this meditation, on the first stage, the thoughts inevitably reifies the silence, holding on to it as an object of meditation. But what are you holding on to? You’re holding on to the nimitta, a rough signal or type of that experiencing; there’s a refined labeling of this signal as “silence.” This labeling of understanding is said to language, which is an indication, a psychological assemble, a kind. At this stage in meditation, as a result of sounds have ceased, the thoughts experiences listening to itself and naturally experiences the “silence,” and it’s reified as a factor, a nimitta. But right here is the place nimitta (the label) overlaps with akara (a perceptual picture).
When you hearken to sound, together with silence, you suppose you’re listening to the thing, however you’re listening to your assemble or illustration of it. It appears so actual, as whether it is on the market, simply as you hear it. But your mind has by no means been on the market; it has by no means contacted something on the market. Your mind is within a darkish cranium. What is it experiencing? A psychological assemble, neurosynaptic alerts. In Buddhism, this signal or assemble known as akara. Normally, individuals can’t distinguish between the notion and this signal as a result of the method works so quick as a result of it’s instantaneous. But in reality, there’s a hole between experiencing the thing as it’s, pure notion free from constructs, after which the following second the place the assemble is simulated.
In the second stage, the “attributes of sounds and silence” (i.e., the akara) have ceased—you’re merely listening to, with none function of sound or silence. Thus, on the second stage, when Avalokiteshvara says the attributes of sounds and silence ceased, meaning there are not any psychological constructs. It is a “signless” contemplation. Not solely is there no nimitta, however thoughts can also be not producing akara.
Most of us expertise the world by means of a lens of phrases and language. We are, in any case, linguistic beings. Very subtly, even when it’s an unformed considered a phrase, there’s very refined language working. And meaning we’re not really experiencing others and issues as they’re. We are literally experiencing our personal assemble, filter, overlay. For instance, maybe you see somebody dressed a sure method strolling down the road, and also you spontaneously kind a judgment, like, he’s this or he’s that. We’ve all finished that. There are not any apparent phrases going by means of our minds; it’s an unformed idea based mostly on language, however there’s nonetheless numerous judgment and expectations of what an individual ought to seem. At the core, these are linguistic judgments, even when they don’t seem by means of apparent phrases. We’re citing reminiscences by means of affiliation, which flood and filter the current expertise. On the idea of those overlays—what we convey to the expertise—we make additional predictions and compartmentalize the notion pretty much as good, unhealthy, ugly, fairly, attraction, repulsion, or no matter descriptor we really feel suits. We expertise the world by means of these attributes or indicators. Neuroscientists name this course of “interoception.” This is the community of inside processes of intrinsic mind exercise, the place thousands and thousands of nonstop neurological and synaptic predictions of sensory experiences happen in each second of life.
How can we free ourselves from mistaking the indicators we attribute to issues with the issues themselves? How can we expertise issues as they’re? We can’t suppose our method by means of it as a result of pondering is a strategy of partaking in indicators. We can’t understand awakening by studying dharma books as a result of that’s simply extra phrases, extra indicators. Reading is important at first to develop an accurate view of apply, however we now have to transcend our deep-seated behavior patterns of greedy at issues by means of language. How can we do this? We can’t rely on ideas as a result of indicators are routine, and so they exist on the superficial layer of our minds. They are fragmented. Their distinct options are fragmentation, scatteredness, linking the previous to future to current, regularly transferring. So how can we cope with scattered ideas? We will need to have a way, (a nimitta), we should study to stick with the tactic and study to loosen up, floor, and embody it with contentment. However, our routine tendency is that we love every part else besides the tactic. We are at all times being pushed by craving, due to this fact cultivating a sense tone of contentment is vital. If you kickstart your meditation with contentment and love of your technique of apply, bringing your consideration to the tactic time and again with appreciation, then the thoughts will seemingly study to stick with it.
As focus turns into extra refined, staying with the nimitta of listening to, passing from scatteredness to focus, the signal (of sounds or silence) diminishes. When sounds vanish, there’s solely silence as a nimitta. When even this nimitta vanishes, there’s nonetheless an akara, the perceptual picture. It occurs actually quick, prompt by prompt by prompt, second to second to second. That’s why it’s essential to stick with the freshness of every second, as a result of in that freshness, akara (perceptual picture) additionally vanishes. The fact is that you’re, prompt by prompt, really experiencing the state free from these perceptual pictures. All by means of your life, you might have been experiencing it. However, we’ve mistaken the subsequent second of thought, which is the akara (a picture of what we’re experiencing), to be the expertise. In the freshness, you’re experiencing issues as they’re.
Moment to second, sight, sound, odor, style, contact, thought—you’re already free, experiencing issues as they’re in its freshness. Yet, usually we seize onto the subsequent second, after the freshness, reifying the freshness as a factor. At this stage of apply, even when the thing presently is simply this freshness, consciousness is there in that second. Awareness, freshness, and current second: these three are one. But we should know that there’s no such factor as “current second.” That’s simply one other label. Present second shouldn’t be a “factor”—similar to there’s no such factor as self, which is only a flux of psychosomatic occasions we assemble. It’s simply experiencing.
The Third Stage
This brings us to the third stage, “when listening to and that which is heard have ceased.” Even although the experiencing of freshness is current, there may be nonetheless a refined type of duality. When listening to and the thing of listening to stop, there may be solely experiencing. Sometimes, individuals name this pure consciousness. However, the phrase consciousness is used so broadly that it has misplaced energy, and infrequently, what individuals confer with as consciousness is definitely self-consciousness. I exploit the time period “experiencing” so as to not present any reified notion of self. Regardless of the phrase used, the third stage is simply the momentary expertise of experiencing, and it has change into palpable.
The Fourth Stage
At the fourth stage, it says that “consciousness and the thing of consciousness (or experiencing and the expertise of experiencing) have ceased.” You can consider “consciousness” or “experiencing” as an enormous umbrella underneath which several types of experiencing—of sight, of listening to, of style, and contact, and so forth—are current. In this case, experiencing listening to. At the third stage, the listening to and the heard drops, with solely consciousness or experiencing current. This experiencing might be grasped as self, which is an much more refined stage of discrimination.
The Fifth Stage
What occurs when “consciousness and the thing of consciousness have ceased”? In different phrases, when experiencing as experiencer drops? What stays? What’s current? Emptiness is current.
At this fifth stage, when experiencing is let go of, there arises the expertise of vacancy, a hollowness, an openness, freedom. Self continues to be current; right here, vacancy is grasped as self. For this purpose, on the fifth stage, “vacancy… and the emptied ceased.” There is a letting go of this expertise of freedom and emptying. This refers to a shallower type of awakening by which a self briefly vanishes, however there may be nonetheless a refined greedy, taking that vanishing, the vacancy, the liberty one has attained as a factor. Many Zen and Buddhist practitioners who expertise shallower states of awakening can flip round and fasten to that awakening as some type of realization and provides rise to vanity. Their awakening has change into a factor. Thus, it’s essential for the emptying to stop. This freedom have to be dropped. From the Mahayana perspective, this letting go of realization is prajña—the knowledge of going past.
The Sixth Stage
And then the sixth stage: rising and ceasing itself, which is start and loss of life, has ceased.
That’s why there may be excellent extinction, which is real nirvana of the buddhas.
Just Keep Going, Like Avalokiteshvara
There are a few essential ideas offered by this course of. First, it’s essential to have the right view. The right view is, you’ve been experiencing freedom all of your life, but it surely will get confused with notions and concepts. Words, language, and perceptual constructs get confused with the precise expertise itself. We have mistaken our personal overlays of issues as issues themselves. And it goes on so instantaneously that we’ve been duped. Know that freshness is at all times already current. This mistaken identification is one thing that happens instantaneously and habitually. Most persons are unable to acknowledge this refined greedy. So the right view is that whereas freedom is already current, the apply is, then, to not get caught up with our personal self-referential overlays.
Second, humility. Understand there are ever extra subtler, deeper layers of expertise than no matter you suppose you’ve attained. So don’t be happy with just a bit. Avalokiteshvara wasn’t. He mentioned, “Even when that state by which every part had come to an finish disappeared, I didn’t relaxation.” The method our self-referential greedy manifests are refined. So, hold going. Practice continues.
Start with sound and stick with that till you begin to embody the sound. That’s the start stage of oneness of technique and your self. Once your discriminating thoughts diminishes, the sound will change into silent. You’re naturally steered towards listening to versus the sound that’s heard. Then, while you let go of this assemble of listening to, there may be simply experiencing, which is listening to—vivid, with out label, simply freshness. As you let go extra, that experiencing is emptied. And even this vacancy have to be dropped. Even probably the most refined type of identification with arising and ceasing, movement and stillness, coming and going, freedom and liberation have to be dropped.
Be affected person. Don’t contrive. Don’t fabricate these levels. Humility. Never give rise to self-consciousness. Don’t stand outdoors your self and examine, How am I doing? Don’t take your self as an object and criticize it. All of those are types of self-greedy. Don’t get caught up with something, nice or disagreeable. Be affected person and protracted. Go slowly, stage by stage, and grasp nothing, search nothing. Start with listening to and experiencing. Just hold going, like Avalokiteshvara.
The discuss on the Heart Sūtra on which this text is predicated, and the accompanying meditation, have been recorded and are posted on the Tallahassee Chan Center YouTube Channel right here (the discuss) and right here (guided meditation)