Todayand#8217;s FBA Dharmabyte, and#8220;The True Basis of Leafnessand#8221; is a true Dharma gem on the interconnectedness of all things from Paramiand#8217;s talk and#8220;The Awakening Heart.and#8221;
Dharmabytes from free buddhist audio
The True Basis of Leafness
[music] Dharma Bites is brought to you by Free Buddhist Audio – the Dharma for your life. Our work is funded entirely by donations from our generous listeners. If you would like to help us keep this free, make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate. Thank you and happy listening. But the Bites analysis goes ever so much deeper than that and it says, "Well, not only is it that that leaf is impermanent, but there is no thing called leaf which we can take hold of. There are only the characteristics that have gone together. There are only the conditions that have come together. There are only what's known as the attributes rather than an essence to that leaf. So the colour, the shape, the form and the very changing phenomenon itself is the leaf. The change is the leaf. When we look at the leaf and of course we don't see it like that. We might see the change. We might be able to see the particularities of the change. But generally speaking, we fix every single instant of that leaf into something solid and something which has an independent existence. In this teaching, this teaching which says that the leaf has no independent existence, but arises in dependence upon all these conditions and characteristics. It's formed of all these conditions and characteristics. And as those conditions and characteristics change, the leaf ceases to be as it was. That is the teaching of Shunya Ta. That is the teaching of emptiness. Sometimes you could read these terribly laminated tones. The whole school, there's a whole corpus of literature based on emptiness that goes from a one syllable teaching to a hundred thousand lines. They all say the same thing in different ways. They say the leaf has no independent existence. You, I, the universe as we know it has no independent existence. That's what that teaching of emptiness is saying. Now we read that sometimes and maybe you haven't yet come across this. If you carry on exploring Buddhism at some point you will. And people come across it and they think, "Oh my God, emptiness!" And cling into the chair a bit. And certainly it can seem like the great big kind of big bang going backwards or something, you know, the sort of very nihilistic, very, it's saying that there's nothing, there's nothing there, so it's just empty, it's a big black hole. That is no understanding of the teaching of emptiness. For me the teaching of emptiness, and at least I sometimes get glimpses of this, it's hilarious, that it's wonderful and it's joyful because what it's saying is that everything changes, everything moves, everything's alive and full of life. So it isn't that the leaf doesn't exist or that you don't exist or that I don't exist. Of course we have existence, but we have existence of a different nature to the nature that we usually ascribe to out existence, if you see what I mean. We fix out experience, we make a mistake. I think Sanger actually says somewhere something like, "The ego is just one big mistake." You know, so that's all it is really, it's just a big mistake, it's not that we don't exist. It's that we fix that existence and we understand it in a way that isn't actually in harmony with the reality described by the Buddha. The Buddha's reality is that everything changes. The independence print conditions arise of phenomenon with the change in those conditions, the cessation of those conditions, that phenomenon ceases to be. So it isn't that in the existence, in the moment there is no existence, but it's not the kind of fixed, independent existence that we think it is. So that's the kind of philosophical and metaphysical underpinning of interconnectedness. If we think that everything arises in dependence, print conditions, and if we think that everything is part of those conditions, everything is part of the conditions that give rise, we come together in a great dance of life, we come together in a great web of life that arises, exists and falls and has an effect. So at this moment of course you all exist. However your existence is contingent and not absolute, that's the Buddhist teaching, our existence is not independent of, you know, we don't just somehow have inherent existence that comes into being, in some strange and miraculous way and then disappears again. But we actually arise, we come into being, and we at some point, as we know it, will cease to be. So that's the kind of philosophical heart, if you like, of interconnectedness. Now I think when I really get a sense of that, sometimes in meditation, sometimes in all sorts of different ways, sometimes sitting in silence and hear somebody speak, and as they speak I'm touched so deeply, it's as though my own voice is speaking. In all sorts of ways I can have a sense of that, I can sometimes really have a sense in meditation, sometimes after meditation, of really knowing and quite serious and deep level that that sure really is no different from me, from a certain point of view, but it is made of something similar, of course it's different, but that it's all part and parcel of this arising and falling, arising and falling. So in a way then maybe we can come into contact with the more emotional or volitional aspect we hope you enjoyed today's Dharma Bite. Please help us keep this free. Make a contribution at freebuddhistaudio.com/donate, and thank you. [music] [music] [music] [ Silence ]