One Mind Zen Collective

Freedom in Vast Emptiness

'Nothing' is Empty

Nothing is Empty

Everything is empty

Form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness are empty

Suffering, origination, stopping, path are empty

Enlightenment is empty

Delusion is empty

Emptiness is empty

All concepts are empty.

One of ZM Seung Sahn’s students once asked whether a female can be enlightened—apparently there had been some consternation about that at one point—the best a woman could hope for was rebirth as a male. He said no. Then he went on to explain that “woman” can’t be enlightened. “Man” can’t be enlightened. Don’t make man, don’t make woman. 

Let’s say you rent a new apartment or move into a new house. The previous Tennant’s furniture, paintings, lawnmower, all gone. You feel very satisfied, very hopeful. You may say to yourself, “How wonderful, it’s totally empty.” It’s open, and full of potential, and that you think of as a good thing. But let’s say you come home after a night out sometime, and you see your house has been burgled, totally cleaned out, even your lawnmower. You may think of the house being empty in that case I not so good.

DT Suzuki said that all conditioned phenomena is characterized by emptiness. That’s a clever way of saying that if you can see, hear, taste, touch, smell, or think it, it’s empty. Emptiness is conditioned by other factors, not the least of which is our thinking.

It just means they’re all dependent upon something else, that there impermanent, always changing. Our feeling about them changes. Our perception of them changes. If we use our senses to perceive an object and form some sort of consciousness about them, they’re empty. No eyes, no ears, etc. until no realm of mind consciousness as the Heart Sutra says.  That realm of mind consciousness is the thinking dependent upon the sensory perception of an object.

"Be Your Own Refuge"

The Buddha said to Subhūti: “The bodhisattvas and mahāsattvas should subdue their thoughts like this: All the different types of sentient beings, whether they be born from eggs, born from a womb, born from moisture or born spontaneously; whether or not they have form; whether they abide in perceptions or no perceptions; or without either perceptions or non-perceptions, I save them by causing them to enter nirvana without remainder. And when these immeasurable, countless, infinite number of sentient beings have been liberated, in actuality, no sentient being has attained liberation. Why is this so? Subhūti, If a bodhisattva abides in the signs of self, person, sentient being, or life-span, she or he is not a bodhisattva.”

Bodhisattvas don’t come to save the day. They don’t do it for praise, fame, fortune, to accumulate merit, or even for a Great Cosmic “Attaboy.” It’s our true nature to help, and when one is helped, all are helped. Although it appears that there are countless separate sentient beings, the reality is that there’s only one, albeit with countless personalities.

Myeong Jin Eunsahn gave the Dharma talk February 26, 2025.

And you’re in it, right now, right where you are…and you’d know that if your mind is pure. If you suffer from greed, anger, and delusion, you’re still in the Pure Land, you just don’t realize it. In the Vimalakirti Sutra, the Buddha teaches that the reason we don’t realize this world is the Pure Land is because think it’s seem imperfect. It’s not as if the pure land has changed to an impure land; we aren’t seeing correctly, nothing else. When the Mind is pure, the understand Buddha fields are pure.

If we live according to our Bodhisattva Vows, if we practice the Six Perfections, if we manifest the Four Immeasurables, in other words, if we do what we’re supposed to be doing, then our Mind is right. We intuitively know what function is correct in what situation and in what relationship. And when our Mind is right, then we can see that our Awakened True Nature has been attained right here in this Pure Land.

Then we can go out into the marketplace and help all those who are suffering that they can go out and help someone else who is suffering, and so on, until all sentient beings can realize that this is it. Just this.

Myeong Jin Eunsahn gave the Dharma talk February 12, 2025.

Have you ever noticed that all the Sutras start with, “Thus have I heard?” Or maybe what you’ve read started something phrased differently. All the written Suttas & Sutras are based upon Ananda’s prodigious memory. It was’t until hundreds of years after Ananda’s death that any of the Buddha’s sermons were written down. Then these were translated into Pali, then Sanskrit, then probably a few more local dialects and languages, then Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, English, German, French, and all the rest. 

All the Buddhist scripture we have, all the writings of Nagarjuna, Ashvaghosa, Wonhyo, Jinul, Bodhidharma, and the rest are one big game of telephone. From translation to translation, even in just one level there can be variations. Go from Sanskrit to all the others mentioned above, there are bound to be differences; different translators will translate the same writing from Chinese into English and come up with different words. 

Going from some languages like Chinese to English are never one-for-one. The Chinese character is a representation, not spelling. It’s not like “chat” in French = “cat” in English. The best we can hope for is that the translator captures the spirit of the teaching, and that we don’t get hung up on one version of something. 

In his talk of November 20, 2024, Min’Ui Maitri points out that he found 23 translations of the Xinxin Ming, without even trying. They’re all relatively close to one another, some possibly embellished more than others, some more literal. We can have favorite translations that work for us, even in the case of a teaching whose opening line is “The Great Way is easy for those not attached to preferences.” 

How many versions of the Heart Sutra have you heard? How about the Four Great Bodhisattva Vows? Does one translation render all others incorrect because the words differ? Sanghas can prefer one version of a chant or a teaching, and Sangha members will get used to them, and may be taken aback when they hear to a different way. But that doesn’t make the other versions used in other Sanghas heretical.

“There’s something happening here, and you don’t know what it is…”

Certitude is the gateway to hell. Assuming we have a handle on what is happening, making sense of it, can be very comforting. It helps us cope with what can seem to be a horrifying life full of suffering and lack of control. But like all coping mechanisms, they work…until they don’t.

Or…

That “not-knowing” is also the gateway to freedom, liberating us from our “Little-I” lives and giving us the opportunity to experience emptiness (shunyata) as complete boundlessness rather than a void. Keep this Don’t-Know Mind, answer “What is this…” with “Don’t Know,” and become open to all things being possible.

"Now What?"

(This talk was given November 6, 2024, one day after the election in the US).

The “elephant in the room” is that today, slightly more than half of the populace is gleeful, slightly less than half is sad. Taking either glee or sadness to the extreme is obviously missing the Middle Path, that sense of equanimity, one of the virtues that’s part of our practice. Dae Soensanim Seung Sahn called the balance the Primary Point. The Third Patriarch termed the “Great Way easy for those not attached to preferences.”

Granted, today might be difficult to manifest equanimity. And it might be even more difficult to manifest sympathetic joy (Skt. Mudita) toward that slightly more than half the population. And that portion of the population may not be inclined toward lovingkindness (Skt. Maitri) or compassion (Skt. Karuna). These and wisdom are the Four Perfections, how we avoid picking and choosing. Not exhibiting them certainly makes the Great Way difficult.a way to make it beyond difficult would be to show schadenfreude, taking pleasure to the bad fortune of another, 180 degrees away from Mudita. Wisdom (Skt. Prajna)  from either side might be a stretch. 

But, as elections, political parties, voting, and so on are subject to causes and conditions, are therefore empty. Fair enough and, gloating and moping are both impermanent, so they’ll pass. But empty or not, there are consequences to these causes and conditions, and that is reality. Our practice is to experience reality directly. Whining or whooping aren’t acknowledging reality. There’s way too much “I, I, I” involved in them. So we have to accept reality, including the outcome of the election, as well as whining and whooping because they’re part of it also. 

But acceptance doesn’t mean passive acceptance. Zen practice is active. We don’t have to settle. We acknowledge reality being the result of causes and conditions. And if it happens that there is some harm being done as part of this karmic outcome, passivity is not doing our duty as bodhisattvas. We save all beings, not just the slightly more than half, not just the slightly less than half, or the indifferent; we are part of “all” too. So we need to act wisely, show the wisdom to practice the other three Immeasurables, and take actions that will indeed save ALL beings, including ourselves.