Happiness of Emptiness. An edited talk
Talk given on Sunday, 21 January 2024. Invitation of Sangha Live
This is an edited/adapted Dharma talk on the Happiness of Emptiness.
I've been around a few years on this Earth, more than most of you. So far, I don't think I have met anybody who does not have a degree of understanding of emptiness, even if she, he or other does not use the word.
Sometimes, we undergo a notable change in a healthy, beneficial and supportive way. As an example, we had a habit, such as smoking or alcohol abuse or changed our diet to vegetarian or vegan. Before, we used to eat animals, birds and fish. We stopped eating creatures. We changed an unhealthy lifestyle in other ways. The habit stopped, meaning that we no longer live in the spell. With hand on heart, we have years of experience to confirm this.
“I'll never go back to that.” You have no doubt about that. You have seen the emptiness of it. One has gone beyond the desire, the craving to eat other species. There might a little whisper, a feeling tone of which has a sense you might slip back into the old habit or pattern in a period of vulnerability. You know the emptiness of the habit. Your confidence, reflection and meditation save you from the downfall. You are happy about that.
I read that public speaking triggers most nervous activity than anything else for many people. Prior to the talk, you felt very agitated, nervous and experienced a sleepless night. Butterflies flew around in your stomach. You prepared your talk well, knowing exactly what you wish to convey. People can ask you questions. After the talk, you feel satisfied, while reflecting on areas to develop.
What was all the fuss about? Beforehand, you felt all that nervousness and sensations in the stomach? Will the audience like me? Will people approve of what I say? What was all that agitation and sleeplessness all about? You have seen the emptiness of nervousness. If you see the emptiness of ego, it will make a real difference to a comparable situation next time.
The seeing of emptiness dissolves manifestations of ego and projections of self. Recognise and acknowledge areas where you have already seen the emptiness of ego. There areas in your life you see the emptiness of an experience in a non-intellectual way, thus taking a key feature out of it -resolving the suffering. You knew it as a problem, such as anxiety, stress or anger. You are happy you no longer see that way.
Photo taken while out walking during a personal retreat on the clifftops near Newquay, Cornwall, England.
With a problem, major or minor, you might require the kind support and good counsel of a friend or professional, who help you to see the emptiness of an unhealthy lifestyle or problematic mind states. So human beings have a natural, I would say authentic, genuine interest to see emptiness. Because then you're seeing the emptiness of troubling situations, freeing you up and releasing natural happiness. Remember the times, experiences and understanding, where you knew, you've seen through a problem - like light at the end of the tunnel. You have moved on from any obsessing. We are not only dealing with problematic life but looking at life mindfully with reflection, interest and inquiry into the nature of things.
For video/audio recording, see the Happiness of Emptiness in list of themes in link below.
https://sangha.live/teachers/christopher-titmuss-bio/
Let us understand the problematic aspect of self. Right now, I sit in front of you. I've got a watch. I asked my daughter, “Why don’t you have a watch?”
She said, “What's the point? I don't need it. I've got a mobile phone. A watch has a single functional use.” Point made!
My mum gave this watch to me on my 60th birthday, nearly two decades ago. The watch appears to have a self existence, separate and independent. I said, “This is my watch.” When we look at the watch, it appears to be a thing of itself. But it ain't. How could it be? If it were a thing of itself, it couldn't change. It would require nothing outside of itself. The ‘watch’ does not have its own existence as it comprises of hundreds of parts put together with human involvement.
If I take it apart, it ceases to be a watch, ceases to be a thing. The watch becomes a multiplicity of things, activities and humans brought together. It doesn't take much for this watch to malfunction or cease to function - one tiny little piece in malfunctions and the watch is useless. The watch stays at the same time. It's stuck and of no use. This fact applies to a watch and applies everywhere, to everything, without exception, in the conventional world that we experience.
All Kinds of Experiences
Everything which comes to our eyes, ears, nose, tongue and touch, every thought, every feeling, every state of mind has no self existence. Causes and conditions bring it together, causes and conditions change it and causes and conditions take ‘things’ apart or cause wear and tear. All things, all sentient life requires support, requires countless conditions, thus remaining empty of its own existence.
When we forget this, we commit a great sin of our species. We think our ‘self’ can control our existence, no matter how much we train the mind. Let me give a small personal example. I practise mindfulness. I teach mindfulness for 50 years but I cannot always remain mindful, even of my keys. Some of us may have two or three sets of our keys for our home. The other day, I could not find my keys anywhere. ‘Where the hell are my keys?’ I got out the second set.
This morning, I put my cup in this large bag of birds seed to fill it up with bird seed to feed the birds in the garden. I love birds. My name is Titmuss, which originates from titmouse, the name of a bird. What did my cup pick out of my 20 kilo bag of bird seed? Yes, my set of keys. It wasn't planned. I didn't organise it. It wasn't intentional. This reminds me I am not in control in these unexpected situations. I haven't got an explanation, except being unmindful.
I see the emptiness of my ideas about how a set of keys ended up in a bag of birdseed. This is life. It's full of emptiness, full of things I cannot explain. I giggled - a happiness of the unexpected. Sometimes emptiness means no explanation, no organisation, no planning, no intention. Nothing rational, yet totally welcome and beautiful.
Be Mindfulness of your Roles
Out of the emptiness comes happiness of our quirky nature in existence revealing jewels of experiences and some of the most beautiful events in life. Be careful with your socialised mind. Be careful with your identification with your roles. Be careful with trying to organise and over plan periods of your existence. You might miss out on the spontaneous and the unimagined. You might miss out on the wonder of life revealing itself in remarkable ways.
In the exploration of emptiness, there is a place for our roles. I'm a servant of the Dharma. That’s a role. I'm a father, a grandfather, a friend and feeder of the birds. Please regard your roles, as much as possible, as a presentation in a particular environment at a particular time. Please be mindful. Don’t invest too much self in your various roles. If you do that, the role will generate confusion and suffering for you. Not because of the role - because the person has left you, nor because your mother won't speak to you, nor because your bosses fired you. If you project into the role dependency on others for your self-worth, you forget the potential for the reaction of others, as well as your own.
We can find ourselves imprisoned in the role. When the role does not function as I want it to, we experience stress, anguish, frustration. Dharma teachings/practices explore the presentations and impact of roles in our life without rejecting their social usefulness. Roles have a relevance but not at the expense of your happiness, not at the expense of your peace of mind.
Even this modest role of being a servant requires the conditions for the role to be possible. The role can't take place without the good presence of yourselves. Our Zoom meeting can't play take place without the screen, without all the cooperation, and it can't take place without many other conditions. The one who teaches needs those with ears to hear. The idea it's all about me and centres around me is mythology. A delusion. When that me, me, me becomes substantial, suffering arises. We can't see outside of ourselves.
Wow. When we see the bigger picture, this frees us up? What does it free up? It frees up happiness through a much bigger sense of things. Seeing the emptiness of ego reveals a liberating movement. Such happiness is precious - an important experience lovely to know.
The Here and Now
In the world of spirituality, mindfulness/meditation, the self can give substance to what is called here and now. Here and now lack substance. Look at the changes that are going on as what arises change and passes. My builder, a meditator, comes to do some maintenance on my home. He said to me, “Houses, like everything else, are on the move little by little.”. I have lived in this house for 40 years. It is slowly changing moment by moment. Nothing is worth holding onto, nor clinging onto. We respond to the changes taking care of the property.
The present condition of my home does not possess self existence but remains under the influence of environmental factors and changes in the passage of time. We need to reflect on our relationship with our home. What shows care - a name for love? What shows neglect - absence of love?
You and I need to have vision, creativity and purpose in life engaging in the past, present and future, not just the present. The here and now have a relationship between yesterday and tomorrow. The past and future lacks an independent self existence – depending on the way we think or interpret the fields of time. Let me take a sideways step here to give authority to the emptiness of self-existence of the present – that it is dependently arising, dependently staying and dependently passing.
To give extra authority to these facts, the Buddha gave 10,000 discourses. Not once, do you find in his 10,000 discourses of exploring the human experience, do you find the words, ‘here, and now’ or ‘the present moment.’ Such words show a freestyle translation of ‘ditthe dharme’ the view (ditthe) of anything often called past, present and future. We don't hold on to the present moment to free the being up in an expansive exploration. In the exploration of the human experience, we appreciate the free up the being by seeing the emptiness of clinging. A happiness reveals itself. There is the seeing/knowing of the timeless, the deathless.
Self-love, Self-help, Self-compassion
We speak of self-love, self-help, self-interest, self compassion and more. The language can be useful. In Dharma, spirituality, psychology and mindfulness, the words have a benefit. Supposing we invest too much in the usefulness, too much about being in the present, we're getting out of touch. Too much self compassion means the emphasis will contribute to being forgetful of what compassion is deeply about – people, creatures and the natural world. Too much working on our self will generate blind spots.
Remember, the happiness of understanding emptiness releases from the deep and beautiful – love, empathy, selflessness, peace of mind and wisdom. If we are too much on the outer, we can give it selfness through noble work, genuine acts of sacrifice and providing a real service for others. If our attention goes too much in that direction, you might receive lots of plaudits from others. “Wonderful work. You're amazing.” Plaudits won't help you - a short feel-good factor. Specific appreciation supports us.
Expansive Vision
Dharma offers an expansion vision, not bound to my self and other, nor neglect of either. Bound to and neglect show the extremes, obscuring the middle way. We learn to see the dynamic of non holding onto self. Some say, “I can't do anything for anybody until I've sorted my life out.” Hang on a minute. This view generates another blind spot. The self again gets an exaggerated importance. We forget we co-exist.
We acknowledge our roles and recognise the importance of love. Be mindful of any kind of clinging whatsoever. Be happy to see the emptiness of ego, unsupportive views and extremism/dualism of self and other.
See the emptiness of the old problematic issue and views. You will find a timeless wisdom and happiness, not bound to past, present and future. Friendship, happiness and wisdom are the natural outcome of the understanding of emptiness.
Emptiness makes everything possible. Don’t forget.
Thank you for lending an ear or two.
Oh, the emptiness of one ear listening.