Lojong Slogan 14: See confusion as Buddha and practice Emptiness

[Janet Gilmore]

The traditional translation of this week’s slogan is a bit obscure – Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata protection.  I’m not sure if Norman Fisher’s version is much easier,  See confusion as Buddha and practice emptiness, but at least it gives us a chance to defer the discussion (until later down the page) of the four kayas and sunyata. 

Let’s look first at the context of this slogan in the Lojong Pratice.  We have been practicing with Point 3, "Transformation of Bad Circumstances into the Path of Enlightenment (Practice of Patience)."  The first 3 slogans seem to have something to do with outer circumstances or other people and we have been learning to practice patience with those types of bad circumstances. Slogan 11 had to do with misfortunes, mishaps or circumstances that were not to our liking. Slogan 12 refers to all mistakes that we tend to want to blame on others. Slogan 13 gets to the heart of our relationship with other people and reminds us to be grateful to everyone, even the irritating people that get a rise out of us, even those that we think we have no reason to be grateful to.  Now, with slogan 14, we are dealing with confusion, or unwanted emotions or mental states that are clearly emanating from our own minds. 

Let's start by considering what is meant by confusion.

Confusion might arise as our mind’s reaction to a new circumstance or experience. I’ve been taking piano lessons for the last few months and have had lots of opportunity to encounter this type of confusion.  Even though I actually love learning something new, I am very impatient with myself when I am not proficient. I have watched my reactions when I am learning a new part, looking at a measure of notes on a sheet of music and trying to absorb so many things at once: tempo, interpretation of note, right hand, left hand and the almost impossibile task of translating all of it into hand and finger movements.    For a second, it’s just a few black marks on a page. Then my mind gets engaged with the interpretation and suddenly those black marks  becomes my nemesis and carry with them frustration with myself and a rapid-fire narrative of conscious and mostly unconscious memories of failure.  The mental journey from "black marks on a page" all the way to "giving up piano lessons because I just will never be able to do it” only takes a few seconds and that is one form of confusion.   

Confusion is also a polite way of referring to our minds capacity to freak out. On my 18th birthday, I remember an episode of confusion (aka freak-out) that arose from nowhere, that I couldn’t pin on any outer circumstances.  I was a freshman in college and I was suddenly overwhelmed by a very dramatic confusion about my life. I remember having these deep feelings of being lost with no answer to life’s most pressing questions:

• “Who am I?”
  
• “What I am supposed to be doing with my life?” 
  
• “What difference does anything make when we are all going to die anyway?”  
  
• “I’m 18 - a grown up - and I have no clue.”
  
• "How do I get my boyfriend to act and feel like I want him to?”

Haven’t we all encountered this kind of confusion?  Maybe not a full-blown freak-out, but those moments when  the normally well-hidden narratives about ourselves arise from seemingly nowhere and we feel we have to respond to them or resolve them or make them disappear because they make us very, very uncomfortable.    I remember how confused and freaked out I felt that night and the next day all of the confusion had just evaporated without any need for resolution.

Confusion could be far less dramatic. Confusion arises whenever a crack appears in the matrix of our mind’s normal reality.  By that I mean, whenever we begin to question our usual mode of believing our thoughts to be real. All thoughts are ephemeral and arise from nowhere. But this is how not we have been trained. We have been trained to respond to all our thoughts as if they were the Ten Commandments or something. Thoughts just arise and then they just dissolve.  If we are practicing meditation, we are well aware of that.  Most of our mental day is comprised of nonsense, a to-do list or just a beautiful song lyric stuck in your head.  “Why do you build me up, buttercup, baby, just to let me down?” That thought arises and we don’t try to make sense of it or take it as an instruction we have to follow or a problem we have to resolve. Why do we treat any other thoughts that pop into our heads as substantial?   

This slogan is about how we practice with confusion, whether it is a dramatic freak-out confusion, confusion born of encountering a something new, or simply our tendency to believe and engage any random thought that arises from nowhere.  Confusion or freak out is just a thought and, like all of our thoughts, they are empty of substantial existence. They arise from nowhere, have no permanent status and dissolve right back into the same nowhere they came from.  This slogan suggests that we recognize confusion in this way. And not only that, we can see confusion itself as part of and inseparable from the awakening process.  When we say confusion or thoughts arise from nowhere, what we are really saying is they arise from the great emptiness, the great flow of reality, causes and conditions from beginingless time.  Every thought arises from our dynamic and interconnected true nature, Buddha nature. If we accept confusion as the natural and inevitable part of our journey,  part of our spiritual path, it becomes a method of waking up in this very moment.  Another way of saying this — experience confusion as it is, let go of judgement and the struggle to resolve confusion, and this experience itself reveals itself as vivid awakening.

Let’s talk a little bit about the traditional translation of this slogan, Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata protection.  The four kayas is often translated as the four bodies of the Buddha or four layers of reality:   Dharmakaya, Nirmanakaya, Samboghakaya and Sbhavavikakaya.  The four kayas have layers of meaning and the explanations of the meaning of the four kayas have seemingly infinite dimensions (just like reality) but in the interest of brevity, I’ll paraphrase Pema Chodron’s definition:

• Dharmakaya -the basic space from which everything arises, emptiness, true nature of reality
  
• Nirmanakaya - emptiness manifesting as form
  
• Sambhoghakaya - energetic and fluid aspect of reality, vivid awareness
  
• Sbhavavikakaya - the integration and inseparability of the first three
  

The traditional translation of this week’s slogan is a bit obscure – Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata protection.  I’m not sure if Norman Fisher’s version is much easier,  See confusion as Buddha and practice emptiness, but at least it gives us a chance to defer the discussion (until later down the page) of the four kayas and sunyata. 

Let’s look first at the context of this slogan in the Lojong Pratice.  We have been practicing with Point 3, "Transformation of Bad Circumstances into the Path of Enlightenment (Practice of Patience)."  The first 3 slogans seem to have something to do with outer circumstances or other people and we have been learning to practice patience with those types of bad circumstances. Slogan 11 had to do with misfortunes, mishaps or circumstances that were not to our liking. Slogan 12 refers to all mistakes that we tend to want to blame on others. Slogan 13 gets to the heart of our relationship with other people and reminds us to be grateful to everyone, even the irritating people that get a rise out of us, even those that we think we have no reason to be grateful to.  Now, with slogan 14, we are dealing with confusion, or unwanted emotions or mental states that are clearly emanating from our own minds. 

What is meant by confusion? There are varieties of confusion and it might be helpful to consider a few of them. 

Confusion might arise as our mind’s reaction to a new circumstance or experience. I’ve been taking piano lessons for the last few months and have had lots of opportunity to encounter this type of confusion.  Even though I actually love learning something new, I am very impatient with myself when I am not proficient. I have watched my reactions when I am learning a new part, looking at a measure of notes on a sheet of music and trying to absorb so many things at once: tempo, interpretation of note, right hand, left hand and the almost impossibile task of translating all of it into hand and finger movements.    For a second, it’s just a few black marks on a page. Then my mind gets engaged with the interpretation and suddenly those black marks  becomes my nemesis and carry with them frustration with myself and a rapid-fire narrative of conscious and mostly unconscious memories of failure.  The mental journey from "black marks on a page" all the way to "giving up piano lessons because I just will never be able to do it” only takes a few seconds and that is one form of confusion.   

Confusion is also a polite way of referring to our minds capacity to freak out. On my 18th birthday, I remember an episode of confusion (aka freak-out) that arose from nowhere, that I couldn’t pin on any outer circumstances.  I was a freshman in college and I was suddenly overwhelmed by a very dramatic confusion about my life. I remember having these deep feelings of being lost with no answer to life’s most pressing questions:

• “Who am I?”
  
• “What I am supposed to be doing with my life?” 
  
• “What difference does anything make when we are all going to die anyway?”  
  
• “I’m 18 - a grown up - and I have no clue.”
  
• "How do I get my boyfriend to act and feel like I want him to?”

Haven’t we all encountered this kind of confusion?  Maybe not a full-blown freak-out, but those moments when  the normally well-hidden narratives about ourselves arise from seemingly nowhere and we feel we have to respond to them or resolve them or make them disappear because they make us very, very uncomfortable.    I remember how confused and freaked out I felt that night and the next day all of the confusion had just evaporated without any need for resolution.

Confusion could be far less dramatic. Confusion arises whenever a crack appears in the matrix of our mind’s normal reality.  By that I mean, whenever we begin to question our usual mode of believing our thoughts to be real. All thoughts are ephemeral and arise from nowhere. But this is how not we have been trained. We have been trained to respond to all our thoughts as if they were the Ten Commandments or something. Thoughts just arise and then they just dissolve.  If we are practicing meditation, we are well aware of that.  Most of our mental day is comprised of nonsense, a to-do list or just a beautiful song lyric stuck in your head.  “Why do you build me up, buttercup, baby, just to let me down?” That thought arises and we don’t try to make sense of it or take it as an instruction we have to follow or a problem we have to resolve. Why do we treat any other thoughts that pop into our heads as substantial?   

This slogan is about how we practice with confusion, whether it is a dramatic freak-out confusion, confusion born of encountering a something new, or simply our tendency to believe and engage any random thought that arises from nowhere.  Confusion or freak out is just a thought and, like all of our thoughts, they are empty of substantial existence. They arise from nowhere, have no permanent status and dissolve right back into the same nowhere they came from.  This slogan suggests that we recognize confusion in this way. And not only that, we can see confusion itself as part of and inseparable from the awakening process.  When we say confusion or thoughts arise from nowhere, what we are really saying is they arise from the great emptiness, the great flow of reality, causes and conditions from beginingless time.  Every thought arises from our dynamic and interconnected true nature, Buddha nature. If we accept confusion as the natural and inevitable part of our journey,  part of our spiritual path, it becomes a method of waking up in this very moment.  Another way of saying this — experience confusion as it is, let go of judgement and the struggle to resolve confusion, and this experience itself reveals itself as vivid awakening.

Let’s talk a little bit about the traditional translation of this slogan, Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata protection.  The four kayas is often translated as the four bodies of the Buddha or four layers of reality:   Dharmakaya, Nirmanakaya, Samboghakaya and Sbhavavikakaya.  The four kayas have layers of meaning and the explanations of the meaning of the four kayas have seemingly infinite dimensions (just like reality) but in the interest of brevity, I’ll paraphrase Pema Chodron’s definition:

• Dharmakaya -the basic space from which everything arises, emptiness, true nature of reality
  
• Nirmanakaya - emptiness manifesting as form
  
• Sambhoghakaya - energetic and fluid aspect of reality, vivid awareness
  
• Sbhavavikakaya - the integration and inseparability of the first three
  

Simply stated, the four kayas are the 4 dimensions of all our experience.  We can transform our confusion into the path of awakening by seeing it for what it is — as another manifestion of the four kayas and as awakening itself. When we realize the truth of reality of emptiness, we realize there is nothing to protect and furthermore we realize that even confusion, whether it is ours or anothers, is a manifestation of buddha nature, of emptiness.

"All experience is empty, vivid, and the two together heighten awareness. These three qualities are inseparable. Experience your life this way." - Ken McLeod

I'm sure we will be able to get into deeper layers of this slogan at our discussion tonight, Thursday, at 6:30, 6017 Abilene Trail.

Hope to see you there.

love and gratitude,

Janet