Thanissaro Bhikkhu at Harvard

Thanissaro Bhikkhu was at the Center for Studies in World Religions at Harvard the other day for a talk entitled "Whatever happened to Emptiness."

For those who are familiar with his prolific writings on Buddhist thought available on the website, accesstoinight.org, Thanissaro comes across as the supreme example of clear, topical and direct elucidation of complex teachings and cryptic messages. His writings on Suffering (And that "Life isn't just suffering"), Emptiness, No Self, Mindfulness and Nibbana, among other things are marked by a certain clarity and simplicty: he seems to understand the common misunderstandings, anticpates sticking points and tries to answer them in uncomplicated language. This is a great service to anyone who begins to get familiar with Buddhism and has to deal with many issues that seem almost esoteric and far-fetched.

His said his talk on Emptiness was prompted by the many questions he has received as to the treatment and teachings on Emptiness in Early Buddhism.

He spoke of 3 kinds of Emptiness teachings in the Pali canon:

- Emptiness of (Mental) Disturbances (caused by one's actions)
- Emptiness of Self
- Emptiness as a state of consciousness (awareness release...letting go of meditative states as one enters them...)

He quoted the Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta in which the Buddha (presumably) admonishes Rahula about he lie he had uttered and tried to cover up.

The teaching (or pattern of action) that emerges from this Sutta, the pattern that Buddha urges Rahula to adopt is one of Integrity, Compassion and Lack of Conceit.

Thanissaro said this pattern of thought is implicit in all teachings of emptiness: to undersand about skillful actions, acknowledge unskillful ones, own up any mistakes and not hold on to any such actions ("lack of conceit")...

He felt that the coming together of the teachings of Nagarjuna ("arising and falling away") and those of the Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 lines (no Arising and no Falling away) influenced the modern teachings in Mahayana on Emptiness -- he seemed unconvinced that these two almost opposite teachings (Arising/NO Arising) could ever be reconciled w/o losing much of the original meaning/intent. And that is why the modern teachings on Emptiness seem so diffuse, so hard to grasp.. (well , they should be :-) )

He also said that Nagarjuna's teaching on "clinging" left out some of the original dimensions of the teaching on "clinging" (Nagarjuna focussed on clinging to views whereas the original teachings also mentioned clinging to patterns and action...).

One of the themes in his talk was the moral dimension in the original teachings which seemed to have gotten dropped with time, especially in Mahayana versions.

One very salient point Thanissaro made was about the use of the concept of a "self": how everybody needs this "sense of self" to function in life...(while hammering away at it to whittle its importance...philosophically)

There were some good (but _very_ predictable) questions after the talk: the Buddha's use of "I" and "I am" (as in "I am awake")...the need to wish happiness for all being (why??)...etc..

I particularly liked his insight into the "need for a self"...ah, that makes me feel better...