Insubstantiality and the Bodhisattva's Vows

Mar 12, 2024

For the last two months, I have been diligently studying In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pāli Canon, edited and introduced by Bhikkhu Bodhi, as part of my participation in a winter practice period. At first, the selections were accessible, inspiring, and thought-provoking. Because of my time with the anthology, at least three articles appeared here on Substack. You can find links to them at the bottom of this article.

We are approaching the end of the practice period, and with that end comes another—the end of the anthology. The readings are no longer reaching for my attention; it feels as though they are actively encouraging me to close the book.

Last week, I was eyeballs deep in a chapter titled “Shining the Light of Wisdom.” Where is wisdom shining its light? On many lists, that is where—many lists that contribute to a great deal of head-spinning, trouble focusing, and wondering what is in the fridge, even though I looked inside only five minutes ago.

We read about the Five Aggregates subject to clinging, the Six Internal and External Sense Bases, the Elements, either eighteen, four, or six in number, the Twelve-Linked Chain of Dependent Origination that can be explained in at least twelve different ways, including the Forty-Four Cases of Knowledge, the Four Noble Truths, the two elements of Nirvana and the Thirty-Three Synonyms for Nirvana. There are more lists. I trust, however, that you get my point.

Most of these lists are designed to outline, from one point of view, how suffering arises and how we can bring about its cessation. By the way, it is not by not reading the lists. We learn that suffering arises when we either become attached to something or we come to identify with something.

In the former case, we suffer when we cling, for example, to a particular physical appearance because we believe it is essential to our happiness and well-being. Such clinging brings suffering because all things are impermanent. We lose part of what we consider essential to our happiness and well-being, necessarily.

In the latter case, we suffer, for example, when we identify particular feelings or thoughts as who we are and others as who we are not. Such identifications bring suffering because all things are impermanent. We lose parts of what we consider to be “our self,” necessarily, and in their place arise things that we consider to be not “our self,” necessarily.

How do we stop the cycle of suffering? By shining the light of wisdom on the Aggregates, the Sense Bases, the Elements, and so forth. By direct experience, with support from conceptual understanding, we realize, “This is not mine, this I am not, this is not my self.” We see from many different points of view that we are attaching to and identifying with things that are impermanent, cause suffering, and are not who we are. With consistent practice, in time, the attachments and identifications cease. We put an end to the rounds of rebirth and attain Nirvana.

That is the story told, anyway.

As I finish this visit with some of the Pāli Canon’s many lists, I am left with a strong impression of their “impersonality.” I feel their coolness, the almost clinical way they analyze and categorize the human experience from different perspectives. The “I” of the human experience feels insubstantial, too.

This may be an intended effect. In a selection from Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.95, for example, we read that bodily or physical form, “whether past, future, or present, internal or external, gross or subtle, inferior or superior, far or near,” is like a lump of foam. Specifically, after someone with good sight inspects, ponders, and carefully investigates it, it is found to be “void, hollow, [and] insubstantial.”

The same comparison is made between feelings and water bubbles that arise and burst on the surface of the water when it is raining; perceptions and shimmering mirages that appear mid-day during hot weather; volitional formations and someone searching for heartwood in the trunk of a large banana tree; and various kinds of consciousness and a magician’s magical illusions. All of them, too, when someone with good sight inspects, ponders, and carefully investigates them, are found to be “void, hollow, [and] insubstantial.”

All right. But why, I ask, is discovering this important? To stop the cycle of suffering, I read again and again. But at what cost? I feel compelled to reply. The determined effort to bring about the cessation of suffering through penetrating conceptual analysis seems to result in more than just the end of suffering. Also gone are joy, dancing, laughter, color, and moments of divine-like inspiration that spur splendid bouts of creativity. “Please come to my void, hollow, and insubstantial party!” said no one, ever.

I am being a little dramatic here, but only a little.

You might say that this approach to the Dharma, the Buddha’s teachings, is expected of the Pāli Canon. You might mention the cultural and historical climate. You might remind me of its intended audience. Yet this same emphasis on insubstantiality appears elsewhere.

The Diamond Sutra, for example, closes with the following verse:

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As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space
an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble
a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning
view all created things like this.

Notice that the verse closes with the instruction to view “all created things” as temporary and fleeting and, therefore, as “void, hollow, [and] insubstantial” as illusions, waterfalls, bubbles, dreams, and clouds. Not only the parts of sentient and non-sentient beings are like this.

The seventh chapter of the Vimalakīrti Sutra also exhibits this extension of the “insubstantial perspective” to whole beings. The sutra develops it in its own way, too.

The chapter opens with Mañjuśrī, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, asking Vimalakīrti:

Good sir, how should a bodhisattva regard all living beings?

Vimalakīrti responds by offering thirty-four comparisons. I will refrain from listing all of them. We do not need yet another list. Here, though, are some personal favorites:

As a wise man regards the reflection of the moon in water
Like the seventh sense-medium
Like the existence of desire, hatred, and folly in a saint
Like thoughts of avarice, immorality, wickedness, and hostility in a bodhisattva who has attained tolerance
Like the perception of color in one blind from birth
Like the track of a bird in the sky
Like the erection of a eunuch
Like the pregnancy of a barren woman
Like fire burning without fuel
Like the reincarnation of one who has attained ultimate liberation

The list offered by Vimalakīrti is striking because of its progression from familiar examples—also mentioned are the lump of foam, bubbles, mirages, trunks of banana trees, and the magician’s illusions—to “things” that seem of an altogether different category. A lump of foam, though “void, hollow, [and] insubstantial,” still exists in some sense. We can inspect it, ponder it, and investigate it. But the perception of color by someone blind from birth, the erection of a eunuch, or the pregnancy of a barren woman—how do I inspect, ponder, and investigate these, again, “things”?

I have brought the Vimalakīrti Sutra into this reflection because it cannot be dismissed easily. Its star character is a layperson, not a monastic. Vimalakīrti is a householder whose spiritual accomplishments rival, if not surpass, those of the monastics and various deities. And he is completely immersed in the dusty, mundane, and topsy-turvy world. Vimalakīrti shines, showing us that the whole of a Buddhist life is available not just to those with shaved heads and broken-colored robes. It is open to everyone. The sutra, perhaps more than any other, is talking to us.

Still, it is part of that life that all living beings are regarded like the sound of an echo, like a mass of clouds in the sky, like a tortoise hair coat, like a third rebirth of a once-returner, like the unproduced passions of an emanated incarnation of the Tathāgata. The examples are “void, hollow, [and] insubstantial.” Many are conceptually incoherent, too. That, we read, is how “a bodhisattva who realizes ultimate selflessness consider[s] all beings.”

It is unsurprising, therefore, that Mañjuśrī follows Vimalakīrti’s response with another question. Above, I asked: But at what cost? Mañjuśrī asks the same question, only more directly:

Noble sir, if a bodhisattva considers all living beings in such a way, how does he generate the great love (mahāmaitrī) towards them?

How indeed.

The bodhisattva is the central figure in Mahāyāna Buddhism. How we understand what it means to be a bodhisattva varies from tradition to tradition, within any tradition (for example, Zen or Soto Zen) from particular lineage to particular lineage, and within any specific lineage (for example, the Phoenix Cloud lineage of Soto Zen) from practice center to practice center.

Still, we can approach the bodhisattva's shape by considering The Four Great Bodhisattva Vows. These are, in Sino-Japanese and English:

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SHU JO MU HEN SEI GAN DO
BON NO MU JIN SEI GAN DAN
HO MON MU RYO SEI GAN GAKU
BUTSU DO MU JO SEI GAN JO

Beings are numberless; I vow to serve them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
Buddha’s way is unsurpassable; I vow to become it.

The first vow is my focus here. It states that beings are numberless—a more literal translation might read, “all beings without exception” (衆生無辺)—and I vow (誓願) to serve them (度). A more literal translation of the final ideogram might read, “to take over to the other shore,” a familiar metaphor for transitioning from the world of Samsara to the world of Nirvana. Hence, there is a variety of one-word translations of it: “enlighten,” “free,” “liberate,” “save,” and “serve.”

For all beings without exception, I vow to bring them to the other shore.

Vows are usually not made carelessly, on a dare or whim, or without a strong feeling of something as motivation and support. Perhaps vows cannot be made in these ways—the act somehow “short circuits,” it necessarily fails to succeed when absent is some condition or set of conditions.

Suppose that you were playing basketball, for example. The ball is passed to you, and you start to perform a jump shot. As you pull up, though, the ball suddenly disappears. Still, you complete the motion. Did you perform a jump shot, though?

Can a vow be made carelessly, on a dare or whim, or without a strong feeling of something as motivation and support? That is the question.

Something.

What is this something?

Mañjuśrī’s second question to Vimalakīrti suggests a response. In it, he mentions “the great love,” which feels threatened in light of Vimalakīrti’s list.

Another term used alongside “the great love” is bodhicitta. Often, bodhicitta is translated as “the mind of awakening” or “the thought of enlightenment.” I continue to prefer, though, Pema Chödrön’s “awakened heart,” which arises when “we can no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence.”

How does the heart awaken when the teachings show all beings—all created things—are “void, hollow, [and] insubstantial”? How are we put in touch with the “vulnerability of our condition” and “basic fragility of existence” when the lessons lead to an altogether different place—conceptual incoherence? Without “the great love” or bodhicitta as motivation and support, how can I possibly say:

For all beings without exception, I vow to bring them to the other shore.

How.

There seems to be such an acute incongruity here. The repetition of the word how is a cry for some relief. I certainly feel it. I wonder if you do, too?

It is very tempting to stop writing with the previous question. There is something attractive about leaving things there—mostly because I do not need to address the question. That would be nice, indeed.

Yet, I feel compelled to try out the beginnings of a response that has appeared while writing this article. So, here it is.

What keeps us from remaining in touch with the great love, the awakened heart? The immediate response is judgment—both classificatory and evaluative, which I write about elsewhere. They support and manifest as attachments and identifications, thereby creating suffering.

More often than not, I notice how my judgments “stick” to other people—either to a person’s character or to a person’s behavior, whether a single instance or perhaps a discernable pattern. I just cannot seem to remove them a lot of the time. She constantly behaves in such-and-such a way, which means she is this kind of person. He is this sort of person, which means that he often behaves in ways that are so-and-so. You are welcome to identify particular instances of these general constructions in your own life.

What are the teachings on insubstantiality—or emptiness, another name for them—continually showing me, though? From many different points of view and many ways within a particular point of view, there is nothing to which my judgments can stick. Not one single thing at all. Why? All of it is temporary and fleeting and, therefore, “void, hollow, [and] insubstantial.”

What is someone’s behavior but a flash of lightning? It appears and then vanishes instantly. Where are your actions from yesterday, this morning, or ten minutes ago? Gone—that is where. What are these patterns that we identify, if not the tracks of a bird in the sky? Where are they? Can you point them out to me?

We suppose that there is something we call a person’s “character.” It is somehow stable, enduring, and requiring effort to change. I am a reactive person. I am a judgmental person. I say these things about myself from time to time. And again, you can pick out your own instances. But if we, with good sight, inspect, ponder, and investigate this supposed thing called “character,” what will we find? It is no different from a lump of foam, water bubbles, mirages, and a fire burning without fuel. It, and so we, are utterly insubstantial.

Judging someone, whether ourselves or another, is similar to performing a jump shot with a basketball that suddenly disappears or vowing to bring all beings without exception to the other shore without first feeling the tenderness of the heart. The act fails to complete because its object no longer exists.

We do not quite see or understand this, though we do try. So, we continue judging here and there, judgments flying everywhere without ceasing. As a result, we create a lot of suffering, both for others and for ourselves.

But if we could see the insubstantiality of all things, then we might say, as Vimalakīrti does to Mañjuśrī: “Just as I have realized the Dharma, so should I teach it to living beings.” Our entire orientation to life shifts when we cease judging and needing to judge. Thereby, a love is generated that is “peaceful because free of grasping”; “that accords with reality because it is equanimous in all three times”; that is, “without conflict because free of the violence of the passions”; “that has no presumption because it has eliminated attachment and aversion”; “that is great compassion because it infuses the Mahāyāna with radiance.”

Far from understanding the insubstantiality of all things replacing colors and laughter with shades of grey and stiff seriousness, the suggestion is that life becomes more vibrant and joyful because we are no longer getting in our own way. We stop trying to impose our limited perspective on everything; we become and remain open to the freshness of each instant.

While we all may be no more than stars at dawn, suffering still exists, continually arising and passing away. When the heart is no longer clouded by judgment and discrimination, no longer caught by familiar thoughts of “This is mine, this I am, this is my self,” what stands in the way of moving immediately from the great love to bring about suffering’s cessation, to live, as Vimalakīrti says, “for the liberation of all living beings?”

For some additional reading, consider these articles inspired by my time with the Pāli Canon: