Table Of ContentSEEING THAT FREES
Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising
ROB BURBEA
Copyright © 2014 Rob Burbea
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Hermes Amāra Publications®
Gaia House
West Ogwell
Devon
TQ12 6EW
[email protected]
ISBN: 978 0992848 927
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The publishers wish to thank all those anonymous donors whose
kind and generous financial assistance has supported
the publication of this book
Contents
Foreword, by Joseph Goldstein
Abbreviations
Preface
Part One: Orientations
1 The Path of Emptiness is a Journey of Insight
2 Emptiness, Fabrication, and Dependent Arising
3 “All is Void!” – Initial Reactions, and Responses
Part Two: Tools and Provisions
4 The Cultivation of Insight
5 Samādhi and its Place in Insight Practice
Part Three: Setting Out
6 Emptiness that’s Easy to See
7 An Understanding of Mindfulness
8 Eyes Wide Open: Seeing Causes and Conditions
9 Stories, Personalities, Liberations
10 Dependent Origination (1)
Part Four: On Deepening Roads
11 The Experience of Self Beyond Personality
12 Three More Liberating Ways of Looking: (1) – Anicca
13 Three More Liberating Ways of Looking: (2) – Dukkha
14 Three More Liberating Ways of Looking: (3) – Anattā
15 Emptiness and Awareness (1)
Part Five: Of Highways and Byways
16 The Relationship with Concepts in Meditation
17 The Impossible Self
18 The Dependent Arising of Dualities
Part Six: Radical Discoveries
19 The Fading of Perception
20 Love, Emptiness, and the Healing of the Heart
21 Buildings and their Building Blocks, Deconstructed
Part Seven: Further Adventures, Further Findings
22 No Thing
23 The Nature of Walking
24 Emptiness Views and the Sustenance of Love
Part Eight: No Traveller, No Journey – The Nature of Mind, and of Time
25 Emptiness and Awareness (2)
26 About Time
27 Dependent Origination (2)
28 Dependent Cessation – The Unfabricated, The Deathless
Part Nine: Like a Dream, Like a Magician’s Illusion...
29 Beyond the Beyond…
30 Notions of the Ultimate
31 An Empowerment of Views
A Word of Gratitude
Bibliography
Index
Foreword
The experience of emptiness is one of the most puzzling aspects of the
Buddha’s teaching. While we can intuitively understand and experience,
at least to some extent, the truths of impermanence and unreliability, it
may be difficult to relate to the term ‘emptiness’. In fact, in English, the word
is not all that appealing. We may think of emptiness as a grey vacuity or as
some state of deprivation. Yet, in the Buddha’s teaching of liberation, of
freedom from all suffering and distress, the realization of emptiness plays a
central role.
Rob Burbea, in this remarkable book, Seeing That Frees, proves to be a
wonderfully skilled guide in exploring the understanding of emptiness as the
key insight in transforming our lives. This is not an easy journey. Beginning by
laying the foundation of the basic teachings, he explains how these teachings
can be put into practice as ‘ways of looking’ that free and that gradually unfold
deeper understandings, and so, in turn, more powerful ways of looking and even
greater freedom. This unique conception of insight as being liberating ways of
looking is fundamental to the whole approach, and it makes available profound
skilful means to explore even further depths of Dharma wisdom.
Rob is like a scout who has gone ahead and explored the terrain, coming
back to point out the implications of what we have been seeing, and then
enticing us onwards. He shows how almost all of the Buddha’s teachings can
lead us towards understanding the fabrication, mutual interdependence, and,
thus, the emptiness of all phenomena. And that it is this understanding of
emptiness that frees the mind.
Following the thread of this understanding leads to great flexibility in how
we view things, and it is this very flexibility that informs the entire approach to
insight that is offered here. Many times throughout Seeing That Frees we
discover how different and often opposing notions can be integrated into our
practice. Instead of being caught up in a thicket of metaphysical views and
opinions, the basic criterion here is, ‘Does it help to free the mind?’
Such discernment and understanding make possible a greater breadth in our
approach to practice, which is illustrated in many ways throughout the book.
For example, different traditions often hold quite different views regarding the
place of analytical investigation and thought on the path: for some, they are an
indispensable part of our journey; for others, they are seen merely as an
obstacle. Rob very skilfully demonstrates the role that each of these
perspectives can play as we deepen our practice.
Yet Seeing That Frees is much more than merely an attempt to form an
approach that is broad and inclusive. Consistently, the limitations in and
assumptions behind each view being considered are pointed out, and, each time,
understandings that transcend that particular view are explored. Rob shows how
so many of the insights that we might at first consider ultimately true are still
only provisional, and yet he also shows how these very provisional perspectives
can be used as vital stepping-stones towards a deeper and more complete
understanding.
Another example of this progressive questioning and unfolding involves the
various contrasting views of different traditions regarding the nature of
awareness itself: Is awareness momentary? Is it a field? Is it the ground of
Being? Rob has done a masterful job of highlighting how each particular view
can help us see experience from a different perspective, and how each one
furthers our ability to let go. But rather than simply resting in this appreciation
of what each perspective offers, he goes on to demonstrate the conditional,
fabricated nature of even the most sublime awareness, and then shows the
emptiness of fabrication itself. In realizing emptiness, there is no place at all to
take a stand; indeed, no place, and no one who stands.
It is rare to find a book that explores so deeply the philosophical
underpinnings of awakening at the same time as offering the practical means to
realize it. How does one talk about what is beyond mind, beyond concepts,
beyond time? What does it mean to say that even emptiness is empty? Seeing
That Frees does not shy away from these most difficult tasks of describing the
un-describable. Although these descriptions could so easily become an exercise
in abstraction, because this book is so rooted in experience, exploring with
great subtlety and depth how we can put insights into emptiness into practice, it
brings to life what Rob calls “the awe-inspiring depth of mystery”. This great
book can inspire us to the highest goals of spiritual awakening.
Joseph Goldstein
Barre, Massachusetts
January, 2014
