Placing Ourselves in Suchness, Part 1
Do we know things as they truly are, or as our ideas and perceptions of what they might be?
In this talk, Zuisei speaks on a concept from Yogachara’s philosophies of consciousness , wherein the first field of perception is the “field of suchness”— where we perceive reality directly.
Cultivating this discernment between truth and perception is an ongoing practice— one that ultimately opens us up to liberation.
This talk was given by Zuisei Goddard.
This transcript is based on Zuisei's talk notes and may differ slightly from the final talk.
To pray
you open your whole self to sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more that you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments steadily growing,
and in languages that aren’t always sound but other circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning over Salt River,
Circled in blue sky, in wind, swept our hearts clean with sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
that we must take the utmost care and kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of all this,
and breathe, knowing we are truly blessed because we were born,
and die soon within a true circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning inside us.
We pray that it will be done in beauty.
In beauty.
Good morning. It’s good to be here after not being here for a while, good to practice with all of you. Welcome, especially, to those of you who are here for the first time. May you find clarity in your path, if not here, wherever that path takes you.
This is a poem called “Eagle Poem,” by Joy Harjo. Someone sent it to me a few weeks back and when I read it, I was immediately struck by its beauty. Its words are so simple, so bare, and it is all of a piece, like a song, like a prayer.
I know we don’t often speak of prayer in Buddhism, at least not in Zen. But let’s take Harjo’s own description of it as an opening of your whole self, as a baring of that self to sky, to earth, to sun, to moon, to the voice that is you. So instead of a praying to, it’s praying in—within—in service of that voice and of what we can’t yet see and hear but can deeply sense, of that which is true and… dependable.
I use that word deliberately because it is almost a year to the day that I sat here, speaking after our presidential election, where so much changed, so much seemed suddenly uncertain. And I thought it would be good to speak today in praise, in celebration of that which does not change and therefore is utterly dependable.
Those of you who just received beginning instruction in zazen, you think you’ve just learned to count your breath, given a technique to concentrate. You’ve been asked to see a thought, let it go, and come back to that breath. But what you’ve actually learned is to open your whole self, sweep your heart clean. So be careful and tread lightly, expect a rough patch here and there but know that it’s worth it. Know that, as my first teacher used to say, “It may be the most important thing you will ever do with your life.”
What we are learning to do, with this very powerful practice of zazen, is to see ourselves, to see our lives in their bareness, to see them unadorned and unfiltered.
This is the moment in which “we see ourselves and know that we must take the utmost care and kindness in all things.” When we don’t see, we don’t take care, we don’t know, we can’t feel that we are blessed or that anything else is either.
You know, my name, Zuisei, means blessed or auspicious vow—or suspicious vow, depending on who you ask. And I have, many times, especially in the midst of my struggle, been deeply, deeply grateful to my teacher for naming me in this way, for not letting me forget that I am blessed, because I was born. I am blessed because I found my way here, found my way to the dharma, have the ability and the inclination to practice it and found a teacher—teachers—who believe that I can do this.
But when we can’t see, we don’t recognize this blessedness. We’re far away from ourselves, we’re far away from things. Zazen is about getting close, that’s how we see clearly. It’s about not being afraid of that closeness—a closeness we crave and fear in equal measure. But there’s no other way to see this blessedness. It can’t be perceived at a distance. You can’t hear the voice that is you while speaking constantly (with head or mouth). You can’t hear when your ears are plugged up (beware the ever-present phone). Because although these circles of motion that Harjo speaks of, are everywhere, but they’re subtle. Why do you think we sit so still, so quietly?
Recently I gave a talk in which I spoke of the eight levels of consciousness: The alaya vijnana or storehouse consciousness in which all the seeds of experience are stored.
Manas, which turns and looks at storehouse consciousness and falls in love with itself. This infatuation is what gives us the sense of “I”, of “me” experiencing the input from the six sense consciousnesses: eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and mind.
According to the Yogachara, from which this schema of consciousness is drawn, there are three modes or fields of perception: Field of “things-as-themselves”, representation, and mere images.
The first field is the field of suchness; it is where we perceive reality directly. Kant said we can never really be sure that things are as we perceive them, because what we see is always filtered through mind. That’s why he made the distinction between noumenon—“thing-in-itself”—which, he argued, could never be known, and phenomenon—thing-as-it-appears.”
Well, Buddhism says that we can, in fact, touch the realm of noumena, of suchness. But it also says that this happens very rarely, because most of what we see, we see as representations or mere images.
The field of representation is the place where our images of things, of people are formed. We touched on this during the Lgbtq mondo on Wednesday. When we fall in love, what we’re falling in love with is rarely a person. It is most often our idea of the person we wish to be with. If our relationship is based on this representation, and not on the person-as-they-are, we will quickly become bored or disappointed, because our partner will inevitably stop acting out our fantasy at some point. But they were never a fantasy—they’re flesh and blood, they’re changing and growing and struggling with their own disappointment of you, their own representation. So, life in the realm of representation is very disappointing.
We live in the story of our life, the movie of our life, not the real thing. And therefore we want, we reach, we strive.
The field of mere images is the field of dreams and imagination. Visualizations are also in the field of mere images, but here we use these “pictures” in a skillful way to deliberately create a particular reality. And if we look closely, we see that the boundaries at the edge of these three fields are much more porous than we think.
Images and representations are included in the field of suchness, and they have their own suchness in themselves, but the realm of suchness is the place in which we see reality directly. It’s being square in the middle of our lives, and not their scripts. Think of all the trouble and heartache we create for ourselves and others when we live in our certainties, which aren’t even real.
Buddha asks Subhuti: Imagine a person who, unable to see an elephant, would try to determine its color and shape. In the darkness she would touch and examine the foot of the elephant, and decide that its color and shape should be inferred from its foot. Would that be an intelligent thing to do?
No, of course not, yet this is what we do. We see an image and take it as truth. We see a sliver and think we’ve seen the whole.
Many years ago, I went to a conference on Merton at Iona College in New Rochelle with Daido Roshi and one of our monks. Throughout the discussions, I was sitting right behind one of the nuns, who had bright red hair in a short, stylish haircut. I noticed, of course, thinking, “Wow, what a hip nun!” She didn’t wear a habit, so I guess she could do whatever she wanted with her hair. Anyway, I was sitting behind her the whole time. We got back to the monastery, and we were talking to the other monks about the day and I described the hip nun and her hair and the other monk interrupted me and said she had brown hair. I said, “No, she didn’t, she had red hair.” “No, it was brown.” I said, “I’m a woman, I notice these things. I was sitting right behind her.” But he wouldn’t have it. He was sure that her hair was brown, and nothing could budge him. Good thing we were only talking about hair. Unfortunately, we’re often talking about religion and gender identity and class and age, and we’re using a heavily edited script to follow our lines. It’s so marked up, in fact, we can barely read it. But not wanting to look like we don’t understand, don’t know what’s going on, we plow valiantly ahead. We play our role and others play theirs and we all go home afterwards and have a drink and tell ourselves, “That went well.” But then, why do I feel so… empty? (and not in a good way).
So, the storehouse consciousness manifests all three modes of perception: direct, through representations, and images. Manas can only manifest as representations and images. That’s why anything that is perceived through the filter of the self cannot be perceived as it is. The six sense consciousnesses, however, can experience suchness. A moment of clear seeing, hearing, touching, feeling, can be a moment of suchness.
There’s a koan that tells the story of Master Yunmen’s enlightenment. Muzhou, Yunmen’s teacher, hadn’t offered much teaching, so one day Yunmen went to see him in his room.
“Who is it?” said Muzhou gruffly through the closed door after Yunmen knocked on it.
“It’s me,” Yunmen replied.
“What do you want?”
“I haven’t yet clarified the great matter. I’m coming to ask for the master’s instruction.”
Muzhou then opened the door a crack, stared at Yunmen, and closed the door again.
Twice Yunmen went to the master’s room, but the same thing happened. But Yunmen was determined. He went to see Muzhou once more, and this time he was ready. The moment Muzhou cracked open the door, Yunmen stuck his foot in the threshold.
Muzhou then grabbed Yunmen and yelled, “Speak! Speak!”
Yunmen opened his mouth to answer, but before he could utter a word, Muzhou gave him a shove and said, “Too late!” Then he slammed the door with all his might, breaking Yunmen’s foot. In that instant, Yunmen experienced enlightenment.
Do not try this at home! But it still begs the question, what did Yunmen see? Plenty of people have broken a bone or two at some point in their lives and it’s probably safe to say that most of them have not become enlightened. So what was different about Yunmen? Could he have realized the same thing if Muzhou had tickled him with a feather instead?
Other masters have realized themselves listening to the sound of rain, or looking at falling plum blossoms. Again, what did they see, what did they hear? What realm are they living in, and is it different from where we live?
Know there is more that you can’t see, can’t hear, can’t know, Harjo says. Except in moments steadily growing and in languages that aren’t always sound but other circles of motion.
One day as I was running I saw a bald eagle, huge, first perched on a tree, not far from me. I had never realized how big they are (an adult is just under four feet). I slowed down to a walk, and then I very stealthily tried to get close to it. Eventually it saw me or heard me and it flew off, and on my way back, I saw it circling high, high overhead, these perfect, widening circles like ripples on the surface of a lake. It didn’t flap its wings at all, it just tipped its body, now this way, now that way catching the updraft. A perfect circle of motion so even, so pure, as to be indistinguishable from stillness. Think of a top, spinning in perfect balance. You can no longer tell whether it’s moving or still. Stillness and movement, completely intertwined, another true circle of motion, as Harjo calls it.
Diane Van Deren, an ultramarathon runner, once ran 430 miles in the Yukon territory, for ten straight days and one hour sleep. She can’t read a map. She says everyone knows now not to follow her. She lost her sense of direction, but also her sense of time. She can’t tell how long she’s been running, so it doesn’t bother her. But doesn’t her body get tired? Apparently not—at least, not how ours would. Not sensing how much time has passed or how long she has to go, she just runs.
I use that phrase often “just run.” She actually is one of the few people in the world who can actually do that. Residents were talking about it, and someone asked, “I wonder what motion is like for her?” I suspect that it is not unlike stillness, not unlike rest.
She talks about rhythm, she listens to the sound of her feet on the ground and her breath accompanying her steps, that’s all. She says there’s nothing else in her mind. Her daily life is very difficult. But while running, she is utterly free, she is unburdened.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of all this,
And breathe, knowing we are truly blessed because we were born, and die soon
Within a true circle of motion
Life is long enough for us to realize what it is, what we are. But it’s too short for us not to investigate it. And we must also realize that my own circle of motion, my sphere, intersects and overlaps yours. Underneath them all there is one vast circle, but within there’s many smaller ones, trying hard to occupy space harmoniously.
It seems that this shouldn’t be such a difficult thing to do, given that we’re all moving within these circles, are these circles. Yet it’s proven to be so challenging that we haven’t yet figured it out. That’s why, in the Prajna Paramita Sutra, the Buddha says that a bodhisattva should train themselves by saying the following:
My own self I will place in Suchness, and, so that all the world might be helped, I will place all beings into Suchness, and I will lead to Nirvana the whole immeasurable world of beings.
With that intention should a bodhisattva undertake all the exercises which bring about all the wholesome roots. Placing myself in suchness, and placing all beings in suchness, I lead them to nirvana, to freedom from suffering. This is the field that is most dependable, that is, in fact, unshakeable. As I was saying at the mondo the other night, “When you realize who you are, you’re completeness, no one can take that away from you, no one.” But, how do we do that? How do we place ourselves in suchness? By not placing ourselves in the field of representations and images. Suchness is ever-present, all we have to do is not create images and representations which block our view, block our direct contact. Think of zazen as the practice of non-creation.
The exercises that bring about all the wholesome roots are our zazen, our liturgy, our art and body practice. They’re the study of the precepts, the study of the sutras and the development of our relationship to the teacher. They’re the practice of work as sacred activity, the practice of seeing all beings and all things as truly blessed.
Like eagle rounding out the morning inside us.
We pray that it will be done in beauty.
In beauty.
Placing Ourselves in Suchness, a dharma talk by Zen Buddhist teacher Zuisei Goddard. Audio podcast and transcript available.