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So Who's Nothing?

© Yeshe Chodon

There are 4 1/2 hours until the deadline for this article. Too little time for research or a scholarly approach. Have to shoot from the hip and, frankly, it's about time. I've put myself in an academic strait jacket with these articles because of an over-abundance of humility. Like the old Jewish joke, here poorly paraphrased:

The great rabbi comes before an even greater rabbi. He says "Who am I to even stand before you?" You are everything and I am nothing."

Another rabbi comes before the high holy one. "Oh Venerable Rabbi, who am I to speak to you? I am nothing."

Then in comes the janitor. He, too, is humble. "Oh great one. Before you I am indeed nothing."

Rabbi #1 says to Rabbi #2 (don't worry about who's who...it's a short joke)"Look who thinks he's nothing!"

I have, in fact, convinced myself that I am not worthy to write this column. And so I quote and research and quote until I'm nothing. But who the hell am I to think I'm nothing?

Of course, from the Buddhist perspective, we're all nothing. Strain as I might, I still cannot grasp the ultimate nothingness of it all.

Visiting teachers, regardless of the topic of the talk, invariably come to the topic of Dependent Arising. It is essential that one grasp this concept in order to achieve liberation. It is a classical argument, and it goes like this:

OK, you see this string of beads. Or this car. Or this person. And in your un-liberated way, you think it is something. But, tell me, where is it, and what is it? You can have fenders, a door, a steering wheel, lights...but where is the car?

It has no existence on its own. It exists as a phenomenon of your mind which is in itself void of independent existence.

And there is more along these lines. This is not psychological trickery. It is accepted by the great generations of scholars as the ultimate description of existence which is empty of even emptiness.

And...it cannot be expressed in words.

It's too much for me. If anyone cares to write in about Shunyata (emptiness) and dependent arising, please do so! I'll treat you like you're somebody!

But do not think I am mouthing cheap cynicism. In fact, even when I'm at my lowest, which I have been most of the time lately, there are still surprises.

Yesterday we had Medicine Buddha empowerment from Lama Dawa. It was a four-hour ceremony and I was fighting sleep for the first hour, sitting motionless in a house with insufficient air conditioning. There were chants and prayers and symbolic offerings. I was engaged, but through a veil of my own somnolence.