The Path makes more sense when we bring in emptiness (Sunyata). All things are empty of self-existence. Each word, thought and action emerges from relationships—just like children from parents. Your DNA isn’t yours, you didn’t make it yourself. It’s a hand-me-down. Where it’s from is part of its identity. A marble is just a marble, but if it’s been passed down for generations, it’s an heirloom.

 

By Johnathon Lee

 

Buddha famously recommended the Noble Eightfold Path as the only way to end suffering. 

The Path involves learning how to think, speak and act in ways that lead to enlightenment. But why does it work? How does Right Livelihood (Not selling animals, poisons, intoxicants, weapons or slaves) end the suffering caused by craving? 

The stock answer is that unwholesome actions generates bad karma, and bad karma makes the Path more difficult. Just like how blood can stain your clothes, killing stains your mind. It can take a long time to get those stains out. 

I prefer a less, “Thou shalt not,” take on it. The Path makes more sense when we bring in emptiness (Sunyata). All things are empty of self-existence. Each word, thought and action emerges from relationships—just like children from parents. Your DNA isn’t yours, you didn’t make it yourself. It’s a hand-me-down. Where it’s from is part of its identity. 

A marble is just a marble, but if it’s been passed down for generations, it’s an heirloom.

Its relationship to all the people who had it is the greater part of your experience of it. It makes you feel. It reminds you of your roots. It’s meaningful. This marble doesn’t stop with you. It’ll be passed on indefinitely and then you’ll be part of its significance. 

Now, let’s say that you’re looking at a murder weapon instead. Maybe one used by some infamous serial killer. Your eyes tell you that it’s just an ordinary knife. Its blade gleams, its serrated edge looks sharp and ready to cut some meat. 

That’s what you see, but it isn’t what you feel because you know what it was used for. All that pain and death—that horror and senseless loss—brought it here before you. It wouldn’t be here without that. Thanks to supply and demand, it wouldn’t be here without you either. Your ticket purchase was a vote for it to stay on display. 

That blade and marble received themselves from others. Even a butter knife was given its identity by its design, composition, the need to spread butter, and everyone who contributed to it getting into your silverware drawer. 

This is one aspect of emptiness. We could call it “Empty time.” Of course, you can’t talk about time in any meaningful way without bringing up space. 

Empty space is the present relationships between things. “The butter knife in the drawer” is an identity. It only had that identity because of the drawer. If the drawer falls out, now it’s “The butter knife on the floor.” When you look at the macabre exhibit, “The serial killer’s knife being looked at by me,” is part of its present identity. That identity couldn’t exist without you. 

Alright, so take these examples and apply them to everything that has, does and will exist and you’ve got an idea of what emptiness is. 

This makes the Path’s value easier to see, doesn’t it? Alcohol is empty of itself but full of history and possibility. That drink you pour for an exhausted patron came from somewhere. It’s the latest result of hundreds or even thousands of years of alcohol creation. 

The history of alcohol has some bright spots. It’s been the center of festivals, ceremonies and life transitions. Yet it has also ruined and taken countless lives. The grains it was made from might’ve been grown by underpaid, desperate workers. The sheer demand for its ingredients have harmed the environment by overworking the soil. Each sale continues the process making the world a little bit worse each day. 

Then there’s the patron, who’s new identity is, “Person you served alcohol to.” This will be part of them for the rest of their life. They will now and forever be, “Person you served alcohol to,” and they’ll actively embody that identity for the rest of night. Each word and action, each feeling they have going to partially stem from that. 

They take off after a bit and then accidentally run over a clown on a unicycle. Now they have a new identity, and so do you: “Person who served drinks to someone who killed a clown.” This is no laughing matter. 

Ya see, the Path isn’t just about you. It’s about everything.

It’s about how your thoughts, words and deeds come from and return to the whole. We are each active participants in the ongoing creation of the world. To be enlightened means that you have made it the best possible world. You’re free of suffering when you don’t intentionally cause suffering.

The Path is the way to do that. 

That’s a tall order. Don’t be hard on yourself and try not to be hard on others. We’re all monkeys on a rock. Buddha was too. The isn’t really a Path as much as a way of walking, a way of moving through the world. If you have to be a bartender, then I say be one. What can do is apply mindfulness and compassion to the work because then it will still make the world better. 

The fact is, we don’t always get to choose where we are and what we’re doing. That’s emptiness for ya. What we can choose is our point-of-view. The whole Path naturally flows from there… because it’s empty too. 

 

Photo: Pixabay

Editor: Dana Gornall

 

Did you like this post? You may also like:

God is Emptiness, Emptiness is God: Thoughts on God Attachment

Wrong Livelihood Behind the Stick {The Eightfold Path}

 

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