Lecturer: Daizui MacPhillamy
Year: 1997
Shunyata is ku (emptiness or voidness). Hard-shelled Buddhism. Cold and austere.
The four wisdoms: charity, tenderness, benevolence, and sympathy. Ku-ken, the
delusion of emptiness. Nothing matters. Everything matters. The Lankavatara
Sutra discusses seven kinds of emptiness. In the Path of Purification (The Visuddhi
Magga of Buddhaghosa. Nanamoli (trans). Buddhist Publication. Soc. 1979), it
says "There exists suffering, but none who suffer..." The Scripture
of Great Wisdom "void, unstained, and pure". Bodhidharma said "The
Dharma has no self because..." Dr. Francis Cook. The usual translations
of the Scripture of Great Wisdom. Don't grab this, don't grab that. Nihilism
and eternalism. Making the Unborn into a reified god. Trying to grab your Buddha
Nature.
Anicca. The Clarifier of the Sweet Meaning Scripture. Appreciating shunyata
and anicca together. A flow of time-space-being. Dogen's Uji. Lankavatara. If
all the properties we have created are devoid of reality, then that voidness
is shunyata. Srimaladevi Scripture (The Scripture of the Lion's Roar of Queen
Srimaladevi): Dharmakaya is a name for the Ultimate. Tathagatagarbha. To know
shunyata is to know the Dharmakaya. Dr. Diana Paul commentary "The concept
of the Tathagatagarbha in the Srimaladevi Sutra" in the Journal of the
American Oriental Society, 1979. Impermanence is enlightenment because anicca
implies shunyata in its twin aspects. You can jump directly from anicca to enlightenment.
In Shobogenzo: Sanjushichihon-Bodai-Bumpo (The Thirty-seven Conditions Favorable
to Enlightenment, Nishiyama and Stevens, vol 2, p. 74) Dogen quotes Daikan Eno
"Impermanence is the Buddha Nature". He also quotes Yoka Shinkaku:
"All things are impermanent, everything is empty - this is the Tathagata's
Great and Perfect Enlightenment." (This is a quote from Yoka Genkaku's
Shodoka. I don't know if that means that Yoka Shinkaku and Yoka Genkaku are
the same person.) Conclusions: First, if impermanence is enlightenment, there
is nothing to fear. Shushogi: "The most important question for all Buddhists..."
Second, you can trust the Buddha Nature. Third, we can relax our grip a little
on this dream world.