Slogan #14

Seeing confusion as the four kayas is unsurpassable shunyata protection.

At first glance, this slogan appears to be abstract, obscure or esoteric. However, instead of turning away from our lived experience of not being able to figure things out, let’s turn towards it, examine its hidden meanings in order to transform our understanding of this slogan. For today’s practice, confusion will be the path that we’ll take in order to arrive at a deeper sense of what we are. Slogan #14 offers us an opportunity to examine the process of confusion as a meditation in the awakening of compassion. More than simply taking in information, this slogan asks us to change our understanding of and our relationship to thoughts.

I imagine my thoughts as trains that sometimes capture me and transport me away from present moment experiences. Because my thoughts are self-referential, my habitual pattern is to identify with them. But where do thoughts originate? And where do they go when my mind wanders off to the next thought? I experienced an epiphany when I realized that my conscious mind does not create thoughts; instead, it receives the ones that bubble up to the surface. In fact, my every thought seems to be driven by an attendant emotion—that is, the thought that has the strongest emotion attached to it wins entry into my consciousness. Love, anger, fear, sadness and primordial emotions like thirst, hunger, and pain can control my thoughts unless I consider each thought to be an act of faith in my ability to choose to let go. Slogan #14 is one of my faves because every time I review and meditate on this slogan, I gain insights into my own defences, desires, and confusion. Recall your first meditation (or periods of crisis) and how difficult it was (is) to maintain focus on your breath—hopefully, the feeling of being captured by your thoughts has lessened over time. Joseph Goldstein suggests watching your thoughts by imagining that every thought that is arising in your mind is coming from someone else. Try this out and you’ll find that it is easier to not identify, to not linger in a story of wanting or not wanting.

An understanding of the terms is in order: there are four kayas or “bodies” or mind states that underlie the process of perception. Judy Lief explains the workings of our minds as follows: “...every perception begins with uncertainty and openness (dharmakaya); then starts to come into focus (nirmanakaya); then develops energy and begins to come together (sambhogakaya), and finally clicks, synthesized as immediate present-moment experience (svabhavikakaya). So in this slogan, not only do we transform how we view confusion, but we also see that although it may seem solid and intractable, fundamentally it is empty (shunyata). Combining all this, when we see everything as empty and awake, we have no ground to defend and nothing to protect—which is the most excellent protection of all.” The gift of the slogan is realizing that there is not a lot of difference between confusion and the process of awakening.

This slogan also asks us to reconsider Slogan #3. Here is part of my commentary: “This slogan asks whether the “I” and our identity are nothing but the armour that we’ve created around our bodhicitta hearts; that is, our awareness simply consists of passing memories, thoughts, emotions and is not solid at all. Consciousness is alive in the spaciousness of energetic potential that gives rise to thoughts and emotions. Continue to rest in the looking. Learn to embrace paradox. Be both dispassionate and inquisitive. See with your compassionate heart. Create space around what is difficult and shaky in order to find wisdom and clarity. Stay awake to the rawness of pure experience.” In other words, thoughts are unborn and unceasing. Compassion is a self-transcendent emotion because it allows us to expand our personal boundaries to shift attention to others. This practice of emptiness and Tonglen invites the world into our ever-widening circle of compassion.

Between the dancing waves and the vast ocean,
None has observed any separation or division.
Similarly from the spontaneous coemergence of emptiness
Arises compassion that touches beings and stirs the heart.
When compassion arises, it does so from emptiness,
And when it ceases, it does so in emptiness, too.

Atisha (982-1054 AD)