..续本文上一页 empty of inherent existence, you could develop a rationale for continuing to drink. So the teaching on metaphysical emptiness wouldn”t seem to pass the Buddha”s own test for wisdom.
The irony here is that the idea of emptiness as lack of inherent existence has very little to do with what the Buddha himself said about emptiness. His teachings on emptiness—as reported in the earliest Buddhist texts, the Pali Canon—deal directly with actions and their results, with issues of pleasure and pain. To understand and experience emptiness in line with these teachings requires not philosophical sophistication, but a personal integrity willing to admit the actual motivations behind your actions and the actual benefits and harm they cause. For these reasons, this version of emptiness is very relevant in developing the sort of wisdom that would pass the Buddha”s commonsensical test for measuring how wise you are.
The Buddha”s teachings on emptiness—contained in two major discourses and several smaller ones—define it in three distinct ways: as an approach to meditation, as an attribute of the senses and their objects, and as a state of concentration. Although these forms of emptiness differ in their definitions, they ultimately converge on the same route to release from suffering. To see how this happens, we will need to examine the three meanings of emptiness one by one. In doing so, we”ll find that each of them applies the Buddha”s commonsensical test for wisdom to subtle actions of the mind. But to understand how this test applies to this subtle level, we first have to see how it applies to actions on a more obvious level. For that, there”s no better introduction than the Buddha”s advice to his son, Rahula, on how to cultivate wisdom while engaging in the activities of everyday life.
Everyday Wisdom
The Buddha told Rahula—who was seven at the time—to use his thoughts, words, and deeds as a mirror. In other words, just as you would use a mirror to check for any dirt on your face, Rahula was to use his actions as a means of learning where there was still anything impure in his mind. Before he acted, he should try to anticipate the results of the action. If he saw that they”d be harmful to himself or to others, he shouldn”t follow through with the action. If he foresaw no harm, he could go ahead and act. If, in the course of doing the action, he saw it causing unexpected harm, he should stop the action. If he didn”t see any harm, he could continue with it.
If, after he was done, he saw any long‐term harm resulting from the action, he should consult with another person on the path to get some perspective on what he had done—and on how not to do it again—and then resolve not to repeat that mistake. In other words, he should not feel embarrassed or ashamed to reveal his mistakes to people he respected, for if he started hiding his mistakes from them, he would soon start hiding them from himself. If, on the other hand, he saw no harm resulting from the action, he should rejoice in his progress in the practice and continue with his training.
The right name for this reflection is not “self‐purification.” It”s “actionpurification.” You deflect judgments of good and bad away from your sense of self, where they can tie you down with conceit and guilt. Instead, you focus directly on the actions themselves, where the judgments can allow you to learn from your mistakes and to find a healthy joy in what you did right. When you keep reflecting in this way, it serves many purposes. First and foremost, it forces you to be honest about your intentions and about the effects of your actions. Honesty here is a simple principle: you don”t add any after‐the‐fact rationalizations to cover up what you actually did, nor do you try to subtract from the actual fac…
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