Building the Onion

On the subway today, I was reading a chapter from Master Sheng Yen's book There is No Suffering, where he talks about how to contemplate the aggregates of the mind by choosing a specific sense, such as sound or sight. Sheng Yen writes:

         "The sense faculties and objects are the physical and psychological components inside and      outside the body. If you successfully complete your contemplation and wisdom arises, then the practice is realized. The goal is to realize that while the sense faculty ,the sense object, and the sense consciousness are empty, they also exist" (p.63)

It is interesting to reflect that in the Heart Sutra, there is this expression, "form is emptiness, and emptiness is form". And while a lot of emphasis is placed on the former (form is emptiness), I am sometimes prone to neglect the other side of the equation, that emptiness itself is form. I think perhaps this is due to the fact that the practice emphasizes addressing one's attachments to forms. But there is also the danger of attaching to emptiness as well, such as when a person thinks that 'nothing matters' since everything is completely impermanent anyway,

While going through the threads of emails for my online course today, the thought came to mind that what I am learning from my classmates is similar to building an onion. Most people are aware of the expression, 'peeling an onion' to signify peeling away the layers of an onion (or the self, or whatever) to see what's underneath that. And according to this metaphor, one never fully reaches the end, since the onion itself is nothing but an aggregrate of layers, all heaped together into one vegetable. But, when I am taking a course and interacting with others in a complex situation, it is not enough that I conclude that all those layers of learning are empty of a permanent foundation, or all positions that everyone have are just subjective or relative. I have to be able to take that understanding of emptiness and use it in that situation, to really grasp the meaning of both sides of the equation, form= emptiness, emptiness = form.

How do I experience this? I experience it as a kind of continuous process of building connections, wherever I go, and not expecting any of these connections to be permanent in any way. Another metaphor I can think of is that I am willful in what I do, but my will stops before any illusion of finality. It is as though everything I am doing in that present moment is deliberate, but I am leaving behind the thought of the outcome. I am leaving a space open where there is always another brick to be laid down.

Some might wonder what the value of building what is impermanent could be? It is hard to say what the answer is. But when I think of all the activities I have enjoyed the most, I can say the essence of that activity is always changing. Even reading a book is not a static action. It requires a continual shift in objects of awareness. But the fact that these activities are always in flow does not mean that they are valueless. On the contrary, it seems that the flow of things confirms their value in changing and adding new layers of discovery and insight into things of the present. The changing nature of one's most engaged activities seems to be a glimpse of how the universe is. And with this kind of universe, there is simply no need to be attached to a specific outcome, based on like or dislike. One can learn to enjoy the process of doing something as a reflection of a greater process that is always happening in mind.