One of the primary directions of practice is to cultivate and explore the various footings of emptiness (shunyatta). Early in practice we begin explore the initial stages of emptiness we call oneness. Through this practice we experience a deepening sense of unity with the world around us. For example, when I first started to explore the depths of oneness, I found myself better able to “feel” the world around me. This was such an eye-opening experience for me. It grew from just more empathy for other people to more empathy for all life, including our planet. The lines of devision were becoming so very faint. This feeling of oneness made it impossible for me to continue to hunt and fish. I felt too interconnected, and any potential harm was not worthwhile. This is not to say I am against hunting and fishing; I am not. It is just no longer for me. Tumbling further down the rabbit hole I began to have even deeper experiences. I remember standing at “Sangha Meadows” at Dai Bosatsu and literally becoming the swaying grasses and the buzzing sounds of chanting, yet there was no longer any me. These experiences were the cool breeze of Harvest Sesshin. They swept through everything, leaving not even the slightest trace. Deeper yet, there is the footing I like to call “light switch” Zen, nothing can be said, yet a sound can be made. Getting stuck here is easy. My internal dialog was, “I want emptiness again. I want to be one! Not these dam achy knees or irritating Zen Politics! I will just need to work harder at oneness”. Who can’t be stuck on these initial life altering experiences? We are like a fish in a small pool who swims so hard upward, and with so much intensity that he breaches the water’s surface, and for just a moment, glimpses a whole new extraordinary world, only to come crashing back down into the same old pool. “What the hell was that, and how do I get back?”, we scramble. Everything becomes about this experience. If asked anything about Zen, we thrust this experience forth! Too many together and they sound like a herd of cows! With this being said, it is so easy to make our home here yet, no matter how hard we try, the experience slips through our fingers like cradled water. Soon we are left with nothing but a decaying memory. No matter how hard we try to replicate our experience, the further away we seem to move from it. What a pity. For those who push through, and let go of even this footing, the rabbit hole goes even deeper. I explain these depths as “tearing through”. When we open fully, and let go to even the slightest attachment to oneness, we begin to press against the “membrane” that separates oneness from multiplicity. These two are many times explained as the full moon (pure consciousness) and its reflection dancing upon the ocean’s waves (positivity/ multiplicity). Such an odd reality when it comes to dichotic equations. When we push ever so deeper into one side, we may end up tearing through to the other and thereby creating a truly “non-dual” experience. You may exclaim, “You got your absolute negative in my absolute positive!”. I liken this to a single piece of paper. If we hold up a piece of paper, we may say it is “one” piece, yet that “one piece” is made up of two sides. Take away one side, and what is left? So, our “one” relies on “two”. What does this insight point too? What is it to both realize and navigate the true waters of “non-duality”? To ride the choppy waters of the ocean’s surface without ever truly leaving the darkest and deepest waters of its depths. What now…
