Cultivating Wisdom in Silent Illumination

The meditative practice of silent illumination is about maintaining moment-to-moment clear awareness, body-mind in this space. I’d like to invite you to join me in a short meditation here to experience this practice together.

Meditation: Silent Illumination

Now sit in an upright and comfortable posture. Allow your skeletal structure to support your body so that your body can relax.

Allow the body to breathe on its own while sitting here, relaxing into each emerging present moment. In relaxation, clearly know that you are sitting here in this space, allowing bodily sensations, thoughts and feelings, the sound of cars passing by or bird songs outside a window to coexist in awareness. Just this.

Moment after moment allow the body-mind in the space to be experienced as it is in each moment.

As you do so, you may notice habitual reactivities like getting frustrated when the mind drifts off or clinging for more calmness.

These are habits of aversion and craving that generate suffering. This nagging sense that whatever is happening is not how it’s supposed to be. Not good enough.

When we allow each moment to be as it is, even with suffering, we can see that these habitual activities also come and go when we do not identify with them by rejecting or clinging.

Practicing this way, staying with each moment as it is, gives us the opportunity to directly experience the true nature of existence, to cultivate wisdom.

I’d like to invite you to slowly move your body as we bring this short period of meditation to a close. 

As we transition from stillness to motion, maintain this clear awareness of the changing sensations as the body moves moment after moment.

The True Nature of Existence

When we say cultivating wisdom, what is wisdom? Wisdom is the realization of the true nature of existence, directly experiencing reality as it is without distortion by our ideas. The true nature of existence is sunyata, often translated as emptiness. 

What does sunyata, emptiness mean? Sunyata or emptiness refers to the fact that every moment is the coming together of causes and conditions. Thus it is constantly changing. Impermanence is another way we describe the true nature of existence. 

Because every moment is the coming together of causes and conditions, there is no inherently independently existing entity in any phenomenon. And the concept of no-self is another way to describe the true nature of existence.

We tend to forget this and assume that phenomena, including ourselves, exist as inherently independently existing entities with fixed characteristics. 

For example, we may have the idea that I’m an anxious person and upset that we can’t get rid of our anxiety. Underlying this idea, there is an assumption that there is an independently existing entity–me–with a fixed characteristic, being anxious. And we don’t like it and reject it. And this generates suffering.

Allowing Every Moment To Be Brand New

The reality is that every moment is brand new. Sometimes there is a feeling we call anxiety, sometimes not. We can see that each experience of feeling anxious is brand new. If we release the idea of there being a fixed entity called anxiety that attacks another fixed entity called me. 

Instead, allow this movement of body-mind in this space to be experienced as it is: a unique combination of thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations and what’s going on around us being labeled as anxiety.

With this understanding, we do not get upset when we feel anxious. When the mind is not agitated, there is clarity on what may be causing anxiety, perhaps an overly packed schedule. Recognizing this helps us see that it is skillful to perhaps make some appropriate adjustments, such as removing or rescheduling something on a very long to-do list.

When we see that each moment is the coming together of causes and conditions, it is clear that there is no need to hate or grasp what is going on. When craving and aversion do not arise, suffering ceases.

Cultivating Wisdom by Listening and Learning

To cultivate wisdom, we can follow a process that includes four steps. (1) Listening to and learning about what wisdom is conceptually, (2) examining and reflecting on the teachings to clarify our understanding; (3) practicing with the teachings by applying it in all situations, and lastly, (4) realizing wisdom.

The first step of cultivating wisdom is to listen to and learn what wisdom means conceptually, like what you are doing right now. With the practice of silent illumination, maintaining moment-to-moment clear awareness, we recognize how many causes and conditions need to come together for us to be here to learn the dharma. This includes all the practitioners who studied and practiced the dharma over the generations and preserved the living dharma. 

All the people who make our lives possible and everyone who made this moment of speaking and listening to the teachings possible. When we recognize this, we naturally feel the need to make good use of this opportunity to learn, to be attentive, remember what we learn and make good use of it.

Cultivating Wisdom by Examining the Teachings with Clear Awareness

With moment-to-moment clear awareness of thoughts and feelings, we may notice the entrenched habits of telling ourselves that we already know this, thinking, I’ve heard this all before. Emptiness, everything is impermanent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s the same old thing. These habitual thoughts lead us to dull our attention, drift off, and miss the nuances of the concepts that may resonate with us now.

Maintaining clear awareness with the practice of silence illumination, we can recognize that this thought habit is showing up and remind ourselves that it is a brand new moment and let me be fully here to listen. 

Maintaining this clear awareness will allow us to notice the nuances of what is being explained. Listening to the dharma this way allows us to notice subtle ways in how to cover concepts or practice. It opens our mind and allows us to connect with the teachings in a way that we can truly engage with. In this way, we make the dharma meaningful for us and easier to memorize.

With moment-to-moment clear awareness of our habitual reactivity, we can also recognize resistance to certain points in the teachings, giving rise to thoughts and strong feelings like, This is nonsense. My anxiety is most definitely not empty. It’s who I am. I’m an anxious person. 

Recognizing these thoughts and feelings allows us to gain insights into our attachments so that we can practice working with ourselves gently, kindly, to understand and release these attachments.

Cultivating Wisdom by Examining and Reflecting The Teachings

After learning what wisdom means conceptually, the next step in cultivating wisdom is to examine and reflect on the teachings to check our understanding. 

The concept of emptiness is prone to misunderstanding. One of the most common errors is to believe that emptiness means non-existence mistakenly assuming that realization of emptiness would mean that we disappear. This is not what emptiness means.

This is not what emptiness means. Everything exists, just not as inherently independently existing entities that we assumed it to. Everything exists, but temporarily, each moment manifesting with the coming together of causes and conditions.

The incorrect understanding of emptiness as non-existence can cause some people to become frightened when their mind becomes very still, which can happen after practicing on retreat for a few days. This incorrect understanding can also show up in the form of resistance to practice. With thoughts like, I don’t really want to realize emptiness and disappear. I love my family and my family needs me.

These are often accompanied with erroneous assumptions such as letting go means letting go of our loved ones. This is incorrect understanding. What we are practicing to let go of is our idea of ourselves and our loved ones as independently inherently existing entities so that we can see our loved ones as they are in this moment, anew, not as ideas created in our mind. 

Practicing this way will allow us to be more present and connect with them more fully and allow them to feel seen and loved.

Clear awareness of resistance and confusion in our mind helps us recognize the need to ask questions to check our understanding instead of assuming that our ideas are correct. This process of examining and reflecting on our assumptions about these concepts and checking with teachers who exhibit correct understanding is crucial for cultivating wisdom.

We will find that the process of cultivating wisdom is nonlinear. We may clarify our understanding after hearing the teacher’s explanation, thinking, OK, I got it. Emptiness does not mean non-existence. OK. But if we do not practice with the teachings, we will forget and revert to our erroneous understanding and mistakenly assume that emptiness means non-existence again.

Reflecting on and examining our understanding is an ongoing process and must be supported by applying these concepts in our daily life, the next step in the process of cultivating wisdom.

Cultivating Wisdom by Applying Understanding in All Situations

With thoughtful reflection supported by teachers who point out errors in our understanding, we develop correct understanding of concepts like emptiness and non-self. We understand that we exist each moment as coming together of causes and conditions that are constantly changing, not as fixed inherently independently existing entities separate from everything else.

This is the case with all phenomena, including ourselves, other people, situations, relationships, nature, the world, and everything.

The third step in cultivating wisdom is to apply the concept of emptiness in all situations to deepen our understanding of the teachings and to integrate it into our life. Now, I’m not talking about saying this is empty, that is impermanent, and use these concepts as a substitute for directly experiencing the present moment as it is. 

If that’s what we are doing, we are not cultivating wisdom. We are dissociating instead of being fully present. Watch out for the habit of telling ourselves that It’s empty and impermanent anyway, why bother doing anything? This would be misusing the concept of emptiness, not applying it to cultivate wisdom.

To apply the concept of emptiness, we need to maintain moment-to-moment clear awareness. Stay with this, just as this, in the practice of silent illumination to truly appreciate how each moment is the coming together of countless causes and conditions. 

One way to apply the concept of emptiness in daily life is when we accomplish something we’re proud of, like getting our kid into a good school, completing a project successfully at work, setting up a business, publishing a book, making a popular video, receiving an award, or many other things. These are joyful moments, and there’s nothing wrong with celebrating success. 

But we can turn them into suffering if we forget emptiness and become arrogant thinking that we are better than other people. We walk around thinking I’m so important and believe that everyone should listen to and bow to us. This is a recipe for conflict and tension and we get upset when we do not receive enough compliments or recognition. 

Or we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to replicate success, forgetting that every moment is brand new and making previously enjoyable endeavors into heavy burdens.

In these moments, by remembering to apply the concept of emptiness and to maintain a moment-to-moment clear awareness, we recognize that the accomplishment is the coming together of many causes and conditions. While we may have made a lot of effort and applied our skills, our effort is part of the causes and conditions, not all of it.

Many many people in our life, our family members, teachers, fellow students and colleagues and others taught us knowledge and provided opportunities for us to accumulate our experience. 

As we continue to open our awareness, we see that the accomplishment was co-created by those who handle other aspects of the project: everyone who takes care of the facility, the technological systems, and the production and preparation of food so that we can do our work, and all the beings that make it possible for everyone to do that work. With this clear awareness, we are less prone to believe that It’s all me. I’m the one who made it happen.

We can see the role we played in co-creating what has been accomplished as it is. That causes and conditions put us in the place of playing the lead role because we happen to have the skills and experience that’s considered useful. After it is done, it’s a new moment. That way, we do not turn ourselves into a fixed entity: the person who did that project, that blocks us from experiencing ourselves each moment as we are now. 

We can apply the concept of emptiness to all situations to cultivate wisdom in our practice. 

Recently, a practitioner told me that he applied the concept when he was laid off from his job.

Recognizing that the causes and conditions for him to work at this company no longer came together, he didn’t react with anger or hatred. Instead, he thanked his boss for giving him the opportunity to learn and grow at this job. 

Instead of generating suffering for himself and saying hurtful words to his boss, they parted in amiable terms and didn’t burn all the bridges. And he was not left feeling rejected or betrayed, as often is the case in layoffs. 

Seeing that every moment is the coming together of causes and conditions does not mean that we wait for things to happen though. Maintaining total clear awareness in silent illumination, we can see the causes and conditions that didn’t quite come together or our pursuits to materialize, like getting a promotion or meeting our goal in a project. 

Recognizing that we can set out to cultivate the causes and conditions that didn’t quite come together. For instance, if something didn’t work out because of insufficient support from other team members, we can use our practice to be present with our colleagues, get to know their thinking and their temperaments, support their growth, to create an environment that inspires and nurtures everyone, which can in turn enhance their capacity and willingness to support endeavors, including ours, in the future.

Whether or not we end up succeeding, as many causes and conditions are involved besides our actions, we keep learning and growing in the process. In this way, we are cultivating the causes and conditions needed in future endeavors. So the practice is not about passively waiting for things to happen. It’s about being fully engaged in life.

As we apply the concept of emptiness in every situation by cultivating moment to moment clear awareness, the teaching becomes internalized. We are less prone to fall into erroneous understanding. The more we practice this way, the more we remember to apply the concept of emptiness in each situation,eEven the challenging ones such as our loved ones falling gravely ill or nearing death.

Every time we do, we are less prone to react to the situation with aversion or craving. We suffer less and are less prone to act out our suffering by harming others. As we continue to maintain total clear awareness in each moment with the practice of silent illumination, with correct understanding of emptiness firmly internalized, it’s only a matter of time till we realize the nature of emptiness.

Experiential Realization of Wisdom: The Final Step

Wisdom manifests with the experiential realization that there is no inherently independently existing entity anywhere to be found. The final step in the cultivation of wisdom. With this realization, our faith and competence in the Buddha’s teachings is now unshakable because the teaching is no longer conceptual.

We have realized it ourselves. It will support our lifelong practice to unlearn various entrenched habitual reactivities so that we can suffer less and be more available to benefit sentient beings. 

Thank you for your attention. 

May all beings be well and at ease.