I’m currently reading The Other Shore, Thich Nhat Hanh’s commentary on the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra, which includes the well-known phrase “form is emptiness; emptiness is form,” calls us to forget ourselves. This, for Westerners, is problematic and disturbing, because we often define our entire life project as finding ourselves. Obviously, I’m in favor of that- I write this blog in the hopes that it helps people become more fully who they are in their basic goodness. But the problem arises when that life project begins to harden our own sense of self. Before we know it, we haven’t created a life, we’ve just reinforced our ego. We didn’t find ourselves. We merely created an illusion of ourselves. A mirage.
If we truly want to embody our highest form, we must also embody emptiness.
The Heart Sutra describes this as recognizing that there is no self. In other words, you are not so special that you would be here without anyone else, without the vast and dizzying number of potentials and situations and events that led to the possibility of you. And you’re also not so special that you can somehow “transcend” humanity and rise above human things like suffering, grief, anger, sadness, loneliness, or disappointment. Every time we try to assert ourselves, or protect ourselves, we put up flimsy and false walls around us. They don’t actually work, but you wouldn’t believe how much we cling to them.
When we accept that we are not, as Hanh says, “separate self-entities,” we empty ourselves. We let our image soften a little. We realize we aren’t invincible, or eternal, or INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE A RIGHT TO DO WHAT THEY WANT, NO MATTER WHAT. As wisdom grants us clarity, we begin to see that we cannot exist without the other. We only inter-exist. Thich Nhat Hanh coined this “interbeing.” It is more than just togetherness, or even solidarity. It’s the realization that we literally do not hold form or reality or even emptiness without everyone and everything else. We are entirely dependent.
For a nation of fiercely “independent” people, this is a hard pill to swallow. Which is why wisdom is so deeply tied to humility. Wisdom is humble surrender to the interdependence of everything.
Humility is emptiness. When we are humble, we acknowledge that we don’t know it all or have it all, that we can’t do it all. Humility is realizing that I cannot be; I can only inter-be.
Here’s how this shows up in regular, every day life. When we acknowledge our interbeing, we start living not just for ourselves but with respect toward other people, and toward the earth and everything in it. Buddhists call this foresight. It’s acting with the knowledge that our decisions will have long-reaching consequences. We don’t choose what seems best for us in the moment; we discern what may be best for all of us in the long run.
Indigenous cultures have never forgotten this. But those of us in industrialized nations have often operated from an extreme lack of humility. Consider, as one example, how we assume we can take from the earth what we want and somehow not reap any consequences.
When we are humble, we also become less certain- and that’s a good thing. I don’t mean that we stop knowing what we think and get stuck in indecision. But we realize we can’t possibly assume our perspective is the only one, the most right one, the best one. How could we, when our experience is one experience within the billions of people on earth? Humble people become wise because they are open to others. They are willing to listen, and seek to understand. They already know they don’t know everything.
One last thing about humility and wisdom. Buddhists often speak of “taking refuge.” They take refuge in the Buddha, in the dharma (teachings), in the sangha (community). Taking refuge is also an act of humility. It is surrender to something bigger than yourself. When I first heard this phrase, I thought of all the psalms that describe taking refuge in God. Some psalms call for help (“I take refuge in you, save and deliver me”) and others use it as a declaration of worship and wonder (“let all who take refuge in you rejoice”). But all of these psalms are acts of humility and surrender. They are acts of emptying. It is a way we set down our “separate self entity” and acknowledge that we cannot do this alone. We need something beyond us. Something between us, and within us, and surrounding us.
Humility contains deep wisdom. And true humility will always lead us to wisdom. Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. There are no separate self-entities. As the Heart Sutra says,
“Whoever can see this
no longer needs anything to attain.”
This post is part of the Paramita Project, where I’m practicing one of the ten Buddhist paramitas every month. You can read all the posts on this month’s paramita, wisdom, here.
