James Wood Teachings

From a talk given by James in 2008

If our true nature is formless and what has us captured is form, then the relationship between the two is what I call the Awakener. That’s where Emptiness comes into play. Emptiness means that forms neither exist nor not exist. They have a certain kind of existence. When forms are viewed consciously, they have no ultimate or intrinsic value. Of themselves, they are nothing—and in that sense, they are empty. But they have a conventional kind of existence.

We don’t know what things are because their ultimate nature is unknowable. But we give them names. In the awakened state, a clear discrimination exists between the ultimate nature of forms—which is unknowable—and the names that represent them. By “name,” I mean a word that we use that refers to a thought (concept) that represents an object in our awareness. So we can have thoughts and witness forms and see that those names—those thoughts—cannot capture Reality.

Why is this useful? Awakening is a Liberation from the dream of confusing thoughts with Reality. As long as there are beings to be awakened—liberated from this dream—it is necessary for the Formless to appear as a Teacher, an awakened individual, to provide an access point for the liberated consciousness to be recognized. Because of this, an awakened person is in the world, but is not of the world. So it’s a relationship between the Formless and the dream of form in which beings exist and suffer.

Strictly speaking, from the perspective of the Absolute, of the Formless, as long as there are beings suffering this nightmare of self-existence, it (the Absolute) is going to walk the earth as a human being who is willing to suspend disbelief for a while, to live in relationship with the world of form from the perspective of Formlessness.

So the notion of forms having a conventional or relative kind of existence is useful because it is the awakened perspective as it is lived in the world. As long as there are worlds—as long as there are suffering beings—this perspective is useful. Once all beings are liberated, there’s no need for that. Formlessness Itself is formless.

So when you study this material, it is important to see things this way—to begin to appreciate the world’s illusory nature as best you can—because it brings you into alignment with the activity of the Awakener that you are already. See, you’re here to awaken yourself. The voice you’re hearing is your voice—within you, although it may seem to come from outside. The commitment to awakening is to awaken yourself so that you can then awaken others.

Implicit in this teaching on Emptiness is an extreme willingness to be in the world and penetrate its mystery. So it’s not a denial of the world. You’re here to pull the plug on yourself, the plug that says I exist independently—so that you may awaken others. It does not deny humanity. It fully accepts—profoundly embraces—humanity.

So this function of the Awakener is the relationship between Formless and form. It’s the realm of compassion, of service. It’s deeply functional. Its function is to care.

It’s possible when awakening occurs to see through all forms, all conditioned existence, and to see that Formlessness as Reality completely, obviating the need for forms entirely. This happened to me. When I woke up, it woke up. Formlessness woke up to Itself through me, through this person. I lost interest in embodied existence; it was not necessary. I lost interest in food and everything that goes with embodied life. I started losing weight, started becoming very joyously and pleasantly detached from all care or concern about anything. But it’s the compassion, the awareness of others who suffer and the willingness to stay and to serve as a relationship—that’s what keeps me here.

So this work is not a denial of humanity. It’s not a denial of the world. It’s seeing the world as empty of intrinsic existence or value but possessing a relative kind of existence that could be of service. There’s a distinction between the utter and absolute Formlessness of God, Truth—I might say Emptiness Itself—and the Awakener. I talk about this in my book, that the Awakener is an interface between the Formless and form. It’s a relationship.

So it’s almost as if there are three realms: the Formless on one end of the spectrum, form on the other end, and this relational, spiritual realm in the middle. As long as there are beings suffering in form realms, the middle will serve that. Without the form, there is no middle. There’s Formlessness Itself, which we can’t describe except to say what it isn’t. So we say form-less. No form.

On the form end of the spectrum, objects and ideas, phenomena, things are given an absolute kind of value. Things are seen as independently or ultimately real. The form end you could call the world. In this realm, objects are given a kind of absolute value. In the middle realm—the Awakener realm, the realm of compassion and service to the form realm—forms are seen as empty. They are seen as ultimately formless but relatively useful. The forms are seen through; their ultimate nature is revealed as formless. But they are seen and they are acknowledged because the people in the form realms are suffering. The Awakener takes on that delusion willingly and yet is not captured by that because the Awakened perspective is Formlessness Itself.

Form realm: forms are seen as absolute. Awakener realm (middle realm): forms are seen as empty, meaning they have a relative kind of existence that’s merely a convention, but having no ultimate or absolute value. That’s what “empty” means. Formless: no forms.

If you suffer from unconsciousness, which means you have an attachment to the form end, which is to say that you haven’t awakened yet (it may sound like a judgment; it’s not. It’s not wrong or bad, just painful)—if you’re still stuck in that form perspective and try to assume the Formless perspective, chances are you’re going to slip into nihilism because you’re going to say that things don’t exist at all.

That’s why the Buddhist philosophical system of Madhyamaka means “middle way.” Middle realm, middle way. Objects are seen as empty, yet functional to serve to awaken beings.

So one might think the temptation would be that when you wake up, you wake up to the Formless as the Formless, and all forms would be negated. While this is ultimately (absolutely) true, it is not relatively (functionally) true.

Let’s look at it this way: You see through the forms, you see through all of it—it sees through all of it. Whatever karma was generated, whatever momentum was generated prior to that, continues similarly to a spinning wheel. So if karma is a spinning wheel that we’re constantly contributing to and spinning it, awakening stops that. There’s no more of that. The wheel spins for a little while although no one is actively spinning it any longer or contributing to it.

Theoretically, the temptation might be to let go fully into Emptiness, Nirvana, Liberation completely. It would be like escaping from a burning building. You’re free of it, but what about your children? They are still trapped inside. Would a loving parent abandon his or her children to a burning building? No. Is it theoretically possible? Yes.

It’s important to realize that there are false teachings out there that will negate the existence of forms in a way that’s dishonest. For example, someone asks one of these false teachers, “Do I need a spiritual teacher?” They say, “No, that’s dualistic. If you have a notion of a teacher and a student, that’s a form of unconsciousness and ignorance and is a false perspective.”

No, it’s not. From the perspective of Formlessness, that is true; it’s a profound view and must be held by an awakened consciousness. That perspective, if it’s adopted intellectually but isn’t valid from one’s Being, what you’re saying is, “Oh, you don’t need a Teacher.” If you’re suffering and you want to find the way out, instead of finding the Awakener, they say, “No, that’s dualistic. Don’t do that, because all is one. Anything you say implies a self and an other and is therefore false.”

It’s not false. It’s empty. What does that mean? It means that things do not have an ultimate kind of existence in themselves. But if you’re in the dream, you deal with dream things. It’s possible to be in the dream and see them as empty, and yet to help others within that particular field.

A false teacher who is an absolutist—someone who denies the relative—is like the dog in the “dog in the manger” parable. The dog is in the manger, growling, not allowing those creatures who can benefit from eating the hay to eat. So the dog neither partakes nor allows others to partake.

It’s extremely dishonest. I said this last week. It’s like someone asking, “I’m thirsty. Could you hand me that bottle of water?” And you say, “I’m sorry, I can’t do that. It doesn’t exist and neither do I and how dare you suggest that. That’s dualistic.”

It’s absurd.

Someone is lying, bleeding in the street. An onlooker says, “Oh, that’s an illusion.” Do you hear that? It’s a negation of humanity. It’s a denial of the fact of suffering. It’s wicked. And empty.

I don’t recommend adopting that kind of view because it leads to further suffering, a far greater kind of suffering because not only are you immersed in the murk and the muck of samsara, but you’re keeping others from benefiting by confusing them with false views.

This is tremendously important. So forget about denying that things exist and see them as perhaps useful and having no ultimate significance.

One metaphor for the world is a sinking ship. Say the form realm is the Titanic. The middle realm is represented by a life boat with someone operating it who is aware of the nature of the Titanic and what’s really going on there—the sinking bit—with a grounding in Freedom, the Freedom being represented by being able to row this lifeboat away from the sinking ship into the open water, being saved, in a sense. So the Awakener is the one who has one foot on the lifeboat and one foot on the ship and tries to get people’s attention, tries to get them to realize what’s going on and that salvation is possible, Freedom is possible.

Salvation may not be necessary in an ultimate sense—you can drown in the dark sea of the world as many times as you like—but it is necessary if you want to end suffering. From an ultimate perspective, suffering is an illusion. From a practical perspective, it is the bane of existence.

True Teachings come from an awakened perspective and get written down, passed down, so you’re going to hear sometimes statements like “You’re already free.” It’s just important to realize that this is not an idea that you can then adopt and have seminars telling others that help isn’t necessary. It smacks of nihilism.

Human beings are ultimate because they are human beings. “Being” is another name for the Absolute, a name that refers to the ultimate nature of individuals.

The worst kinds of genocide involve a dehumanization of the unwanted ethnic group or religious group. It’s dangerous. To adopt the teachings on Emptiness is to be highly compassionate and to align yourself with the Liberation of others—which paradoxically makes your own Liberation more likely because you’re invoking your own inherent nature that is that, that is the Awakener Itself already. So if Emptiness sounds like nihilism, it’s not. It’s a common critique based on a misunderstanding of Emptiness.

When we meditate, we witness thoughts. We practice witnessing thoughts without judgment until we do witness them that way, rendering them empty. If we do inquiry, we inquire into the thoughts that are causing our suffering, seeing their lack of Truth. All spiritual practice is that, some form of that.

Now, I have heard teachings on Emptiness applied to any object or objects, any phenomena, anything you can name—and that can be useful. It’s a good preliminary practice to at least entertain the notion that the world is mentally projected. It consists of thoughts. Since thoughts cannot ultimately or exactly describe Reality, they are seen as conventions, empty designations.

But where you’re really going to get the most benefit is to become aware of your suffering, your negativity, to find the thought or thoughts that, because you’re attaching to them as if they were of absolute value, are painful. I usually say that you could call it “This shouldn’t be happening.” And “this” is whatever it is that you feel shouldn’t be happening that is happening.

So if I’m a farmer and there’s a drought, I might have the thought that it should be raining when it’s not raining. That conflict—between my attachment to the thought that it should be raining that disagrees with the Reality that it isn’t raining—is a form of suffering. So all suffering is attaching to thoughts that disagree with Reality—and every thought disagrees with Reality.

But some thoughts we attach to more than others. There’s a stronger degree of attachment. Those are more painful. Those are also the ones that most closely contribute to a sense of self. So if you can inquire into those thoughts and witness them as empty, you’re dismantling the ego, the ego being a tendency to attach to notions or ideas about Reality as if they were Reality when they’re not.

So you could inquire into the Reality of a distant planet. Planet Neptune: Does it exist? That could be useful; it’s just not something that’s going to cause you a lot of suffering. If we had sufficiently advanced technology that enabled you to travel on a spaceship to Neptune and you were stranded there and were suffering and were attached to the thought that you shouldn’t be on planet Neptune, that would then be part of your ego structure. That tendency is much closer to what’s really causing all of your suffering. So that’s good news. What if I said that to wake up, you had to inquire into the nature of every individual object in the universe? You couldn’t do it.

It may be helpful as you go about your day to practice informal mindfulness, and in a sense you’re allowing a nonjudgmental awareness to witness those forms as you go through your day and to let them go, to allow things to be emptier, more free, more liberated. There’s more peace in that, more calmness, more sanity.

So we have practices such as inquiry where you perhaps write down a thought that disagrees with Reality that’s causing a lot of suffering. That’s potent. John shouldn’t be judgmental. (This is hypothetical.) That’s a good one to work on. But if you’re with John in the moment—maybe John is a store clerk or someone you’re with—you can’t really whip out a notepad and start doing inquiry in the moment. It’s not practical. But it is practical to practice mindfulness.

Prayer, for example, has a certain kind of appropriate use, place, situation. Inquiry is more of a practice that you would do perhaps after the fact. You have an interaction with this person, John, and maybe he gets angry at you and you feel hurt by that and you’re practicing mindfulness but you still feel really hurt and it’s got you. You get trapped in a reaction. Well, when you get a chance, go home, pull out your notebook and write down something along the lines of I’m hurt because John is judgmental. And you can inquire into whether that’s actually true. Somewhere in that is the idea that John shouldn’t be judgmental. If he is judgmental, he should be—because he is.

So Freedom is accepting what is without this gauze of concepts about what should be happening. An angry person is just as formless, just as divine, just as pure and perfect and free as anything or anyone else. But you’ve got to hold that. That’s what we’re here for.

Maybe next time, after doing your inquiry, you have a similar situation: a thought comes up that someone shouldn’t be angry or judgmental. You are able, then, to witness it as empty, as having no ultimate truth. And maybe you don’t shut down. You can remain helpful, kind, patient, relaxed, alert, intelligent, compassionate—because anyone who is judgmental or angry is suffering from the same affliction of attachment.

So you could make a list: what do you feel should be happening that isn’t happening? What do you feel shouldn’t be happening that is happening? Let’s start with feelings first. Notice negative emotions, afflictive emotions: anger, fear, hurt, depression. Find out what story you’re telling yourself that things should be other than they are. How do I know it should be raining? I look outside. If it isn’t raining, it shouldn’t be. That’s peace. It’s not that it’s good or bad, right or wrong. It just is.

From that place of agreement, from that place of peace, allowing, radical acceptance of what is, I can then become more conscious, more fully embody that middle realm, that relationship with form that’s liberating. To that degree, I’m truly helpful. But what moves me is compassion—not anger, judgment, despair, fear, dogma, or religion.

Compassion is an awareness of others’ suffering coupled with a willingness to alleviate that suffering. It’s what moves. It’s the movement of Truth. It’s Wisdom because it recognizes suffering and seeks to cure that, to relieve it.

Who would you be without suffering? That’s a wonderful question.

Who would you be without suffering? It’s almost impossible to answer, isn’t it? You’d be free. You’d be unencumbered. So Freedom is possible; that’s what I’m here to represent to the world, to you. I don’t care if it’s just one person who hears this. It’s worth it, that you can be free.

Practice like there’s no tomorrow—because you never know if tomorrow will be there to meet you.