Transition ⑤ · From the Three Wheels Empty to the Reverse Side of the Śūraṅgama

Part Five has walked up to a hand completely open, with nowhere left to abide, and stopped. The page is about to turn.

This middle page is a breath.

With Part Five done, giving has been loosened to the very bottom in the direction of the "I."

Setting out from the letting-go of the Pāli, this book has loosened "mine" again and again: in the Āgamas, loosened between person and person; in the Vinaya, loosened into a long-lasting field of merit; in the Mahāyāna treatises, even the "I who is giving" began to come loose; and in the three prajñā scriptures—the Diamond Sūtra loosened to "not abiding in marks," the Heart Sūtra to "seeing that the five skandhas are all empty," while the six hundred fascicles of the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra urged, over and over, "practice giving with nothing obtainable." A hand loosened until there is nothing to grip and nowhere to abide—that loosening is the "crossing" of "crossing over all suffering and distress."

This road set out from how much to give, and arrived at even "I am giving" emptied out. You could say that, seen from the giving end, giving has been spoken all the way to its end.

But the self-grasping that keeps a person turning round and round in birth and death has two faces.

The five parts so far have kept their eyes on one face of it—the hand that clenches "mine" and cannot bear to let go. What this whole book has been doing, all along, is prying that hand open, finger by finger. Loosen "mine," give it away—this is loosening the "I" from the direction of giving.

But self-grasping has another face, turned in the opposite direction.

It is not only unwilling to give away what is mine; it also wants to take what was never mine. One hand clenches inward—that is stinginess; the other hand grabs outward—that is grasping: grabbing what belongs to others, what I have no right to, what no one has given me. The first refuses to give; the second cannot keep from taking. But look closely: these two are the two hands of one and the same "I," both scrabbling for all they are worth to rake the world into the circle of "mine."

The five parts so far have treated the first hand—the one that refuses to give. Its remedy is giving.

And the second hand—the one that cannot keep from taking? Its remedy is not-taking.

Not-taking sounds, at first, like a rule, a prohibition: no stealing, no taking what should not be taken. But turn it over: when you hold to not taking what has not been given to me, what happens? You have barred the circle of "mine," stopped it from sprawling any further outward. Other people's things, advantages you have no right to—your hand does not reach for them. That not-reaching loosens, astonishingly, the very same "I" that giving's open hand loosens.

Here is the wonder of it: giving loosens "mine" outward; not-taking holds the hand back from raking things into "mine." One gives outward; one bars inward. Opposite directions—yet they touch the same root: both are loosening the self-grasping that must, everywhere, draw things into the circle of "mine."

From the side of giving, you see giving; but from the side of not taking, what you see is also a kind of giving—a giving hidden on the reverse side of not-taking. To hold to not stealing, not seizing, is itself to give everyone a share of security: the ease of knowing "what is mine is safe in your presence." This too is a gift that costs nothing, sister to what Part Three taught—that not killing is itself the gift of fearlessness.

And the scripture that sees giving from this reverse side—from the side of not-taking—most deeply and most strikingly is one sūtra: the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.

It does not teach from the front, telling you how you ought to give. It cuts in from an unexpected angle: it speaks of stealing, of that hand that cannot keep from taking, of how not-taking pulls a person back, step by step, from the road of grabbing outward. In its telling, not-taking is not merely a precept; it runs down to a very deep place—down to the root of "mine." Looking back from this reverse side, giving will show a face we have not seen before.

In Part Six we circle around to the reverse side of giving and look, through the Śūraṅgama Sūtra, at the giving hidden inside not-taking.

We turn the page.