Contending with Empty Space

4.2 Contending with Empty Space

The thorn left at the end of the last chapter—now it is drawn head-on.

Sentient beings are numberless, I vow to liberate them—if beings are "numberless," is this vow not doomed never to be completed? Write "liberate all beings" into the list of a life, and that one entry cannot be struck off in this life, cannot be struck off in the next, and after measureless aeons still cannot be struck off. A vow that, from its first day, is fated never to receive its check-mark—why make it?

To draw this thorn, one thing must be seen clearly first: how the four measure-words of the four vows are being used.

Four Measure-Words, Four Doors That Never Close

Beings without "number," afflictions without "end," dharma-gates without "measure," the Buddha-Way without "above." Read roughly, these four words look like adjectives—very many, exceedingly great. But they are not describing; they are building a structure.

Each measure-word sets, for its sentence, a condition of termination—and that condition is built never to come true. To liberate beings "to the last" must wait for the number of beings to reach zero—but beings are numberless, and the day of zero does not exist. To sever the afflictions "to the end" must wait for the afflictions to run dry—but the afflictions are endless, and the hour of running dry never comes. The ten clauses of "exhaustion" we met in Part Three among the ten vows of the ten grounds—should the realm of beings be exhausted, my vow would be exhausted—are made by exactly the same construction: the vow's terminus set at a place that will never arrive. The ten exhaustion-clauses of the ten grounds and the four measure-words of the four vows are locks forged by one and the same smith.

A terminus that never comes true—what follows? The vow never "expires and exits." A list loses one line with every line struck; all struck, the list is thrown away. The four vows are not a list: not one of their entries has a door that closes, and so they are always there.

And see this clearly too: "numberless" is not the bigness of the vower's talk. The realm of beings has no edge to begin with—that is the world's actual state, not anyone's boast. So "cannot be finished" was never anyone's failure either. The horizon recedes forever ahead, and not because you walk slowly; the horizon was never a point to be stepped on. To blame oneself for not overtaking the horizon is to mistake what a horizon is; to read "cannot all be liberated" as one's own deficiency is to mistake what "numberless" is.

Master Zhiyi Said It to the Bottom

But even granting that "numberless" is the actual state and not my failure—knowing full well it cannot be finished, and vowing to do it all the same: is this temper not, even so, a tragic grinding-on?

In the Mohe Zhiguan, Master Zhiyi took this question over—and answered more thoroughly than the asker would have dared. He does not merely grant that beings cannot all be liberated; he steps back one place deeper: seen by prajñā, beings cannot even be called "really existent"—beings are like empty space; the afflictions are from the first nothing-whatsoever. And then, upon that very emptiness, he sets down the one word "vow":

"Though beings are like empty space, I vow to ferry beings-like-space; though I know the afflictions to be nothing-whatsoever, I vow to sever afflictions that are nothing-whatsoever."

Every clause runs "though… I vow…" Though knowing full well that beings are like empty space, still one vows to ferry these beings-like-space; though knowing full well the afflictions are from the first nothing-whatsoever, still one vows to sever these afflictions-that-are-nothing. The one who vows is not ignorant—he knows completely—and in the very midst of knowing, he vows.

Why must both ends be held at once? Master Zhiyi points out the forks one by one. To see beings as really existent and not see their emptiness—a vow raised so, he says, is "a vow mixed with poison": compassion with the poison of grasping stirred in. To see only the emptiness and no beings to ferry—this, he says, is "one attached to emptiness, whom the buddhas cannot transform": sit down hugging the void, and even a buddha cannot ferry you. And to grieve over beings seen everywhere as real falls into the "great compassion of affection and views"—pity entangled in attachment, no road of liberation. Three forks blocked, one road remains in the middle, and he sketches it with a bird:

"Like a bird flying through empty space: it never dwells in the space; and though it does not dwell there, its track is nowhere to be found. Though empty, one ferries; though ferrying, it is empty."

The bird flies in the void—it does not stop in the emptiness (it does not dwell in space), and yet the track of its flight can be found nowhere (it does not settle in existence). Though empty, one ferries; though ferrying, it is empty. And then the sentence that has carried its name down the centuries:

"Therefore it is called 'contending with empty space,' and therefore it is called 'the genuine raising of the awakening-mind.'"

To contend with empty space. The adversary is boundless, bottomless, formless; judged by winning and losing, this is a contest that can never be won and never be over. And Master Zhiyi's verdict is: precisely this contest is what deserves the name "the genuine raising of the awakening-mind." The truth of a vow lies not in its power to win, but in its daring to keep lifelong company with an adversary that is, by nature, unwinnable—contending, but not for the victory; ferrying, but not to ferry-to-the-end.

Within the Nothing-Whatsoever, I Therefore Seek It

Of the latter two vows he speaks more strangely still. The dharma-gates and the Buddha-Way, seen by prajñā, are equally and forever quiescent as space, nowhere to be gotten. Then what is there to study, what to accomplish? He answers:

"Though I know awakening to be nothing-whatsoever, within the nothing-whatsoever, I therefore seek it."

Knowing full well that awakening is nothing-whatsoever, within that very nothing, I seek it all the same. One word—"therefore": knowing it is so, therefore still seeking—buckles shut, in a single stroke, the seemingly uncrossable gap between "knowing it empty" and "still seeking." Not seeking because one does not know it is empty (that is delusion); not ceasing to seek because one knows it is empty (that is annihilation); but knowing it empty, therefore still seeking. He even says such a vow is a vow "to paint and adorn empty space"—swearing to lay brushwork on the void and make the void magnificent; and he strikes one more simile:

"It is like planting a tree in empty space, yet making it flower and fruit."

To plant a tree in the void, and have it flower and bear. It sounds absurd—the void has no soil, no ground; where is the tree to be set? But the simile points at exactly the vow's ground-color: it does not lean on a real, completable place to land. The tree is planted as before, the flower opens as before, the fruit forms as before—everything is done as before; only the doing is no longer tied to the stake of "one day finished, one day in hand."

Tiantai gave the four vows raised in this way a proper name: the uncontrived Four Great Vows. The word "uncontrived" must be nailed exactly. It does not mean "no need to do"—the very opposite: within the nothing-whatsoever I therefore seek it; planting a tree in empty space, yet making it flower and fruit—every word says still seeking, still planting, still ferrying, still severing. What "uncontrived" negates is the fabrication that grasps the object as real and takes completion for the aim; everything is done exactly as before—only, beneath the doing, the stake called "terminus" has been pulled out.

And here the suspicion of "a tragic grinding-on" can be set down. The bitterness of grinding-on is the bitterness of hoping—hoping for completion, and completion not coming, so that the days wear one down. The uncontrived vow never held completion out to itself as a reward; with no hope laid up, there is no wearing-down when hope falls through. Nor is it tragic—tragedy carries the weight of "fighting on though one knows one will lose," and this contention with the void does not sit in the coordinates of winning and losing at all. It is not that it will lose; it is that it is regardless of win or loss.

One Thing to See Clearly Here

The word "uncontrived" has a slide in the other direction too, and it must be blocked.

Hearing "beings are like space," "completion is not the aim," some will take it toward the slack—since it cannot be finished and is empty from the first, let things take their course; no need to be so earnest. That is to hear "uncontrived" as "not doing," and it drops exactly Master Zhiyi's weight-bearing word: "therefore." Within the nothing-whatsoever, I therefore seek it—therefore: all the same, even so. The uncontrived vow is not doing less; it is doing all of it without grasping. Not a lightening of the burden, but a cleaner shouldering of it, upon a thorough knowing. The bird does not dwell in the space—and the bird has not for one moment stopped flying.

Part Four, to This Point

With these two chapters, the bottom of the Four Great Vows has been turned over.

Chapter one saw their grammar: the four vows are not four wishes but the Four Noble Truths in the active voice—one and the same map of suffering, origin, cessation, and path; the hearer uses it to leave, the bodhisattva turns each truth into a vow; great compassion pulls out suffering and origin, great loving-kindness gives path and cessation; the object may be outward or inward, and the sentence-form does not move. Chapter two drew their thorn: "numberless" is no frightening adjective but a structure that sets the terminus where it never comes true—the vow holds its office by never closing its door; and Master Zhiyi pushed this step to the bottom: knowing full well that beings are like space, one vows to ferry beings-like-space—contending with empty space, and only this is called the genuine raising of the awakening-mind.

Four sentences, one map, one long contention regardless of win or loss. This is the bodhisattva vow the Chinese tradition has placed in every person's mouth.

And yet, reading to here, a feeling may rise quietly in the heart: this road, carried entirely on one's own vow-power, is too heavy. Knowing it cannot be gotten and seeking it still; knowing they cannot all be liberated and liberating still—this burden: can an ordinary person's shoulders bear it?

In the Buddha's gate, one road answers that feeling directly. Ages and ages ago, a certain monk made vows of exactly this kind, clause by clause—forty-eight of them. And he accomplished them. He became a Buddha; his vow became a land; and from then on, those who cannot carry the load may entrust their direction to his vow-power, and ride.

That monk's name was Dharmākara. The next part tells the original vows of Amitābha.