Bodhidharma was asked by the Emperor, “How much merit have I gained for my good works? For ordaining monks and building monasteries. For having the scriptures copied. For commissioning holy images?”
“None,” replied Bodhidharma. “Good works done for worldly gain bring no merit.”
“So what then is the meaning of the noble truth?” asked the Emperor.
“There is no noble truth. There is only emptiness.”
“If that is so,” continued the king, “who is standing here before me?”
Bodhidharma responded, “I don’t know.”
What would make you happy? You don’t know. If you did you might could do something about it. If you actually knew what you wanted you could go get it, and wouldn’t that be something? And yet, your whole life you’ve pursued this or that thing to no avail. There’s still, somehow, always something missing. There’s always a gap. Always a hole that can’t be filled. It’s not a coincidence that the words hole, holy, and whole are so similar. Properly understood, completeness requires a gap. See, there is no noble truth. There is only emptiness.
You chased that goal didn’t you? And you got it. So, now what? Why are you not happy. Why is it that you still feel as though something is missing from your life. That accomplishment, that goal, this prize or that accolade.
Why don’t they fulfill you when you get them?
Why can’t the project of “you” ever be finished?
Look at a piece of sheet music. When asked what you see most will say that they see notes. What’s not so obvious at first glance is that you’re also staring at pauses. At holes. In like fashion you stare at words on paper, or on this screen, and what do you see? Ink you might answer. “Black text.” Few people would answer that they see white paper. The paper is the background, as is the silence behind the music. We ignore the background as we ignore the floor under our feet. Yet the floor holds us up. Without the paper, or the screen, the letters would have nowhere to stand. The background is essential. The gap. The silence. One continuous sound would be no sound at all for sound is a vibration. Sound, like existence, is a wave. An up followed by a down. An on followed by an off. Thus the waves roll in from the ocean. Here and gone again. Hello. Goodbye. And the heart within your chest too is doing the same. Action followed by stillness. Again, necessary. Fundamental. If it simply contracted very very hard and refused to let go you would die. There is no pumping without periodic ceasing to pump. There is no sound without silence. There is no having without not having. There is no fulfillment without lack.
The nothing and the something go together.
This is the great secret.
The great secret that you can never be full.
You see, you can never be complete. Your desires can never be totally fulfilled. The happiness in your head that you are always running after, the one of infinite bliss without ever coming down. This is as impossible as a wave that’s all crest and no trough. As deadly as a heart that only knows how to contract and never lets go. People misunderstand Heaven. Our appetites are endless precisely because God is. Desire, the impetus to move, to change, this is the driving force of life. When a desire is fulfilled we can rest for a while. Having played the note, now, we can pause. Even God did that. Having worked for six days, he took a break. Not, mind you, because he was tired, but because without the pause creation wouldn’t be complete.
The folly is only in thinking this can last. That everyday can be Sunday. That we could reach some finality of perfect fulfillment where there was nothing more to want or do.
Of course we can’t.
The holy day. Sunday. The day of the pause or of the gap or the hole, has to also stop. A new note has to be played else the music is over. New desires must come after we’ve fulfilled the old ones. New restlessness. New dissatisfactions. Suppose, right now, by magic, all your wildest dreams came true. You suddenly find yourself in possession of billions of dollars. All the most beautiful people find you sexually irresistible. Your fame is boundless and millions hang on your every word. You have mansions and caviar and cellars of deep red wine. Everything anybody could possibly imagine ever wanting is there, at your fingertips.
So you kill yourself.
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