Conditionality And Emptiness

In today's video I want to talk about conditionality and emptiness and the part they play in the experience of awakening.

And to describe conditionality,

What I mean by conditionality,

The way I'm using the word,

It could be useful to think about a plant that we used to have growing in the garden back there.

So we're sitting recording this in our home in Cambridge and behind me our garden and you can see it's not a very big garden,

It's a narrow city garden.

And we used to have this lovely plant,

Lavatara Barnsley.

It's got pale grey-green leaves,

Beautiful shell pink flowers,

Trumpet-like.

It's a lovely,

Lovely plant.

So here's a question,

What are the conditions that are needed for this plant to thrive here in our garden?

And you could think and you could say,

Well it needs soil,

It needs sun,

It needs food,

It needs air,

Light,

These things,

The typical things that come to mind.

And all of that's right,

Correct,

But it misses out a really key condition and probably the key condition.

Because if it had a bit less sun it would still be getting on with things.

If it had a bit less water it could still get on with things.

If the food wasn't good,

If the soil wasn't rich,

It could get on with things.

But what it really needs above all and most importantly is for Annette and I to want it to be there.

We don't want it to be there,

Curtains.

And in fact that's what happened with the Lavatara Barnsley that was growing in our garden.

It's a bit of a thug,

It outgrew its space,

Started to sprawl,

We said no it's not,

It doesn't fit anymore,

Dug it up,

Went on to the compost and that's that.

So a key condition for its being there was our wanting it.

But when you start to think like that you see that maybe there's more to it than this because actually Annette and I are a key condition for it to be there.

Our existence is intimately intertwined with its existence.

If we didn't exist it wouldn't be there.

So we need to exist and that means our parents,

Both of our parents,

Need to have met.

Mine at a tennis party in Johannesburg in the early 1950s.

If they hadn't met there,

Got together,

Married,

Had me,

No plant.

Definitely that plant would not have been there.

That means all of my parents ancestors implicated in that plant's being there.

If any of them hadn't hooked up in the shtetl in Poland back in the early 18th century,

No plant.

And so it goes on and on and on.

All of Annette's ancestors are involved.

And given that it's Lavaterra Barnsley,

There's another person involved here and this is Rosemary Veery,

A garden designer who had a famous garden in Barnsley House in Gloucestershire.

And she had a very keen eye,

Was wandering around a friend's garden,

Saw a Lavaterra plant growing there,

Thought oh hang on there's a little stick there with a shell pink flower,

Not the usual darker pink flower.

I'll have that.

Cut it off,

Took it back to Barnsley House,

Grew it on.

And so Lavaterra Barnsley was born and that became quite fashionable.

Garden centres all wanted it.

We bought it.

Hence our plant in our garden.

So all of her ancestors are involved as well.

As well of course as her keen eye and her ability to keep her secateurs with her at all times so she could take a good clean clipping.

And of course there's more to it than that.

As Einstein tells us there's gravity,

The speed of light,

All of these factors have to be just what they are in order for that plant to be thriving.

Everything that has been needs to have been as it was.

All these prior conditions need to have been as they were for that plant to be where it was.

It depends,

It arose in dependence on all of these different conditions.

And as conditions around it changed,

So it changed.

As the sun shone it grew,

It thrived.

If we watered it,

It was fine.

If we didn't water it,

It wilted.

All the time it's responding to conditions and when it gets too big and we don't like it,

It's a key condition and off it goes.

Right,

So it depends on conditions and the same is true of all of us.

Each and every one of us arises in each moment in dependence on supporting conditions.

What's going on around us changes us all the time.

The food we eat,

The places we go,

The liquids we drink,

The bugs that come into our body,

The things that leave our body,

All of these things are constantly shaping and reshaping us.

The things we see are affecting our mood,

Our mood is affecting our feelings,

Our feelings are affecting our behavior,

All the time,

All the time,

All the time.

Conditions,

The endless flow of conditions and we're embedded in a web of conditions.

Each and every one of us is simply taking part in this endless dance,

This vast,

Vast cosmic dance,

Which is the interaction of conditions,

Changing conditions,

Always changing.

And every condition,

When you look closely,

You see every condition is fleeting.

No condition,

No condition ever lasts for even a microsecond.

All we have is flux,

Constant change.

Within this vast mass of conditions,

There is no essence,

No us-ness,

Nothing that endures even for a few milliseconds.

There's nothing that is our essential self that somehow transcends the conditions within which we're embedded.

There is just changing conditions.

And what this points to is the essential emptiness of phenomena,

Ourselves included.

There is just change.

Now,

Within this flux of change,

This doesn't mean that we're not hugely rich,

Deep,

Complex,

Hugely rich and deep,

Complex events unfolding in the matrix of conditions.

Of course we are.

Human beings are endlessly rich,

Endlessly deep,

Endlessly complex,

And utterly embedded in the flow of conditions,

Embedded in the flow of life.

And this is not in a way to undermine humanity or undervalue humanity.

What it is to say is that humanity is inextricably embedded in the whole fabric of life that is the universe.

Each and every one of us is a part of everything,

And everything that goes on is constantly impacting and changing us.

We're caught up in this infinite network of changing conditions,

And it's marvellous.

And when you can turn to that with the kind of awe and wonder that is appropriate to the scale of what is happening in any moment,

Then you come to see things as they are.

What keeps us from that,

And keeps us enclosed in self-reference,

Me,

My problems,

My wants,

My desires,

That's something we'll come to next.