Buddha's "Freed from Pleasure and Pain"

In the Bahiya Sutta, a wise yet humble devotee named Bahiya loses his confidence in his practice and seeks the Buddha. When he finds him, he asks three times, "Teach me." Buddha's response helps Bihaya realize and transcend the relative and absolute truths.

Buddha says, "Herein, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: 'In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.' In this way you should train yourself, Bahiya. When, Bahiya, for you in the seen is merely what is seen... in the cognized is merely what is cognized, then, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'with that,' then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'in that,' then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering.... freed from form and formlessness. Freed from pleasure and pain."

What does it mean to be "freed from form and formlessness"?

It is important to realize the context of the Buddha's teachings. Like many people of our time, in ancient India people believed in a self with an intrinsic essence. It is true that each of us has a different story that we might say makes us who we are, and we must honor one another's stories. They deepen our compassion for ourselves and one another, even inspiring us to alleviate suffering in the world. Also, without our "relative thinking" in which we differentiate one self (or object) from another, we could not distinguish poisonous weeds from food. We would not know what to eat when we were hungry. Relative truths help us distinguish me from you and this from that. We need our relative truths, our conceptions of reality, to survive.

And, though these relative truths are helpful and necessary, they are only relative truths that are impermanent and relationally defined. Each "self" is constantly in flux and therefore has no unchanging essence. Each entity is also a dependent arising, existing in dependence on other factors, and therefore without any intrinsic essence. This lack of an unchanging, intrinsic essence Buddha called "anatman," or "no self." It is this perspective that we refer to as the absolute truth in Mahayana Buddhism.

The absolute truth is offered as medicine for people who suffer as they defend their egos, their senses of self, from inevitable change and decay. We all grow old, sick, and die. We often speak of the absolute by saying, "no." As the Heart Sutra states, from the absolute perspective there are no forms, and there is no suffering.

Both the relative and absolute expressions are true. Most western philosophers would say this is not possible. There cannot both be form and no form. After all, the rule of non-contradiction says that since these statements countermand one another, these statements cannot both be true. Hamlet's response is best: "There are far more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

When we get a glimmer of both sides of the coin, the mind tends to flip-flop between yes and no, between either this or that, between form and emptiness. We can easily get caught in either the relative side or the absolute side of the dharma, then deny the other side of the coin. Or we can get caught in seeing both sides of the coin. And this is where Buddha met Bahiya. Ever the skillful teacher at meeting students where they are, Buddha's counsel points beyond the paradox.

In actuality, "relative and absolute are altogether blended" (Robert Aitken, The Mind of Clover). Put differently, though the relative and absolute truths are both true, they are also just constructs pointing beyond themselves to the great reality, and in that sense, neither is true. Zen itself is a human creation to help reveal our true nature, which is no nature at all. Things neither exist nor don't exist. There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, nor is there not suffering, nor no cause of suffering.

When we are freed from all dualities, life whispers in the trees, dances like statues of stone. There are no essences to be found anywhere, and still, there is this "dream," like shapeshifting clouds in the sky, like rainbows, like bubbles in a stream.

All we must do is receive things exactly thus, receive what is sensed without adding anything extra, think our thoughts without adding belief or disbelief, open our heart-minds without investing any fixed identity anywhere. Here self and other are the same, and both fall completely away.

Everything is exactly as it is. Emptiness is exactly form, form exactly emptiness. Practice just this, Bahiya. Just this. Free from form and formlessness, free from pleasure and pain.