Seeing That Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising

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Rob: Yes, I’m aware some people really don’t like the title and don’t get it, and some people love it. Here is a link to Catherine’s reflection on the third foundation of mindfulness - mindfulness of mind, on day five of a meditation retreat.

She has been trained under the guidance of Martine Batchelor and completed the Bodhi College Dharma Teacher Training. She also took the MBCAS instructor training program (mindfulness based cognitive approach for seniors). In the summer of 2003 Rob joined Christopher Titmuss’s annual Dharma Yatra in France as a participant - he had listened to hundreds of Christopher's talks and considered him an inspiring teacher. Christopher then invited Rob to join the Yatra as assistant teacher in 2004/5. On the second of these Yatras, Rob heard about a service retreat in Anandwan, a leprosy community in central India, and he joined that retreat in November. It was then that the vision was born for an organisation that would unite deep meditation practice with ethical action and service in the world. Rob went on to co-found SanghaSeva in February 2005 with Dharma teachers Zohar Lavie, Nathan Glyde and others. Rob then facilitated a SanghaSeva tree-planting retreat in Scotland in 2005. He continued to be a member of SanghaSeva’s core team, attending AGMs regularly, until his declining health made this too much. Zohar Lavie remembers:Michael: This is really interesting. You know, when we’re doing a more phenomenological deconstruction of, let’s say, a meditative object, it’s very often the case that it starts to kind of dissolve before the meditative gaze, right? It fades away or whatever, starts to vanish in one way or another. You seem to be describing something similar happening with this other way, with this analytical way of working. Do you get that same – I think you call it in the book a fading of perception? Not of great importance but as far as I know Rob studied jazz guitar rather than piano at Berklee in Boston before he devoted himself full-time to the Dharma. Zohar Lavie’s Talks from the Meeting Uncertainty with Wisdom and Courage: Perennial Teachings for a Changing World retreat on 07.06/2021: Anicca Brings Possibilities (Duration 40:35) During his time at Gaia House, Rob wrote Seeing that Frees: Meditations on Emptiness and Dependent Arising – an important and influential work that continues to shape and open the meditative exploration of many.

LAURA BRIDGMAN was a Buddhist nun in the Theravada tradition from 1995 to 2015. Her main teachers within this school have been Ajahn Sumedho, Ajahn Sucitto and Sayadaw U Tejaniya. She has been offering retreats since 2007, most recently mainly at Gaia House where she is also the staff support teacher. Her practice orientation is the Buddha’s teaching of the Five Spiritual Faculties (trust, balanced effort, mindfulness, composure and wisdom). Alongside her Vipassana (Insight) practice she is a student of the Diamond Approach (Ridhwan). YAHEL AVIGUR is a devoted meditator and Dharma teacher. In 2013, after practicing Theravada and Insight Meditation traditions, he met the Dharma teacher Rob Burbea and became his student. He was encouraged by Rob to teach the complete path of Emptiness as he articulated it, as well as his particular approach to Jhana practice and to train in teaching Soulmaking Dharma. Yahel is also trained in the Hakomi approach of assisted self-study. Rob: Well, there is a whole other category that I would call soulmaking perception, which might be skillful fabrication. Maybe a simpler one is around time, a moment of time. One of the reasonings goes: a moment of time, if it has inherent existence, has to be one or many. So anything that has inherent existence, its nature is one or many. If it were a one, this present moment of time, that means it couldn’t have a beginning, a middle, and an end. For a moment of time to function, it needs to have a beginning and an end. The beginning needs to be different than the end. So, in effect, you’ve actually got two moments of time. So we say, okay, well, you can’t have one moment, maybe the present moment is many. But the very concept of many depends on the concept of one; one is an aggregate, a collection, of many. So you see that many can’t exist, either. And so – you know, we’re just talking rationally right now – then it’s neither one nor many; it has no inherent existence. Now, I just rattled through that. What a person has to do meditatively is take some time with the kinds of rational arguments, philosophical arguments, that actually attract them but also convince them. So that means pondering and thinking for a while. CAROLINE JONES has been practising meditation since 1989. She started teaching in 2006, and now teaches at Gaia House and internationally. She also has spent time as a resident teacher at Gaia House. Caroline has been resident teacher at the Forest Refuge, Barre, Massachusetts since December 2015.

Ingen studied massage therapy in California upon leaving San Francisco Zen Center. Through the years Ingen has practiced Aikido, T'ai Chi and Chi Kung (Qi Qong) and from these disciplines has created a set of flow exercises which he calls Zen in Motion. Remember there is always a person behind the post or comment you’re objecting to. They may just be having a bad day… If you’re upset, perhaps let a little time pass before responding to them or us. KIRSTEN KRATZ has practised Buddhist meditation in Asia and the West since 1993. She started teaching in 2006 and since 2015 she has been ‘teacher in residence’ supporting those on personal retreat at Gaia House. Her love and understanding of Dharma has been strongly influenced by, among others, the teachings of her friend and teacher colleague, Rob Burbea. You can access all of Rob's talks, videos, interviews and podcasts here: https://hermesamara.org/resources/all Michael: It’s today’s answer. Perfect. So I’m just going to ask you an impossible question, which is, okay, Rob, you have this deep insight into emptiness – what can you say about emptiness? What is it? Why does it matter? Why should someone care?

Again, it becomes like, well, what purpose is served by this or that conceptual framework, for this or that person, at any time? It depends who I’m talking to, what they need, what they’re ready for, what kind of personality they are, what their relationship is with tradition and all of that, how I might express that. I see it as a playground: one can move between conceptual structures of all these things. And I can move. But I don’t think I ever kind of see any of them as, “This is the way it is.” They’re more just perspectives we can play with. The most important things about this is the first bit: we ask the community to lead with this. That means you! Thanks for helping us promote good conversations on The Buddhist Centre Online. In early 2013 Rob was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement. DANCE was initiated by a group of Dharma teachers, staff and friends of Gaia House as a forum for the wider sangha to explore what might be possible in bringing creative Dharma responses to the climate crisis. DANCE initiated its own actions and also joined forces with other organisations such as BP or Not BP.One of her particular passions is exploring how wisdom teachings can foster appropriate responses to the challenges of our time, and Kirsten sees her involvement in activism as an important expression of her practice. Kirsten is co-initiator of the “Dharma Action Network for Climate Engagement” ( DANCE) and supporting teacher of Freely Given Retreats.

Everyone has off-moments, and we’ll always try to be in friendly dialogue with you if a problem arises with one of your contributions. But we reserve the right to remove posts and comments (or even suspend user accounts) when we feel these guidelines are not observed. For many though, their first encounter with Rob was in his seminal book Seeing That Frees, published in 2014. After a startling chapter laying out the connections between Samadhi and Insight practice, the reader is guided deep into the heart of emptiness and dependent arising. In his inimitable prose - gentle, precise and inviting of personal exploration - Rob sets out what he had discovered about how to use the wisdom teachings with skill, subtlety and without limiting the profundity of the Buddha’s core teaching to any single conception. Seeing That Frees joins up the dots and has become a classic manual for practitioners, one to take on a solitary retreat and really soak up. BHANTE BODHIDHAMMA started training in Soto Zen in 1977, then in the Mahasi Theravada Tradition with Sayadaws U Rewata Dhamma, U Janaka and U Pandita. In 1986 he ordained, subsequently spending eight years at Kanduboda Mahasi Meditation Centre in Sri Lanka. He has been teaching in England, Ireland and internationally since 1998. From 2001- 2005, he was the Resident Teacher at Gaia House. He founded the Satipanya Buddhist Retreat in Wales, a meditation centre devoted to the Mahasi tradition. JUHA PENTTILÄ has been practicing meditation since 2002. He has spent extended periods of time on retreats and in monasteries in Asia and Europe and is one of the founding members of Nirodha, the Finnish Insight Meditation practice community. Juha completed his Insight Meditation teacher training in 2020. In addition to exploring meditation, Juha’s teaching is influenced by the current climate crisis and engaged perspectives into the Dharma.KATRIN AUF DER HEYDE grew up in South Africa where she practiced in both Zen and Theravada traditions. Listen to Yuka Nakamura talks on Dharma Seed; here is a link to one recorded in 2021 with Bodhi College Mudita — The Joyful Heart (Duration 50:41)