Mar 31 2025 41 mins 19
In this dharma talk, Fushin discusses the Empty Bowl Sutra and its relationship to the Diamond Sutra, presenting them as complementary teachings about emptiness or boundlessness, and the bodhisattva path. Fushin explains that the Empty Bowl Sutra features Manjushri teaching about emptiness/boundlessness while the Diamond Sutra shows how this understanding leads to the bodhisattva vow to liberate all beings. During the talk, Fushin explores how the empty bowl symbolizes receptivity, noting that “Just as the empty bowl can receive anything, our empty mind remains open to each moment without preconception,” adding that “Emptiness isn’t absence but boundless potential.” Both sutras end with identical imagery comparing conditioned phenomena to ephemeral experiences like stars and flashes of lightning to illustrate impermanence. Fushin emphasizes that practicing emptiness/boundlessness means questioning fixed identities, creating what Norman Fisher calls “Spaciousness that allows for Transformation” in our relationships. He suggests that “When you really allow Boundlessness to work on you… Our vows as bodhisattvas… co arise… come of their own, a continuous living by vow… with no effort, we Show up to life, to practice.” Fushin concludes the dharma talk by reciting an original poem titled “The Clearing,” which expresses boundlessness through imagery where “something opens—not in searching or grasping, but in the stillness between breath in and breath out.”
