I mentioned in one of my posts the other day about a piece of writing which I read when in India. Well, I thought a good starting point would be to share this. The book I was reading at the time was ‘A Field Guide to Getting Lost’ by Rebecca Solnit. However, the piece within her book which follows here was taken from Stephen Batchelor’s ‘Buddhism Without Beliefs’.
“SHUL” (Tibetan word) = TRACK
“A mark that remains after that which made it has passed by – a footprint for example.”
In other contexts ‘SHUL’ is used to describe the scarred hollow in the ground where a house once stood, the channel worn through rock where a river runs in flood, the indentation in the grass where an animal slept last night.
All of these are ‘SHUL’ – the impression of something that used to be there.
A path is a ‘SHUL’ because it is an impression in the ground left by the regular treading of feet, which has kept it clear of obstructions and maintained it for the use of others.
As a ‘SHUL’, emptiness can be compared to the impression of something that used to be there. In this case, such an impression is formed by the indentations, hollows, scars and marks left by the turbulence of selfish craving.”
And from his website:
“A path is a ‘SHUL’ because of its essentially negative nature. An impression in the ground left by the regular tread of feet, a passage which is clear of obstruction.
We can translate ‘SHUL’ as track which in English means path/impression left by animal or person. To experience the track like nature of emptiness would be like recovering a path that had been lost, or stumbling into a clearing in the forest, where suddenly you can move and see clearly. To know emptiness is to experience the shocking absence of what normally determines the sense of who we are. It may only last a moment before the habits of a lifetime reassert themselves and close in once more. But for that moment, one witnesses oneself and the world as immediate, vivid and vulnerable.”
