The Three Doors of Liberation (Episode #18)

Welcome to episode 18 of The Way Out Is In: The Zen Art of Living, a podcast series mirroring Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s deep teachings of Buddhist philosophy: a simple yet profound methodology for dealing with our suffering, and for creating more happiness and joy in our lives.

In this episode, the presenters – Zen Buddhist monk Brother Phap Huu and lay practitioner and journalist Jo Confino – delve deeply into Buddhist philosophy by discussing the teaching known as the Three Doors of Liberation (emptiness, signlessness, aimlessness), which is vital to understanding life and living it well.  

Together, they go through each of the three doors, discovering and explaining the corresponding concepts, sharing their own experiences of these deep teachings and how to apply them in daily life.   

Brother Phap Huu shares on the topics of ways to train ourselves to practice emptiness (even in success), signlessness, and aimlessness; Zen stories; touching liberation in daily life; and meditating on our aims in life. 

In addition, Jo looks at the journey of stripping away individual selves, and recollects “the experience of the terror of nothingness”. He further muses on a day of mindfulness in the World Bank, and on not chasing life.

The episode ends with a short meditation on the Three Doors of Liberation, guided by Brother Phap Huu. 

Co-produced by the Plum Village App:https://plumvillage.app/

And Global Optimism:https://globaloptimism.com/ 

With support from the Thich Nhat Hanh Foundation:https://thichnhathanhfoundation.org/ 

List of resources 

Dharma Talks: ‘Three Doors of Liberation’ https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/three-doors-of-liberation-br-phap-khi-italian-retreat-2018-05-01/

The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching https://plumvillage.org/books/the-heart-of-the-buddhas-teaching/

How To: ‘Begin Anew’https://plumvillage.org/articles/begin-anew/ 

Dharma Talks: ‘Signlessness and Impermanence’https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/signlessness-and-impermanence-dharma-talk-by-sr-dieu-nghiem-sr-jina-2015-09-05/ 

Lakshanahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lakshana

Eschatologyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eschatology

‘The Doors of Liberation’https://www.lionsroar.com/the-doors-of-liberation-may-2014/ 

Dharma Talks: ‘The Noble Eightfold Path’https://plumvillage.org/library/dharma-talks/the-noble-eightfold-path/

Quotes“The First Door of Liberation is emptiness, shunyata. Emptiness always means empty of something. A cup is empty of water. A bowl is empty of soup. We are empty of a separate, independent self. We cannot be by ourselves alone. We can only inter-be with everything else in the cosmos. The practice is to nourish the insight into emptiness all day long. Wherever we go, we touch the nature of emptiness in everything we contact. We look deeply at the table, the blue sky, our friend, the mountain, the river, our anger, and our happiness and see that these are all empty of a separate self. When we touch these things deeply, we see the interbeing and interpenetrating nature of all that is. Emptiness does not mean nonexistence. It means Interdependent Co-Arising, impermanence, and nonself.”

“The Second Door of Liberation is signlessness, animitta. ‘Sign’ here means an appearance or the object of our perception. When we see something, a sign or image appears to us, and that is what is meant by ‘lakshana.’ If water, for example, is in a square container, its sign is ‘squareness.’ If in a round container, its sign is ‘roundness.’ When we open the freezer and take out some ice, the sign of that water is solid. Chemists call water ‘H₂O.’ The snow on the mountain and the steam rising from the kettle are also H₂O. Whether H₂O is round or square, liquid, gaseous, or solid depends on circumstances. Signs are instruments for our use, but they are not absolute truth, and they can m