[Title of Essay]

This is not a spiel on how Tiger Wood’s “drifted away” from Buddhism. In fact, from the little I know, one cannot heal in counsel with the outside world. But that is not why I write today.

Each time I read a judge’s opinion, or try to make sense of some hallowed law review article, I feel that they are “empty.” This word cannot, for the present purposes, be understood with its Oxford Dictionary connotations. And thus, I shall do my best in expounding its meaning through the lens of Buddhism.

The study of law – just like the study of the Bible or the Quran – is designed to lead to freedom. The texts of law are comparable to the dharma (teachings) of the Buddha. The only difference is that the Buddha, being wholly bereft of ego, was able to admit that the dharma fades away once one has begun to comprehend the conditionality of human suffering and has started on a path to perfection and freedom – the ultimate truth. The institutions of law on the other hand, obtaining validity through the manifestation of their egos, espouse a hallowed notion of the law. We are labeled at every step – public interest, international private sector, 1L/2L/3L, unemployed, utilitarian, and the list goes on. This serves two purposes: first, it enables the higher powers to package us in convenient boxes so that our fates may be easily determined, rewards conveniently distributed, and statistics favourably reported; and second, it leads to our suffering, which, as Arnold hints, is imperative for our manipulation.

Why then do we indulge in (and even propagate) our own suffering? I do not know.

But the first step to freedom is the recognition that we are in shackles. Frustration, disenchantment, and sorrow – which emerge after we cease to be ignorant – must lead the way. Then, there comes the belief, through knowledge and self-awareness, in a path that leads to freedom from suffering. I do not speak of faith in an omnipotent saviour or in magical healing. This is a “simple” realisation that does not require reliance on any God or scripture, but rather a self-sought discovery of a personal path that will not follow an established doctrine (legal or not), which attempts to inflate our sense of entitlement and ego. And finally, there is the journey on the discovered path which emancipates us through the letting go of our delusions, our ego, and our labels.

Q1. Why did we take simple, grade-enhancing Political Science courses in college? Q2. Why did we spend several valuable weeks (or months) studying for the LSATs? Q3. Why did we obsessively refresh our status-checkers while awaiting decisions? Because we wanted to become lawyers.

Once the Columbia acceptance came through, the journey was complete – an ivy-league legal education with guaranteed lifelong luxury. Given the economy, the finish line has been stretched to the end of EIP (or maybe even 2L summer when the offers are finalised), but the idea remains the same.

A legal education is seen as an end and thus much is made of the three years we spend in law school. Law school is merely an opportunity – a boat that bears us in a transient journey from one shore to another – that has no utility beyond what it confers upon us – access to a farther shore.

We are not in law school. We are in life. And law school happens to be a part of it for some of us. Once we have seen the larger truth, which may be impossible given our egos and entitlements, the law school phenomenon will become insignificant. Once this has become insignificant, there will be no need to incessantly refresh the webpage containing our grades, or to measure our self-worth in terms of numbers or percentiles.

The Constitution is meaningless, until, of course, the omniscient Justices have spoken. Once they do opine, lo and behold, the Constitution is given its “true” meaning.

Language, no matter how well-written, is ambiguous. Intent, where there was any, is almost impossible to determine. Thus, we have half-a-dozen principles of constitutional construction, which conflict more often that they agree. But there should be no shame in the fallacy of the Constitution – it is not a real thing. However, those that worship it may consider this blasphemy.

It is important to not lose our way when dealing with humbug labels such as federalism, state sovereignty, plenary power, and so on. The particular words are not important. Yet considerable time is spent analyzing each comma, each period, as though the Framers (as read by the interpreters) wrote in one unified, perfect style. I do not know what the Framers had in mind. But I am certain they did imagine future scholars would spend lifetimes debating over words (that will remain ambiguous no matter how often one imposes his interpretation upon them) rather than utilising the constitution, with its shortcomings, to achieve a better Union.

Do not be lost in trying to grasp the “true” meaning of the lines above, for my words are empty. The law too, with its legalese and complex taxonomy, is similarly empty. Its worthiness lies in the effect it has upon our conscience and our actions. Where that effect is an amplification of the ego and the enlargement of our suffering, a path of freedom must be found. There is no universal path and thus we must understand all that we know (from Shakespeare and Coke to Holmes and Orwell) in a manner such that is a mere means to our freedom, and the knowledge of which is not, in itself, the purpose and the hope of our present, fortunate existence.

“‘These children, this money is mine.’ The fool torments himself with such thoughts. One does not possess even a self of one’s own, how then children or money?”

– Dhammapada (Verse 62)