Emptiness

[Shaiva]

First ill start with, what is emptiness? it is the true nature of reality. when a guru, lama, buddha, bodhisattva says that emptiness is reality what do they mean?

they mean that we are all living in an illusionary world and that everything that we see is made from the mind. this means that everything is EMPTY of true existence here in Samsara.

ill use a body for my example. try to find the essence of the body, or what the body really is. you can look at your hands and say, is this my body. you can do this with every body part you have. but the body part is not the body. then you can ask, when i put the so called "parts" together do i get a body? NO! you cant take a collection of dogs and make a human. this goes with everything. next ill use a cup. try to find the essence of the cup. is the cyllinder the cup, is the base the cup? NO! a cyllinder is a cyllinder and a base is a base. therefore the cup doesnt truly exist. same with the cyllinder and the base that make up the cup, they too are empty. emptiness can also be called interconnectedness. but to me this is misleading. i would rather say the lack of true existence.

there are conventional and ultimate truths. the ultimate is emptiness. look above and that is the ultimate truth. try to find it in everything you look at. but then you can say i see the computer, i see the tree so they must exist! and they do, but conventionally. our eyes do not deceive us when we see a "tree" or a "car". we can walk up to them and touch them. we can all agree something is there. the "tree" and the "car" are illusions. they are not as they appear. they appear as truly independent and existent objects, when they are not.

threw finding emptiness everything appears as more of an illusion. this can help you become detached and not desire things.

 

[zenzero]

Friend hunter123,
This surely is a great understanding.
Appreciate it.
Personaly practise it.
Love & rgds

 

[Scarlett Wampus]

Interesting thoughts hunter123

emptiness can also be called interconnectedness. but to me this is misleading. i would rather say the lack of true existence.

I like that.

People can experience emptiness through different routes but this is roughly how the process unfolded for me the first time (while regularly practising meditation):-

The object like quality of what we see seems dependent on perspective. Change perspective and the object changes its qualities. As the focus of the mind becomes ever more concentrated on trying to find the essential it-ness of the object the more the object appears to lack this it-ness. This can lead to the impression there is some kind of unobservable core to the object. At first this unobservable core can be treated like a special kind of object by the mind because of its very lack of qualities. It is defined by absence, defined by the threshold beyond which nothing can be sensibly identified.

Concentrating the mind on this 'hole' the mind is deflected again and again. Eventually the mind buckles and is consumed by emptiness - the scattered thought that creates the appearance of a world of separated objects & distinct ideas dissolves.

In the new awareness that arises all forms are empty and emptiness is the essence of all forms. All this occurs simultaneously so the unobservable and the observable are one and the same. Interconnectedness is implicit but I would agree that it can be misleading to state this as the 'lack of true existence' (that can be described) is also implicit. What is it that is interconnected? It is impossible to say and yet intrinsic to everything.

Another thing, the way thought arises in the brain is holographic in nature. What's more there is mounting evidence that the universe itself may be one huge hologram. If this is true then the experience of emptiness that people from many meditative traditions report may really be an intuitive grasp of the underlying nature of existance, not just another exotic state of mind amongst innumerable possibilities but something more fundamental.

 

[Little Joe Gould]

The way I look at it is...

You have the observer and the observed. My eyes take in data, let's say a tree, and my brain constructs the image of a tree. Without the object to be observed, the observer is useless and ceases to exist. Without the observer, there is no-thing-ness. All things depend on other things for their existence; this is my interconnectedness. If you look deeply into things, you will see that in the present moment you continue to be all things; the water you drink, the air you breathe, the sunshine, the vitamins and minerals you ingest.

When you breathe in, the world breathes out; and when you breathe out, the world breathes in.

 

[koan]

Emptiness is the state of all things(dharma) Nothing may occur by itself. Take ourselves as Humans. I would not be here without My parents. So where is my "Self?" As we follow everything back, we must ultimately return to the Void, True Emptiness. As stated in the Heart Sutra, "Emptiness / Void is form and form is Emptiness / Void."

I usesd, Emptiness / Void, as some translations say, emptiness is form and others say void is form.

 

[Copernicus]

First ill start with, what is emptiness? it is the true nature of reality. when a guru, lama, buddha, bodhisattva says that emptiness is reality what do they mean?

I'll play devil's advocate. :devil:

Perhaps they refer to a consciously aware subjective experience in which the mind is still and empty of thoughts. A self-induced trance state brought on during meditation.

they mean that we are all living in an illusionary world and that everything that we see is made from the mind. this means that everything is EMPTY of true existence here in Samsara.

I will take "Samsara" to refer just to material reality, since I do not believe in reincarnation, or a birth-death cycle. There is some truth to the claim that everything we perceive of the material world is illusory in nature, but that does not mean that everything is really empty. I suspect that they may have confused their state of mind during meditation with that which our mind categorizes and idealizes as external reality. Emptying the mind of illusions does not necessarily bring one closer to reality. It undercuts the very method by which the mind understands reality.

ill use a body for my example. try to find the essence of the body, or what the body really is. you can look at your hands and say, is this my body. you can do this with every body part you have. but the body part is not the body. then you can ask, when i put the so called "parts" together do i get a body? NO! you cant take a collection of dogs and make a human. this goes with everything. next ill use a cup. try to find the essence of the cup. is the cyllinder the cup, is the base the cup? NO! a cyllinder is a cyllinder and a base is a base. therefore the cup doesnt truly exist. same with the cyllinder and the base that make up the cup, they too are empty. emptiness can also be called interconnectedness. but to me this is misleading. i would rather say the lack of true existence.

I'll take a slightly different tack. I call your attention to prototype theory, which is about how the mind comes to categorize reality. In the case of a cup, we understand it in terms of a collection of experiences associated with the cup, not just its shape and other physical parameters but how we interact with the cup. We all may have different prototypes of the cup, because we all have had different experiences, but the prototype constitutes the yardstick against which we measure all cuplike objects. (Chairs and stools are often compared in the literature, and experiments measure the points at which chairs blend into stools mentally.) Now, the prototype does not truly exist, but that is not the same as saying that cups do not exist. It is just saying that we can imagine cups, and we can interpret a convergence of sense-data as cups. That which we interpret as cups actually does exist. It's just that our knowledge of cups is filtered through our past experiences.

there are conventional and ultimate truths. the ultimate is emptiness. look above and that is the ultimate truth. try to find it in everything you look at. but then you can say i see the computer, i see the tree so they must exist! and they do, but conventionally. our eyes do not deceive us when we see a "tree" or a "car". we can walk up to them and touch them. we can all agree something is there. the "tree" and the "car" are illusions. they are not as they appear. they appear as truly independent and existent objects, when they are not.

You want the ultimate truth? You can't HANDLE the ultimate truth! Seriously, there is no way to know reality other than through our bodily experiences. The real illusion is imagining that we have discovered some profound truth by emptying our minds and calming our thoughts. Trees and cars are not illusions, but we can only know them through comparison with our mental prototypes of those objects. Although we cannot really see molecules with conventional microscopes, we can use electron microscopes to build pictures that represent those molecules. In a sense, the pictures are nothing more than useful illusions of molecules.

threw finding emptiness everything appears as more of an illusion. this can help you become detached and not desire things.

Not only do I doubt that you can truly detach yourself from desire, but I am unconvinced that it is a desirable thing to want to do.

 

[Ben Dhyan]

I'll play devil's advocate. :devil:

Not only do I doubt that you can truly detach yourself from desire, but I am unconvinced that it is a desirable thing to want to do.

When the mind has ceased conceptual thinking and is still, there is no 'I' present to be detached or to be not detached.

When on the other hand the mind is conceptually thinking, the 'I' arises to distinguish itself from it's conceptions, and the true underlying unity of existence is lost in the apparent multiplicity of existence perceived by the mortal dualistic mind set.

 

[Scarlett Wampus]

Not only do I doubt that you can truly detach yourself from desire, but I am unconvinced that it is a desirable thing to want to do.

That's kinda irrelevant. Besides, its not a desirable thing to do. That's how it works.

Very few people follow a lifestyle that significantly detaches them from desire. A little bit of meditation here and there, some philosophical contemplation, trying to lead a good life, etc. all excellent & beneficial though most of the time pretty much useless if you want to experience emptiness beyond the occasional intellectual trip or nebulous feeling.

To get a sense of what emptiness is about you have to follow an incredibly strict routine involving long periods of silent prayer/meditation for at least a few years.

During the process your personality will dissolve. Dreams, passions and cherished ideas/memories will get left behind. As these things disperse they can accompany a deep sense of loss. You'll lose yourself. You'll die. As well as that the regrets, doubts and fears that were kept down by the ego will arise making it hard to continue. This is why so few people actually get far into it. Those who do have unusual circumstances that drive them on. Its not something you can truly want. Whatever you want, you'll not find it. Inner peace, meaning, happiness - they'll all fall away if you really follow through.

Once you've become truly absorbed in the routine and the silence, become like some dried out husk turning to sand in the wind, well that's where it starts to become clear why people have subjected themselves to such arduous tasks down the ages. There's no freedom quite like having nothing to hold on to.

But oh, well you won't try anyway.

 

[zenzero]

Friend SW,
Yes, in that deep silence one IS.
Love & rgds

 

[Copernicus]

Scarlett, it may be that the style of life you have chosen suits your needs. I don't see what it has to offer most people. All of my Buddhist friends seem to have plenty of desires and to lead pretty normal lives. Meditation may help to keep one's mind in balance, but it is just a temporary state of mind. Most of the time, one is engaged in doing those things that we need to just to survive daily pressures.

 

[zenzero]

Friend Coperncus,
Am in total agreement with your understanding.
However, those who have been able to reach the center of their being they merge with the whole, even for a split second then ONLY life starts till then it is like what Jesus said:
*Let the dead bury their dead*.
One can either identify with the physical body or identify with that part which is also same call spirit or soul which lives in each body.
To identify oneself with that spirit one needs to look inwards and that can only possible through meditation directly or indirectly and all those methods are what one calls a way a path or a religion.
Once having identified with that spirit or soul or that energy within the body which is the part of the universal energy one starts to live life like what it is meant to be and so those who live in the body are referred to as dead by Jesus.
As mentioned it may be a temporary but after reaching that state one can never go back to identify oneself with the body; can guarantee that. SO kindly understand that all those friends who are Buddhists may still identify themselves with the body; also being in the body one has to take care of that body as it is the only given vehicle one has to realize fully that ONE TRUTH.
Love & rgds

 

[Scarlett Wampus]

Scarlett, it may be that the style of life you have chosen suits your needs. I don't see what it has to offer most people. All of my Buddhist friends seem to have plenty of desires and to lead pretty normal lives. Meditation may help to keep one's mind in balance, but it is just a temporary state of mind. Most of the time, one is engaged in doing those things that we need to just to survive daily pressures.

In a way it doesn't have anything to offer most people. Really, that's how it is. There is no way to offer it in a way that most people could comprehend until after they've already experienced what its really about, by which time it is understood that it can't be offered but has to be sought inwardly by the individual who has come to it naturally. What's offered, what's given away, is naturally flowing outward compassion, gentleness and openness. (as you can see I've obviously got some way to go, heheh).

Many people feel that there is a basic unsatisfactoriness to their lives, that there are a lot of superficial pleasures but something is missing - an itch that can't be scratched. That feeling is often overlooked or gets crowded out by the noisy feedback from those everyday daily pressures. The path of silent contemplation is for those who find that the feeling won't let itself be overlooked and can't be drowned out by the noisiness of the world. Its not a choice, its a process that some people go through.

Incidentally the first time I adopted that "style of life" it wasn't because the world was too noisy. I loved the noisiness and had a lot of hopes & dreams for what it might bring. The thing is I got ill and meditation/quietness was the best remedy available at the time. I got lucky and experienced emptiness during that time. It was the biggest surprise of my life but I wasn't ready to follow the path. More than a decade after I came back from that style of life I find I am at a complete loss, or rather, I can admit that now. Being aware of how futile my efforts are I am retreating into quietness again. It wasn't a choice then and it isn't a choice now. Its just the movement of the Tao.