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Form is emptiness - what does it mean?
betaboy
Veteran
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. What does it mean? I have a theory, but I could be wrong (shocking, I know).
So tell me what it means? I can understand the first part in terms of DO, but how can the second part also be true?
So tell me what it means? I can understand the first part in terms of DO, but how can the second part also be true?
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AKA..to be is to interbe...
And Emptiness Does Not Differ From Form.
Form is Emptiness and Emptiness is Form;
The Same is True For Feelings,
Perceptions, Volitions and Consciousness."
It means exactly what it says. With some meditation and contemplation, people can see the ultimate emptiness of mental phenomena, the skandhas that make up human existence. Yet being empty does not mean it isn't there. The emptiness has taken form.
It is said we suffer for fighting change and holding onto other beings, processes/perceived possessions or reliving events in our minds but if we accept the reality and uncertainty of change, we can be liberated in knowing that all things pass. Thus emptiness gives a deeper meaning to things than some nihilistic viewers will tell us.
Knowing the good will not last makes it possible to be cherished.
Knowing the bad will pass gives rise to hope and faith.
Having no true nature is the nature.
Emptiness and form are complementary aspects of the same cycle which has no opposite.
Birth and death are not opposites but also complimentary aspects of the same cycle which has no opposite.
Opposites only exist conceptually.
I have a working understanding of sunyata from other descriptions of Sunyata, this one never spoke to me, it might as well be a dharani (a mantra that isn't translate able into a exoterically meaningful sentence).
Maybe it's a dharmagate for people smarter than me.
And when I say no, I also mean yes and know.
It means so much, so many things best to contemplate again and again.
What does it mean indeed. Ten lifetimes would not suffice to understand its meanings and subtleties . . .
:wave:
And when I say no, I also mean yes and know.
It means so much, so many things best to contemplate again and again.
What does it mean indeed. Ten lifetimes would not suffice to understand its meanings and subtleties . . .
:wave:
Well, yes. It's my favorite sutra, and my love of it translates into an unbroken string of "Oh, that's what it means! Why didn't I see that before?" For every stage of my own journey, it's meant both exactly what it says and something different from my previous understanding. Sorta. As my comprehension of emptiness broadens, so does the meaning of the Sutra.
To paraphrase - if I dare - the great Sutra itself, "It says what it means and means what it says. Meaning is words and words are meaning."
I -
Don't -
Know.
OK?
(actually, I lie, I do. (or maybe, I REALLY don't....) But I suggest you find out the same way I did. Through research, reading and looking it up.
It's the best way.
Don't try to rely just on any of us giving you a definitive answer. Sometimes, there are just some things you have to find out for yourself; then come back and tell us what you think.....
http://www.buddhanet.net/cbp2_f6.htm
Normally we think of one thing leading to another and not arising simultaneously. For example parent and child. The general way of thinking is that the parent exists and then the child comes into the world. Really though, there is a person who will become a parent but they are not an actual parent until the child is born. So, in reality, someone called a parent arises simultaneously as a child is born.
Form and emptiness are the same way. One cannot exist without the other. Just as emptiness needs form, form also needs emptiness. If things had a solid core reality to them they could not interact and change.
It's not that difficult really, but for me my problem was my preconceptions made it difficult to understand what Emptiness actually is.
I remember having a Grasshopper moment with a monk when I explained to him I was lost with Emptiness and blamed my lack of understanding on being a daft Geordie.
The monk said, "Point to me where it is you're a Geordie!"
I was like, "Eh?"
But now it's obvious.
If we thirst, we pick up a cup with water and we drink (relative, form)
To someone realized, like Buddha or Jesus, there is no thirst at all much less a cup with water (ultimate reality) but in order for them to show as present for us to receive teachings they still use the cup to get in touch with us. Those of us in relative life need the water to live. Those in ultimate life do not.
We had a retreat on this sutra a couple weeks ago with my teacher (my understanding is evolving, I don't intend it to be an absolute!) and it reminded me of my early years in Christianity where Heaven is described as a place with no hunger, no thirst no suffering...it's beyond that. Buddha was beyond that = enlightened. I think Jesus was, too. The rest of us are not.
If we readily accept that form is empty, how does it follow that emptiness is also form? If I accept that the sky is blue, that doesn't necessarily mean that anything blue is always the sky. But if we equate sky with blue (or any objects) - but not as one being the attribute of the other - then perhaps this problem could be resolved.
This is how I see form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Person/Cinorjer have also explained along similar lines.
The best way to see that emptiness is also form is to meditate upon a bowl. The bowl is form. What is it that makes this form a bowl? It is the emptiness, the potential for the bowl to hold something. The form that we call a bowl is actually defined by the emptiness the bowl contains. That emptiness IS the bowl. Emptiness is the form. But the bowl gives form to the emptiness. Without the bowl in your hand, the potential for it to be filled with something, the emptiness would not exist.
Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. They complete each other.
First there is a cat, then no cat, then a smile
What is the ear without its parts (the eardrum, ear ossicles, cochlea, auditory nerve or brain)? As Ajahn Chah said, things don't exist but "we" determined "them" into existence. Mountains, lakes, atoms, nucleus -- basically everything. Is there a gap between the perceiver of sounds– sounds and hearing– or is there just one process that we call hearing? Test it with a sound. Stop everything for two minutes and listen intently to all sounds that are present. Is there a hearer of sounds, separate from hearing and the heard? Where does hearing happen? Listen to distant sounds. Where is the hearer then? With closed eyes, check if there is a line between here and there. Can it be defined? There is only the process of hearing. No hearer and no heard. What actually hears? Where is the hearer located? Is it the eardrum, ear ossicles, cochlea, auditory nerve or brain? What is heard is nothing but vibrations. The "hearer" is an activity, not an entity.
In other words, there is only hearing.
"I" hear does not describe reality. Same with "I am breathing", "I am coughing", "My heart is beating".
Sorry, tonight I have had one too many ales. Its Friday night on the west coast of the good old U.S. of A you know.
No Feelings, Perceptions, Volitions or Consciousness
No Eye, Ear, Nose, Tongue, Body or Mind;
No Form, Sound, Smell, Taste, Touch or Mind Object;
No Realm of the Eye,
You could say that there are all those things, which would also be true, but then why bother?
It doesn't really work for me at this point, but since it's just words, I'm not going to worry about it.
If I were a younger man and had more of a head for languages, I would have learned sanskrit just to be able to comprehend this Heart Sutra in that language.
Emptiness does not mean non-existent. Having no inherent existence only means a thing is subject to change, not that it isn't actually here.
Kshitigarbha, who I have invited into my consciousness, then voicelessly whispered to me - you see the form and the emptiness. And I did. Thanks I prayed in my heart. Now I know that form is emptiness and emptiness is form.
Then I asked a question of Kshitigarbha. If I hold my hand up to this half moon will I see emptiness and form in my hand. And Kshitigarbha whispered back - what does your wisdom mind say. So I held up my hand to the moon and my wisdom informed me. Wow. I said I want to tell people about this, make them see. But my wisdom mind said, they need to discover it as you have done.
Kshitigarba then said, come on we're going to be late to see Robocop with your kids. So I hurried on but with a smile on my face.
Great film by the way. It questions free will. I would like to question whether I really have free will, but as yet Kshitigarbha is silent. I'll keep you posted
"A dictionary is a perfect example.
A dictionary is full of words. Words are useful. Their definitions are useful, we'd be nowhere without words. Yet, in a dictionary, they're a fat lot of use. They're pointless, unless we 'activate' them and put them to use. Unless we actually embody those words, or make them 'concrete' they're just.... empty. Meaningless. Without purpose.
Words are 'empty'.
But utilise the 'emptiness' and you have form. "
That's as much as I can remember, and some may be able to pick holes in the simile, but it worked for me, when I needed a clear picture of what 'Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is form' meant.
What does it mean? What is your theory?
You may be wrong, but so may we, but we've been bold enough to determine ourselves enough to answer 'your' question in 'our' own way. The questioner is now being questioned. What does he (or her) have to say about that question and that which is being questioned?
Don't answer it with a question - just answer your question!
Silence please... @betaboy is thinking!
Only by being composed of non-flower elements could we possibly have a flower.
The heart sutra is the most concise prajna paramita sutra. If you think you understand it fully then probably you don't. There are many more sutras of increasing length to help us beings who don't understand the most concise form.
Difficult to experience in this way, why? Because Dukkha by its nature holds us in its convolutions and hindrances. Do we have tools? Yes.
For example when you see dukkha coming your way, duck.
Not as so many brave souls do, go and confront it macho style . . .
Dyin’ ain’t much of a living, boy.
— The Outlaw Josey Wales
If only we can live up to the Great Bodhi Lobster of olde times, who placed himself in a pot of boiling water and stirred himself into oblivion for his farewell feast . . .
Sound is actually "vibrations". There is no "sound" inherently. Sound appears as images to a bat. Sound depends on "ear" and "ear object". You can simulate sounds by directly stimulating the nerves without there being actually a "sound vibration." So yes, there is no sound.
"By & large, Kaccayana, this world is supported by (takes as its object) a polarity, that of existence & non-existence. But when one sees the origination of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'non-existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one. When one sees the cessation of the world as it actually is with right discernment, 'existence' with reference to the world does not occur to one."
Form is emptiness .....
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.015.than.html