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Looking for a mp3 meditation on Emptiness for a beginner...
Tosh
Veteran
I've an A.A. friend who has expressed an interest in trying an analytical meditation on emptiness. He's not a Buddhist, knows very little about Emptiness (I'm not a teacher and if I tried, I'd probably confuse him), so wonder if any of you lot know of a guided meditation on Emptiness aimed at n00bs?
Thanks.
0
Comments
Is that Emptiness in a Theravadan or a Mahayana sense? There is a difference.
There is a couple of talks on here from my favourite Western Tibetan teacher - not sure about downloading them though.
http://thubtenchodron.org/2005/11/transforming-the-mind/
Emptiness if gained from meditative experience.
Words will not convey the experience.
The best way to approach Buddhism is with your eyes wide open (so to speak), and just see what you see. Don't worry about what you do not understand .. you will understand in time and words cannot force an earlier understanding.
Meditate and do the other practices.
And do not be too attached to intellectually thinking you understand something. It is an attachment that blocks true understanding, which is only gained by experience.
Too often we seek the sense of security that "knowing" gives us, but all we really achieve is closing our minds because we now think we know how things are.
The longer you practice Buddhism the more you will focus on your own insight and experience, for that is the only true knowledge one can have.
“Holding onto any truth blocks true wisdom. The truth could knock on our door and we would not see it because of our fixed ideas. “
Pema Chodron
Heartofnow.com is a good site for emptiness teachings. Anybody can understand and use the analytical reasoning.
It's simple enough but also answers the questions and debunks myths.
@FoibleFull I've recently realised that the difference between knowing intellectually and direct experience makes ALL the difference.
A Tibetan Buddhist once tried to explain emptiness to me using the example of the parts of a table ( there wasn't a chariot to hand ). He said "What do you get if you take the legs off a table?", I said "A tabletop". Couldn't resist it.
Yes, sometimes those who keep spouting intellectualism and its opposite, sometimes have their heads buried so far up.... :insert emoticon for * rolleyes * :
The labelling thing is interesting though. I sometimes consciously label things, eg "car", "person", which paradoxically makes me look at them more closely.
Suddenly "Jessie" 'disappeared' all that was left was four legs, body, head, eyes, tail etc. all functioning as unity but no single entity.
Kind of spooky haha.
Please don't start removing Jessie's legs though.
What would you be left with?
A floor-mop.
@Tosh if your friend can read, something like this might be quicker:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lewis-richmond/emptiness-most-misunderstood-word-in-buddhism_b_2769189.html
As the article says, Sunyata or 'spaciousness\emptiness' is not some sort of miserable nihilism for the hapless and hopeless. Far from it. It is an empty space for the Buddha Nature to express itself.
'Emptiness' is a condition of simple being rather than being led around by our addictions, fears, delusions, aversions and meditative experiences ...
Hope that is healthful.
If you look at a flower, what is it that makes it the entity (flower)?
Somehow the stamen, stem, petals create the entity (flower). But there only ever was parts. No flower(entity). and all those parts have parts...
How can a dog, a rat and cat suddenly make a cow ?
How can stamen, petals, and stem make a flower?
Obviously conventionally we need to talk about 'things' but in reality there are no things. Just parts of parts of parts...
I know you guys know this but this is how I was explained to understand emptiness.
It took me awhile. The animal analogy made me laugh! XD
Cheers, guys, I've facebooked the links provided to my mate and I've enjoyed reading the discussion also. I seem to remember from my Buddhist Foundation course that the idea was to 'get' a concept of emptiness, and then try to deepen that concept into a realisation.
Following on from that we did an analytical meditation on emptiness where we went looking for our self. "Am I the body? Well I can have all my organs removed and transplanted, and I would still be me. I can have all my limbs removed and I would still be me. I can have all my skin removed and I would still be me. Etc" and then we moved onto the other aggregates.
I narrowed my self down to my memory, but then I remembered that memories can't be trusted and 'something worked'; "where the hell am I?", and I laughed. It was a funny moment.
But unfortunately, there does really seem to be a self; it's a very good illusion.
It's tricky though, because labelling is part of perception. I'm not sure that labelling is actually the root problem here, maybe more like the assumption that the objects we label have some kind of independent existence.
As @Tosh said, the body exists, mind exists, memories exist but the label 'I' can not be found. We believe it does exist. We believe a label and that's the issue.
Take away the belief and there is still body, mind, memories. Just no entity in the body.
No flower aside from it's parts. But to try and rewire an entire lifetime of belief is hard hey.
But hey, if we can see the emptiness of a flower then just maybe we can see the emptiness of everything.
'Carnegie Hall' comes to mind!!