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Emptiness of all things
somthing for you to ponder comic!
We talk of the emptiness or non-existence of all our perceived things. I have been sitting with this for several days now (in-between work and family of course!)
Our minds can only perceive things through duality i.e. light/dark, heat/cold etc. The teaching of the Buddha says that anything manifested (created) is subject to change and is therefore impermanent. Through science we learn that there is no such thing as darkness, darkness is merely the absence of light. Light is manifested and is impermanent. We can only perceive light in contrast to "darkness" but darkness does not exist......if it was all light we would not see it because there would be nothing to compare it to. The same applies to heat and no-heat (cold). As I sit and meditate with this I find that this is the same (maybe), as "we" are perceived by one another in contrast to...? Emptiness? Is this the emptiness we seek? How can we seek what we are in direct contrast to? When we seek emptiness we could not find it as long as we were present. Hmmm I'm losing my train... lol
We exist in a world of duality and subject object relationships. To remove these bonds is to find emptiness or Nirvana. The more of these false realities we can remove the closer we get. One final thought to take you there. The infinite vastness of space is only a perception of the mind. If we were the only object in space it would not be big nor small it only appears so when we add something else so we can say "oh, its a long way from here to there"
Have a wonderfull moment! :bowdown:
^Gassho^
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One of the official minor downfalls of a Mahayana Bodhisattva (in training) is trying to explain emptiness to someone who could misunderstand it.
"form is emptiness and emptiness is form"
but
"form is form and emptiness is emptiness"
Non-concepts that really REALLY confuse westerners.
What cultural backgroud did you have before your first breath?
^gassho^
Duality? hmmm.... The opposite of empty is full. Through our practice towards emptiness we reach the fullfillment we are looking for. Can these 2 exist at the same time within us? I don't know. I am off to work. I will ponder some more. Thank you Wolf for giving me something to do whie at work today. :bigclap: :bowdown:
Lets take tea.
Think about the word tea. Clear your mind and really look at it in all possible ways. It looks like "tea "and it has a sound associated with it. Now we know that this word means a hot drink made form plant leaves, but the letters are made up, the sound is made up, and the word itself is made up. It doesn't mean anything to someone who cannot speak English.
茶 Now does this character mean anything to you? It's cha. In Japanese it's a word. It has a sound associated with it, as well as a meaning. Well, in Japanese, cha means a hot drink made from plant leaves. If you do not speak Japanese though, it doesn't mean anything.
Both of these words are trying to represent the same thing, the same idea. No matter what you call it - tea, 茶, cha, etc. - the hot drink from plant leaves is still a hot drink from plant leaves. In the ultimate sense all of these words are empty. We percieve them to "be" and to have a "meaning", but we placed those meanings there. They are naturally empty of any such thing.
If you think and meditate about this often enough you will begin to realize how empty words truly are. Then, when you are ready, try to apply this practice to objects, ideas, and even people.
Empty does not mean non-existant. To me empty means "without my perceptions attached to it".
Perhaps right understanding would be "form is emptiness and emptiness is form" AND "form is form and emptiness is emptiness." There is no "but"...
If A=B and B=A... why would A not still equal A, and B not still equal B? Why is this element difficult to understand?
^gassho^