I am nothing, emptyness

Simplify

Good morning.

I just had a thought and wondered how it might relate to Buddhism.

This morning I was struck by the muse and in a flash received a vision of a complete work of art that I will now produce. It is striking how without any observed thought, such a complete and beautiful image could spontaneously emerge in my consciousness, yet this is common experience with many creative endeavors. Artists sometimes talk about this as merely being an instrument for something higher, some believe that because the images or sound or idea appear spontaneously from nowhere that it must be a gift from god or the muses.

This lack of conscious control and lack of any self identification with the creative process is also apparent in other things such as speech, and, well everything?


What I'm wondering is if this relates to Buddhist concepts of emptiness and nothingness or anatman.

If not, how would Buddhism understand this experience of observing experience appearing in consciousness from no thing and no where? Even the self seems to arise by the means of no one, even me.

taiyaki

I think you should understand experientially that what appears itself IS consciousness and it doesn't appear IN consciousness.

But what you are describing is dependent origination. Everything manifests spontaneously be it thoughts, sound, smells, tastes, forms (colors, shapes), sensations via causes and conditions.

Emptiness is not nothingness. Emptiness is the lack of a fixed, permanent, independent essence. It is a non-affirmative negation.

When we see dependent origination in our direct experience that itself is emptiness.

Here is a great article on emptiness to get ya started:

http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/2009/02/nondual-emptiness-teachings.html

taiyaki

Also I think what you are describing is kind of dying into the pure experience of the moment. It's like when you're doing and time is slow but very fast in hindsight.

Everything comes like a stream into the mind. And it feels as if something is moving the body/mind, which is thought of in hindsight.

I believe one can interpret such experience in many ways dependent upon their level of insight and knowledge of how things are.

One can interpret it as God living through you. Another can interpret is dependent origination.

So just giving you a heads up =]

Simplify

This article is really useful.

I'll have to chew on it for a while.

Dakini

Yvonne Kason, MD, has studied cases like yours for years, and also NDE's and other paranormal phenomena. She concludes that this type of creativity is related to the Kundalini phenomenon. See her book, "A Farther Shore".

The Buddha didn't teach nothingness. He taught a middle way between a static, permanent, unchanging self, and nothingness. He taught an ever-changing, ever-evolving self. Like what you're experiencing.

Let us know how the art turns out. It's one thing to have a clear image in your mind. It's another thing to have the skilled hand to be able to produce the image as you saw it. People do, some feel guided by an unseen hand. I'd be interested in knowing how it works out for you.

Cinorjer

As a writer, I know the feeling of looking at something I created and thinking there was no way I could have done that. It does feel like you're channeling something or someone when creativity is flowing and you're in the zone. And when you sit back and see the result, you're amazed with yourself. I can see why the Muses or Gods of Inspiration were invented to explain it.

I'm not sure emptiness implies here as much as spontanious. The hand and mind does need to be trained, but then we have to get out of the way and let our minds create.

genkaku

Creativity, when it strikes, is like pornography ... I may not know what it is, but I know it when I see it.

And if I did know what it was, how could it any longer be more than a limping shadow of creativity?

Zero

The brain never stops computing and crunching - perhaps when the conscious is not the overpowering focus, the subconscious can spontaneously push a creation forward

RichardH

Here are two entries from my studio journal. This is about painting in oil.... each canvas is a process lasting about a week or so.

A steam of creative accidents....


The art of painting is a combination of accident and intention. It is helpful to start with a vision of where I want to go, but if this vision becomes too fixed, it binds the process. An unselfconscious brush stroke can create a wonderful new effect that redirects the energy of the whole painting. Being open to this is key. If I put a dozen coins on a table, and try to arrange them in a composition that looks “right” it can be an endless task. I can spend an hour placing these coins in various patterns and non-patterns and not find this elusive goal. But if I just drop them all on the table... the resulting composition will alway look perfect. There is something “just so” about this kind of non-intentional aesthetic. Finding the balance between this and the control of a learned technique is very subtle, but I believe it is at the heart of a successful painting. There is a rhythm.. hold.. let go… hold… let go... hold... let go

Ambiguity and the eye....

Projecting imagination onto the canvas makes use of a suggestive ambiguity. . Leonardo Da Vinci described how when he looked at a pattern of mould on a wall, and let the eye relax, he could see within the random contours and tonal variations, an entire battle of men on horses, down to the smallest detail. This is basically a highly developed version of a child seeing a face in a cloud, and it is the basic way forward when painting from memory and imagination.

Beginning with loose playful underpainting, a base image takes shape with the same suggestive qualities as that random pattern of mould. The only difference is that it points, generally, in the direction desired. Later, once dry, by sweeping and scanning over that base, things are seen, picked out, and further defined with another layer of paint. Then, when this layer is dry, the process is repeated. On and on it develops in this way, feedback on feedback suggesting its own emergence. This is all based on the same simple principle as seeing a face in a cloud.

KarunaDharmakaya

hey brother

I AM NOTHING,EMPTINESS

the Buddha didnt teach nothing,nothing isnt emptiness
emptiness is simply the end of the tainted ego self and the end of defilements.
the Buddha taught emptiness to help us understand that what we view as "OUR SELF" was truelly everchangeing and not a permenante self,the Buddha also said that it is wrong view to think emptiness was nhilism or anhilationism for their is a (self and nonself)

you are a self for instance names tim,while this self is real and you live it right now,ALSO you must understand this self is false this is noneself for it changes every 5 seconds,when "u" learn something new the "self"/"you" changes with the new info.

emptiness itself is only a provisional teaching(taught before the introduction of the Lotus sutra and Tathagatagarbha) in the aspect that it was meant the help us understand that the tainted defiled ego/self is not eternal,and you had to get rid of it to see the TRUE SELF(Buddhahood)

the TRUE SELF(Buddhahood based on Buddha nature) is the end of dependant origination,(ask for the passages I can show you where the Buddha states that dependant origination ends when the Buddha come into being also dependant origination was always talked of by the Buddha as being samsarasan and disgusting)

also Impermanance and dipendant origination is also ended when a person has fullfiled the 4th truth of the 4 noble truths the 1st three truths are Impermanat the 4th true is PERMANENT,for the Buddha never changes does not die and is not reborn hence why the Buddha is called the ETERNAL BUDDHA.and since anhilation and nhilism are wrong views which is why we are reborn FOREVER for all of eternity till liberation(eternal life principle)

LANKAVATARA SUTRA
Mahamati, you and all the Bodhisattvas should discipline yourselves in the realisation and patient acceptance

p. 70

of the truths of the emptiness, un-bornness, no self-natureness, and the non-duality of all things. This teaching is found in all the sutras of all the Buddhas and is presented to meet the varied dispositions of all beings, but it is not the Truth itself. These teachings are only a finger pointing toward Noble Wisdom. They are like a mirage with its springs of water which the deer take to be real and chase after. So with the teachings in all the sutras: They are intended for the consideration and guidance of the discriminating minds of all people, but they are not the Truth itself, which can only be self-realised within one's deepest consciousness.

Mahamati, you and all the Bodhisattvas must seek for this inner self-realisation of Noble Wisdom, and be not captivated by word-teaching.

emptiness is not the truth itself but only the finger pointing to the True self(Buddha)

Simplify

Is it correct to say the illusion of inherint existence causes us to think/feel and behave other than we would if we saw things as empty, for example fearing change and loss. These thoughts and behaviors become habits so even if you get dependance and understand that abstractions don't exist as things, you still have to get over the habits, which is done by being conscious of emptiness and of the habitual thoughts/feelings/behaviors, and this consciousness changes the habit.