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What's the deal with emptiness?
I know emptiness isn't nothingness, and that it refers to things having no permanent essence or self owing to dependent origination. But my question is, in what way does that help? Let's say I experience a certain emotion now - the emotion doesn't have an essence, isn't permanent. In this sense, it is empty. But this knowledge is not going to stop the emotion from occurring, or stop me from reacting. Things go on as they always did, and knowledge of emptiness hasnt changed anythjng.
So why do some schools emphasize it so much?
So why do some schools emphasize it so much?
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It is like the bad emotion is in brer rabbit and the tar baby. The harder you punch the tar baby the more and more you get stuck.
But when you realize that there is no substance to the 'bad' emotion all of the emotional 'world' that is conjured by your mind loses its hold on you.
I once told myself this whole story about how my car insurance company screwed me over and I was so angry. When I talked to them I just let all of that go. And I was more able to problem solve with them which is good because the 'screwing over' was a distorted perception. Even if they are really screwing over you can disempower negativity by realizing that it is just sensitivity of your mind that is sensing that you are hurt. Fear and anxiety.
So it helps dismantle this 'klesha' that I am having a realy bad day and the whole world is against me.
Imagine a negative emotion or situation if it is something solid like a brick your mind can grab onto it and give it meaning. If on the other hand we viewed these things as being empty then they are like a cloud of smoke, our minds have nothing to hold onto and spin into suffering.
Supposedly this unencumbered state of mind is immensly peaceful. Personally I've had a few scattered experiences of a profoundly peaceful mind so I can say it exists, unfortunately for me nothing lasting or regular though.
The first use of emptiness, which is relative emptiness, describes phenomena, or empirical reality. This finite, empirical reality is a derivative reality, the result of dependent origination. Such reality is devoid (sunya) of independent, substantial reality of its own (svabhâva). The second use of emptiness is from the pov of the absolute. The absolute is devoid of thought constructions and plurality. Emptiness is the symbol of the inexpressible, non-conceptual nature of the absolute.
Some teachers make a distinction between knowledge and wisdom. With knowledge being the first kind of knowledge and wisdom being the experiential knowledge. Knowledge can help you attain wisdom but it is wisdom that causes the change, not mere knowledge.
It isn't a tool, it's a sign. Like a sign tells you to turn left or right; you don't hold onto the sign or use the sign for anything else but get a direction. The sign saying 'emptiness' tells you what to look for, or rather, what not to look for. In your experience, do you feel there is a center of experience? Something everything swirls around? Something that chooses or something that experiences?
How still can you get those things? The more silent the mind, the more these things disappear. Now, when really still (I mean really really still), how deep inside the mind can you look? Is there something there? Look real deep and you'll see there is nothing. That's emptiness. It means the mind (and body) is empty. Not just of a self, but of everything. Not only is it empty inside, but also outside and everywhere, it is nothing but empty.
So an emotion arises, but in what does it arise? In nothing. Not only is an emotion empty, it also plays out in emptiness. Realizing the latter is way more important and more useful than the former. Now you can't get this by thinking things out. You have to follow the sign. And if you ever arrive at 'emptiness', you don't need the signs no more. You've found what you're looking for all that time and it turns out it was nothing.
To do this you have to see into the seeing, the mind in the mind, or the mind steadied right within. The seeing which is empty. This is what the Buddha called the jhanas: I hope you'll find it one day.
With metta,
Sabre
Because in the end, of course, it also isn't a sign. It's the way things are, which is neither a tool or a sign. But it isn't that either, because 'emptiness', it's just a word. It just all depends on how we interpret it. Is it a tool or a sign or both or neither? It really makes no difference how we call it, as long as we approach it wisely.
What I mainly meant is that it isn't a tool that one just applies whenever an emotion arises that we don't like, or similar things. So I gave another way of using the 'tool' of emptiness as a 'sign'
Sorry if it was confusing.
Although the mind and all of the mandalas are empty, like sabre has said, there is still order, I don't know if that is the right word, in a sense. We see a right shoe and a left shoe and we know that they go on our feat and that they are right and left. That is due to our involvement in mandalas. But the mandala itself is empty, we cannot control it we just find our balance. But we do find our balance and that is smirti, mindfulness or openness, along with virya/samahdi (energy/concentration), and prajna/sradda (intelligence/embodying)..
The prajna is insight into the mandala and the sradda is having our insight go into the mandala. This forum is a mandala for example and we are all finding our place. The word 'emptiness' also is a mandala. Buddhism, emptiness, is a submandala.
So 'what's the difference with emptiness' is no difference as long as you have sradda and prajna and all of the other viryas balanced. But they are not balanced. Otherwise we would never be upset. I mean one kind of upset, as we cannot get rid of feelings, we can just have trust that we will find our harmony. So I would say Buddhism is all about having confidence and balancing the five indiryas.
But then one day, after a bunch of meditation retreats and 5 months at a monastery, I had a 10-second experience that changed that. I experienced emptiness, no-self (anatta) and suddenly I was "Oooh! That's what emptiness is! Right, it makes sense now... Huh."
So, personally, I wouldn't bother trying to understand it intellectually. It's not one of those things which can be grasped by the thinking mind. It's like trying to describe the experience of love, or the smell of coffee, or new-mown grass on a warm day. Can't be done.
That's probably not a satisfying answer, sorry.
There are many good articles on the subject of emptiness.
I find the concept very fascinating though.
http://www.emptiness.co/intro
"If the selflessness of phenomena is analyzed
and if this analysis is cultivated,
It causes the effect of attaining nirvana.
Through no other cause does one come to peace.
—The Samadhiraja Sutra"
Of course given the information below I'm sure you're going to call Nagarjuna a nihilist or materialist too! Perhaps you should take some time, maybe a good deal of time, to reflect on that.
Least one get the impression that Nagarjuna's empty illusory world is the alpha and omega they, obviously, have not read Nagarjuna's Dharmadhâtustava. Its main theme is the "naturally luminous Mind' (prakritiprabhasvaram citta) which has been defiled by adventitious defilements which means that mind's perturbations cause it to lose sight of itself as it really is which is increate and luminous.
Some Buddhists have mistaken the Buddha's diagnosis of the dependently arisen world, that it is empty, to be also the cure. It is not the cure. Realizing the luminous Mind is the cure. But few, if any Buddhists these days accomplish this realization, except to dumb it down to something silly like being aware of awareness.
And here's some helpful information on Nagarjuna: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/nagarjuna/
"You" react because you have not realised the emptiness of self (anatta). Intellectual knowledge is not the same as experiential/gut(heart) knowledge and therein lies the difference. http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html
You might find it helpful to focus initially on impermanence, which can be regarded as a "symptom" of emptiness. A phrase I found very helpful was "There are no things, only processes".
"Language is naturally dualistic so it's impossible for it to accurately describe that which is being discussed. But to clear up your two messages in a way that points somewhat closely; Experience appears to happen, however there's no experiencer and nothing which is experienced. However the absence of self/phenomena cannot be believed, because the self is reborn in the belief, as that which believes or disbelieves. The experience of a thing is a projection, there is no 'thing itself'(even apart from sensory perception like noumena). So there are no 'things' or objects anywhere in experience(of course there is conventionally). But if this is left on the level of belief then it's a rebirth of the same exact ignorance. A notion of absence is just as imputed as the original notion of appearance. A subject-object split of any nature is a projection of ignorance. Thought creates all separation, the problem is that thoughts are believed, and it's believed that thoughts are merely commenting on a 'thing' which inherently exists apart from the thought. But in truth the thought creates the 'thing'. The thought implies a thinker and that which is thought of. Thought and memory create time, space, everything. If you can start to view thought in it's suchness, as merely a sound, that points to nothing and self-liberates the moment it appears, and then eventually see that there's no one who views the thought but that it is self-originated... and it continues to collapse in from there with a few other possible steps until it's only emptiness."
-Asunthatneversets
http://awakeningtoreality.blogspot.com/search/label/asunthatneversets
Just read the whole thing. Its dense but he makes good experiential examples so that you can investigate for yourself.
Hope this helps.
"Abiding thus in equanimity, the mind of the Bodhisattva was completely pure, perfect, luminous, free from emotionality, free from all the fettering passions, supple, perfectly balanced, unwavering" (Lalitavistara Sutra).
The Bodhisattva, when he became the awakened one (buddha), said nothing about realizing emptiness. It is about mind. Nagarjuna in the Dharmadhatustava says: "But here, the actual nirvana is mind that's free from any stain."
When you say things like this: I have to wonder what you've actually read of Nagarjuna. According to Nagarjuna in the Lokatitastava, all phenomena (sarvadharmâ) are without reality (nihsvabhâva). They are inactive, dependent, empty (shunya), dependently arisen like an illusion (mâyâ).
Buddha-Nature isn't something within us, not something we "have" or that's a hidden part of us (a soul or sixth aggregate), it's the nature of the very five aggregates. The aggregates, all conditioned phenomena, are Mind. It's not something separate. There's no duality! Mind has never been hidden from us, only obscured by our delusions (of self, permanence, satisfactoriness).
This type of discussion is not helpful. It has bordered on unskillful speech in my view.
Denigrating the view or the practice of another wayfarer is inappropriate.
That is Hinduism. End of story.
Well if so is it empty of apple?
With all due respect,This is right speech for me:
Things get divisive when Emptiness and Buddha-nature
are involved. Just different teachings, thats all.
One should be pretty confident/knowledgeable in their own path/teachings to
maybe 'catch-on' to the implications of others here.
On a forum where diversity is celebrated ( alot of god, jc topics, lately.),
how else can we even get to the hard shit? The practice, remember?
It's not the end of the story. Not for me.
If I am taught Buddha-nature/suchness.....then what?
I dont get to know how to deal with the lay/householder life?
He said cultivating one or the other is excellent, but both is madness.
From the’ Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra’
It all comes down to grasping onto emptiness or grasping onto suchness.
It is seeing the non duality by directly apprehending that suchness is in fact empty of inherent existence that brings about release. That is the whole function of Buddhism.
Not reification of emptiness or suchness. Not clinging to eternalistic or nihilistic views. Perceptions and consciousness are inseparable.
And what happens afterwards? What is left cannot be made into another ground or given existence, non existence, both or neither. All views are fabrications on the basis of assumptions (ignorance).
Seeing through is seeing the lack of solidity we give to reality of self and phenomena.
Clinging to the unborn buddha mind as a thing be it emptiness or suchness and not seeing that everything is in fact luminous-emptiness unfolding as the unborn buddha mind is a problem.
Buddhism is a completely different beast than Hinduism. And their insights are diametrically opposed.
I am just calling it out because I too made the same mistake and if it wasn't for the loving, relentless, and almost aggressive stance of DharmaDhatu I too would be dwelling in the infinite ignorance of consciousness believing it to be nirvana.
Study and practice hard people. Ignorance is deep. Dependent origination and emptiness very subtle and profound.
Much love.
You definetly display confidence/knowledge of your path.
May we have many fruitfull conversations to come.
We're one large family!
Do not be in a hurry to "rush" understanding. These things are not comprehend with our intellect. Just like no one can know what a sneeze feels like by figuring it out intellectually ... until you sneeze, any description of it sounds ... somehow inadequate.
It comes like the dawn ... at a slow pace, as the result of your practices.
And it does not come from our intellect, but from the state of raw, pure (thought-silenced) awareness and observation.
I think that the principle of emptiness is best seen as a conduit through which we may experience the profoundly spiritual. Over time this practice can change many things. The problem I see here is that you are making the mistake of isolating one thing or a few things, [in this case negative things,] as being empty. This creates concept frameworks and structures that include some things and exclude others; trying to hold inclusion/exclusion concepts this should be very uncomfortable if you have a measure of understanding. It seems to me like you do.
About the word emptiness; it means literally empty like the inside of a container.. pure, clean, not really good or bad. It has no connection to any abstract philosophical state: once you have the correct tool, which is the most mundane, practical, neutral version of the word 'empty', you can then try to ascertain the impossible through it's use in the scriptures. It is...quite the experience.. As open and clear as the meaning of the word emptiness.
In the sandinirmocana sutra, sakyamuni buddha, makes reference to hidden meaning in the teachings of emptiness.. also implying that it is not easily understood by any means. He did know how the principle of emptiness seems to us in the beginning.
I hope this has given you pause for thought.
Eventually and with practice i managed to force the first, literal meaning of 'empty' into the scriptures, which is extremely difficult in itself, the interference from other meaning of the word not withstanding.
possession. So then we dent the car. Now the attachment leads to suffering. The pleasure of our hobby is NOT the problem, the nature of life is enjoyment at times. But the attachment we make a mountain out of a mole hill, where we should just have a brief storm of anger at the dent, but then let that go.
It's hard to explain about the eight worldly winds without giving the idea that we have to be detached in the sense of non-feeling. Rather the sorrow of the car damaged is part of our feast, both sorrow and joy.
In other words when you have a concept or experience of [insert something] it is nothing of import, empty of suchness, empty of independent being. Can you experience it . . .?
Paradoxically yes.
I need to lay down . . .