emptyness

ZendoLord84

So.
I'm meditating a bit on this subject for a while now.
Emptyness.
Everything is interdependend, nothing can excist on it's own.
Sounds totally logical and the concept is easy to grasp.
Then, the following thoughts always comes to mind.
A duality; everything is the same and everything is unique.
At once.
I mean really everything.
they are not a bad string of thoughts, just don't know to place them somewhere useful.
Can someone give me some insights on this subject and/or personal experience?
Metta,

misecmisc1

my thinking says: this duality will continue, until the unconditioned is directly experienced. till then - logic and analysis will say - 'I' do not exist, but since ignorance has not totally been eradicated, the defiled mind will keep on creating 'I' by clinging to the five aggregates and thereby continuing this Samsara.

lobster

Paradox is very difficult to experience. How do we think of Nothing or experience emptiness, without duality; experiencer and experience . . .

Though some of us have experienced this paradoxical state, it is unique and the same, it does not arise from the conditions of being.

taiyaki

If you examine anything. Anything.

You will find an absence.

Such absence isn't a thing but a lack of the assert thingness/solidity that we project onto appearances.

Examine thoughts. Where do they arise from? Where do they abide? Where do they go away to?

The appearance of a thought is obvious, but where is its core? Where is its solidity?

Thoughts are easy. Now try the other five senses.

We can say things lack inherent existence and thus have the same taste of not being graspable. This is observable in meditation. The mind is what recognizes emptiness and even the mind itself is unfindable.

But the diversity is in the manifestation itself. Centerless/coreless infinite variety of appearances.

Takuan

Emptiness is very simple, yet it can be extremely difficult at the same time. In describing emptiness, we encounter the linguistic limitations that can make it so difficult to understand. There's an entire group of sutras dedicated to it, the pranjaparimita sutras, as well as entire schools of Buddhist philosophy, for example Madhyamika.

Philosophically speaking sunyata (emptiness) refers all phenomenas lack of an intrinsic nature. This does not, however, mean that things do not exist; they're void of any inherent existence. A table is a table, but it's not made of table. If I take a leg from the table, is it still table in existence or is it a piece of wood? "Existence" means that something exists on it's own with out depending on anything else. All things are dependent on causes and conditions, therefore there is no true or inherent existence.

In a practical sense, sunyata also means "open", "spacious", "free". Being "open" or "free" in this sense, means that one does not discriminate based on conceptual knowledge. Why? because all concepts are inherently empty and... here we go again. lol

Hope this helps