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the Zen of Nihilism
Wisdom23
Veteran
in Philosophy
I would like your thoughts on this please. I have never been grand at explaining myself so i hope i get my msg across.
After so much study and meditation i came to a feeling of emptyness or sunyata. A description of Nihilism fit what i was feeling bang on. Furthur thought lead me to think if there is no inherent purpose, meaning or morality no one can be right or wrong in the way of conceptual truths. I then thought that we all live under a veil of subjectivity. This seems to be leading towards non-duality.
I would like to know if anyone has experienced anything similar and how they went from here.
After so much study and meditation i came to a feeling of emptyness or sunyata. A description of Nihilism fit what i was feeling bang on. Furthur thought lead me to think if there is no inherent purpose, meaning or morality no one can be right or wrong in the way of conceptual truths. I then thought that we all live under a veil of subjectivity. This seems to be leading towards non-duality.
I would like to know if anyone has experienced anything similar and how they went from here.
0
Comments
Emptiness is not a metaphysical substratum underlying all reality. To say so would be to say Emptiness CAUSES form. Instead, form is emptiness and emptiness is form. They are not two. The existence of everything is entirely relational, there is no essential metaphysical foundation to say "THAT is REAL reality as opposed to 'mere appearances.'"
Emptiness is not how things REALLY are because that would be to rest in a concept. The emptiness of emptiness is to push you out of conceptual thinking altogether.
So if you are thinking "Everything is REALLY empty" then your understanding of emptiness is partial. The wisdom of emptiness and the compassion of no separation are one and the same--which is a far cry from nihilism.
Unfortunately I have work, but please read this:
http://www.emptinessteachings.com/index.php
And also I would suggest Thich Nhat Hanh's brief commentary on the Heart Sutra, The Heart of Understanding.
Nihilism is a feeling, or interpretation, it is a way of experiencing the world. There is a sutra on this that maybe someone will access for you . . .
HERE is something that might help from Thich Nhat Hanh:
http://www.thebuddhadharma.com/web-archive/2012/8/5/the-fullness-of-emptiness.html
Not getting punched in the face is better than being punched in the face.
What Buddhists take as a foundation is the relative notion that beings would rather be happy than to suffer. So human happiness and flourishing is a good place to start our moral considerations from.
If you're feeling assured and savvy about it, that's not it.
Take a tip from the Internet and "Please try again."
Or, put another way, get over yourself.
Emptiness negates a specific thing, which is inherent existence.
It doesn't negate everything into oblivion, just inherent existence.
And in emptiness teachings causality is a reality. Conventional reality functions, provides meaning, etc. People and things exists conventionally, but are free from labels of nothing and something.
Its a very subtle insight and its best to even study an intellectual view on this.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_20/175-8406008-6628156?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=how to see yourself as you really are&sprefix=how+to+see+yourself+,aps,232&rh=i:aps,k:how to see yourself as you really are&ajr=2
This is a great book to start!
If you asked many Christians about teaching morals in school and told them that you were basing the curriculum on human happiness and flourishing and not God you would very quickly see a distinction.
http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?page=kurtz_21_3§ion=library
(Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika 15.10)
Emptiness is proclaimed by the victorious one as the refutation of all viewpoints; But those who hold "emptiness" as a viewpoint — the true perceivers have called those "incurable" (asadhya).
(Nagarjuna, Mulamadhyamakakarika 13.8)
Oh and don't forget feeling, perception, habits, and conscious.
This is dynamite. You should get a teacher if you go this way. There are numerous warnings not to teach anyone about emptiness who doesn't have support of a teacher/sangha. It's part of the bodhisattva vows of shantideva for christ sakes. Emptiness is dynamite. Even by posting here I am giving readers the credit that they will make an informed sensible decision about where to base their practice (or find a teacher).
No, in fact I said as much earlier. I really don't agree with your point that an absolute morality that comes from God is identical to one based on human values. I think there are many examples of ways that an absolute morality has deviated from humanist ethics, all the instances of violence justified by religion for example.
Not sure what you're getting at or what your intention is. Can you clarify please?
If they weren't empty they could not be cruelty or ignorance.
One truly understands emptiness as causality and freedom from views. Intellectually it allows for a wider point of view. Experientially it opens the being so that there is room for love and compassionate action.
For there to be duality, there must be something to divide. Hawking shows that the total energy in the universe could equal out to be zero but that isn't really true if we look at the big picture. He even explains it as a pile of dirt being made. Now, for there to be a pile, there must also be a hole of equal measure. Positive energy and negative energy cancelling each other out to equal zero. However, that would make the dirt "nothing"... This causes a problem because without the dirt, there can be no pile or hole.
For something to exist in space/time, I think it has to exist in at least two dimensions so there is distance of some sort but we don't even know if this space/time continuum is the only one of its kind... Whether there is one that expands then contracts or dissipates or whether there are countless numbers going off all around us.
Nothing would have no qualities whatsoever and so would lack the potential for anything to arise. We know even empty space is not nothing from particle physics and vacuum creation science. Sub atomic particles are pulled out of space itself to protect it from being a complete vacuum. Space/emptiness cannot exist without form and form cannot exist without space/emptiness.
Dawkins says that we simply cannot comprehend something from nothing and he is right. The reason though is because there is no such thing as nothing and when he says nothing what he really means is nothing that takes up space. I think potential itself should not be dismissed as nothing since no thing can predate its own potential to exist... Conditions must be met in some way or another.
It seems to me that they key to awakening within and exploring the universe open the same door ultimately.
The reason I think it is dangerous to mistake emptiness for nothingness is not only does it foster nihilism, it obscures the fundamentals and the discovery of abundance.
If Buddha wanted to say Nothingness is form and form was nothingness he would have.
Meaning and purpose can come after as they could be things that are made rather than found.
It seems we are the ones we have been waiting for all this time.
Sorry for the rant, lol.
In Buddhism dualistic ideas are taught to get to an experience or experiential conviction. Causality in the Buddhist sense is taught as a view and deconstructed via meditative experience. Freedom from views is a meditative experience and realization. Not the absent mindedness of "no view". Dependent Origination or Buddhist causality is a view, but is also points to a no view.
Anyways I'm not sure what your intention is here? Are you trying to affirm that Buddhism denies causality? Or that I deny causality because it is merely a view?
From the point of view of an intellectual none of this makes sense. How can dependent origination as a view be freedom from views? Everyone gets form is emptiness but how can emptiness be form?
A view can liberate if used in conjunction with practice. The Buddha taught the three seals not as final insights but rather a way of seeing which brings freedom.
TLDR: Difference between intellectual understanding and experiential realization. Both feed into each other and both cannot be totally separated either.
What are you proposing in response to OP?
Is Nihilism what the Buddha pointed to in your opinion?
And is Nihilism the Buddha's emptiness?
How do we relate that with the teachings of Dependent Origination or Buddhist causality?
I'd love to hear your view and opinion rather than hear what I have to say because I already know what views I hold and practice with.
Would be really nice to hear your actual opinion.
I completely agree but what is it practice for? Discovering the truth within?
There is a thin line between in and out and it does seem to me that it is also practice for finding the truth about the universe. I don't mean the beginning because I don't think it makes sense to posit a true beginning.
The universe isn't just a place we happen to be in.
I think the objection that those who hold to an absolute moral system is that they feel a relative one means anything goes. I suppose in some cases that is true but I don't think it is with Buddhism. Buddhism also incorporates a sense of wisdom of what brings true happiness and a long term outlook that looks past immediate concerns.
The OP was talking about lack of meaning or morality if emptiness means nothing has an inherent existence and that there can be no right or wrong under a veil of subjectivity. I responded by saying that Buddhism has an ethical system that is based on the notion that every being wants to be happy and doesn't want to suffer. There is a right and wrong here but its not based on a set of rules that need to be followed but a principle of avoiding harm and bringing happiness that allows for an individual to use their own sense and wisdom to implement an action that would accomplish that based upon a particular situation.
Maybe another way to put it is Buddhism isn't a rules based system. It teaches us to be kind because its better than being cruel not because God says so but because it increases happiness and flourishing. So Buddhism gives us the skills and wisdom to decide for ourselves what is the moral action at a given time. Looking back on this now I'd say that one I don't really think there is a God. And two there doesn't have to be a substantial difference for there to be a difference. God could tell us to love our neighbors and that would agree with a humanistic moral system. But he could also tell us to kill the heathens and infidels, under an absolute rule based system handed down from above that would be moral but not agree with morals based on human happiness. That kind of religiously inspired violence has certainly occurred and continues to occur.
However, quantum mechanics is implying that it is precisely the pattern.
An eternal dance with emptiness becoming form and form becoming emptiness.
I only bring it up because the distinction between emptiness and nothingness is a fundamental point not only within but without.
Zero is just a made up concept.
The best translation I feel for sunyata is not emptyness but instead hollowness, phenomena exist but there is nothing at their core that is permanent, stable or possessing "self-ness". A rock has no "rockness", a tree no "treeness" and a person has, in reality, no coherent or stable personhood. Everything is flux. Energy exists, it changes form, that is all.
Nihilism, in the sense that the universe lacks any inherent existential meaning/purpose or objective moral framework is spot on. The Earth could be roasted by a massive coronal projection tonight and the universe would not notice. Cthulhu himself could devour each and every man, woman and child and the universe would not care.
The universe is non-dual of course, we each experience our own imaginary version of it, processing sensory input with our giant-monkey brains and giving certain temporary forms certain names, but in the end reality is what it is - and what it is is what it isn't, because all things are but energy in flux.
If you understand this you can understand how best to live. Your car will break down, your teeth will break and fall out, you will get sick, your family will die as will you. That's the nature of the world, and it doesn't matter. Nothing you can do will change this fact, worrying over spilt milk won't unspill it.
So, there's no point to your existence, you will get sick and old and die. What now?
Well, you could wallow in depression, anxiety and anomie.
Or, follow what the Buddha said and live your pointless mortal blip of a life in contentment.
End transmission.
'...and no attainment'
'thus the bodhisattvas abide free from fear'
Everything starts, manifests its being, and then falls apart. But don't forget the first two along the way, birth and manifestation.