Emptiness for begginers

NamelessRiver

OK I decided to write this thread because this concept gets thrown around a lot in the weirdest ways. So I will try to translate the little I know about emptiness into crystal-clear explanation. Or I shall try.

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The second noble truth states that the origin of suffering is craving. Craving has also a cause, which is ignorance. What are we ignorant of?

On one level we are ignorant of simple things. I don't know why I keep eating chocolate cake and getting fatter - thus suffering - while the girl next door doesn't behave the same way. If only I knew it is for reason "X" I would stop eating and would have one less cause for suffering. No need for emptiness here.

We are also ignorant of how our view of reality is warped on a very basic level. When we look at that chocolate cake that we eat, let's say, because it gives us comfort, we believe it has, inherently, the property of comfort.

Inherent existence: something inherently inside the object all the time that makes him or her exist this way.

We think the cake is inherently comforting, but our neighbor doesn't think so. If it was inherently comforting it would have to be like that all the time, for everybody.

If it was inherently comforting we should be able to find the element, on the cake, that makes it comforting. But if we cut it to pieces we will just find, flour, chocolate, atoms, whatever. No tablespoon of deliciousness that by its own power is making the cake comforting.

When we talk about emptiness we are obviously talking about the absence of something. When we talk about the emptiness of the cake, what we are saying is not that the cake does not exist, but that the cake does not exist in the way we think it does, what is absent is the way of existence we assigned to it. "I'm sorry Nameless, not all cakes are equal comfort".

emptiness: absence of an impossible way of existing.

With that concept of emptiness at hand, we might look at ourselves and find out that we have a whole list of characteristics we assign to, well, everything: "I am dumb, I am outgoing, I am slow, she is evil, he is an angel, the cake brings comfort, that chair is ugly, this book is boring, death is suffering, aging is suffering, birth is suffering" and so on. Sometimes when we think about emptiness it helps.

What if I say cake equals comfort for me because when I grew up I had such a happy childhood and used to stuff my face with cake and now every time I do that I feel good? I know that the comfort doesn't arise just from that piece of cake; I know that I am assigning a property to it. The fact is, when I do eat the cake I feel good and I have, let's say, an abusive partner and my only comfort is to eat, eat, eat. So how does emptiness resolves this?

I will give the answer everybody here would give: leave your partner. Honey, the thing is, emptiness doesn't make you dodge bullets. You see people trying to solve their pain with emptiness or deny the existence of everything with emptiness and it is not like that.

That was all I had to say. Anybody wanna add something?

Jeffrey

To me how emptiness is relevant is that some of my negative states. Since I know they are just arisings. And the arisings are spacious. They are just distortions of my minds basic nature. It helps me to sit with that negative state and experience its power. Its similar to your cake example but it is a way to contact aversion rather than grasping. Thats the way to deal with the cake by the way. Contact the feeling of the cake. Eat it. Contact the guilt after eating. Contact the whole experience. Let go into the spacious nature of the experience and just stop fighting against the experience. Or don't eat the cake and contact that. Or break off the relationship and contact that.

MatSalted

NamelessRiver wrote: »

The second noble truth states that the origin of suffering is craving. Craving has also a cause, which is ignorance. What are we ignorant of?

The true nature of all things, that they are empty and impermanent and interconected.

We are also ignorant of how our view of reality is warped on a very basic level. When we look at that chocolate cake that we eat, let's say, because it gives us comfort, we believe it has, inherently, the property of comfort.

Hmmm. But what about the fact it might give comfort just in its taste etc Its not just the cake that is empty but the eater too.

What we are saying is not that the cake does not exist, but that the cake does not exist in the way we think it does...

Yes! I think that it. But its not just in terms of emptiness but the many layered assumptions about things existence. The diminishing returns on its experience, the effect on our health....

That was all I had to say. Anybody wanna add something?

I dont get what you mean at the end. What's your take on the play between emptiness and interconnectivity?


well wishes

Mat

PietroPumokin

love is emptiness

Dazzle

'Emptiness' in a Mahayana context refers to everything that exists being impermanent and dependent on everything else and therefore having no permanent separate inherent being or 'self'. As well as seeing impermanence in action all around us and within ourselves (no permanently existing 'self'), we can break everything down into smaller components, atoms etc. so we can see that nothing has any solid existence in that way.


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Dazzle

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With regard to Theravada, I think this sutta should be taken to heart in the Pali Canon.... SN 20.7 Ani Sutta.

Staying at Savatthi. "Monks, there once was a time when the Dasarahas had a large drum called 'Summoner.' Whenever Summoner was split, the Dasarahas inserted another peg in it, until the time came when Summoner's original wooden body had disappeared and only a conglomeration of pegs remained.

"In the same way, in the course of the future there will be monks who won't listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — are being recited.

They won't lend ear, won't set their hearts on knowing them, won't regard these teachings as worth grasping or mastering. But they will listen when discourses that are literary works — the works of poets, elegant in sound, elegant in rhetoric, the work of outsiders, words of disciples — are recited. They will lend ear and set their hearts on knowing them. They will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.

"In this way the disappearance of the discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — will come about.

"Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will listen when discourses that are words of the Tathagata — deep, deep in their meaning, transcendent, connected with emptiness — are being recited. We will lend ear, will set our hearts on knowing them, will regard these teachings as worth grasping & mastering.' That's how you should train yourselves."

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