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Taoism & Emptiness..
Shoshin1
Sentient BeingOceania Veteran
Came across this interesting short video on "Taoism & Emptiness"
Emptiness is Form ...Form is Emptiness
Tis no thing special.....
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Comments
I enjoyed that thanks. I do have my usual qualms whenever emptiness is equated to nothing instead of potential but other than that it was nice.
He did say nothing isn't really nothing but then goes on labeling it nothing as if emptiness and form somehow are cause and effect. As if nonexistence gives birth to existence.
I don't think one could arise without the other in the absolute sense. Opposing or dualistic pairs dependently arise and so nothing cannot give rise to anything. It doesn't make sense to posit that there was a very first cause which caused the very first effect. Every effect has its cause and every cause is also an effect.
No birth and no death, no beginning to causation.
I like Alan Watts take on Nothingness
Good video @Shoshin1, nice find. It would almost convince me to become Taoist, except that I am starting to realise that no religion is perfect...
I liked his characterisation that Emptiness gives shape to Being, and that Being defines Emptiness. Showing that as the two halves of the yin-yang symbol makes perfect sense. The creative power of Emptiness is something I wonder at.
Not so.
ALL Religions are perfect.
It is those who interpret them for our ears, and those who follow blindly, who are not perfect...
Who has grasped the Tao? Nothing there? Perfect.
One day we fund find follow our religion.
http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/prophet-religion
It is funny to think of because opposition is really just a concept. As you rightly put it, the yin-yang is a whole and the halves are complimentary, not opposed. They work together as a part of the same cycle so how can they really be opposed? I'm thinking back to basic science and the first cell. Did it try to find a mate or did it divide?
Only conceptually can we say yin is the opposite to yang. I mean, what is the opposite of the yin-yang symbol?
In relation to men and women, when we come together and share information in the right conditions, we bring forth a whole new view of this experience. Another unique way to see. And at conception, as far as the sex of the child, it could go either way depending on conditions.
Women and men are complimentary. We work together or not very well at all. Plus, both are human and the only true opposite of human is no-human just as the only opposite to woman is no-woman. We know there are humans and women and not only that but the seeds or the potential for humans and women must have always been or conditions could not come together for their manifestation.
No-human is just a concept just like "nothing" and the idea that nothing must give rise to everything is still a dualistic idea.
If the potential for everything resides in a nothing that isn't really nothing, why keep calling it "nothing"?
All dualistic pairs dependently arise and that arising has no opposite except by way of conception and dualistic thinking.
Form is emptiness and emptiness is form. Form is not opposed to emptiness, emptiness is form.
Talking of emptiness ...