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What is emptiness?
- Thread starter WODIN
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Lift Chief
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There is no unchanging essence in anything so everything is empty.
Lift Chief
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I'm writing a paper on Yogacara Buddhism btw... have you read much about it?... really interesting.
.. artmarlar...Scarlett33
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I hear ya! But I cna't decide what to eat. Prob. will be tunaSeashell said:
where's da beef!?
I need coffee.
Scarlett33
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seriously, its kind of a drownding/smothering feeling
That's what I'm talking about!
sigmund
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WODIN said:
This question can be raised at many levels. Initially, to try and understand emptiness I personalised the expression in terms of “Do I feel empty / Is my life empty” – and what exactly does that mean?
To me it was quite apparent that for my life to be empty in a literal sense was a nonsense, as I am constantly provided with and seeking stimulus both consciously and subconsciously. So what this question (interpreted personally) became was - am I satisfied? Am I feeding my desires, be they physical / emotional / spiritual? And if so to what purpose are my desires bound? Does feeding my desires automatically fill the void of emptiness? Should emptiness be perceived as a negative, nihilistic in nature? These questions were however leading me astray of the original question “What is emptiness?”
I next thought of emptiness in terms of cognitive function and came up with:
Having nothing more or nothing less, to be void of any reaction or thought, be that cognitive assimilation, physical / mental process. Additionally absence of creative activity – the ability to not enter into conjecture or speculate – to totally let go.
The cessation of emotional response must also take place, in accordance if feelings ride upon the foundation of consciousness with love & hate primarily adjudged the two extremes, they and all sub categories must be released.
I therefore concluded that total abandonment of consciousness and sub-consciousness is necessary in order to achieve emptiness, in my opinion an impossibility for the human mind. You could argue that in certain states (sleep, coma) we do not perceive the ultimate reality underlying our experience however I do not feel emptiness is achieved, as some level of activity is present and therefore provides a sensation, even if at a deep subconscious level.
My conclusion was that the human mind could not experience emptiness but that does not mean emptiness is universally unobtainable, after all in theory it should be the most simple form, that from which all else began.
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PIGEON-RAT
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Emptiness doesn't exist. According to string theory and quantum mechanics there is a quantum sponge that comprises space.
sh4dowf4lcon
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emptiness = geighness
Lift Chief
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WODIN said:
How so?
Lift Chief said:
I think it takes the concept of Mahyana and extends it to its full fillment from and I or egocentric point of view. This being that everything is illusional and an extension from true mind. To me this is egocentric in nature. This is where the fundamental teachings of Buddha took a left turn.
Emptiness is simply stating that nothing exist without relivance to something else. That there isn't any inherent existance of anything in this world. Or in other words everything is interdependent in its fundamental nature.
sh4dowf4lcon
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totally_geigh
sh4dowf4lcon
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geigh is geigh does - pooyeboye
tiger own mynuts bor - you are starting to be rude rude I say...
dont forget about my cousin bro, he will come through but he is working a big case right now...dont doubt me on this, my cousin will snoop out that scammer for you... I guarantee it...but he is working for free so he will do it when he is not so busy. I emailed everything you gave me to him...
tiger own mynuts bor - you are starting to be rude rude I say...
dont forget about my cousin bro, he will come through but he is working a big case right now...dont doubt me on this, my cousin will snoop out that scammer for you... I guarantee it...but he is working for free so he will do it when he is not so busy. I emailed everything you gave me to him...
sh4dowf4lcon
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sh4dowf4lcon said:
T
The Shadow
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...being as far away from your loved one as the dawn is on a sleepless night.
Emptiness is elaborated in the Heart Sutra, and is, in a way, a criticism of Hinayana Buddhism's dualism. In the concept of emptiness, the Buddha explained that the eternal present and the phenomenal present are one and the same -- that is, form and emptiness are the same. Here is the Heart Sutra on emptiness, probably the best known of the Buddha's teachings, called "The Second Turning of the Wheel": Chant it three times daily and you will lose fat:
______
When a sincere truth seeker attains the wisdom of enlightenment, he realizes that all the five senses are empty and he transcends every suffering.
Listen: All things are no different from emptiness; emptiness is not different from all things. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness are also like this.
Listen: The original nature of all things is neither born nor extinguished. There is no purity, no defilement; no gain, no loss.
In this world of emptiness there is no form, no feelings, perceptions, impulses, or consciousness. No eye, ear, tongue body, or mind. Therefore, no color, sound, smell, taste, touch, or thought. The world of form does not exist, nor the world of the mind or of ignorance; no old age and no death.
Yet there is continuous ignorance, old age, and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering; no wisdom and no attainment because there is nothing to be attained. The compassionate truth-seeker depends upon the wisdom of enlightenment.
When the mind does not become attached to anything, there are no obstacles and fear does not exist. This mind goes beyond all disruptive views and attains Nirvana. All the Buddhas of the past, present and future depend upon the wisdom of enlightenment--and so attain the supreme, wisdom of enlightenment as the great unexplainable true word, the great shining true word that is able to remove all suffering. It is true, not false. This true word of wisdom says:
Gyate Gyate Hara Gyate Hara So Gyate Bodhi Sowa Ka.
______
When a sincere truth seeker attains the wisdom of enlightenment, he realizes that all the five senses are empty and he transcends every suffering.
Listen: All things are no different from emptiness; emptiness is not different from all things. Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness are also like this.
Listen: The original nature of all things is neither born nor extinguished. There is no purity, no defilement; no gain, no loss.
In this world of emptiness there is no form, no feelings, perceptions, impulses, or consciousness. No eye, ear, tongue body, or mind. Therefore, no color, sound, smell, taste, touch, or thought. The world of form does not exist, nor the world of the mind or of ignorance; no old age and no death.
Yet there is continuous ignorance, old age, and death.
There is no suffering, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering; no wisdom and no attainment because there is nothing to be attained. The compassionate truth-seeker depends upon the wisdom of enlightenment.
When the mind does not become attached to anything, there are no obstacles and fear does not exist. This mind goes beyond all disruptive views and attains Nirvana. All the Buddhas of the past, present and future depend upon the wisdom of enlightenment--and so attain the supreme, wisdom of enlightenment as the great unexplainable true word, the great shining true word that is able to remove all suffering. It is true, not false. This true word of wisdom says:
Gyate Gyate Hara Gyate Hara So Gyate Bodhi Sowa Ka.
Lift Chief
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WODIN said:
IMO- Original Mahayana diverges form the original teachings of the Buddha much more than Yogacara. Yogacara is the basis for Zen which is essentially a fundamentalist Buddha movement.
Yogacara eliminates some of the mystic and mythical eliments added by other sects of Buddhism- such as the dependence and deification of the assorted Bodhisattvas. It also expands upon the part of Theravada Buddhism which deals with our mental conceptions and constructs affecting the way in which we interpret the "real" world.
I am so impressed with Yogacara because it introduces the psychological and philosophical concepts introduced in the West many hundreds of years later by such people as Kant, Hegel, Jung, etc.
Many of our currently accpeted notions of the human psyche seem to be explained in Yogacara philosophy- as i understand it.
The way in which Yogacara explains how we interpret and classify the external world seems to be accurate with our current understanding.
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