Emptiness
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With palms together,
Good Morning All,
The Buddha taught that all dharmas are empty. This is like saying 'everything is change' (which would include this statement). So, which might it be?
Emptiness is a challenge. We are a materialistic culture, born and bred in the philosophical underpinnings of Lockean thought. If I place my hand on a table, I can feel the table's material solidity. Yet, Buddhists argue the table is "empty", just as empty as the hand that touches it and the teaching that suggests its emptiness.
Shunyata is one of our essential teachings. The table has no enduring quality as table. Sooner or later it will disintegrate. Moreover, table is a concept and as such requires a mind to conceive it. No mind, no table, just material before it is named as material. This is what Aristotle pointed to with his four forms of causation. Cause is always relative to a point of view, in spite of the squawks from Absolutists.
OK, so what does all this mean to me or to us today here and now?
Nothing. If our eyes are open, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. If our eyes are closed, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. Yet, they are not the same.
Shunyata informs appreciation and the deepest experience of reality.
If I love you, I should love you knowing that you and I, as well as our love, are not individual and particular. With my eyes closed, I love you in the particular realm of everyday life. My love of you is thus, completely situational. Yet, with my eyes open, I love you and all of the conditions and components that gave rise to this loving possibility. Love of this sort is completely universal. So, love in its relative sense arises when the conditions for its manifestation are present, yet love itself is never lost or not present. So, we might say there is love and Love. Just so, Little Mind and Big Mind.
The entire universe is empty, yet this very emptiness is fullness. When we fully appreciate this we are awake.
Be well.
Good Morning All,
The Buddha taught that all dharmas are empty. This is like saying 'everything is change' (which would include this statement). So, which might it be?
Emptiness is a challenge. We are a materialistic culture, born and bred in the philosophical underpinnings of Lockean thought. If I place my hand on a table, I can feel the table's material solidity. Yet, Buddhists argue the table is "empty", just as empty as the hand that touches it and the teaching that suggests its emptiness.
Shunyata is one of our essential teachings. The table has no enduring quality as table. Sooner or later it will disintegrate. Moreover, table is a concept and as such requires a mind to conceive it. No mind, no table, just material before it is named as material. This is what Aristotle pointed to with his four forms of causation. Cause is always relative to a point of view, in spite of the squawks from Absolutists.
OK, so what does all this mean to me or to us today here and now?
Nothing. If our eyes are open, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. If our eyes are closed, mountains are mountains and rivers are rivers. Yet, they are not the same.
Shunyata informs appreciation and the deepest experience of reality.
If I love you, I should love you knowing that you and I, as well as our love, are not individual and particular. With my eyes closed, I love you in the particular realm of everyday life. My love of you is thus, completely situational. Yet, with my eyes open, I love you and all of the conditions and components that gave rise to this loving possibility. Love of this sort is completely universal. So, love in its relative sense arises when the conditions for its manifestation are present, yet love itself is never lost or not present. So, we might say there is love and Love. Just so, Little Mind and Big Mind.
The entire universe is empty, yet this very emptiness is fullness. When we fully appreciate this we are awake.
Be well.