Emptiness

[lienshan]

Emptiness isn't empty!

 

 

A really hard blow to those having Emptiness as their main daoist concept

[Patrick Brown]

Emptiness isn't empty!

 

 

A really hard blow to those having Emptiness as their main daoist concept

 

Yes but isn't emptiness relative? I mean, my beer glass IS empty!

 

The Buddhist doctrine of the two truths differentiates between two levels of truth (Sanskrit: satya) in Buddhist discourse: a "relative" or commonsense truth (Pāli: sammuti sacca), and an "ultimate" or absolute, spiritual truth (Pāli: paramattha sacca). This avoids confusion between doctrinally accurate statements about the true nature of reality (e.g., "there is no self") and practical statements that refer to things which, while not expressing the true nature of reality, are necessary in order to communicate easily and help people achieve enlightenment (e.g., talking to a student about "himself" or "herself").

Stated differently, the two truths doctrine holds that truth exists in conventional and ultimate forms, and that both forms are co-existent. Some schools, such asDzogchen, hold that the two truths are ultimately resolved into nonduality as a lived experience and are non-different. The doctrine is an especially important element of Buddhism and was first expressed in complete modern form by Nāgārjuna, who based it on the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta.

Source: http://en.wikipedia....truths_doctrine

[Marblehead]

Yes but isn't emptiness relative? I mean, my beer glass IS empty!

 

Yes, but now it is full of potential!!!

[Patrick Brown]

Yes, but now it is full of potential!!!

 

 

Reminds me of some guy from CERN being asked "what was there before the big bang?".

 

He replied "fields of potentiality"! I liked his answer as it resonated with the idea of our personality reappearing. This is how I understand reincarnation because we certainly do die but our habits of mind (clinging to Skandha's) will reappear in another physical body. The esoteric tradition teaches that we are choosing our rebirth every second and this is know as the farther-mother gateway. So when people ask "why was I born this way?" it's because they chose their gateway as a consequence of their actions, not just physically but emotionally and mentally.

 

Yes when you're dead you're dead but a child will be born that is not you, you're dead, but the conditions of the growing consciousness are a progression of the mind stream that you created!

 

Yes it's hard to grasp because it's subtle and it can only be understood philosophically. Science has problems with wave-particle-duality and photons and atoms being in two places at once because they are bound by the laws of duality. I personally think that mankind shares a common consciousness almost like an ocean and as we sink we take on the ego just as a child's consciousness awakens.

 

 

EDIT:

This is interesting.

In one of Mahayana Buddhism's most famous declarations, the aggregates are referenced:

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skandha#Mahayanist_perspectives

Edited November 22, 2011 by Patrick Brown

[Marblehead]

Yes it's hard to grasp because it's subtle ...

 

Oh, I have grasped the concept. I just don't accept it into my philosophy. Hehehe. But that has nothing to do with anyone else. We each must walk our own path.

[Patrick Brown]

Oh, I have grasped the concept. I just don't accept it into my philosophy. Hehehe. But that has nothing to do with anyone else. We each must walk our own path.

 

I'm not sure it's part of my philosophy either! Just something I learnt along the way. Such understanding can lead one astray. Non-attachment and the flow is more important but even that drops away and then I am left alone with nothing but..., well I'll shut up now!

[Marblehead]

I'm not sure it's part of my philosophy either! Just something I learnt along the way. Such understanding can lead one astray. Non-attachment and the flow is more important but even that drops away and then I am left alone with nothing but..., well I'll shut up now!

 

Hehehe. I had to laugh.

 

You know, it is when we stand alone and naked, when all things have dropped away, that we will know if our path has been the right one for us.

 

Get naked, people!!!!!

[ralis]

I believe this has been discussed ad infinitum here with no absolute answer. :lol:

[Marblehead]

I believe this has been discussed ad infinitum here with no absolute answer. :lol:

 

Which? Getting naked or emptiness?

[zanshin]

Don't open that box!

[konchog uma]

Don't open that box!

 

too late

[ralis]

Which? Getting naked or emptiness?

 

Both.

[dwai]

Yes, but now it is full of potential!!!

 

Oh boy...here we go again!

[dwai]

I believe this has been discussed ad infinitum here with no absolute answer. :lol:

 

that's because it's emptiness that is full of potentiality (also discovered how one zero can be zero'er than another)

[ralis]

Where is Vajraji when we need him.

[dwai]

Where is Vajraji when we need him.

 

Potentially emptying out his fullness to create emptiness with potential of fullness?

[ralis]

that's because it's emptiness that is full of potentiality (also discovered how one zero can be zero'er than another)

 

We should discuss the potential ad infinitum?

[dwai]

We should discuss the potential ad infinitum?

 

We don't need to...it is infinitely potent

[suninmyeyes]

 

Get naked, people!!!!!

This reminds me of something I have read by Chief Leon Shanadooh

 

'Everything is laid out for you

Sometimes it is invisable but it is there.

You may not know where it is going but you have to follow that path.

It is the only path there is.'

 

 

 

^{It also reminds me of my current fave Toddla Ts}

sorry I just had to add this although it is nothing to do with topic but my associationsIt is a small print though so maybe it wont matter that much.

[Simple_Jack]

Emptiness isn't empty!

 

 

A really hard blow to those having Emptiness as their main daoist concept

 

Good thing "emptiness," doesn't mean vacuous nihility!

[Simple_Jack]

Oh, I have grasped the concept. I just don't accept it into my philosophy. Hehehe. But that has nothing to do with anyone else. We each must walk our own path.

No you haven't. Otherwise you would understand that emptiness IS fullness!

 

Also, if you want I can point to some passages from some Taoist texts that talk of the interdependent nature phenomena (including in the Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu if you want?)

[Simple_Jack]

Where is Vajraji when we need him.

I'll fill in for him! I happened to be surfing the internet, when I decided to check the bums (I'm also bored )

 

Actually, it has been established on this board many times, to what exactly the term "emptiness" is pointing to. I'm surprised that after all this time this still isn't understood on these boards?

 

Anyways, haven't you been practicing dzogpa chenpo since like '88? This type of stuff shouldn't just be mere speculation for you anymore??? You do know that the view of dzogchen is the inseparability of emptiness and appearance or primordial purity and spontaneous presence (natural formation/interdependent origination?)

[Simple_Jack]

that's because it's emptiness that is full of potentiality (also discovered how one zero can be zero'er than another)

Really, all the teaching is meant to do is rid the individual of inherent and dualistic views to arrive at the undifferentiated "perfect nature" of phenomena as it is or Thusness (though there really isn't a perfect nature, since the perfect nature is their "natural state.")

 

The Three Natures

 

The Yogācārins defined three basic modes by which we perceive our world. These are referred to in Yogācāra as the three natures of perception. They are:

 

Parikalpita (literally, "fully conceptualized"): "imaginary nature", wherein things are incorrectly apprehended based on conceptual construction, through attachment and erroneous discrimination.

 

Paratantra (literally, "other dependent"): "dependent nature", by which the correct understanding of the dependently originated nature of things is understood.

 

Pariniṣpanna (literally, "fully accomplished"): "absolute nature", through which one apprehends things as they are in themselves, uninfluenced by any conceptualization at all.

 

Also, regarding perception, the Yogācārins emphasized that our everyday understanding of the existence of external objects is problematic, since in order to perceive any object (and thus, for all practical purposes, for the object to "exist"), there must be a sensory organ as well as a correlative type of consciousness to allow the process of cognition to occur.

Edited November 23, 2011 by Simple_Jack

[Aaron]

Emptiness isn't empty!

 

 

A really hard blow to those having Emptiness as their main daoist concept

 

I beg to differ. As one who is a scholar of the Tao Teh Ching, how can you not see that they have only proven something that's been known by most Taoists for over 2,000 years...

 

"Between Heaven and Earth,

There seems to be a Bellows:

It is empty, and yet it is inexhaustible;

The more it works, the more comes out of it.

No amount of words can fathom it:

Better look for it within you."

 

What were you hoping to accomplish here? It seems that your intentions were less then benevolent. Perhaps you believe you can still the waters by throwing pebbles in the pool?

 

Aaron

 

[dwai]

Really, all the teaching is meant to do is rid the individual of inherent and dualistic views to arrive at the undifferentiated "perfect nature" of phenomena as it is or Thusness (though there really isn't a perfect nature, since the perfect nature is their "natural state.")

 

The Three Natures

 

The Yogācārins defined three basic modes by which we perceive our world. These are referred to in Yogācāra as the three natures of perception. They are:

 

Parikalpita (literally, "fully conceptualized"): "imaginary nature", wherein things are incorrectly apprehended based on conceptual construction, through attachment and erroneous discrimination.

 

Paratantra (literally, "other dependent"): "dependent nature", by which the correct understanding of the dependently originated nature of things is understood.

 

Pariniṣpanna (literally, "fully accomplished"): "absolute nature", through which one apprehends things as they are in themselves, uninfluenced by any conceptualization at all.

 

Also, regarding perception, the Yogācārins emphasized that our everyday understanding of the existence of external objects is problematic, since in order to perceive any object (and thus, for all practical purposes, for the object to "exist"), there must be a sensory organ as well as a correlative type of consciousness to allow the process of cognition to occur.

 

Your response was to a vitriolic statement of affairs wrt emptiness i have no interest in engaging in more emptiness madness here