It is interesting that Buddhists express such varied interpretations of "emptiness" in things I read, from those who seem very materialistic in their description (x thing does not stand without dependence on other things), to those who seem to take it literally to mean "empty" (like an empty cup), to those who seem to take it to mean just a state when the mind is freed of ideas, and other such limited interpretations.
Hmmm. I would not sell it short as just that. .
I would propose that the traditional flavor and experience of "emptiness" in Zen Buddhism is nothing less than the grocking (profound first hand knowing from deep in the bones) of the radical interpenetration and interflowing of any and all things, moments of time, people and places and spaces and traces in all the universe (and them some), both that which is and which could be, in and out and as each other, with the complete dropping of the self/other divide (even as our sense of being our "self" in a world of things apart from our "me" need not vanish in all ways). ever moving and changing beyond and right through all comings and goings and birth and death and war and peace and all beauty or ugliness, like a great dance in which we and all things and times are the dance itself, and the dance just us, all dancing dancing dancing ... in other words, Kensho, Satori, a joyously "mystical" (for want of a better word) knowing of the deep interflowing and interidentity of everything and anything and then some ... that you are I are the Whole Enchildada and each little enchilada, and all is each and each just all beyond "each" or "all." .
Please pardon me, because words never ever can do justice to these things, which explains all of Dogen's wild Shobogenzo riffing.
But don't sell it short. That old joke about the Zen Master ordering a hot dog "Make Me One With Everything" has some tasty truth.
Gassho, J
STLah
Hmmm. I would not sell it short as just that. .
I would propose that the traditional flavor and experience of "emptiness" in Zen Buddhism is nothing less than the grocking (profound first hand knowing from deep in the bones) of the radical interpenetration and interflowing of any and all things, moments of time, people and places and spaces and traces in all the universe (and them some), both that which is and which could be, in and out and as each other, with the complete dropping of the self/other divide (even as our sense of being our "self" in a world of things apart from our "me" need not vanish in all ways). ever moving and changing beyond and right through all comings and goings and birth and death and war and peace and all beauty or ugliness, like a great dance in which we and all things and times are the dance itself, and the dance just us, all dancing dancing dancing ... in other words, Kensho, Satori, a joyously "mystical" (for want of a better word) knowing of the deep interflowing and interidentity of everything and anything and then some ... that you are I are the Whole Enchildada and each little enchilada, and all is each and each just all beyond "each" or "all." .
Please pardon me, because words never ever can do justice to these things, which explains all of Dogen's wild Shobogenzo riffing.
But don't sell it short. That old joke about the Zen Master ordering a hot dog "Make Me One With Everything" has some tasty truth.
Gassho, J
STLah
That works too. 
Comment