Emptiness is form and form is emptiness

[MickHeys]

I was reading zen mind beginners mind earlier where there was quite a section on the above title. It balances between that and emptiness is emptiness and form is form.

A while later whilst sitting, in my head I could see a galaxy. All the stars planets and space between them. It was one of those where it is as clear as looking directly at the object.

There seemed a sudden clarity about these phrases, but I wanted to ask and see if I am just well off the mark.

Despite the size of the planets and numbers of the stars, it is not a galaxy without the space, the emptiness. Yet the emptiness is just that, empty.

It is the same as all things, like the brain for example. Billions of neurons with space between them all. Without the space the brain can't do what it does and its therefore not what it is. The emptiness is the form whilst the form is empty.

At every level of every thing, we are all just the same. Cells and atoms, energy gathered in different ways, yet fundamentally exactly the same.

I am struggling to explain it in words, but I guess it was like seeing myself as a galaxy. If you expanded the gaps inside, my heart may be a planet, my eye a star etc, yet all the energy within held to a form whilst not really having form.

I know my explanation is a bit woolly, but it seemed to really help me understand from Mind of Clover some of the zen master comments about learning from a gate etc.. The gate, the galaxy, the body are all the same. Always changing and always new, whilst not really being any more than the space between.

Sorry if this is more a confusion than clarity in the way its come out, but wondering if anyone else has lad any similar thoughts??

Sattoday

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[Kokuu]

The gate, the galaxy, the body are all the same. Always changing and always new, whilst not really being any more than the space between.

Hi Mick

I am only a novice priest so don't take my explanation as gospel but I would say you are somewhere close but not right on the mark.

It is definitely the case that everything in the universe is comprised of the same material, yet some appears as rock, some as human beings, some as roses, some as water etc.

However, the Buddhist concept of sunyata, which is translated into English as emptiness, is not referring to empty space but the emptiness of an inherent self.

Just as the rock, water and roses are all made of the same atoms and elements, there is nothing inherently in them that is 'rock', 'water' or 'rose'. What is water and rock one day may be part of a rose the next. Likewise, each of us is constantly changing, produced and sustained by food, air and water. Nothing is independent but dependent on a thousand and one other things for its existence.

As this exists, so that exists.
As this ceases, so that ceases.

This phenomenon is referred to as 'dependent arising' (pratītyasamutpāda). Nothing has an inherent self but is is instead the product of an interacting web of matter and energy.

So, form is emptiness means that each thing relies on many other things.
Emptiness is form is the working together of many elements to produce an individual thing.

In Zen we might refer to those principles as Ri (the absolute, meaning the whole interacting vastness which is inseparable) and Ji (the relative, individual elements of the web which we see as different people and objects and can interact with).

So the gate, the galaxy and the body are indeed always changing and always new but they are made up of everything in the universe, not just the space. They include both the space and the non-space.

In shikantaza we can feel the absence of self as body and mind drop away to leave an infinite vastness. However, it would be impossible to deal with the world like this if you cannot differentiate an apple from a truck!

So, we go forth as both the universe itself and our individual expression of that. Empty but containing multitudes.

I don't know if that serves to help or muddies the water further!

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday/lah-

[MickHeys]

Thanks Kokuu,

I understand what you say and it was far clearer than my mad ramblings.

I find buddhist conversation a bit like describing "everything" in one word. For every answer there is an equal and opposite answer.

Elsewhere in zen mind beginners mind it speaks of two monks trying to discuss a subject and one simply replies "let's drink tea" as to say more can never really cover it.

I find it interesting how zazen, without any external input, can cause things to come forth that can challenge 40 years of perspective.

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[Kokuu]

Yes, speaking with Zen teachers is like that since if you put something in either the relative or absolute, they can just say no!

Often Zen conservations (especially ones in which people parade koans and clever speaking more to show off than elucidate) make me want to drink tea! So hard to actually put it all into words.

Zazen is indeed an amazing thing! Just need that quiet space for everything to work its magic.

Gassho
Kokuu

[Jundo]

Hi Mick,

What Kokuu said is very nice.

I happened to read something also nice today, by a Dogen scholar and translator. If you can read pages 23 to 25 here, it may add another perspective ...

https://books.google.co.jp/books/about/Sounds_of_Valley_Streams.html?id=nTElR67pwswC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=emptiness&f=false

By the way, I usually translate emptiness as something like the "dance" of "flowing wholeness" or the like, to give it a more positive sense. It is not merely the lack of independent existence, but something encompassing and positive that actually (according to Dogen) reaffirms existence. It is the flowing wholeness that flows as all individual things, popping in and out of existence (including you and me). I think the whole universe is a great dance like that. It is like a sea that is constantly giving rise to individual drops and waves and icebergs and such, each and all of which are the great flowing waters itself. However, because the flowing is just an ongoing process of movement and change, it is best not to think of it as some "thing," especially a thing apart from you. It is you, and me too, and everything. One might even say that each thing (you too) is precious because it itself is the whole dance or sea within it somehow. Each drop somehow expresses the whole flowing sea. Because all things (you too) are just that, they turn out to be precious and real as real can be.

Here is something I wrote in a feeble attempt to explain emptiness once ...

Buddha-Basics (Part XVII) — The Dance of Emptiness

https://www.treeleaf.org/forums/showthread.php?7723-Buddha-Basics-%28Part-XVII%29-%C2%97-The-Dance-of-Emptiness

Let me know if that helps.

Gassho, J

SatTodayLAH

[MickHeys]

Thanks Jundo. I can't read the book as it only gives limited pages so I'll have to get a copy. As for the other things you wrote, yes it does make sense.

There was a Christian teaching which I can't remember where in the bible, but it speaks of there being no light with the absence of darkness and no darkness with out light. The little I could read in the book says something very similar on emptiness and without things there could be no emptiness. I think with having contemplated the light example previously, the comments from Kokuu and yourself have helped translate the point to a zen perspective.

Thank you both.

[emoji120]

Sattoday

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[Mp]

By the way, I usually translate emptiness as something like the "dance" of "flowing wholeness" or the like, to give it a more positive sense. It is not merely the lack of independent existence, but something encompassing and positive that actually (according to Dogen) reaffirms existence. It is the flowing wholeness that flows as all individual things, popping in and out of existence (including you and me). I think the whole universe is a great dance like that. It is like a sea that is constantly giving rise to individual drops and waves and icebergs and such, each and all of which are the great flowing waters itself. However, because the flowing is just an ongoing process of movement and change, it is best not to think of it as some "thing," especially a thing apart from you. It is you, and me too, and everything. One might even say that each thing (you too) is precious because it itself is the whole dance or sea within it somehow. Each drop somehow expresses the whole flowing sea. Because all things (you too) are just that, they turn out to be precious and real as real can be.

Thank you Jundo.

Gassho
Shingen

Sat/LAH

[MyoHo]

Great stuff guys, thank you so mutch for explaining this verse.
I always looked at this verse being about form being empty. First we learn form to become empty then we find emtiness is the form of practice. As in don't stick to looking like a good zen guy and loosing yourself in posture, rules and regulations. A stage in our practice where we focus on doing it right, getting it right and sutch. After that, at some point we realise that emptiness is the form itself. Emptiness, like Kokuu mentioned, as the absense of the self but not as " not there" but rather all and only everything there, so no more full or empty. A dive in the clear blue sea and sky at the same time. Its so vast, it hard to put into good words. Is this take on the verse completely wrong?

This verse is so deep and so many facets in those few words. Wonderfull indeed.

Gassho

MyoHo

[Eva]

Thank you so much Kokuu and Jundo,
I really like the understanding . Also thank you to MickHeys for starting this thread .

here's another take from other source I happen to like as well :
"You are not part of a material universe. You are part of a thought. You are dancing in a ballroom in which there is no material. You are dancing thoughts. You move your body, your mind, and your spirit in somewhat eccentric patterns for you have not completely grasped the concept that you are part of the original thought."

doing a happy dance now
Gassho, eva
sattoday and also LAH

[Ryushi]

Emptiness. What a difficult word, in English translation. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand its intended meaning.

What I try to consider is the sense of an "empty" sea or "empty" sky. In both cases, empty means clear, uniform, and without obstacles.

[Jundo]

Emptiness. What a difficult word, in English translation. I'm not sure I'll ever fully understand its intended meaning.

What I try to consider is the sense of an "empty" sea or "empty" sky. In both cases, empty means clear, uniform, and without obstacles.

It is usually taken to mean that individual things (including you and me) are "empty" of individual self-existence.

We are manifestations of the greater, ongoing process of the whole world, of which we are each manifestations in a particular time and place, much as every hair on Todd's head, each finger or eye, every cell of Todd is Todd Todding from head to toe. Thus are you to the whole world's worlding. The whole world in all directions is what Dogen described as One Bright Pearl rolling rolling on.

We go about our day feeling like rather separate entities, with the hard wall separating our "self" and the rest of the world at the border of the skin. I am not you, you are not me, and we are not the mountains and stars above. But is that the only way to experience who and what we are? Should a neuron between Todd's ears suddenly declare its independence, that it is just itself apart from old Todd that is the rest, well, we might point out that it too is just Todd Todding, the very maker of the thought of Todd. It does not stand alone, but is as Todd as Todd can be, a holder of Todd's very odd Toddness. And though a single cell may come and go, seemingly split off from the rest, alive for a time then no more, that cell is totally Todd, and as Todd goes on and on, so do "endings" not merely make endings in our lives too. If we are not merely "in" the world, but are it ... then we roll on and on too.

Waves rise from the sea, crawl along its surface for a time, then fade. But no wave has ever been anything but the movement of the sea itself, water of these waters flowing. Thus, even with the final crash of the wave, the sea which is the wave rolls on and on. Death is true, yet death is not. Thus, dive right in! You can't get any more wet than you are now.

We feel as separate beings, apart (and often in friction with) all the other separate beings. Waves crash together or merge, I love you or hate you or deal with and judge you some other way. However, this is only when we feel separate from all the other loved or feared separate events, things and beings. When the separation is dropped away, what friction is possible? Thus, depending how we see and experience our self and this life, friction and fear is and is not.

We Buddhists like to avoid talking about the "sea" too much, because it makes it seem like it is some other thing, also somehow apart from us. Thus, even the word "emptiness" or "Buddha" or "Dharmakhaya" or any word is limiting. So vibrant and moving is this, so hesitant should we be to freeze it into a stagnant thought, that Buddhist philosophers say, "even 'emptiness' is empty [of individual self-existence as another solid thing]." It is more like a dance, a process that could not be any more "you" than you are now. It is that intimate. It could not be any more everything than everything of the world too. It is every gesture of your fingers, sight of your eye (both the seer and the seen), each cell including every thought or emotion of every neuron firing inside your skull. Do not think that you end at the skin line, do not think that your wave will only disappear.

Of course, none of this means that you, Todd, are not here now. Of course your are! If you were not, then who is reading these words, and why am I bothering to write them? You are here, but that is not all you are ... for, in one sense, there is no place you are not (and me and everyone else too). But, as Dogen and others say, it all pours into and as "you" too, completely. Thus "you" are not really separate "you," but also, yes you are ... reaffirmed and to be celebrated, like one shining jewel on a great net of jewels, like one facet of a single all-encompassing jewel, all of us just the jewel itself. Dogen spoke of all reality as One Bright Pearl rolling on, constantly expressed as all the myriad characteristics of things but not only bound by that ...

“The whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl” ... The point is that the whole universe in ten directions is not vast and great, not meager and small, not square or round, not centered or straight, not in a state of vigorous activity, and not disclosed in perfect clarity [yet is all of those]. Because it is utterly beyond living-and-dying, going-and-coming, it is living-and-dying, going-and-coming. And because it is like this, the past has gone from this place, and the present comes from this place. ... “The one pearl” goes directly through ten thousand years: the eternal past has not ended, but the eternal present has arrived. The body exists now, and the mind exists now. Even so, [the whole universe] is a bright pearl. It is not grass and trees there and here, it is not mountains and rivers at all points of the compass [yet it is all those things]; it is a bright pearl. “How should the student understand it?” Even though it seems that the monk is playing with his conditioned intellect in speaking these words, they are the clear manifestation of the great activity, which is just the great standard itself. Progressing further, we should make it strikingly obvious that a foot of water is a one-foot wave: in other words, a yard of the pearl is a yard of brightness. ...

Thus, this bright pearl’s possession of reality and lack of beginning are limitless, and the whole universe in ten directions is one bright pearl. Without being discussed as two pearls or three pearls, the whole body is one right Dharma-eye [Truth], the whole body is real substance, the whole body is one phrase [that says it all], the whole body is brightness, and the whole body is the whole body itself. When it is the whole body it is free of the hindrance of the whole body; it is perfect roundness, and roundly it rolls along ... So even though it seems to be continually changing the outward appearance of its turning and not turning, it is just the bright pearl. The very recognition that the pearl has been existing like this is just the bright pearl itself. The bright pearl has sounds and forms that can be heard like this. Already having got the state like this, those who surmise that “I cannot be the bright pearl,” should not doubt that they are the pearl. Artificial and nonartificial states of surmising and doubting, attaching and rejecting, are just the small view. They are nothing more than trying to make [the bright pearl] match the narrow intellect. How could we not love the bright pearl? Its colors and light, as they are, are endless. Each color and every ray of light at each moment and in every situation is the virtue of the whole universe in ten directions ... They are the original state of being right from head to tail, which is never unclear, and the bright pearl is its features and the bright pearl is its eyes. Still, neither I nor you know what the bright pearl is or what the bright pearl is not. Hundreds of thoughts and hundreds of negations of thought [about what it is and looks like] have combined to form a very clear idea [of what this is]. ... Thereafter, the mind is not personal; why should we be worried by attachment to whether it is a bright pearl or is not a bright pearl [or exactly what we call it], as if what arises and passes were some whoever? Even surmising and worry is not different from the bright pearl. No action nor any thought has ever been caused by anything other than the bright pearl ...

http://www.bdk.or.jp/document/dgtl-dl/dBET_T2582_Shobogenzo1_2009.pdf

This is "emptiness" and why this "emptiness" is so important for us Buddhists ... for it is the ultimate knocking down of barriers, liberation! It is liberation in the broken and crazy world because it is this broken and crazy world too. It is the beauty and ugliness, war and peace of this world ... yet we experience this as somehow a Beauty and Peace without friction that somehow holds the whole wonderful beautiful terrible mess. It reaffirms all the separation and craziness of this world as not only that.

Gassho, J

STLah

PS - You can access a sample of that book I mentioned on Amazon too. Search inside for the word "emptiness" and then try to read as much as you can from pages 23 or 24 to 25 or so ...

https://www.amazon.com/Sounds-Valley-Streams-Enlightenment-Translation/dp/088706924X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1535502250&sr=8-1&keywords=Sounds+of+Valley+Streams%3A&dpID=517mupO3IjL&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch

[BadChemEng]

Wow, that strangely made no sense and perfect sense all at the same time. Beautiful.

Gassho,
Brad

LsAtH

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[Jundo]

Wow, that strangely made no sense and perfect sense all at the same time. Beautiful.

Gassho,
Brad

LsAtH

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Bad Chemical Engineer: Is water water, or is it atoms of oxygen and hydrogen? Is it liquid or solid or gas? Is it still or moving? Is "Brad" mostly water in composition? Did that water come from the earth or formed in the distant stars? Does it come in your mouth then pours out of you again? Is it probably where life arose on this planet so long ago, all to somehow end up as a "Brad"? Will it flow on long after too?

... and so Brad just flows on and on ...

[BadChemEng]

Bad Chemical Engineer: Is water water, or is it atoms of oxygen and hydrogen? Is it liquid or solid or gas? Is it still or moving? Is "Brad" mostly water in composition? Did that water come from the earth or formed in the distant stars? Does it come in your mouth then pours out of you again? Is it probably where life arose on this planet so long ago, all to somehow end up as a "Brad"? Will it flow on long after too?

... and so Brad just flows on and on ...

I was thinking about something simlar today when picking vegetables from my garden. How was it that the plant, the peppers and hundreds of seeds came from one seed, dirt and water. Was it always there? Perfect commentary for today.

Gassho,
Brad

LsAtH

[Doshin]

I read all. The approaches of explanation may have helped me understood some. Definitely more than when I started. But did consider having a cup of tea. So how do we combine this understanding with our daily practice as we walk this path? That is the “I” in me-trying to apply this understanding. Jundo I believe you answered my question above when you talked about emptiness as vital to buddhist because of the liberation it brings But I have yet to fully understand.

Gassho
Doshin
St