What is Emptiness?

[Guest]

I find the concept of emptiness difficult to understand. And how is Zazen supposed to aid me in experiencing it. Thanks in advance for all of you indulging this beginner!

Gassho

John

SatTodayLAH

[Rousei]

I'll throw in my weak understanding, because I too have pondered over this very same question!

For us Emptiness does not mean a container has nothing inside it, nor does it mean void or at a stretch oneness. What this teaching is focusing on is specifically that all "things" (that is concepts, any thought you can think or thing you can point at) are only what they are because they're not everything else. That is to say, a red pen or the color red is only red because it's not blue or yellow or a car or happiness or the president. That is to say, only because we can say what it is not, it is. Only under the condition that there are things to say what it is not, is it a thing. If we remove all the things it is not, we can't say what anything is.

So, when we say empty what we're trying to say is that no matter how much our thoughts or the things in front of us, to our small self understanding look and feel like a THING, they're not. They're simply the result of endless conditions. If you sit down for a little bit of time and actually think about the conditions that make us believe something is a thing then the thingness kind of falls apart. It becomes really difficult, in fact impossible, to define a thing (the true honest thing and not what it is not, we can't say it's red because red means it's not blue or a car or a cup of tea). What is that ever present core thing that makes it a thing? it's non existent. We believe it's a thing because we look at the world as snap shots of ever changing states. It's red, but actually it's probably always degrading and in a few decades might be white or black or the red paint might vanish. However, with our snap shot way of perceiving moment to moment it appears to be Red an ever present real thing! but it's not.

So, when we meditate, this is what we're trying to experience. The ever changing state of existence. To see our judgements based on snap shots which is not the experience itself but a conceptualized interpretation of the memory of experience.

So yes, again... this is just my low level understanding. I myself am still looking into this, but this is where I'm at in part right now. Looking forward to seeing what others have to input.

Sorry for running super long!

Gassho
Mark
ST

[Jundo]

I'll throw in my weak understanding, because I too have pondered over this very same question!

For us Emptiness does not mean a container has nothing inside it, nor does it mean void or at a stretch oneness. What this teaching is focusing on is specifically that all "things" (that is concepts, any thought you can think or thing you can point at) are only what they are because they're not everything else. That is to say, a red pen or the color red is only red because it's not blue or yellow or a car or happiness or the president. That is to say, only because we can say what it is not, it is. Only under the condition that there are things to say what it is not, is it a thing. If we remove all the things it is not, we can't say what anything is.

This is true, but in Zen and the Mahayana, and Master Dogen's teachings, it is not just this ... but is very much more, something vibrant, all phenomena flowing into, out of and as all phenomena. It is not a solid "thing" because it cannot be nailed down (so we say that even the idea of an "emptiness" is empty), yet this wholeness nonetheless sweeps up and manifests as all things ... I sometimes call "emptiness" as actually the "Flowing Wholeness" of the Whole Enchilada and then some ... In Zazen, one tastes this flowing wholeness, and that we are the wholeness flowing as us, in and out ...

The best analogy I ever came up with is a dance ... which, actually, is why I called my book "Zen Master's Dance"

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

The whole universe dancing ... whole universes dancing with universes ...

In fact, the swirling and forming of the dance constantly spins out, gives temporary form to, the dancers themselves ... you and me ... and we are no more solid than eddies in swirling water ... dust devils in the breeze ... flashes of lighting casting momentary illumination and shadows ... there for awhile before fading back into the dance. The dance of forces of nature in motion seems to spin you out and then spins you back in ... seeming 'birth and death' ... but always just the dance all along.

'A Dance of Dances dancing out sentient dancers whose dancing makes real the Dance' ...

All of reality swirling and twirling in partnership with all of reality, constantly changing partners, such that nothing and nobody is truly sitting still ... such that all is caught up and spun up by all ... such that there is nobody and nothing remaining but the dance ... this Ballet of Inter-being ...

You sometimes feel as just a separate dancer, yet sometimes you can vanish in the dance ...

More here ...

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

Sorry to run long.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Rich]

I find the concept of emptiness difficult to understand. And how is Zazen supposed to aid me in experiencing it. Thanks in advance for all of you indulging this beginner!

Gassho

John

SatTodayLAH

It’s the space between thinking and non thinking. Zazen allows that space to appear

Sat/lah




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[Gareth]

Hello,

Just adding to what has been posted so far, I like this article by Shunryo Suzuki - https://www.lionsroar.com/letters-from-emptiness/.

Gassho,
Gareth

Sat today
Lah

[Suuko]

Jundo, intuitively, emptiness seems to be like the DAO, the universal consciousness as mentioned in the vedas or the force as per Star wars. In a sense, it's where everything comes from and everything goes back. Am I completely off the mark here?

Gassho,
Sat today,
Guish.

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[Prashanth]

I find the concept of emptiness difficult to understand. And how is Zazen supposed to aid me in experiencing it. Thanks in advance for all of you indulging this beginner!

Gassho

John

SatTodayLAH

I don't "know" what emptiness is, but so far I have understood that it cannot be "meaninglessness", "deficiency", or "inadequacy".
The closest semantic understanding is of "nothingness", in the sense of "nothing to attain", "nothing to be reborn", and "nothing to change".

Gassho

Sat.

Sent from my GS190 using Tapatalk

[Jundo]

Jundo, intuitively, emptiness seems to be like the DAO, the universal consciousness as mentioned in the vedas or the force as per Star wars. In a sense, it's where everything comes from and everything goes back. Am I completely off the mark here?

Buddhists hesitate to nail it down to a "thing," or a "universal consciousness" or "the Force." Yes, everything comes from and goes back to this (never having ever left in fact, actually) ... and yet, we may hesitate to add other implications.

For example, the "Dao/Tao," very much like "the Force" from Star Wars, seems to imply some cosmic flow that we need to get in tune with, tap into, can read to know all the right choices to make in life. Some old Zen masters went that far, but I believe that most resisted that assumption. This dance, this wild ocean is a wild ride, and there is little to do but greet it one wave followed by the next. We can learn to "flow along" with whatever comes, and we can realize that we are this sometimes stormy flow of the sea, but there is no way to tap into the flow so that it is always in our control.

Likewise for "cosmic consciousness." I know for a fact that the universe is "conscious" ... simply by the fact that you and I are conscious, and you and I are the universe (as our tables and tin cans and everything else), therefore the universe is conscious, at least to the degree of stupid little us.

We also know that "consciousness" in a Buddhist sense is not only between our ears, but is a kind of feedback loop of outside and inside (e.g., your eyes, made of atoms from long ago stars, now sees an apple tree apparently outside you, then your hand reaches out to grab an apparent apple ... but your mind's experience of that requires the apparently outside stars, outside tree, the inside experience, and the hand reaching out all to make your mind's experience. Inside needs outside, outside is experienced due to inside.)

But we hesitate to assume that there is some great "Cosmic Consciousness" (there may be or not, the Buddha never really said no). However, even if there is, we do not assume that it is even any kind of "consciousness" that stupid little us could even relate to or begin to fathom.

So, we just pass on the question ... going about our business, chopping wood and fetching water.

What we know is that our "chopping wood and fetching water" is the whole universe "chopping wood and fetching water" with our hands, because our hands are the whole universe, as is the wood and water.

Sorry to run long.

Gassho, J

STLah

[Jundo]

I don't "know" what emptiness is, but so far I have understood that it cannot be "meaninglessness", "deficiency", or "inadequacy".

Zen folks even leap beyond judgements about this as either "meaningless" or "meaningful," "deficient or not deficient," "adequate" or "inadequate." Another way to put this is that the universe is so universal, so whole, so non-dualistic, that it includes meaning or no meaning, sometimes being deficient and sometimes lacking, sometimes being "adequate" to a human heart and sometimes being very disappointing!

And when we realize such Wholeness so whole that it embodies even all that ...

... Such is a really Meaningful Never Deficient Always Adequate! ...

... (even as and when life is so often feeling rather meaningless, lacking and inadequate many days) ...

Gassho, J

STLah

[Prashanth]

Zen folks even leap beyond judgements about this as either "meaningless" or "meaningful," "deficient or not deficient," "adequate" or "inadequate." Another way to put this is that the universe is so universal, so whole, so non-dualistic, that it includes meaning or no meaning, sometimes being deficient and sometimes lacking, sometimes being "adequate" to a human heart and sometimes being very disappointing!

And when we realize such Wholeness so whole that it embodies even all that ...

... Such is a really Meaningful Never Deficient Always Adequate! ...

... (even as and when life is so often feeling rather meaningless, lacking and inadequate many days) ...

Gassho, J

STLah

Thank you.
So the summary is: Just Sit.

[emoji120]

sat.

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[Jundo]

PS - Let me add that "meaningful/less" "adequate/deficient" etc. are all by human eyes and selfish measures.

It is hubris, egotistical, to impose human measures and desires on the universe, and even to impose our value judgements on an ant or a mountain.

Better just to let the universe, ants and mountains, be the universe, ants and mountains ...

... for then the universe, ants and mountains are just fully the universe, ants and mountains, which is meaning enough!

[Bion]

What is Emptiness?

I find the concept of emptiness difficult to understand. And how is Zazen supposed to aid me in experiencing it. Thanks in advance for all of you indulging this beginner!

Gassho

John

SatTodayLAH

It means things are empty of independent existence. They don’t exist because of themselves or because they have an unchangeable permanent essence. One thing is the continuation of another, as Jundo puts it, like a dance between causes, effects, conditions, phenomena etc. Though really, there are no separations to speak of. So it means, by extension, one-ness .. Like an ocean of existence, where individual things are like waves, in appearance individual and different, but really, all of it is the Ocean. All of this of course could be expanded and elaborated upon depending of perspective.

As to how zazen is “supposed to help” with experiencing it, well.. experience is not conceptualization, so, if you sit expecting some deep intelectual understanding of the nature of emptiness, you might end up frustrated and disappointed. There’s no thinking in zazen, just being, embodying, experiencing. Any “analysis” of the observed or experienced happens after the sitting, or at least, it should [emoji1] So, when you sit, you already embody the whole dharma, and every bit of you fully realizes it. Sit with that conviction.

[emoji1374] Sat Today ( and sorry for running very very long)

[Kokuu]

I find the concept of emptiness difficult to understand. And how is Zazen supposed to aid me in experiencing it. Thanks in advance for all of you indulging this beginner!

That is a really good question, John.

As others have said, emptiness (sunyata) is the flipside of dependent arising (pratitya samutpada). Since nothing exists in and of itself, and dependent on causes and conditions, it means that all things are empty of their own inherent existence or 'self'. That is not the same as not-existing but the existence is ephemeral and conditional rather than solid and permanent, which is the way we often think about things.

When we sit Zazen, we can see both the constantly changing flow of sense impressions and thoughts, and also be aware of the wholeness that exists beyond that.

FORM is dependent on ALL THINGS: this is emptiness of self-existence
ALL THINGS give rise to FORM and the other skandhas (feeling, perception, mental formations and consciousness): this is dependent-arising

You will probably recognise that couplet from the Heart Sutra:

RUPAM SUNYATA SUNYATAIVA RUPAM
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form

It just depends how we are looking at things.

In Zazen we can see how our mind separates out phenomena by giving labels to things. This is not a bad thing, and totally necessary to live in the relative world. However, it is also good to be aware that we do this and mentally give things a solidity and permanence they do not inherently possess, as well as having an awareness and connection to the greater reality beyond.

Apologies for running long.

Gassho
Kokuu
-sattoday-

[Tairin]

Thank you.
So the summary is: Just Sit.

[emoji120]

sat.

Sent from my GS190 using Tapatalk

I try leave all the philosophical musings aside and just sit.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

[Bion]

I try leave all the philosophical musings aside and just sit.


Tairin
Sat today and lah

There’s time for sitting and time for musings [emoji1] How amazing to be able to do both without getting tangled in either

[emoji1374] Sat Today