What is meant by Emptiness?? Especially in meditation??

[Keith108]

3 minutes ago, doc benway said:

 

There are many different teachings on emptiness. One error commonly encountered when taking a conceptual approach is to view or conflate emptiness with nihilism. To think emptiness means our lives are an illusion or not real. This is an error of nihilism.

 

This is where meditation practice is so important. When we think about emptiness, there is a tendency to focus on the word’s connotation of absence, of nothingness, of a void. When we meditate we can feel the openness of calmly resting the mind and body. When that experience is not filled with a sense of me - thinking, worrying, judging; when there is just the naked experience of this present moment, this is what emptiness is indicating; and yet the experience of that moment, the vividness of NOW is certainly not nothingness - absolutely everything is there - all the senses and visions and sounds and feelings and infinite potential, and the experience is full and complete, just as it is. You really can’t add or subtract anything.

 

That is the wholeness, the fullness of being and it is ever present when we are clear enough to notice. So I often interject a mention of the fullness of emptiness when it’s being discussed. Emptiness is fullness, eg form is emptiness and emptiness is form (Heart sutra). 

 

That part of Tommy's reply struck me, as well. I think your initial response, and this one really hit the mark.

 

_/|\_

[forestofclarity]

3 hours ago, old3bob said:

 

sounds greek to me,

 

anyway  "there is" as said by the Buddha is not of negation but of affirmation, which seems to be a four letter word to some Buddhists who sound like they would even negate the life force as it also being a "delusion"?

 

So you didn't bother to read any of the Buddhist's posts in this thread? And your revolutionary (non-Buddhist) reinterpretation of Buddhism comes down to "there is"? 

 

 

[old3bob]

1 hour ago, forestofclarity said:

 

So you didn't bother to read any of the Buddhist's posts in this thread? And your revolutionary (non-Buddhist) reinterpretation of Buddhism comes down to "there is"? 

 

 

 

"there is", is the beginning of the Buddha's quote on the major point of Buddhism is it not or did you skip that or are you saying that's not good enough for your expert sounding self?  Btw one should not assume what one may have read or not.  Also what is non-Buddhist? (some Buddhists say we are all Buddhas but some just don't know it yet and the Buddha also said, "wonder of wonders all beings are truly enlightened" thus he didn't exclude old3bob)  Also in your opinion which sect is the truest or poorest out of others when it comes to being Buddhist or non-Buddhist?   Also did not the Buddha warn about laying down the raft of Buddhism in certain ways instead of unending attachment to it?  

Edited 23 hours ago by old3bob

[old3bob]

sounds like warm, warmer, hot...

[Mark Foote]

 

 

 

…And again, Ananda, [an individual], not attending to the perception of the plane of no-thing, not attending to the perception of the plane of neither-perception-nor-non-perception, attends to the solitude of mind that is signless. [Their] mind is satisfied with, pleased with, set on and freed in the concentration of mind that is signless. [They] comprehends thus, ‘This concentration of mind that is signless is effected and thought out. But whatever is effected and thought out, that is impermanent, it is liable to stopping.’ When [the individual] knows this thus, sees this thus, [their] mind is freed from the canker of sense-pleasures and [their] mind is freed from the canker of becoming and [their] mind is freed from the canker of ignorance. In freedom is the knowledge that [one] is freed and [one] comprehends: “Destroyed is birth, brought to a close the (holy)-faring, done is what was to be done, there is no more of being such or so’. [They] comprehend thus: “The disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of sense-pleasures do not exist here; the disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of becoming do not exist here; the disturbances there might be resulting from the canker of ignorance do not exist here. And there is only this degree of disturbance, that is to say the six sensory fields that, conditioned by life, are grounded on this body itself. [One] regards that which is not there as empty of it. But in regard to what remains [one] comprehends:  'That being, this is.' Thus, Ananda, this comes to be for [such a one] s true, not mistaken, utterly purified and incomparably highest realisation of emptiness.

 

("Lesser Discourse on Emptiness", Culasunnatasutta, tr. Pali Text Society MN III 121 vol III p 151-2; emphasis added)

 

 

 

Edited 22 hours ago by Mark Foote

[forestofclarity]

54 minutes ago, old3bob said:

Also in your opinion which sect is the truest or poorest out of others when it comes to being Buddhist or non-Buddhist?   

 

There is no inherent Buddhism-- no abiding, permanent, unchanging teaching. IMO, stirling, doc, and Keith are all expressing the dharma in particular ways, from different traditions learned from living masters, but it isn't really three different dharmas. There's a certain family resemblance. 

 

All exists’: this is one extreme.‘                                                  Sabbamatthī’ti kho, kaccāna, ayameko anto.

‘All does not exist’: this is the second extreme.                      ‘Sabbaṁ natthī’ti ayaṁ dutiyo anto.

Avoiding these two extremes,                                                    Ete te, kaccāna, ubho ante anupagamma

the Realized One teaches by the middle way:                         majjhena tathāgato dhammaṁ deseti

 

You can see here the Buddha is using atthi (the same as in the Nibbana quote) and natthi (nonexistence) is an explicit way. 

 

 

[stirling]

56 minutes ago, forestofclarity said:

There is no inherent Buddhism-- no abiding, permanent, unchanging teaching. IMO, stirling, doc, and Keith are all expressing the dharma in particular ways, from different traditions learned from living masters, but it isn't really three different dharmas. There's a certain family resemblance. 

 

Absolutely! It is so wonderful to have so many perspectives of what the implications of emptiness is. Emptiness itself has no dimensions, or qualities itself, but is obviously visible and persistent in myriad ways.

 

Emptiness is in the poems of Rumi and Hafiz, the Upanishads, the words of the Buddha, the sage statements of Ramana Maharshi, Nirsagadatta Maharaj, and the Advaita Vedanta teachers, as well as the words Lao Tzu and the early Daoists, just as it is in countless living teachers that are mere conduits for the deeper reality of how things are. Each expression will resonate for some, but possibly not others. That doesn't make them wrong. The message is absolutely the same, when you understand what you are looking at. 

[old3bob]

7 hours ago, forestofclarity said:

 

There is no inherent Buddhism-- no abiding, permanent, unchanging teaching. IMO, stirling, doc, and Keith are all expressing the dharma in particular ways, from different traditions learned from living masters, but it isn't really three different dharmas. There's a certain family resemblance. 

 

All exists’: this is one extreme.‘                                                  Sabbamatthī’ti kho, kaccāna, ayameko anto.

‘All does not exist’: this is the second extreme.                      ‘Sabbaṁ natthī’ti ayaṁ dutiyo anto.

Avoiding these two extremes,                                                    Ete te, kaccāna, ubho ante anupagamma

the Realized One teaches by the middle way:                         majjhena tathāgato dhammaṁ deseti

 

You can see here the Buddha is using atthi (the same as in the Nibbana quote) and natthi (nonexistence) is an explicit way. 

 

 

that sounds kind of like a contradiction of your earlier verdict of:  "And your revolutionary (non-Buddhist) reinterpretation of Buddhism comes down to "there is"?    

 

Btw, one might see some parallels or "family resemblance" with that in the Isha Upanishad,  it can be found in English thus one doesn't need to know Sanskrit or Pali for it.

[old3bob]

12 hours ago, Keith108 said:

 

 

Still not clear about what a life force is, but it sounds like a nice idea!

 

 

Live Words and Dead Words

 

During a Dharma speech, Zen Master Hyo Bong said, "In our practice there are live words and dead words. If you attain live words, you are the same as the Buddha and eminent teachers. If you are attached to dead words, you never get out of the ocean of suffering. Live words and dead words are the same as dust in your eyes. So I ask you, how do you get the dust out of your eyes? Tell me! Tell me!" Hyo Bong was silent for a few moments, and then hit his Zen stick on the table three times and descended from the high stand.

 

1. Live words and dead words: are they the same or different?

2. How do you get the dust out of your eyes?

3. Which are live words: silence or three hits of the Zen stick?

 

COMMENTARY: Who can save Hyo Bong? If you want to save him, you must use a hammer with no handle.

 

Seung Sahn, Whole World is a Single Flower: 365 Kong-ans for Everyday Life with Questions and Commentary by Zen Master Seung Sahn and a Forword by Stephen Mitchell (pp. 332-333). Tuttle Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

 

 

"Still not clear about..."  don't worry (although it doesn't sound like you are)  for medical science doesn't really know what causes the heart to beat but they have figured out how to zap with it electricity to get it beating again...

 

[forestofclarity]

12 hours ago, old3bob said:

And your revolutionary (non-Buddhist) reinterpretation of Buddhism comes down to "there is"?    

 

Well, it is not anything goes. The Middle Way is tricky. There are the four dharma seals, for example. 

 

12 hours ago, old3bob said:

 "family resemblance" with that in the Isha Upanishad,

 

Depends on what interpretation one is taking. Arguably, the closest would be Advaita as opposed to Vishishtadvaita or Dvaita schools. 

 

Swami S has one of the better presentations/arguments here by approaching Buddhism more or less on its terms: 

 

 

[old3bob]

 

yea, there is "the be true to your school aspect"  although many of the "eastern" schools (thus their teachers) don't agree on certain basic or central stuff yet many tend to proclaim self-realization as being central. Such is similar with many religions, for instance Christianity, Islam and the Jews all proclaiming the same God yet they are often at deadly war with one another.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by old3bob