"This"

[White Lotus]

It is not a "void" - it is void-ness

actually it isnt even void like, though initially it can seem to be.

on examination, it is not a void, nor is it nothing... it is 'this'. everything is 'this'.
mind is this, own nature is this, subject and object are merged as one in 'this'.

master keizan said "between life and death there is only 'this'." i agree with him.
sound is 'this', form is this, apparent emptiness is 'this'.

initially one thinks that one has emptiness, actually on examination it is not emptiness, nor is it a void. it has the feeling of 'this'ness.

i know a guy called Master Best, and have argued with him over the issue of emptiness, he has always asserted that there is no emptiness. i had disagreed, now i know that there is only 'this'. this may sometimes seem like voidness, but it is not.

taste this for yourself. its easy. this is it.

best wishes, White Lotus.

i will have a cup of tea this evening.

[Dexing]

Like this.

[White Lotus]

it was, just like this, but now sweeping away 'this', what am i left with?
it cant be this cup of tea, nor the rain outside. what on earth is it?

its not everything, nor is it nothing, its not emptiness (form), nor is it 'this'.
what on earth is it? it has no name, it cannot be described, only tasted. as a flavour that cannot be expressed.

what can i say about it? all description falls short of the mark. it is normal mind, would seem best. it is normal self, it is normal form. none of these things are empty, they just are. feel them in your heart. does 'this' point towards it? i am told not, but still dont undersand how it could not be 'this'.

i would say that one must see emptiness before one sees 'thisness', but what comes after thisness? (its a process of unveiling of truth) anyone with a clue out there for me.

best wishes, White Lotus. x

at the moment not knowing very much at all,
infact probably less than an ordinary child.

[Ngawang Drolma]

Master Keizan said "between life and death there is only 'this'."

How marvelous

[Dexing]

i would say that one must see emptiness before one sees 'thisness', but what comes after thisness? (its a process of unveiling of truth) anyone with a clue out there for me.

How can emptiness be seen when it only has a name, but no form and no appearances?

How does one go beyond that to see your "thisness"?

After all, just put it down since you can't hold it anyway, and help others.

[White Lotus]

thisness has lead back to emptiness, infact when we focus on 'this'/forms etc we are focusing on what is empty (forms). this is emptyness, emptyness is this.

if you want to taste emptyness start with this! it is a pretty helpful little pointer. in zen one sometimes hears that "this is it", which is helpful, but shouldnt be held onto... so oh well, back to this/that beatiful emptiness.

enjoying ice cream... it is enlightenment.

drinking tea... is perfect emptiness, just as it is.

dont attach to 'this', rather see what it is pointing towards. feel 'this', taste it, touch it, be in it. within and without.

Keizan was correct to say that "between birth and death is only this", and im sure he had tasted the emptiness of 'this'. the emptiness of this. the sweetness of honey, the saltiness of salts. the sponge of a cake.

what is there to do?... just live when you live, die when you die. coming and going, eating drinking and sleeping, etc etc are all empty, and can be very pleasant... or painful.

best wishes, White Lotus.

eating, sleeping, drinking,
playing and coming and going,
all one thing... all empty.

emptiness... radiant and softly
gently present is nothing out
of the ordinary. taste it in 'this'.

ps. i find it easy to see and sense emptiness in self, forms and body, but i find it hard to taste and hear emptiness. the inner dharma eye consciousness seems to be different from the ear and tongue consciousnesses. i cannot say that i only experience emptiness. because of hearing i am unable to faithfully say that emptiness is my total experience.
in faith i can say that sound is only the mind moving. if i see the bell it is empty, but if i hear it, then i find emptiness in sound difficult to grasp, except when it is silent.

[Ngawang Drolma]

in faith i can say that sound is only the mind moving. if i see the bell it is empty, but if i hear it, then i find emptiness in sound difficult to grasp, except when it is silent.

Well put. We take it on faith for now, and that's enough for motivation

Best,
Laura

[Dexing]

Like form being a subjective language of eye-consciousness, sound is only created in your ear-consciousness when the eardrum is vibrated.

There is no bell that has sound.

So, it is only the mind that moves.

[White Lotus]

logically if forms are seen as empty, and they are, then sound too should be perceived as empty. its only that i am unable to perceive sounds as empty. it is logical that if forms are empty that sound is a shadow of form. so logically i understand sounds to be empty. it is just that i am unable to perceive them as directly empty. perceiving forms and self and body as empty is easy and comes naturally to me now, but am still unable to 'perceive' the emptiness of sounds.

sounds ought to be empty since they emanate from forms and forms are indeed empty. but, darn i find it hard to appreciate sounds as empty except intellectually.

its as if one were in a cinema, with no picture, but sounds coming out of the darkness. the crazy thing is that ordinarily sounds are less substantial than forms and yet now they seem to me to be substantial, whilst forms themselves i clearly see as insubstantial. sound is not a form, it is insubstantial, does sound exist independent of mind... forms certainly dont, but how about sounds?

if as you suggest Laura... i should take it on faith, is it faith to take it that even sounds are empty (since they are not forms). my experience at the moment is contrary to such an approach, i dont want to form an opinion. i want to directly experience reality. if i am honest about my experience i find that not everything is empty, but then again i have only been aware of this complication for a few days and so approach it as one feeling ones way in the dark, partly not knowing i will experience next.

Dexing

There is no bell that has sound.

perhaps there is no bell but only sound, perhaps the reality of the bell is in its sound vibration, it is certainly not in its form. perhaps sound vibration is the only universal reality.

i have to keep an open mind. the heart sutra says 'no sound' (sound is empty).

best wishes, White Lotus.

sounds, seen and heard.
emptiness in form, prescence
in sound vibration?

[catmoon]

It's an odd thing - we have no trouble understanding that the sound is not the bell, but we have much more trouble with the idea that the sight is not the bell either.

[Dexing]

But what is the sight? Only color.

When light rays reflect into our eyes, our eye-consciousness translates it into color. Apart from color our eyes cannot see anything. Our eyes only see color. Is color the bell? Actually color is only created in our own eye-consciousness, and is not external to us, though it may seem.

So the line "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" in Chinese translated more literally means "color is space, space is color".

Translating the words into "form" and "emptiness" already gives us a sense of a solid object and something that is empty. Whereas "color" and "space" are more direct and obvious.

Hence, you'll find in the Shurangama Sutra; "Contemplating the cause of the form skandha, one sees that false thoughts of solidity are its source."

So contemplating the cause of the bell, one sees that false thoughts of solidity are its source.

We attach to our experiences of colors, sounds, scents, flavors, sensations, and ideas, which are all subjective feelings created in our consciousness, and based on these experiences together we fabricate a solid external form out of mere emptiness- in this case a bell.

[catmoon]

So what would be the origin of these false thoughts of solidity? It must be fairly straightforward becuase just about everybody has them.

I consider a pool ball to be solid rather than hollow. I have experience of cutting things apart and finding they are not hollow. There is a consistency to this: I have yet to find a hollow golf ball for instance. I assume they are all solid. It's kind of strange.

[Dexing]

So what would be the origin of these false thoughts of solidity? It must be fairly straightforward becuase just about everybody has them.

Fundamental ignorance since time without beginning. If there are false thoughts, which there certainly are, then by reason one can know there is a mind capable of creating them. Everything is created by mind alone. All beings are using this mind to function moment to moment, yet are unaware of it.

I consider a pool ball to be solid rather than hollow. I have experience of cutting things apart and finding they are not hollow. There is a consistency to this: I have yet to find a hollow golf ball for instance. I assume they are all solid. It's kind of strange.

Emptiness or space doesn't mean solid outside hollow core. Seeing "things" is actually only seeing color. Cutting things open what does one see? Still only color- which is a subjective perception created in the brain through eye-consciousness.

We don't even need Buddhism to explain this. Science proves it also. Yet because since time without beginning people have been conceptualizing the unreal as real and grasping, they cannot break free.

[catmoon]

I was thinking more along these lines: when I arrived on this planet I had no preconceptions about solidity. Then I developed them and they have for the most part, served me well. Now how did that happen? Why is the idea so persistent?

If I truly abandoned the idea of solidity, what would stop me from trying to walk through a wall or a moving bus? To what degree does emptiness advocate the abandonment of assumptions about the world, bearing in mind that they keep us alive?

[Dexing]

Now how did that happen? Why is the idea so persistent?

It is simply karmic seeds coming to fruition. Since time without beginning, ordinary beings have held such a false view. So naturally it would be quite persistent and not easy to break.

If I truly abandoned the idea of solidity, what would stop me from trying to walk through a wall or a moving bus?

Common sense, and the realization that there are still karmic retributions to be endured whilst in this human form, even though what we attach to as real is actually imagined.

To what degree does emptiness advocate the abandonment of assumptions about the world, bearing in mind that they keep us alive?

The attainment of emptiness is transcendental wisdom, aka Prajna. If you simply study teachings on emptiness and stop there, without further study of what comes with the attainment of emptiness — the true face of reality — then it is exactly nihilism.

If one were to drop all assumptions, one would just see clearly, hear clearly, etc.. One would see reality, and should no longer make mistakes. So one wouldn't be attached to illusions as real, and also wouldn't become stuck in nihilism and walk into a wall.

[White Lotus]

catmoon wrote:
It's an odd thing - we have no trouble understanding that the sound is not the bell, but we have much more trouble with the idea that the sight is not the bell either.

i find its the other way round for me! sound is a tough knot. i directly perceive the emptiness of self nature and of mind and emptiness of all forms, but sound! well that ones truly got me stumped for the moment. though i take it in faith that there is no sound as the heart sutra says. i feel i must perceive this for myself.

catmoon wrote:
To what degree does emptiness advocate the abandonment of assumptions about the world, bearing in mind that they keep us alive?

emptiness is the mundane way of looking at the world, but people just havent realized this. when for example you see that your self is totally empty, you laugh because you had this mundane experience all along. emptiness does not change anything... its always been there. so... just be careful of those busses.
emptiness doesnt change anything about the way we relate to the world. perhaps seeing it, one is a bit calmer and slightly surprised that everything is empty... especially since this is not what one expects to see.

best wishes, White Lotus.

[White Lotus]

the Zen Patriarch Yun Yan was asked by his pupil and future zen patriarch Dongshan...

what is your teaching if anyone asks me about it?...

Yun Yan answered "Only this, this."

this is emptiness, but should we let go of the emptiness and just be with the experience without notions of this or emptiness?

not attaching to anything in particular. was the patriarch Yun Yan in the weeds of 'thisness'? or in the mud of 'emptiness', and what is the difference?

best wishes, White Lotus.

surely what this points to is just to be as
you already are, without talk of enlightenment
or delusion. just this, without even talk of
emptiness.

[Dexing]

Nagarjuna compared someone clinging to emptiness as a theory to "a customer to whom a merchant has said that he has nothing to sell and the customer now asks to buy this 'nothing' and carry it home".

[White Lotus]

Noble Dexing,
"nothing" has great value... i am slightly surprised that people think that emptiness is nothing, though there are similarities. nothing is a pointer. and a very important one, but not emptiness. nor is emptiness emptiness, emptiness is only a word, a pointer. a very useful one.

i am sincerely puzzled when i hear talk of attaching to emptiness, especially since everything that i see is empty (experientially). anyway how can one be attached to something that doesnt exist and how can someone who doesnt exist be attached to anything. i am puzzled that there is talk of attachment to what isnt. how can there be? but paying heed to the 'wise' ones, if they are wise, i will continue to enjoy a cup of tea, whether or not it is empty. and it clearly is empty.

there was a time when my senses would have caused problems, but now the senses perceive emptiness. perceiving the emptiness of a cup of tea, i still enjoy it. such is the harmony of tathata. And yet... there is no one to enjoy the cup of tea. its a dream of enjoyment.

With respect, White Lotus.

[White Lotus]

I correct myself...
emptiness is 'like this'... like a cup of tea. thisness is empty. everything is empty and being empty it is perfect fullness. a cup of tea can truly be enjoyed, and the remarkable thing is that there is no cup of tea.

Noble Dexing you were right to say 'like this'... it is!

White Lotus.

real, unreal?
where is reality!
its just here in my hand.
a cup of tea...
but its certainly not
real! nor is it unreal.