Dharma Wheel

DarwidHalim wrote:So according to you, emptiness is the truth of the universe?

Is there such a thing as a "truth of the universe"?

If one speaks in the ordinary way, there are an infinite number of true and false things that can be said about the universe. Then a statement like "The universe is empty" becomes just one more statement, and just like all the others it would be either true or false.

But emptiness is not a posited property of things, it is an absence of specific properties like inherency and it's offspring, permanence. This leads to all kinds of logical conundrums when we attempt to use our ordinary, dualistic languages to describe it. Come to think of it, merely by attempting to describe it we are assuming it to be some kind of describable object like a car, which it isn't.

So standard forms of reasoning can only take one so far with emptiness. If pushed too hard the logic will knot itself up in an infinite hall of mirrors and collapse entirely. But many forms of contemplation can um, let's say, elucidate the matter...or illuminate it.

When we know emptiness is the absence of thing, we should know emptiness needs thing to work.

Emptiness needs something for it to make sense.

Both form and emptiness need input.

And that input is inherent thing.

The difference is form is the assertion of thing.
Emptiness is the negation (absence) of thing.

Emptiness cannot be separated from object. Because emptiness needs something to be negated. And that something is the object.

That is why when we talk about emptiness, we cannot run away with talking about thing (essence).

Essence is an intellectual object.
Consequently, the negation of intellectual object is also an intellectual object.

Emptiness is nothing more than an intellectual object, which in this case appears in the negating or absence of object.

Anything which is intellectual object has an inherent mistake, whether it is subtle or gross.

In direct experience, if you see emptiness, it just means you are not directly experiencing.

Someone who sees clear light, does not see clear light. They just see an intellectual name.

It is mentioned in Mahamudra teaching (which I can't remember where) that when someone progress in their spiritual journey,

Initially the existence is very strong. (the form aspect is very strong)
Afterwards, the absence of existence is very strong. (the emptiness aspect is very strong)
Afterwards, the balance of emptiness and form is very strong. (the aspect of form and emptiness are balanced)
Afterwards, both balance is gone. (this is where you see reality not as empty, not form, or not as anything) - the state of no meditation. (the 4th yogic of Mahamudra).

A state of no view.
No view of form.
No view of emptiness.

DarwidHalim wrote:Emptiness needs something for it to make sense.

Both form and emptiness need input.

And that input is inherent thing.

Wierd. Why do you think emptiness must make sense? That's just a view, not emptiness itself.

Emptiness has to make sense. Because if it doesn't make sense, there is no point to study it.

Emptiness is also just a view.

Ordinary beings have a view of inherent existence.

This view is countered over by the view of emptiness, which negating all of those inherent view.

At the end, we should be clean from both views.

We must know how to drop off this emptiness as well.

: someone-emptiness, emptiness -someone. (Someone is form).
When this nondualism is, then no thing which want to keep itself affirmed afraid to lose or hope to not lose its' existence in a nonexistence, no thing which need to prove this or that since all is already perfectly fine without affirmations/negations. Like all said here: conceptual mind cannot explain.

Wisdoms' spontaneous compassion uses not the limitations of conceptual mind but uses concepts as tool in order to help "others". So is there been thaught.

Oh yes dependent origination-emptiness. How no fear for nonexistence or hope for existence should be.
Here, Music, a wonderful teaching from the Vietnamese master Thich Nhat Hanh. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYhti6fcVIk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
In this is to see no discrimination, no comparision is possible.

DarwidHalim wrote:Emptiness has to make sense. Because if it doesn't make sense, there is no point to study it.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.


A lot of people have spent a lot of time studying these verses, which make no sense. And they have come away from those studies with valuable insights into language and how it works.

Regarding the dependent arising, since this and the emptiness devoid of all asumptions are not contradictory but in essence one, here a teaching: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQhN4f1k ... ure=relmfu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; There are some youtubes following here.

Interbeing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azOZ8d0U ... re=related" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

One advice of a kind master was like this: "analyze and examine carefully the personal self and all phenomena until you are certain of their inherently empty nature".
A nice book: http://www.amazon.com/How-See-Yourself- ... 0743290461" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I found there is a big difference being in the state of traceless and being in the state of empty of inherent existence.

Between these 2, the last is still a hindrance. We are in front of idea.

Useful for communication with others, because there is no choice for communication.

But for oneself, not knowing it is a mistake, can be a serious hindrance.

There is difference between idea about which keeps a view and nondual/emptiness (which is the 'antidote' to all views). We need a teacher or can study first and then find one to help us further.
It is said when all preconceptions asserting separation between manifestations( interdependent origination) and emptiness collapse, then investigation comes to an end. Then there is no further use of reasoning.

"Not to know the equality of appearance emptiness
And get attached to appearances alone is delusion
But to get attached to emptiness alone is delusion too
If you know the equality of appearance emptiness
There’s no need to get caught up in or give up phenomena
Those appearances and emptiness
What you must do is to rest in the spaciousness
Of the equality of appearance emptiness". Tsultrim Rinpoche

When I read Rinpoche his teaching here, then there is peaceful speechlessness. At least for some seconds! But then I continue my way and arrive on the next corner, my mind turns already foggy in stream of concepts about. Distracted! Therefore for me Buddhism is mostly practice.

All rivers smoothly flow to the ocean, no one is pushing them.

ps the book of The Dalai Lama is helping by clear exercises, which makes investigation in selflessness easier.

Not sure if you will "get" this Zen story or not....but it's worth a try.
It's called:

No Water, No Moon

When the nun Chiyono studied Zen under Bukko of Engaku she was unable to attain the fruits of meditation for a long time.
Because, as a woman in the Zen monastary she would bathe at night when the other monks slept,
she had an old bamboo bucket, rickety, and bound together by bamboo straps that she used it to carry water from the well to bathe with
One moonlit night she was hauling up a heavy bucket of water from that well.
Being late at night the moon was relected in the water of the well.
As she lifted the heavy bucket, the bamboo straps suddenly broke and the bottom fell out of the pail.
The water fell back into the well, and the reflected moon was suddenly gone with a splash of cold water.
At that very moment Chiyono was set free!
In commemoration, she wrote a poem about that event:

In this way and that I tried to save my old bucket
Trying every thing I could to keep it together,
as the bamboo strips were weakening and about to break
Until one night, drawing water from that deep cold well,
quite suddenly the bottom fell out.
With a great splash, I was covered with water!
No more water in the pail!
No more moon in the water!
(Emptiness in my hand!)

That's "emptiness" realized.


Okay, I cheated. I added the last line.
(The one in parenthases).

Indrajala wrote: ↑Sat Aug 18, 2012 4:24 pm The chariot analogy for śūnyatā is pertinent.

Does anyone know where I can find the expanded analogy for the chariot? I recall hearing Nagarjuna explaining the fallacy of 10 or 11 common ways we impute the Svabhava of chariot. I learned this in a Buddhist class at FSU many years ago and would really like to reference it and study it more deeply!

Thank you!!!