Emptiness, which version do you think is correct?

[Beautiful It]

Apparently there are two ways to understand the Buddhist idea of emptiness, the first is that the universe is completely empty of things and that all that we see and experience is a projection of the mind (Middle Way School) and the other is that there are things out there onto which we project qualities, characteristics, etc, but the things out there do not have qualities or characteristics of their own, except that they change (Mind Only School). The Mind Only 'version' of emptiness seems the most realistic to me, or maybe the one that seems to have a connection with our everyday experience.

Emptiness is a difficult concept to get your head around, but I just wondered what the general feeling was about it. What are your opinions, beliefs, ideas on the concept of emptiness?

 

[radarmark]

Mind Only really parallels a 20th century school of philosophy (or vice versa)--process philosophy and theology. Check it out, welcome aboard!

 

[Sam Albion]

sunyata.

sa -- own, one's own
anya -- without
ta -- his/hers/yours (in an ownership sense)...

(a (long) + a (short) = u).

sunyata.

at least, that's how I break the word down... and by doing this, what do we see? We see that sunyata, rather than being "emptiness", means...

"without ones own (projections)" ...

Mmm. Interesting... So, perhaps, then, to be in "sunyata", is a kind of emptiness. Imagine interacting in a world where you do not... judge, project, impose, decide upon -- almost like a constant meditative state, right?

Ah ha!

Or, at least, that's how I see it...

 

[seattlegal]

Impermanence. Empty of permanence. Everything is interconnected and interdependent, therefore in a state of flux. Each moment is unique--and then it is gone.

The lack of signs the suttas refer to can also mean an ending of mind-projections, as per your OP.

 

[Thomas]

Hi, BI, and welcome to IO —

... the first is that the universe is completely empty of things and that all that we see and experience is a projection of the mind (Middle Way School)

Within the Catholic Tradition, especially that of Christian Neoplatonism, a similar view can be found.

... and the other is that there are things out there onto which we project qualities, characteristics, etc, but the things out there do not have qualities or characteristics of their own, except that they change (Mind Only School).

Ditto again, and this of course is akin to what Kant argued, that we can know the phenomena of things, but not the noumena, the actuality of things.

... The Mind Only 'version' of emptiness seems the most realistic to me, or maybe the one that seems to have a connection with our everyday experience.

Quite. Surely something has to exist ... no matter how relatively when we take the long view?

I've never really discussed this issue with a Buddhist, although I'd like to. As I understand it, the doctrine regards man as a bundle of ephemeral experience, the result of inter-action, gathered around nothing ... which seems a contradiction both scientifically and metaphysically — where does it all start?

Same with the notion of nothing existing but our thought-projections ... how we see what exists perhaps, but not that nothing exists at all, and yet somehow nothing produces experience? Anyway ... I'm pretty sure I've got an insufficient grasp of the notion to start with ...

Emptiness is a difficult concept to get your head around, but I just wondered what the general feeling was about it. What are your opinions, beliefs, ideas on the concept of emptiness?

The Christian Tradition has creatio ex nihilo, which basically says something was brought forth out of nothing ... or rather that the world of 'things' was brought into being from a meta-state of 'no thing'.

The Tradition also argues for a kind of 'super-emptiness' of God — its emptiness lies in the fact that within it there is nothing on which one can pin a predicate of 'this' or 'that', and then even 'emptiness' is insufficient, because it implies its opposite, fulness. The danger is in declaring such emptiness as a potential state, because that trips over certain other theological and metaphysical determinations.

So in short I would say that Buddhism and Christianity share many of the same ideas, although for markedly different reasons, and that 'emptiness' as it is commonly understood falls a long way short of the mark?

God bless,

Thomas

 

[Beautiful It]

There seems to be some version of emptiness in a lot of religions. In Taoism it is the Tao, Hinduism it is the Brahman and as Thomas has stated in Christianity there is "creatio ex nihilo" My understanding of the Mind Only positions is that there are three things in the universe. The first is the things 'out there' in the universe, they have no nature of there own other than change, therefore these things are impermanent or changing things.

The second is the concepts that we create in our minds, that we project onto the things in the universe. For example, an irritating person would not be irritating from their own side, but they are in the mind of those who see them as irritating. They cannot be irritating from their own side because not everyone sees them as such. For them to have a quality from their own side all would see this quality in them. Therefore they are empty of having any qualities other than change. Incidentally, these concepts or not seen as changing things, because they are like images in our minds, the image might be changed from one to another, but the images do not change from moment to moment, they are static.

The third is Emptiness itself. This explanation comes from a Buddhist Lama, and I am still trying to fully understand it, but it is very intriguing.

Thank you for your comments, feel free to a any other thoughts, comments or opinions.

BI

 

[Thomas]

Hi BI —

My understanding of the Mind Only positions is that there are three things in the universe. The first is the things 'out there' in the universe, they have no nature of there own other than change, therefore these things are impermanent or changing things.

We would rather say that they have their logoi, that is their true nature — their 'idea' in the Mind of God — but as you say, in this finite, spatio-temporal domain, all things are subject to contingency. Change is what we see from without.

The Buddhist idea I don't understand. Something must first be, in itself, to be subject to change, so I can't see how change can exist without something prior ... if there's nothing there, there's nothing to change or be changed ... ?

The second is the concepts that we create in our minds, that we project onto the things in the universe.

So many avenues from here ... one is that such a disposition we would say is a consequence of the Fall. Love, for example, is not a projection onto things, but an open receptivity towards things, this receptivity is active, in that one gives oneself to things as things give themselves to us ...

Neoplatonism encompasses this view, and the Christian Neoplatonists push the envelope quite significantly.

For them to have a quality from their own side all would see this quality in them. Therefore they are empty of having any qualities other than change.

I'm not sure the second part follows from the first? That we so not see the truth of something does not mean there is no truth to it.

The third is Emptiness itself. This explanation comes from a Buddhist Lama, and I am still trying to fully understand it, but it is very intriguing.

In Christianity we have the idea of the known and the Knower ... to know something must mean the knower is 'greater' than the thing known, I think the Phenomenologist philosopher Merleau-Ponty said to know something one must be able to make a 'tour' of it.

A galaxy is materially greater than man, but man is qualitatively greater than any other existing thing in the Cosmos. In fact man is greater than the Cosmos, because his mind is ordered towards the Infinite ... in the Tradition, the whole Cosmos returns to God through man.

From the standpoint of the Divine Mind, everything is 'immaterial' or 'empty' in itself, being dependent upon the Divine for its existence, moment to moment.

There is a line through the Christian apophatic tradition, from St John & St Paul on, that speaks not so much of the emptiness (of the cosmos), but of a union with the Divine Mind, in which everything else ceases to be, because at the level of such a union, everything else is 'unreal' or 'empty' ...

God bless

Thomas