JM and Fitness63,
Mu or emptiness or void or tao is not quite nothingness in the
ordinary sense. What it really is the absence of actuality, but it
contains all possibility. Think of it in a cosmological sense. How
could the universe have appeared out of nothingness? That could
happen only if the substance of that nothingness was not really
nothing, but only the absence of actuality. It would have to contain
what one might refer to as the quantum probabilities for everything
that could exist. It is an old idea of Tao as nothingness in itself,
but out of Tao can appear any set of opposites. If you add back the
opposites again they cancel into nothingness again. But an infinitely
fertile nothingness. What keeps all the opposites in the universe in
existence (temporarily for the life of the universe) is that the
opposites are separated from each other by dimensional time and
space. If they were all in the same place at the same time they would
again cancel into the nothingness of formless OE or Tao. Think of the
original nothingness of the universe as a perfectly still liquid-
like bubble floating in gravity free empty space. Now imagine that
sphere filled with interacting frictionless ripples. Those various
ripple forms are the things of the world in the original sea of OE or
Tao. Those ripples keep interacting endlessly on their own and what
you think of as 'self' is one of those ripples.
In a more day to day sense of direct experience the idea of Mu is
that everything we experience as real is simply form, it has no
actual substance of its own that makes it what it is, it has only a
form and that form is simply a ripple in the one substance of OE or
Tao. This of course includes 'us' as well. So Zen's 'seeing into the
nature of things' means directly experiencing everything as forms in
the single substance of OE or Tao.
Edgar
On Sep 5, 2008, at 7:43 PM, Jue Miao Jing Ming - 覺妙精明 wrote:
Al is always Al. Fun!
I am however, hats off to you for your refusal to moderate. I am on
your side. No matter how we teach, the wake up got to come from the
inside. The door to Buddha is always open. It is the door to our
hearts that are frequently blocked.
MU in Chinese really is a negation add-on. The word itself means NO to
whatever after it. By itself has no meaning. Like Not or No.
Emptiness in sutra does not mean nothing. There is the "Exquisite
existance" which is the surname of Quan-Yin, as well as a hint of
invisible life force. If we insert "life sustaining energy" into all
the Buddhist sutras, it can be understood by our rational mind a lot
easier. Emptiness is just a reminder of impermanence.
Of course, even "life sustaining energy" is just a label. Bill may
however, insist that we call it THIS. It is okay with me. Just a
label.
Fun?
Fitness63 wrote:
>
> From: Edgar Owen >Right, let go of everything. No attachments. Only
> this....>
>
> If that is all Zen is, it seems pretty lame-O. I thought the idea of
> getting
> to ONLY THIS is what JM was talking about. You get to the
impermanence in
> order to get to the CHI, the life-force.
>
> You are saying that just getting to the VOID is all there is.
That is
> what I
> would call the hole in your soul.
>
>
