--- Jill H <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> i've been away for awhile & when returning i've
> noticed something
> interesting about your posts Alex. i have an
> entirely different
> response to the things you've said when i come back
> to them from a
> break. excuse my directness, but there have been
> times when i felt
> you were being arrogant/stubborn, however, when
> looking at the same
> response again later, i don't see it that way.
>
> awhile back i posted something that you responded to
> -
> i'm wondering if you could expand a bit on what
> you'd said.
>
> this is from an '>i said / you said' exchange:
> ===============
> > isn't the notion of "form is emptyness & emptyness
> > is form" telling us
> > there are no boundaries?
>
> No it's not. Boundaries are there, and they are to
> be
> used as stepping stones in our climb out of the pit
> of
> constant pain. The person who realizes how to do
> that
> realizes that the boundaries that delineate forms
> are
> nothing but the very emptiness that frees and
> liberates us from any possibility of pain.
> ================
>
> i don't mean to be defending this notion of
> boundary-less-ness, simply
> because i understand that for life to form there had
> to be 'a line
> drawn' between the living entity & the rest of the
> universe (be that
> the cell wall, or my personal identity) & i wasn't
> really looking to
> argue that such a division isn't 'real' (altho i do
> have difficulty in
> grappling with the equally 'real' notion of sitting
> in an integrative
> sense of being - where the boundaries between self &
> other seem less
> distinct).
>
> my question is about this idea that "the boundaries
> that delineate
> forms are nothing but the very emptiness that frees
> and liberates us
> from any possibility of pain" portion of your
> statement. could you
> talk about that a bit more?
Your inquiry revolves around the famous Buddhist
formulation:
"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form"
This formulation was not put forward for the love of
polemic. It's only purpose is to cure the disease of
pain. The Buddha had observed that beings are ensnared
by the pain and suffering, and he devised various
flavors of teachings to help beings of various
capacities snap out of it. 'Form is emptiness,
emptiness is form' is one such flavor.
To be perfectly honest, I'm not capable of
ascertaining whether you are the type of being for
whom this particular flavor would be suitable. The
only way to know that for me would be to meet you in
person.
So, instead of explaining this teaching in great depth
to you (and risking injuring you even more), I'll just
outline its most prominent features here.
As you're already aware, this teaching deals with
liberation. Liberation from what? From any possibility
of pain. It is important to keep in mind, when doing
the Buddhist practice, that it is not a half-baked
attempt at achieving the truce with the world. It is
not aiming at the wisdom that accepts suffering as an
inevitable fact of life, and then tries to find some
acceptable 'workaround' solution. Quite the reverse,
the Buddhist practice aims directly at eliminating any
possibility of pain, be it physical pain, or mental
anguish, irritation, frustration, annoyance,
desperation, depression and so forth.
The problem with being bonded, being trapped,
imprisoned and ensnared by the shackles of pain is
that most people naively believe that the only way to
achieve freedom and liberation from pain and suffering
is by eliminating the boundaries that they perceive
around them. This is a very vulgar, very primitive and
in the final analysis, very childish way to understand
the situation.
This is easily observable from the fact that, upon
encountering the above Buddhist teaching ('form is
emptiness, emptiness is form'), most people tend to
fixate on the first half of the equation (that is,
'form is emptiness'). Thus, they erroneously jump at
the conclusion that this teaching explains how 'the
way out' is to be achieved by annulling the boundaries
(i.e. form). Once the boundaries are removed, what
will be left to ensnare us?
This is exactly what you've claimed in your original
post -- that this Buddhist formulation points at the
fact that there are no boundaries. What you (and
countless other Buddhist practitioners) conveniently
chose to ignore, is the second half of the equation --
'emptiness is form'. It's doing no good to
preferrentially pick and choose various aspects of the
Buddhist teachings, in order to lull oneself into a
comfortable sedated state. Buddha's teaching is either
to be taken in complete, or else simply forget about
it.
Same is here -- it is very damaging to take the
formulation 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form' and
pick it apart, and take only the portion we're
comfortable with. The entire thing must be taken in,
even if it makes us feel uncomfortable initially.
So what is this 'emptines is form' telling us, in the
light of the 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form'
formulation? If form is emptiness, meaning it's not
really there, it's simply ascribed, imputed, imagined,
then to say that emptiness is form must imply that
emptiness cannot possibly be mere blankness, mere
nothingness. Emptiness and form are closely tied, they
are somehow mysteriously related.
Most people make the mistake here by concluding that
we have form over here, and then we have emptiness
over there. And according to the common-sense
consensus, the two do not coincide. You cannot have
from right here, and at the same time emptiness in
that very same place.
However, if one were to embark upon some highly
sophisticated spiritual path, then given certain
favorable circumstances resulting from the carefully
honed practice, it may be possible to experience that
form and emptiness coincide. This overlap would be
mysterious and inexplicable, but would nevertheless
bring temporary relief from our suffering.
Nothing could be farther removed from truth. Form and
emptiness do not overlap. They never coincide. The
overlap/coincidence of form and emptiness never
depends on some special conditions and circumstances.
All these things are mere figment of one's
imagination.
In reality, form and emptiness are identical.
Identical things cannot coincide, nor overlap. Where
there is shape, there is absence of shape. And where
there is absence of shape, there is shape. Both shape
and absence of shape are thus unreal, they are
insubstantial, they are imagined and unborn. They are
to be viewed as a childless woman's son. It makes
absolutely no sense to discuss the childless woman's
son physical characteristics, for example.
Knowing this, Buddhist practitioners enter the door of
liberation with incomparable ease.
Alex
No karma was produced during the composition of this letter
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