--- Jill H <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Thank you for your response Alex. > I appreciate the care you took in formulating your > reply.
May your insight grow in wisdom! > there were certain things that i couldn't appreciate > - but i don't > know how/what to ask about them, so i had to simply > let them go. like > the notion of 'eliminating boundaries as a way to > free one from pain' - > my (very conditioned) experience wants to map this > onto something like > 'eliminating cravings to free one from pain'. i > don't mean to be > simply parroting the buddhist texts, but i've come > to feel the origins > of pain to be defined in this way, & i'm having > difficulty translating > that into your experience/vocabulary... 'Eliminating cravings to free one from pain' amounts to, for example, lowering one's body temperature to free the patient from the pain produced by the high fever. Yes, it is possible to do that, but since you've only managed to eliminate the symptoms, and not the cause of the disease, the symptoms (i.e. the pain) will most certainly return. Likewise, it is possible to eliminate the toothache by taking an aspirin, but as soon as the effects of an aspirin wear out, the toothache will return. > at the same time, i do recognize your point that i > connect more > strongly with the first half of that pair 'form is > emptyness' has > always felt more graspable for me (which i take > pretty much from Thich > Nhat Hanh's teaching) to mean that all those > distinct 'forms' that we > percieve do not exist seperately from each other - > they are all > interdependent (where i get the boundarylessness). I'm afraid you are confusing emptiness with formlessness, Jill. Not to worry, it's a common mistake that 99.99% of the students make. You see, formlessness is the exact opposite of form -- meaning it is an absence of any attributes attributable to a form (boy, that's a mouthful:-) Emptiness, on the other hand, is the exact opposite of the form/formless combo. Emptiness not only means absence of any attributes attributable to a form, but also absence of any attributes attributable to an absence of form (i.e.formless). That's why it's emptiness -- it is empty not only of attributes, but also of any essence, any substance. > and the second half 'emptyness is form' has always > felt more elusive - > but seems to me to be saying something like: out of > the totality of > 'what is' - which in some sense is a > beginingless-endless infinite > existance, there are localized 'eddies' of form - > my own 5 aggregates > being one example... In which case, these 'eddies' would be real. However, 'emptiness is form' points to the fact that the form is not real; neither is emptiness. > --- In [email protected], Alex Bunard > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > 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, > > i don't understand this - i'm not sure what you are > saying isn't > there? perhaps this is where you are saying that no > real boundary > exists between the individual 'objects'/'forms' in > the world?? There is no other way to illustrate this but to use an example: Imagine a person hiking in the countryside, who sees a wheat field in the distance. In the middle of the field, he sees a farmer, and decides to ask him for directions. The hiker starts yelling: "Hello, over here! Hey, you, can you hear me?" But the farmer doesn't seem to respond. Getting closer to the farmer, the hiker becomes more and more agitated, getting annoyed that the farmer doesn't seem to exhibit a common decency to reply to his calls. The hiker now gets positively angry with the farmer, and starts marching towards him with the intention to teach him a good lesson in etiquette. But as the hiker gets closer to the farmer, he suddenly notices that the farmer is nothing more than a scarecrow. All of a sudden, all the pent up drama dissipates in the same manner it tends to evaporate when a person wakes up from a very intense dream. The farmer who seemingly was the cause of all the fuss and fury, turned out to be completely non-existent. His apparent 'existence' was imputed, or ascribed by the hiker. More careful analysis, performed by that same hiker, resulted in the correction of error; this method is referred to as removal of ascriptions. Same as the farmer in the above example wasn't really there (he was merely imagined), the 'form is emptiness, emptiness is form' teaches that anything that we may discern is equally not there. It is merely ascribed, erroneously imputed. All the 'objects', 'forms', 'formless stuff', 'concepts', everything. > i agree that emptiness is not > 'blankness/nothingness' - i think this > particular word must not translate well. i take it > to mean that there > is no "particular/seperate/independent form" within > (distinct from) > all the vastness of existence. Emptiness is a translation of the Sanskrit word shunyata, which means several things: it means zero, but also swelling, as in when something looks like much, but turns out to be merely swollen (like when a cat humps its back to look bigger, it's all swollen, but in actuality its real size is much smaller). > i find myself tending toward this notion that form & > emptiness _do_ > 'coincide/overlap' in a not too terribly mysterious > way - i view them > as different ways of looking at the same thing (sort > of like looking > at something with, or without, boundaries around > individual pieces of it) That would be the recognition of the interrelatednes between form and formlessness. That's not shunyata. > however, this seemingly does nothing to relieve my > suffering... That's not surprising, as this recognition has nothing to do with the corrective power of shunyata. > here is where i get totally lost... in one sense i > agree with you that > form & emtiness seem to me to be identical > (different labels for the > same thing...) As in 'long' and 'short' can be viewed to label the same thing? > so, i don't understand how they 'cannot > coincide/overlap' In order for two things to overlap or coincide, they must, to begin with, be two different things. Like, two blank pieces of paper -- identical size, identical shape, identical content, identical attributes (color and so on) -- these things can easily coincide and overlap. Why? Because they have different identities. Form and emptiness do not have different identities, and consequently cannot overlap. > sort of like a rose by any other name could not > coincide with the rose > of the first name?? If it's one and the same rose, then it cannot coincide with itself. Two objects with different identities are needed in order for the coincidence to occur. Alex No karma was produced during the composition of this letter __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Make Yahoo! your home page http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Would you Help a Child in need? It is easier than you think. Click Here to meet a Child you can help. http://us.click.yahoo.com/0Z9NuA/I_qJAA/i1hLAA/S27xlB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Noble Eightfold Path: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Livelihood Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZenForum/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
