--- Jill H <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Thank you Alex, > > i am still troubled about the nature of 'boundaries' > & the root of our > cravings/suffering...
There is no need to be troubled by that, Jill. But, read on... > --- In [email protected], Alex Bunard > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > I'm afraid you are confusing emptiness with > > formlessness, > > i think this may be correct. > it is certainly true that 'emptiness' is problematic > for me. It is a very tricky concept, the one that's proven to baffle many people throughout history. > but i have trouble with this view of emptiness. > > this sounds to me too much like a denial of > 'existance' - but my sense > is that emptiness has more to do with 'putting down' > what we 'project > onto' existance. That would be incorrect. What you are talking about is what we usually refer to as 'reality check'. Meaning, somebody gets a wrong idea, starts daydreaming, and then the reality check needs to be administered, so that the daydreamer learns to snap out of the fantasy land and return back to earth. Emptiness in the Buddhist sense (that is, shunyata) is precisely emptiness of existence. The very existence, or any possibility of substantiality, is vehemently denied by shunyata. But also, the very possibility of non-existence is also vehemently denied. Shunyata insists that nothing is permanent, and that nothing is impermanent as well. > sort of like your story of the farmer - emptiness > would refer to the > lack of <farmer/man/direction-giver> as simply an > illusion. > this doesn't mean that there was no 'substance' > there - simply that > our conditioned view 'wrapped that substance' with > an illusory context. That's a wrong interpretation. What that story illustrates, by the means of an analogy, is how anything we may experience is necessarily based on wrong assumptions. For example, not only the farmer, but even the scarecrow was wrongly imputed by the hiker, and is dependently originated based on the presence of some sticks, some straw, an old hat, an old coat, etc. But then even the sticks, the straw, the old coat, the old hat etc. are themselves not substantial. They too are wrongly ascribed based on some other parts, and so on ad infinitum. Basically, any time we examine anything, we realize that we cannot find it. It always turns out that it depends on something else. And then that something else, when examined, turns out to depend on something else, and so on, it's an endless chain that has no beginning and no end. That, in itself, is shunyata -- the realization that there absolutely is no substance to be found anywhere. Everything is merely an imputation by the deluded dreamer. Even the hiker himself is just an erroneously grasped idea. And finally, even the story itself is an erroneously grasped idea. The story illustrating shunyata, the very teaching leading you to freedom, is not there. It's unreal. > this is useful to me to the extent that 'the object > of our > discernment' is not there. but this becomes > problematic for me if you > try to take it past the 'discernment' into the > 'substance' that that > conditioned view is being projected onto. > > i am resistant to the idea that practice would be > about a denial of > existence... To the extent that you cultivate this resistance, to that extent will you subject yourself to suffering. The only possible way out of suffering is acknowleging the Buddha's teaching on impossibility of existence. The very reason why we suffer is because we cling to existence, cling to substantiality. And since existence and substantiality are erroneously perceived (i.e. misperceived) and erroneously conceived (i.e. misconceived) ideas, it is possible to correct the error. And that's what the Buddhist practice is all about -- correcting the error. Once you correct this error, there will be no more possibility of you ever experiencing pain again. Alex No karma was produced during the composition of this letter __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------ 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/
