Emptiness
The concept of emptiness is a basic tenant for all schools of Buddhism. I practice Vajrayana Buddhism which literally translated means “diamond path” and encompasses both Hinayana (Theravada) and Mahayana schools. However, I was not able to put all of the different concepts and teachings together until recently.
The idea of emptiness is what first drew me to Buddhism. The basic notion of emptiness is that things and events have no objective meaning. That is to say, the observer projects meaning onto phenomenon and so creates his or her reality. This is not to say that things and events do not exist at all (a nihilistic viewpoint), but rather they do not exist as we think they do. In fact the mind creates meaning and so creates our reality. My explanation here is brief and quite shallow but you get the idea. The concept of emptiness is incredibly deep and takes a lot of study and meditation to fully understand.
What had eluded me for some reason was why an intuitive understanding of emptiness is so important. The idea is really very simple: If our mind creates reality, when we transform our mind we change reality. Instead of things and events becoming a source of suffering, we can transform them with our minds to become a source of enlightenment. Now do not get me wrong, this kind of transformation takes an incredible amount of effort. But my point is, I guess if I have one, is that for the first time in my studies and meditation, I truly understand both intellectually and intuitively, that it is possible to achieve that ultimate goal of enlightenment for the sake of self and others.
Blessings
Date: June 30, 2008 8:04 AM
Mood: Optimistic
The idea of emptiness is what first drew me to Buddhism. The basic notion of emptiness is that things and events have no objective meaning. That is to say, the observer projects meaning onto phenomenon and so creates his or her reality. This is not to say that things and events do not exist at all (a nihilistic viewpoint), but rather they do not exist as we think they do. In fact the mind creates meaning and so creates our reality. My explanation here is brief and quite shallow but you get the idea. The concept of emptiness is incredibly deep and takes a lot of study and meditation to fully understand.
What had eluded me for some reason was why an intuitive understanding of emptiness is so important. The idea is really very simple: If our mind creates reality, when we transform our mind we change reality. Instead of things and events becoming a source of suffering, we can transform them with our minds to become a source of enlightenment. Now do not get me wrong, this kind of transformation takes an incredible amount of effort. But my point is, I guess if I have one, is that for the first time in my studies and meditation, I truly understand both intellectually and intuitively, that it is possible to achieve that ultimate goal of enlightenment for the sake of self and others.
Blessings
Date: June 30, 2008 8:04 AM
Mood: Optimistic
Labels: Buddhism
posted by Mark at
7:35 AM
1 Comments:
It's funny that you posted this..because it is exactly what I've been experiencing lately. You posted a comment on my blog some time ago that eluded to this very ideal. I think about it quite a bit and recently, I have begun changing my own reality by changing my perception of it. I have been enlightened.
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