something about nothing

[Guest guest]

Dear List,

Someone wrote to me:

> This nothing that people talk about? ...

I'm so glad that this arose. So here is something about nothing.

A simple example.

A cup is defined by the hollow shape that holds nothing when empty.

Obviously the cup's function (why it has that shape) is realized when

it holds something: e.g. tea.

But that is only part of the cup's function as the cup of tea by it's

very being there, invites us to empty it by drinking from it. So that

the drinker in turn, (who obviously holds a bit of nothing) may be

'fulfilled by a bit of something, e.g. tea.

This is such beautiful and simple philosophy, the basis of the tea ceremony.

It is a philosophy that arose when the first bowl was about to be made by the first potter.

A momentous occurrence...

Something and nothing are undividedly folded into each other, a loving

celebratory embrace of the inside and outside of self.

That is why my great friend bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara said "Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form."

Void and Form fulfill each other as they are emptying each other out.

To envision the conceptual dichotomy of form and void enabled the

conception and creation of the clay vessel...

It was science... on the same level as us inventing the cyclotron or

the Super Conducting Super Collider.

To address 'just nothingness' is only attending to part of an

enlightened discourse on One-ness, Unity. (Avalokiteshvara

Bodhisattva)

Some people latch on to the nothingness (abstract spirituality), some

latch on to the somethingness (concrete materialism).

A discourse on unity, that often uses the analogy of the vessel (too

often the 'empty' vessel), is intended to help us overcome our

habitual life viewed through separation and in duality; a life that

is habitually lived as though opposites exist as separate realities.

That initial analysis of form and emptiness within the whole was only

a conceptual step that enabled and facilitated the invention of the

bowl...

In this point in time we have just discovered 'gauge' and 'scalar

fields' which exemplify unity rather than duality... What shall we

invent from this?

We have for ages been making bowls, vessels, and containers. (Ah, the

Tupper Ware civilization we still are. :-) We have been filling them

and emptying them..., over time starting to believe that there is

reality to the concept of the separation between form and emptiness

or that there is a realty to opposites and opposition... as though

they have existence in reality.

Love, Wim

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[Guest guest]

>From the _Tao Te Ching_, trans. R.B. Blakney, _The Way of Life: Lao Tzu_

 

11

 

Thirty spokes will converge

In the hub of a wheel;

But the use of the cart

Will depend on the part

Of the hub that is void.

 

With a wall all around

A clay bowl is molded;

But the use of the bowl

Will depend on the part

Of the bowl that is void.

 

Cut out windows and doors

In the house as you build;

But the use of the house

Will depend on the space

In the walls that is void.

 

So advantage is had

>From whatever is there;

But usefulness rises

>From whatever is not.

 

35

 

Once grasp the great Form without form,

And you roam where you will

With no evil to fear,

Calm, peaceful, at ease.

 

At music and viands

The wayfarer stops.

But the Way, when declared,

Seems thin and so flavorless!

 

It is nothing to look at

And nothing to hear;

But used, it will prove

Inexhaustible.