[MD] emptiness

[Ham Priday]

Hi there, Marsha --


On Sat. 12/17/2011 at 2:13 PM, Marsha V valkyr at all.net wrote:

[Quoting Nagarjuna, previously]:

> "Two thousand five hundred years ago, the Buddha was able to realise 
> "emptiness" (s. sunyata).  By doing so he freed himself from 
> unsatisfactoriness (s. dukkha). From the standpoint of enlightenment, 
> sunyata is the reality of all worldly existences (s. dharma). It is the 
> realisation of Bodhi — Prajna.  From the standpoint of liberation, sunyata 
> is the skilful means that disentangle oneself from defilement and 
> unsatisfactoriness.  The realisation of sunyata leads one to no attachment 
> and clinging.  It is the skilful means towards enlightenment and also the 
> fruit of enlightenment."
>
> This too is very interesting...
>
> "Emptiness too, does not exist by way of its own being, as it is without 
> an essential nature.  Emptiness is an absence, not an essence.  When a 
> person discovers that what he or she thought existed does not, the 
> realization is a stunning absence.  We think that things correspond to 
> their appearance and exist in this same way.  We take objects to be exist 
> as their own things, including the self of persons and when such 
> identity, when the establishment of true entities cannot be found, its 
> absence is astonishing."

Interesting as they may be, I feel the need to disabuse you of the "truths" 
you have been promulgating to the Pirsigians.  This isn't a personal 
rebuke, for I know you mean well, and I can well understand the appeal these 
Mahayana teachings have for you.  But in addition to the fact that they are 
inconsistent with the Quality thesis and so will continue to provoke the 
loyalists, they are simply not a source of wisdom or knowledge about 
reality.  I think I can convince you of this by analyzing the assertions 
that constitute Mahāyāna doctrine.

First, let's establish the "conventional" meaning of the term "emptiness". 
The synonyms are 'vacant', 'blank', 'void' or 'vacuous', and the dictionary 
definition is: "lacking contents, especially of usual or normal contents." 
In other words, emptiness is the absence of discrete objects or finite 
entities.  Yet Nagarjuna says Emptiness is not an essence.  How does he know 
that?

According to Wiki: "The two truths doctrine holds that truth exists in 
conventional and ultimate forms, and that both forms are co-existent.  Some 
schools hold that the two truths are ultimately resolved into nonduality as 
a lived experience and are non-different.  "Ultimate truth" is unknowable, 
however.  The doctrine is an especially important element of Buddhism and 
was first expressed in complete modern form by Nāgārjuna, who based it on 
the Kaccāyanagotta Sutta."  But, as D.T. Suzuki points out, "Without a 
theory of cognition, Mahayana philosophy becomes incomprehensible."

"Within the Mahāyāna presentation, the two truths may also refer to specific 
perceived phenomena instead of categorizing teachings.  Conventional truths 
would be the appearances of mistaken awareness--the awareness itself when 
mistaken--together with the objects that appear to it.  To put it another 
way, a conventional truth would be the appearance that includes a duality of 
apprehender and apprehended and objects perceived within that.  Ultimate 
truths, then, are phenomena free from the duality of apprehender and 
apprehended."

But since all knowledge is acquired by the "apprehender" from what is 
"apprehended", it cannot be "free from this duality"; therefore, we cannot 
know that what we experience as "emptiness' (nothingness?) is devoid of 
essence.  Alexander Berzin (2007) says, "All knowable phenomena must be 
members of the set of either one or the other true phenomena, with nothing 
knowable that belongs to either both or neither of the sets.  Consequently, 
understanding the two truths constitutes understanding [the nature of] all 
knowable phenomena."  This is humanly impossible.  The universe is not 
empty, and Absolute Truth remains unknowable.

The Wiki article goes on to say: "During meditation, emptiness is 
experienced as non-conceptual and without subject-object duality.  However 
emptiness teachings resist reification, turning this absence back into an 
independent essence.  And so it is said that emptiness too, is empty. 
Emptiness is not the substance of phenomena, not its “filler,” substratum or 
indicative of the absence of all phenomena.  Emptiness is not an independent 
entity, but is inseparable from form and countless dependent conditions, 
though all empty ones."

So, dear Marsha, while it is nothingness ("emptiness", if you prefer) that 
differentiates objects and entities in experiential existence, we cannot 
conclude that nothingness is the ground of existence, but only that it is a 
necessary contingency of our relational world.  Moreover, to repeat myself, 
nothing comes from nothingness, which should intuitively suggest that the 
Primary Source (i.e., ultimate Reality) is "full" (as Eckhart taught) rather 
than "empty" as Nagarjuna implies.

Again, I'm not trying to put down Buddhism and there's nothing personal 
intended.  However, if you think about the assertions you are accepting as 
"truths" in any logical context, I believe you will see they are flawed 
tenets unsuitable for the development of a metaphysical cosmology -- Eastern 
or Western.

Enjoy the Christmas holiday, and all the best in 2012.

Ham, the Essentialist