Emptiness
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- Опубліковано 20 лют 2023
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Letters to a Dead Friend about Zen got me into practicing zen and saved my life. My life was a train wreck before I read that book 💯. I recommend it to everyone even remotely interested in Buddhism.
I think I’m gonna read it again
French Buddhists getting into political arguments about emptiness sounds like a Monty Python skit. How absurd.
AZI, not "French Buddhists".
Maybe it's because some people would like their emptiness to be more empty then other people's emptiness 🤔😜
Brad, there is no knowing what the French Soto group takes exception with without communication with them. However, keep in mind they have some objection to the FRENCH version of your explanation. Many things get lost in translation.
Good point!!!
French Soto is essentially the AZI (Zen International Association) which was founded by Deshimaru, who presented himself as the only true disciple of Sawaki and, when he died, left behind a crowd of unprepared people who vied for power like their lives depended on it. I think they are just afraid of Brad as a potential serious challenger to their power (because power is all they care about). If only they knew how interested in power Brad is... ROFLMAO
@@proulxmontpellier Taking your word on the AZI (I've had no experience with them), they don't seem to be operating in the same spirit of Zen that Sawaki transmitted. But, living in Japan I can say that the AZI seems to be right in the spirit of the Soto Shu. While working in Yokohama, I started classes at the Sojiji training monastery. Few Soto temples take westerners for classes. Sojiji is an exception because of its size. My Japanese friends said the downside were the power games there. I never noticed them, as an American I was always presented with the same smiling faces I might encounter at tourist information stand...lol. The classes at Sojiji were very good introductions done in English but were perfunctory. I had been practicing in different Zen sanghas almost consistently for 15 years by that time.
Through friends I was able to find an English sangha in Kamakura south of Yokohama the teacher was associated with the Rinzai Temple, Engaku-ji in Kamakura. So while not an "official" part of the temple we nevertheless practiced there during the summer sessions. This was 1999 and they were very open to Westerners. I was able to easily learn more Japanese in return for my English. Now, I believe you can take Japanese classes officially at the temple. The Japanese friends I made at Engaku-ji said there is very little power gaming by the ordained monks. The games are played by the trustee families who have been donating to the temple for hundreds of years and have definite ideas about who should be making decisions with their money.
Cheers mate
Brad, I love what you wrote. I myself skip over the Godsilly part having been more into Dune and The Lord of the Rings at that age (or now) but after that it is pure zen, very much in the spirit of Suzuki Roshi's lectures (he even talks about "letters from emptiness" at some point- that may be a title of one of his books I have here but I am too lazy to look right now). It's poetry and clearly comes straight from the heart. So, as a friend of mine used to say in such situations, "f ... 'em if they can't take a joke!"
If you meet the Buddha on the road, playing Kashmir... Party on, dudes!
Rock on Bro
The network of light between the stars is empty space.
Thanks for taking the time to share. Tricky and paradoxical. I ponder the emptiness of emptiness, something about dependent origination when no thing can be boiled down to an intrinsic base…..just another knot of words, thoughts , conjecture. Respect 🙏
Fantastic starting off with Kasmir👏👏. You got me thinking about the universe and my temporary place in it. I like the idea that scientists have no clue where the Big Bang came from- it came from nothing! Emptiness! Brilliant. Lol
In these cases, the only thing left to do is to speculate. I think there are two things, the formal question, Godzilla and the sacred silence .... and the question of territory... I mean that they carry their own use of symbols and ways of presenting them ...and they do not want to take risks with what they suppose to be alien to the authenticity of the form. It is nothing new...
As for your approach to emptiness or silence, I consider your text beautiful, fresh and very accurate. And the use of Godzilla as a shared and lived experience gives a tenderness to this matter that in our minds seems terrifying, as emptiness should carry other adjectives that are the ones that best suggest how it is experienced, the familiarity of being at home and nurtured, as if you were 7 years old and the world before you.
Greetings.
A unique take on emptiness. Not offensive in the least.. To my way of thinking emptiness equates with insubstantial, because of constant change to all material objects. As the Bhudda said all compounded things decay.. Every thing is in process of coming together or decaying here today gone tomorrow including us. All return to the One. The One brings all into existence. It is well beyond words to express and well beyond the rational mind to comprehend this yet available to those who in good faith contemplate this mystery.
"A unique take on emptiness."
By 'unique' you mean the take is held by only ONE person?
Hmmm, 'the French' can be very formal and tradition-driven. And if irreverence is too American it would scratch... I found the beginning of your take on emptiness scratch a bit too but you got to where everyone else gets anyway and suddenly I like it more than the very formal, reverential take that many Soto groups adapt. Maybe that's where they are: hanging in the ties of formality.
I appreciate your consideration of the possibility that there might be some other explanation for the French group's issues with you, but assuming that it has to do with your actual views on emptiness, the only explanation I think I can come up with is this: My understanding of emptiness from every other Buddhist source I've seen or read is that it's emptiness not as immateriality or insubstantiality (except insofar as its emptiness of self), and not even the unimaginable. From your writing, maybe they took exception to the suggestion that emptiness is actual nothingness (though you say explicitly that it's not a literal void and spoke even of nothingness itself as everything), rather than potential (which absence of substantial self means to me) -- i.e., the potential which is afforded by no-self and allows for the existence of form. In other words, perhaps they see emptiness not as nothingness, but potential. Not stark, but rich. Interestingly, you touched on this, too, so it makes me wonder if they even read the entire chapter, and that lends credence to the other explanations for their issue that you stated at the end of the video.
Either way, I admire you for being yourself and staying true to your values, and not giving up because other people, at best, misunderstand, or, at worst, understand completely and then denigrate you because of it. I wish I knew how not to care when people criticize or disparage me or at least handle it with grace instead of feeling hurt. So I admire you for your ability to handle those situations, too, especially when that sort of behavior comes from professed spiritual people it's not much more insidious, disappointing, and frustrating, at least to me.
"Either way, I admire you for being yourself"
Thats no guarantee of being right or wrong.
Can you explain the "reasons that are far too nerdy to go into here" please?
Tell me what time u talk about emptiness
More than once -- both in a history of Buddhism class I took, and in various books I've read -- I've been warned not to identify emptiness with absence, nothingness, or the void. Rather, emptiness is to be taken as the notion that entities do not have an intrinsic nature or an intrinsic self. This seems to be pretty much the orthodox Mahayana understanding, so I can see why they'd disagree with your take.
Yes...the word emptiness originally meant 'without'.
I totally thought they weren't going to publish you because of your stance on a certain pokey pokey. But emptiness - j'accuse!
Perhaps the problem is an ontological one that results from using the noun emptiness instead of the adjective empty which seems to imply that things are not just empty but really Emptiness as if there were an additional dimension to reality beyond our human experience. Add to that some Christian references that may sound like Emptiness is something like God... And that is not what the Buddha taught originally, as far as I know.
Their use of the term “offensive” sounds territorial to me. But, who knows! In truth, it should be up to them to explain … or seek clarification. This would be an opportunity for a dialogue. If they are not coming from that position, they have another rationale/reason besides disagreement. In any case, I think it’s a masterful summary!
It IS territorial.
My guitar teacher taught me Kashmir in DADGAD when I was a kid and the alt tuning blew my freaking mind. My fave metal guy Devin Townsend makes all his weird ass music (his quote, not mine) in pretty much entirely CGCGCE (open C) and its so much fun to play
I think Eric Gales plays it in standard tuning so I will have to listen to that one....
There seems to be a tendency to reify concepts. Our mind has a hard time with stuff that isn't stuff. Looking for an analogy for "emptiness" may produce results that are counter to the intended use of the term. What if "emptiness" is a device, like a finger pointing to the moon?
Can you ask them directly? In my experience, it is always a different situation than I think it is. And orgs tend to be less a chorus and more an ongoing discussion group.
If there's a way of asking them, it would be nice to get a sense of their interpretation of sunyata, to see where they are coming from.
I see no way of guessing without more to go on.
Maybe the "darkness" implications. Religion is supposed to be "light" not "dark".
Zen tends to balance light and dark, and often uses them to denote the relative world (light) and ultimate truth/emptiness (dark) as in The Indentity of Relative and Absolute:
"Light is also darkness but do not think of it as darkness. Darkness is light, do not see it as klight. Light and darkness are not one, not two, like the foot before and the foot behind in walking."
I agree that it is likely due to the use of the word darkness.
A UA-cam channel called SEEKER to SEEKER did a very interesting video on emptiness. Its worth a a watch. But, i think i like your version better 😅
Hey Brad was it a French translation of your book?..if so maybe there is some culture reference that didn't work. Who knows.
It was translated. I've asked the translator. He suggested it might have something to do with the word they used for "emptiness." Who knows? Je ne sais!
No, it's not a matter of translation. It's essentially territorial. The AZI is obsessed with power.
Having heard you read it, it seems strange that the French Soto folk are objecting to that passage. Even if they did disagree on grounds of it being a bad explanation (which I don't think it is) are they going to object to every Buddhist book that they disagree with?
I suspect it is political in the sense you are using and am reminded of when Jiyu Kennett was trying to come back to the UK from Japan and the British Buddhist establishment came up with all kinds of reasons that they did not recognise her training and transmission. But, I may be doing them an injustice and they really do have a problem with the passage. As someone else suggested, I guess the best thing is to ask them.
"are they going to object to every Buddhist book that they disagree with?"
Yes, thats part of their job...to defend the dharma as they understand it.
I thought emptiness was about phenomena and objects not having essential existence to them .. dependent arising and all that ..
I like your take on emptiness and it can be seen as provocative if someone is into a very serious Za Zen practice and attitude with Kyo Saku and so on..... I was in some sesshins led by brilliant French Zen monks from the AZI . The approach is very impressive , traditional old school Japanese style ....Not much inclination for jokes or funny associations to be seen there, just : sit down and shut up !
Yeah I see nothing wrong with your take on emptiness. And I agree with your comparisons to St. John of the Cross's Dark Night of the Soul, which also expresses another key concept (anatta or non-self) which is central to Buddhism and inter-related to sunyata or emptiness. Overall I see nothing offensive or absurdly un-orthodox about your interpretation of emptiness, which is such a deep topic anyways that not everyone will have the exact same way of explaining it.
I always play in DADGAD =)
“You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.”
― John Lydgate
Emptiness itself is empty. Your answer sort of suggested that Emptiness is a thing. Maybe the French are offended by this.
Brad
You're an American, their French. Just because they're Buddhists doesn't mean they're not biased. It's understood.
oh I thought the song was Lose Yourself by Eminem and then I realized this sounded like Wake Up by Rage Against The Machine (from Matrix soundtrack) too! Somehow I wasn't familiar with the Led Zeppelin song :o
Losr Yourself is such a buddhist title
And the chorus of Without me could be words spoken by Buddha!
Led Zeppelin Is the greatest band of all time 🤘 ❤️🦖👽😜👍 remember your towel
Nothing wrong with that!
You got nothing to bring to the table on the subject lol
HA!
Honestly my guess is either a translation issue (still seems weird as isn't Zen supposed to be more focused on meditation practice and firsthand insight rather than dogmatically adhering to texts and other people's explanations? Seems very non-zen to me to just dismiss someone's explanation of their subjective experience of emptiness based on a real and decades long meditation practice) OR an excuse to mess with you for your defense of anti-vaxxers.
Maybe because they don't like you reverend king a Christian, st John of the cross
you may be right about the territorial pissing contest. The soto zen people have an irritating habit of presenting themselves as the popes of buddhism...
The alternative to having POPES is chaos...a free-for-all where everyone makes up their own dharma.
@@Teller3448 really? you need someone to tell you what's what to keep you from facing the void? Coming to think of it: try facing the void...
@@4kassis Yes this is why the dharma was written down instead of being orally transmitted.
@@Teller3448 so you are really good at Sanskrit, Japanese, Chinese and Pali? or are you relying on someone's oral interpretation, as in: a teacher explaining things to you?
@@4kassis Buddhists rely on a consensus of translation....not one person translating the source texts. The alternative is to have no dharma written down...so that everyone just makes up their own story. Imagine a history prof saying to his students before an exam...
"Nevermind what the textbooks say...just make up your own answers based on personal preference, like selecting ice cream flavors."
I disagree with the book on emptiness, as well as the silly physics in it.
In the universe, there is no emptiness without somethingness. Emptiness is a stress, and quarks arise and decay in and out of it quadrillions of times per second. The universe was never empty, it expands into all photons, and contracts into all darkness+mass. People shouldn't speculate as if speculation is facts. At a minimum, the universe is 300 billion light years in radius. All dark. But it spins, and as the outer perimeter spins near the speed of light, matter is flung off, expanding spacetime, increasing entropy, and the universe expands as a disc. Mass to energy to mass, endlessly, in a 960 billion year cycle.
Emptiness is of 2 types:
1) there is no life at all in matter. The only thing that exists in the material universe is matter/mass/energy.
2) there is an emptiness of Cessation, death. When the spirit disconnects from consciousness, a bidirectional field of the nervous system wherein sensory input is radiated.
...you are taking the emptiness of Zen as literal non existence... that isn't the correct way to understand emptiness. Zen emptiness can be easily misconstrued.
Emptiness is a realization coming from deep within yourself... it isn't someTHING, but it isn't literal non existence nothingness either. It is neither actual literal "nothingness", yet it isn't actually "somethingness" either. It transcends binaries, as such, it transcends being something you can grasp at as a THING.... Words are limited, which is why, all you can say of it, is it is empty, since it isn't anyTHING we can grasp at. It isn't a thing that can be categorised as a thing. But it isn't actual nothing either.
Emptiness is difficult to understand unless you have a realization of it, and it is very hard to talk about it, because it transcends words, words just limit it.
Think of love, how can you explain love in words? You can't. Now, i am no scientist, not at all, but, i do know, science can't explain what love is, science can give you a technical definition, like, all these chemicals come into your brain and stuff starts to change and such, but, love is deeper than that. Love goes into the realm of theories in psychology. You can only experience it to understand what love really is. Words are pointers to it, but, not it.
Same with emptiness. You have to realize it from deep within youurself to fully grasp the realization, yet, once realized, you cannot actually explain it to others without it being distorted and not understood from deep within.
Emptiness is only experiential in nature. You cannot understand it unless you come to the realization of it. Emptiness is only perceived when you dig deep enough into yourself. As such, it is a way to see the world, as Zen would say, it is Reality.
Now, emptiness is an actual realization, an understanding that many have understood in the past, all the way up to now. It is a curious thing. I would love for people to try and study those who understand emptiness, as it is a phenomenon that spans across many religions, spiritualities, teachings and philosophies.
Would be great to get to know the mind and beyond it more, as this area of understanding is so lacking in todays world, to understand yourself and how you work so deeply, and how we relate to the world, to understand the underlying nature of reality as it is without distortion of different perceptions, a clear mind, so to speak.
There is a HUGE lack of understanding of this type of thing, of deeply understanding ourselves and how we relate to the world, which is so important. But, no one seems to care...
I am not dissing science, i really respect science. However, there are some things science just cannot answer.
Just thought i would put my perspective across.
I respect your viewpoint, however, Zen emptiness is different to what you are perceiving of it, as literal nothingness.
Sorry for the wall of text, lol.
@@0TricksterLove0 I know what the emptiness/death is. And I define consciousness as a bidirectional field of the nervous system wherein sensory input is radiated. The spirit is awareness, which reads consciousness; conscience, which signals NOT OK; and a power of intent, which writes consciousness to initiate thought or muscular movement or to maintain a focus/attention. Emptiness is simply a total disconnect of the spirit from consciousness, it's death. And it's not mysterious or impossible to describe. It's just emptiness, empty of everything. Including space+time. Not much different than closing your eyes. The emptiness isn't very important. The importance of the ability or experience is seeing that we detach and attach due to any intent connected with mind+body. And we also see what we really are.
@@chadkline4268 disagree that it is death in the way you say it is....although, in a way, it is death, in a way, it isn't death.
i mean, to me, we are all empty, every instant before and after we come to think of a sentence, before and after we have thought about something, and also before and after we see an image in our mind, we are in this Zen emptiness, yet, we are still here. This "emptiness" is the creator of thoughts, which thought and images and such, is of our own creation.
This is just my perception though.
The emptiness is that "empty" state before we think things into our minds.
However, we cannot say it doesn't exist, so much as we can say it exists.
It is "empty", yet, from that empty state, everyTHING, all creation occurs.
We are all emptiness at the basis of our existence because of this, yet we still "exist", just not in the way we usually perceive ourselves. Every thought and vision comes from this emptiness. However, creation creates perception. Perceptions can easily be changed, therefore, have no actual fixed existence in them. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form, as the saying goes.
Emptiness is that state, the pauses between words and thoughts, all form. To me, the creation isn't the creator. However, the creator can create everything from this empty state. We cannot say it is fully nothingness if we still are alive and able to create..
When we are alive in this body, you cannot have one without the other. We cannot have creation without emptiness. For me, emptiness is just our state before we think and feel and see images in our mind. The emptiness is that "thingless thing" that is what gives us our creation, aka, "things".
Emptiness is important because we exist in emptiness. Our very Being is it.
Just my opinion based on deep inquiry into myself.
You are free to have your perspective, however, it is different to what Zen talks about.
@@0TricksterLove0
1. The spirit is what we are, as I defined it. It is the sense of 'am here', our presence, the life principle. We don't change into something else, not that you said we do. The spirit never ages, rests, gets ill, sleeps, or dies. It is zero dimensional, without any material basis, and performs the same functions by day and night, reading sensory/dream consciousness, and writing back in accord with conscience via intent to initiate actions. A nervous system cannot function without a spirit. All sentient creatures with a nervous system require a spirit to function, to perform the I/O. Biological machines such a as bacteria, fungi, plants, etc, are just machinery. Their I/O is mechanical.
2. There isn't any need to bother with emptiness as you are striving to do. I don't disagree with your before+after things as a view of some kind of emptiness, but it's not a true emptiness as long as we are bound to a mind+body. You are the same by day as in a dream at night. Presence/spirit. What is important is maintaining mindfulness to avoid Samsara drowning it in sensuality. There's only 2 ways to live. Either you can maintain mindfulness at every moment and hold the reigns, or Samsara holds the reigns.
3. Buddhism is, generally speaking, a waste of time if you are not seriously dedicated. If you fail to end rebirth, any time spent with Buddhism was just wasted time. And rather than discuss intellectual ideas or concepts of emptiness, it far more important to practice meditation, 1, 2, 4, 8 or more hours without missing a single breath, developing unbroken concentration, letting go of subtle sensual clinging, striving in life with virtue, obedience to conscience. Avoiding entanglements or associations with bad influences. All the things the Buddha taught.
I understand what you said. But I also say that what is far more important is attaining the Sphere of Neither Perception nor Non Perception which is a meditative state where there is only meditation space, no mind, no body, no world. It's not that you are just not aware of them, but these things are totally shut down, just as in a dream, your body+mind are shut down, turned off. And then, dissatisfied with even that attainment, to continue beyond. And what is beyond is death, or the deathless, depending on how you choose to say it. But even that is only a beginning. I think that is stream entry. That is emptiness beyond all concepts. Other things are really not emptiness. Emptiness is vanquishing all of the material universe into oblivion, including space+time.
It seems like you upset the institutional apple cart just by offering a different view of Emptiness that may challenge their dogmatic approach. So what! Consider it like one of those old fashioned dharma challenges. If their Emptiness doctrine is the only one true view of it, they should offer it to Soto schools everywhere without inhibition and ready for questioning. It’s quite comical and a grand expression of ego on their part. Dog park fun! Viva Ziggy!
"offering a different view of Emptiness that may challenge their dogmatic approach."
Is 'different' a synonym for truth?
Is the rebel always right?
@@Teller3448 The person who has gained firsthand insight through a meditation practice is always right, yes. Even though (perhaps especially when) their explanations of those insights differ from others. True reality is inherently inexplicable through words and contains many paradoxes.
@@ForeverMasterless "The person who has gained firsthand insight through a meditation practice is always right, yes."
Not at all...the life stories of the great masters are replete with first hand insights that later turned out to be delusional or incomplete. Thats why their stories are written down as a guide for future generations.
If any Soto Zen group had a serious issue about your explanations of "emptiness" in "lettrrs to a a dead friend about zen" wether in its original version or its french translation, they should be able to come forward and discuss it openly. They could contact you directly for instance or publish their claims in any format (magazine article, blog entry, etc. ...) . If they don't, either the issue is not that serious or their position is not that clear. I can see why people may not see the relevance in your references to pop culture, punk scene, or personal anecdotes . That doesn't mean your arguments are not valid . The points in this video are supported by very ancient , reference texts as the Heart Sutra and respected zen teachers as Kobun Chino. So exactly what wrong is it ? If the word "emptiness" was improperly translated i n french, how it that so ? Unfortunately members of different religious schools tend to behave like football team supporters claiming that "my team is the best, so yours is obviously worse" . When this happen people tend to argue about details and forget the most important points. It may be the case here...
Buddha is nothing and so am I
In that case...what difference does anything make?
"What could possibly have offended these Soto Zen Buddhists?"
What these Soto Zen Buddhists object to is that Brad's definition of emptiness is just plain False as understood by their tradition. They dont like their principles being distorted by someone's personal preferences and vague rambling. If you want to know what emptiness means in the Mahayana...consult the classic texts.
Seems a bit silly considering the point of Zen is a focus on meditation and first-hand insights gained from it rather than dogmatically adhering to writings by other people.
@@ForeverMasterless Calling the source texts 'dogmatic' doesn't make them invalid. What happens if the 'first hand insights' turn out to be delusions, or not aligned with Buddhist principles? What you end up with is chaos...where everyone makes up their own story.
Emptiness refers to the zero-entropy inherent with discrete quantum systems, namely "the universe" itself. Few will realize this in their lifetimes. There's no politics in my take.
just a little question for you, Brad. there is a mythical bird, a swan that drinks only milk out of water. plz, how does it do it?
Pay them no mind. Why mind. They will do as they will do you will do as you will do. If this is so why mind. Question this fully. Because only when we dig do we find answers. I have had many similar instances as well as instances which differ. They say some that st John of the cross expected angels to appear when he practiced mindfulness. Instead he got nothing. His resistance delayed his awakening. But once he accepted nothing he was able to take the next step in this practice which is to realize there is no such thing as a self. The self makes a something out of a nothing. It plays out in the sensory event itself. When such thoughts arise the first thing I do is question who is this that thinks so. And in there I find an answer. It brings joy. 💯
ua-cam.com/video/NbecIBvR3mE/v-deo.html
good intro, dag, kashmir...ok..do no quarter..lol..ok. but im getting to look at your vids, i find them refreshing...sry, i complain a lot, really, too much...i like a lot, so, just to say ...thanx!...yes, if i could, id say a few words to my relative, now its too late. but, nice words...ughhh..but you do speak dead words, so i react, im sorry...cant listen, sorry. ill try next time. yes, im upset, just a bit, bcs..well.....bcs i wonder if you can be really honest. nothing offensive, just the basic premise, ....you never saw emptiness, but ok, no prob..btw, love your try at kashmir..ugh, damn, i complain and talk too much. thnx brad! would have been enough. but, id just advise to speak freely, no books, just free flow of enlightenment. too tall an order, i know. but, do it!...maybe when you get it...plz disregard my post, or advise me to remove it, i will. tho, good posts, im buying into them, dont mind me complaining, plz. subsciber.