Thoughts on Emptiness

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  • #129946

    Anonymous
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    In the introduction to the Wind Palm Change, Bruce talks about emptiness. I’m convinced I’ve been getting tiny glimpses of emptiness for many years, but I’ve never had a way to work with it.

    I’ve usually associated the energy of Heaven with emptiness. The quality of infinite space and the expansive feeling that accompanies it. I’ve struggled with whether it is really expanding in or expanding out, whether it is absorbing or condensing, etc.

    Tonight, I perceived the same thing but with a subtle twist – when I get it right, I’d don’t move, I transform. There is always inertia if I have a sense of moving energy from one place to another. But the quality of inertia comes from trying to move. There is no inertia if you don’t have to move. Instead you transform or change something that you are already connected to. If you aren’t connected, you have to connect and that requires movement. You have to move awareness from one place where you have it, to another place where you don’t. That takes time. That produces inertia.

    If you are already connected, you don’t have to move. There is no delay. But you still have to change. Emptiness just makes it instantaneous. This also fits dispersion very well. You no longer have a sense of localized consciousness. Your awareness is dispersed. There is a little bit everywhere you are connected to.

    So, don’t move…transform, change. And use emptiness as the means.

    In the jing phase you master the blood circulation. In the Chi phase, you master the CSF and CNS. In the shen phase you start to understand awareness by getting glimpses of emptiness and trying understand all of your inertia. Eventually you should be able to work with more and more emptiness while getting clearer and clearer about your awareness or spirit. Wu phase will be the big hit of emptiness. And finally the Tao is about getting connected to everything so emptiness can be fully realized.

    #136681

    Anonymous
    Guest

    Who knows where this will take me, but it seems to make sense. If nothing else it is the first time I’ve felt like I understand what the shen phase is about and why Bagua is the art of change and the I Ching is the book of changes.

    #136682

    Anonymous
    Guest

    dualism:

    The Prajna Paramita Sutra:
    form is emptiness and emptiness is form

    inertia is not-movement
    and
    movement is not-inertia

    here is you, inertia
    here is space, movement
    This is dualistic.

    But:
    inertia is inertia
    and
    movement is movement
    This is non-dualistic.

    When your practice of the Wind Palm Change
    becomes effortless,
    it is the stage of non-dualism.
    So to find your own way under some restriction is the way of practice
    Shunryu Suzuki

    emptiness releases all inertia
    Bruce at 6:22

    form/inertia/manifestation/means
    and
    emptiness/movement/spaciousness/end

    means is not-the-end
    and
    end is not-the-means

    means are means
    and
    end is end

    Bob

    #136683

    Anonymous
    Guest

    I wonder if the transformation I’m feeling is neither yin nor yang.

    If you think about it, yang usually implies expanding. It implies movement. At some point you stop thinking about it as going out. It isn’t just going out. It is expanding in all directions including in. That’s quite a bit different.

    The same can be said on the yin side. Letting it all in doesn’t just have to refer to going into the center of the body. It can mean going into any point or all of them. So, if I absorb into the surface of a sphere from the dead center of it, how is that different than expanding from the center to the periphery?

    Suddenly, there less no difference between them. It is both yin and yang.

    But where is neither yin nor yang? The key may be transformation. In the previous examples (yang, yin, both yin and yang), there is always movement. If you don’t move, but simply expand or absorb at each place – that could be considered neither yin nor yang.

    It requires consciousness. It requires a living awareness at all of the places that are expanding or absorbing. Nothing moves so it is still.

    I’m not at emptiness yet. I’ve only arrived at stillness.

    #136684

    Anonymous
    Guest

    Where is neither yin nor yang?

    I find it at the end of inhalation,
    just before exhalation begins,
    which is a non-place, not-existant.

    Ancient mystics and sages have found an indescribable Light or the Sound of no sound—Where? It varies.

    #136685

    Anonymous
    Guest

    emptiness in Tibetan Buddhism
    “implies radiance and the intrinsic light of our own nature”
    an analysis of “The Tibetan Book of the Dead” practices
    by Stein, “Let there be Light; Experiencing Inner Light across the World’s Sacred Traditions” (2017)
    Looks like a characteristic of shen

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