Comments on: Samsara, Nirvana and Sunyata

By: gregorylent

gregorylent — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 12:34:42 +0000

for me, emptiness, sunyata, has only to do with “me”, nothing is here inside as i look .. and if that is the essence of me, and “me” is all there is, then emptiness is omnipresent.

but my oh my, how full that emptiness is! everywhere.

By: Ed

Ed — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:54:37 +0000

I agree impermanence is also a feature of form that Buddhist emphasize. I just didn’t realize it was associated with Sunyata (emptiness),

I love the paradox that things are so impermanent that there is no impermanence, i.e., there are really no such things to be impermanent, because a thing implies some degree of permanence (something that persists to be called that thing).

Blows your mind.

By: Katinka Hesselink - All Condering

Katinka Hesselink - All Condering — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:07:03 +0000

The temporary nature of things is actually implicit in things being interdependent. Everything that is caused by outside forces is also likely to fall apart at some point.
Sunyata is too complicated a subject to be fully grasped through just one blog article or even all the articles I put on my website. Stressing the temporary nature is natural from my theosophical background (I tend to equate sunyata and Maya – which isn’t totally fair, but for present purposes will do) – but from other perspectives it’s more natural to stress the limitations to concepts and words – or as you did, the lack of independence.

Still, I did not just invent the impermanence issue. See:

3.1 By observing the preceding-stage and the current-stage conditions, we can verify the Law of Impermanence of all worldly existences. All existences, be they material or mental, be they the material world, or the physical or mental states of sentient beings, are subject to continuous change.

from: http://www.buddhanet.net/cbp2_f6.htm

By: Edr

Edr — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 18:28:30 +0000

My understanding of sunyata (emptiness) is not the impermanence of things, but that things are empty of a self, that is they don’t exist independently from each other or from consciousness.