Emptiness and dependent arising - Zen

"...Emptiness is another central doctrine of the Mulamadhyamakakarika
[MMK, A central writing by Nagarjuna, sometimes referred to as the "Second Buddha". ].

Without emptiness (sunyata) there could be no two truths. Without emptiness, there could be no dependent arising (pratityasamutpada). What is important to realise about emptiness is that it does not deny the existence of things (conventional reality) but says that all things (everything) have no intrinsic essence.

In other words, nothing exists on its own, divorced or separated from other things. Therefore, everything is interconnected and cannot exist without these ‘other things’, including the self. It’s also important to realise that Nagarjuna really does mean everything, without exception, including the Self, including thoughts, volition, beliefs—quite literally everything. For example, Nagarjuna argues that spatial properties cannot exist on their own. A location cannot exist without an object to be located in that space and, conversely, there cannot be an object without a location for it as all objects must have a location for them to exist in. Both object and location are dependent on each other. (Garfield & Priest, 2003)

Nagarjuna goes on to show that everything is dependent on something else to exist. Nothing can exist without something else existing. This is the meaning of emptiness. And this is dependent arising (pratityasamutpada).
Nagarjuna explains:

Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness
That, being a dependent designation
Is itself the middle way.
Something that is not dependently arisen,
Such a thing does not exist
Therefore a non-empty thing
Does not exist."

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Nagarjuna/zenteachingsofnagarjuna.pdf

Originally posted by Taoman
"...Emptiness is another central doctrine of the Mulamadhyamakakarika
[MMK, A central writing by Nagarjuna, sometimes referred to as the "Second Buddha". ].

Without emptiness (sunyata) there could be no two truths. Without emptiness, there could be no dependent arising (pratityasamutpada). What is important to realise about emptiness is that it does no ...[text shortened]... es not exist."

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Nagarjuna/zenteachingsofnagarjuna.pdf

I suspect posts like these are "honey" to some readers ears,like mine, and potentially a confusing set of largely meaningless enquiries as to why things are like the way the author describes,etc to other posters. 🙂

The western mind and particularly mans role in the last 60 years has been irreversibly changed by a series of grass roots orientated movements (hippes ,punks,etc.), that seemed to gel a lot of people across the world for a different way of living, with job values being closer the to the values of the individual human who may work there.

Since then the "alternative" , (which is really just a return to common sense and a better equality of life for all humans on the planet equally, irrespective of race,age ,sex, sexual orientation and religion), has taken on more complex and potentially weird new areas of human consiousness , ON A MASS SCALE , which was never a possibility in the old world.

Thing is a genuine "free" future for our race will only be possible upon entering some sort of unknown future system, that at the moment is nameless and faceless. But with the coming of future generations and the way science has illuminated so much of our world quite accurately in the 20th century, it is still hard for the average joe to understand what is best for them. (human psychology also being a relatively new science in the west - although very eloquently expressed by writers from the east for millenia. )

Originally posted by karoly aczel
I suspect posts like these are "honey" to some readers ears,like mine, and potentially a confusing set of largely meaningless enquiries as to why things are like the way the author describes,etc to other posters. 🙂

The western mind and particularly mans role in the last 60 years has been irreversibly changed by a series of grass roots orientated mov in the west - although very eloquently expressed by writers from the east for millenia. )

I expect most of those not of conservative fundamentalist background have fled at present. I do at times also. But I like to place another option for some who may be around who like to talk about these views that are shared and basically understood by many millions around the world. Ego is the least of it, so whether there is sometimes little response is like the wind. Sometimes the wind blows west, sometimes the wind blows east. Besides, every now and then the venerable BB joins in and I do so profit from those encounters. A bit selfish of me perhaps.

As to grass roots and changes, a lot does not get into the main media, but one of the great positives of the internet (among its not so postive), I note an increasing level of local and non-mainstream empowerment happening. There are whole cultures and groups becoming politically and socially organised, often trying to change bad stuff about our excessively materialistic society and its obscene imbalances. This is often how real change emerges historically, sometimes quite tumultuous.

To me, things are going to get very thick from a number of angles in the next fifty years and beyond, least of all the increasing challenges of climate change and overpopulation. The dissenters can warble, it won't make any difference to the outcome. We really haven't got a handle on it at all yet, unfortunately. We are in for it as far as I am concerned. Not quite doom but a damn hard and suffering ride for quite a while, probably for centuries. This is my inner pessimist speaking, from the viewpoint of the conditioned world. It is well therefore to pursue or try to understand a way that helps one to deal with such - emptiness and dependent arising.

Cheers.

Originally posted by Taoman
"...Emptiness is another central doctrine of the Mulamadhyamakakarika
[MMK, A central writing by Nagarjuna, sometimes referred to as the "Second Buddha". ].

Without emptiness (sunyata) there could be no two truths. Without emptiness, there could be no dependent arising (pratityasamutpada). What is important to realise about emptiness is that it does no ...[text shortened]... es not exist."

http://www.thezensite.com/ZenEssays/Nagarjuna/zenteachingsofnagarjuna.pdf

There is no “emptiness”.
There is no “not-emptiness”.

Our language gets stuck
in somethings and not-somethings.
We get stuck in our language,
and that stuckness results
in metaphysics of substance,
of essence and existence,
instantiation and not-instantiation,
isness and is-not-ness—
flies buzzing 'round the fly-paper.

If your mirror-mind is clear and free,
such flies find no fly-paper there:

Hummingbird dances
in the crimson begonias—
Are “I”, as I watch,
and “he”, as he dances,
two, or not-two?
empty or not-empty?
dependent or independent?

Choose, and you have already stuck
a dead fly on the mirror.
Think there is a right or wrong answer,
and already you have sullied your Zen.

Zen is not the enemy
of thinking or conceptualization,
of philosophy or science;
such activities have their place—after.

Zen is the enemy
of fly-paper-mind.

A koan:

When the clear mirror
looks into the clear mirror—
whence then such questions?
Whence then such flies?
Whence then even
such talk of Zen?

Hiakajo was asked, "Master, what is Zen?"
"When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep."

Originally posted by vistesd
There is no “emptiness”.
There is no “not-emptiness”.

Our language gets stuck
in somethings and not-somethings.
We get stuck in our language,
and that stuckness results
in metaphysics of substance,
of essence and existence,
instantiation and not-instantiation,
isness and is-not-ness—
flies buzzing 'round the fly-paper.

If ...[text shortened]... ror—
whence then such questions?
Whence then such flies?
Whence then even
such talk of Zen?

Thank you. Mirror facing mirror - a fine metaphor.

But we would not surely say that Nagarjuna was of flypaper mind?

It interesting that he was writing to show all the many worded arguments that were flying around in his day were reducible to a state of no reply, where he would in essence say like other masters that to say I have a stick meant a beating as hard as if you said no stick.
When given a similar reply to his statements similar in tone to your own (a common one as we probably both know) he took it with both hands and said "Yes!" and proceeded to show that even the concept of emptiness was empty.
Words may point and assist, or obfuscate and hinder. If one gets bound to words then they become a blockage and lead away from realization. They were and are still used skillfully and with caution, (cf: the many sutras) with the constant reminders of the sort you so finely bring.
Maintaining rigid silence and blank pages is acting from an absolute idea as well. And while for some it may be the needed confrontation for their imprisonment in words, to shock them out of that reliance, for others the need may be a helpful pointing.
The two central major Buddhist concepts of the OP are often misunderstood and ridiculed through a lack of understanding. The reference from which the post comes gives a clear and helpful explanation.

[edits typographical]

Originally posted by Pianoman1
Hiakajo was asked, "Master, what is Zen?"
"When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep."

Yes, and if they had internet, could it too have been....

"Master, what is Zen?
When wanting to post a post, post a post."
🙂

Autumn night,
a satellite rides
the dripping of my
garden tap.

Originally posted by Taoman
Autumn night,
a satellite rides
the dripping of my
garden tap.

Yes! 🙂

_____________________________________


If Nagarjuna is no fly-paper, that is what he is pointing to. One must even lock eyebrow with a Nagarjuna, if one finds him. He should not point so many fingers (or who collected all his fingers to point with?).

No first or second Buddha.
Don't let Gautamas or Nagarjunas
let you forget who you are!
Buddha locks eyebrows with Buddha...

______________________________________

This tea was too hot to drink,
it is just fine now...

Originally posted by Pianoman1
Hiakajo was asked, "Master, what is Zen?"
"When hungry, eat. When tired, sleep."

And if you meet Hiakajo, what then?

Originally posted by vistesd
Yes! 🙂

_____________________________________


If Nagarjuna is no fly-paper, that is what he is pointing to. One must even lock eyebrow with a Nagarjuna, if one finds him. He should not point so many fingers (or who collected all his fingers to point with?).

No first or second Buddha.
Don't let Gautamas or Nagarjunas
let you forget who ...[text shortened]... _____________________________________

This tea was too hot to drink,
it is just fine now...

Yes, no descriptions, simply have it experienced as an occurrence, as an event. Kasyapa smiled😵

Originally posted by black beetle
Yes, no descriptions, simply have it experienced as an occurrence, as an event. Kasyapa smiled😵

Yes.

On the one hand, that poem from the living-Taoman-Buddha is far more wonderful than all the dead Nagarjunas (or Gautamas, etc.) in the world. Words, yes, but they express the living experienced event—from one to another, as you said elsewhere, “with no hands”.

On the other hand (pun well-intended!)—

You know (and I think our friend Taoman does as well) that mondo is just flipping the two sides of the one coin. It isn’t about disagreement (with Gautama or Nagarjuna—or Lin Chi or Ikkyu or … ). In the traditional stories, the student asks a question, the roshi says “heads” or “tails” and waits to see . . . . The student must demonstrate both the “heads and tails” and the “one coin”. But the mondo, like zazen never really ends, even if it changes forms. At deeper intensities, we “lock eyebrow to eyebrow”—then bow and laugh. No longer any thought of student and roshi. It is not so much a “testing” as a continuing “effective means”—from satori to satori to . . . .

Even if Nagarjuna says “heads and tails and no-heads, no tails”, I am not excused. (“If you meet the Buddha, kill the Buddha; if you meet a Patriarch, kill the Patriarch”—Lin Chi.) Being a beginner, one is not excused; having experienced satori, one is not excused. Hardcore Zen, baby! Or, as the Rasta Bob Marley sang: “Lively up yourself!”

On the other other hand—

There is only one hand!

I bow.

Originally posted by vistesd
Yes.

On the one hand, that poem from the living-Taoman-Buddha is far more wonderful than all the dead Nagarjunas (or Gautamas, etc.) in the world. Words, yes, but they express the living experienced event—from one to another, as you said elsewhere, “with no hands”.

On the other hand (pun well-intended!)—

You know (and I think our friend Taoman does ...[text shortened]... ey sang: “Lively up yourself!”

On the other other hand—

There is only one hand!

I bow.

There is only one hand, yes,
solely when the middle way has neither middle nor two flip sides.
When objective mondo bothers you,
this is the one side;
when your mirror is stained, that is the other;
when neither sides exist,
this is the middle way;
Go, go, go beyond Arcismati my vistesd
Namaste
😵

Originally posted by vistesd
Yes.

On the one hand, that poem from the living-Taoman-Buddha is far more wonderful than all the dead Nagarjunas (or Gautamas, etc.) in the world. Words, yes, but they express the living experienced event—from one to another, as you said elsewhere, “with no hands”.

On the other hand (pun well-intended!)—

You know (and I think our friend Taoman does ...[text shortened]... ey sang: “Lively up yourself!”

On the other other hand—

There is only one hand!

I bow.

"...In the traditional stories, the student asks a question, the roshi says “heads” or “tails” and waits to see . . . . The student must demonstrate both the “heads and tails” and the “one coin”. But the mondo, like zazen never really ends, even if it changes forms."

A most helpful sharing. Thank you.

I find myself often faced with the choice that doesn't matter. Descriptive words ..we can go that way for a while, something will arise..Subtle words...a stream arises and twists and burbles...Silence...or loud bangs!
One of the Tibetan auspicious symbols - the Great vase of unending treasures, arising, arising from the vast emptiness of the Container of utter openness..

Even my errors are accounted for...Proceed full pace with the Victory Banner!

I love these threads, they make aware of how little I know.