Theos-Talk Archives (January 1999 Message tt00190)

>
>Void, emptiness, the non-manifest, the Causeless-cause, the
>unnamable, the immutable, the necessary "background" to
>manifestation - do these not suggest to you what the Buddha may
>in some translator's eyes called "emptiness ?''
>
>Dallas TenBroeck


No Dallas, you are NOT describing emptiness. You are describing
the Ground or what today is translated as the Basis. Emptiness
is form, and form is emptiness. G de Purucker and other early
Theosophists extolled the virtues of swabhava, which Buddhists
abhor being the chief characteristic of maya, and never mentions
the empty nature of forms which is a central Buddhist teaching.
If we really get into the doctrine of emptiness, we have to conclude
that the divine Monad alone has any truth, all else being empty
of true substance. Theosophy does get to this point, but its mesage
of countless monads (which aren't monads) is confusing and very
non-Buddhist.

Jerry S.