Theos-Talk Archives (November 2000 Message tt00112)

The practitioner of the Vajrayana sees poison as nectar 
because 
both are empty and in essence the same; for him the nature of 
all 
things is emptiness. But lamas point out that this emptiness 
cannot 
be pictured or defined: It is not the image of blankness or dead 
space that may come to mind. It is reality itself, the indescribable 
source of everything, yet not itself a thing. We might call it the 
spiritual essence of the world that cannot be named, grasped, or 
otherwise limited. Beyond all substance it pervades all things. 
We 
cannot perceive emptiness as something separate from us; we 
can only 
experience it in the ultimate depths of ourselves and the world 
around us. It resembles the wind that can be felt but not seen, or 
the invisible space in which all things are immersed like 
pebbles in 
the pool of a mountain stream. The follower of the Vajrayana cuts 
through the opaque and solid appearance of the world to find at 
its 
core, gleaming like a diamond, the clear and indestructible 
emptiness 
that has nothing left in it to be seen or destroyed. But all this is 
merely metaphor to suggest an experience of reality that lies 
beyond 
words and thought. . . . 

Though words are spoken to explain the Void, 
The Void as such can never be expressed.

EDWIN BERNBAUM

**************************************************