Theos-Talk Archives (November 2000 Message tt00116)

Bravo!

Gene



----- Original Message ----- 
From: <arthra999@yahoo.com>
To: <theos-talk@egroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 2:49 PM
Subject: Theos-World Emptiness and the Void:


> 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
> 
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