The World in a Grain of Sand - being a communication buddha

THINGS appear but THINGS are empty

What does it mean that things are empty?

Reality is really our experiencing of it. Outside of our experiencing of it, it is incoherent and abstract. A universe that lacks experience is meaningless.

Buddhism is about our experiencing of.

The significance is in HOW this experience is - not in the "what it is" aspect.

When we say "what" we reveal a certain way that we approach our experience. We take the "how" and turn it into a "what" or a "that". This shows clearly that for us, this experience is filled with THINGS, subjects, objects, events, moments, memories etc..

But look again at your experience, is this how it really is?

We can deconstruct this assumption - as Ive shown in other posts - and see that in actuality no matter where you turn there is not a single THING that exists.

Of coarse, this also means nor is there a single THING that does NOT exist as well.

If things existed, then they could not be produced (they would always have been) and they would never change. And in so far as "not existing" is the dependent co-relational opposite of "existing", because things don't exist, they don't "not exist" as well.

THINGS appear but THINGS are empty

Go ahead and point to something, anything. THAT is empty. Empty of what? Empty of it's own THING-NESS, it's own self. And this even applies to "emptiness" itself as a THING. Even emptiness is dependent upon THINGS to be empty of their THING-NESS - that is what emptiness means.

So where does this leave us?

The nature of experience is ineffable.

When you look at any experience you are looking at all experience.

"To see the world in a grain of sand.."

Take time for example;

Every moment of what we THINK of as time expresses every other moment of time - stretching forever back and forever forward. "NOW" is not an incalculably small amount of time, NOW is every moment, is ALL moments of time.

When do we experience the past? NOW.

When do we experience the future? NOW.

NOW is ALL time.

NOW IS EMPTINESS

Emptiness (voidness) is our experience as it really is. Although you cannot THINK of this conceptually. Why?

Because concepts are limited in both time and space. Concepts define, they are mental boundaries. Your experience is unbounded. Your experience is too close, too sudden for concepts.

It's important to understand that concepts are a language - or perhaps more accurately, language is concept. Conceptual language is assertion and this is also communication.

To say anything about the way this all is is to assert something conceptually. But because the way this all is is completely ineffable, completely non-conceptual (un-bounded) it seems that we cannot possibly communicate or make sense out of it - even to ourselves.

That's because we try to communicate THINGS, we try to relate to THINGS.

THINGS DON'T EXIST

Relationship exists, communication exists.
Or better yet, these appear.

It's all in the HOW of it.

When you meditate, there should be no THING called meditation. Meditation should be THING-LESS. It is pure relationship whether youre sitting or doing other than sitting. It is how you communicate, how you relate to every experience.

Sitting is a good practice, but you shouldn't sit too much

Everywhere is truth. Every experience is nothing but communication of truth. In zen they say "take care" a lot. This is why.

A Buddha is just a mind that sees this as truth, directly, non-conceptually. A Buddha is a mind that knows emptiness directly, non-conceptually.

You already know this, you just have to notice that you know this to give expression to your Buddha-self.