HW #30 Psychological and Philosophical Theorizing of Cool

How does this emptiness feel?

Emptiness feels like falling down a bottomless dark hole is how I see a lot of people describing it. We might feel there is a bottom but it is only a part of the emptiness that all of us have. Emptiness is evolved from the experiences such as from memories that we don’t like. Or like psychologist Clive Hazell said, “problematic family backgrounds with abusive relationships and mistreatment” and then to avoid the emptiness, we go into drugs or “obsessive activity” or violence (http://wapedia.mobi/en/Emptiness). Other cases, we would decide to create a hole within the emptiness of "what's missing?", or "wanted desires" that we want and go search for it. A lot of the times, people would say emptiness is a negative feeling, causing us loneliness, which turns to depression. So, to block that emptiness, we fill it with things that can block it and not facing it. Once we find the things, we may have a key for it, or we may find the right road (through the maze we have been walking in) but we may end up with more shape to be locked. I think that is because we tend to have more than what we wish for so we feel the emptiness expands even though it’s never different. Emptiness is always going to be there; it only needs to be found.

However, in Buddhism, emptiness is different. Rather than the dark hole of the emptiness, or trying to fill up the hole, Buddhism’s emptiness refers to the emptiness of inherent existence and is the most fundamental concept of Buddhism. Nothing exist in this world, which equals emptiness but as things do exist through our eyes, or how our mind tells us that it does, we put meaning into it. We have the urge to avoid emptiness because it's blank and that it's convenient for us to talk about the things we see. I think the "inherent existence", even though it means it never changes, unable to change in our mind, the world is changing. But what if we stop our mind, saying that the world is not changing. Then we wheel ourselves back to where "inherent existence" comes from, breaking down all the fundamentals of things and we would arrive to emptiness. Emptiness is the "inherent existence" because it never changes no matter how you think about it. So what do we do? (I think) We make up our own creation of Emptiness, which is the form of Emptiness. (*I will attach a paragraph that a buddhist practitioner talked about at the end that connects to this~ Thanks to Bao Lin~*).

It is to find the truth deep in yourself as you see the experiences in a fair view and to go to the “enlightenment”. Unlike the emptiness that western cultures have and where cool comes from, where one feels emptiness because of the lack of "value", the importance of his/her being in the society, said Matt Fried, the psychologist who have talked in our class. Which makes him or her want to become cool, to fill in the emptiness with the value that are gained from being cool. We want to have "value" from people to fill the emptiness. But I do wonder, if the lack of value have caused the emptiness or emptiness is the one that made us realize the lack of value, thus causing emptiness to surface in our mind.

Coming back to Buddhism, I think before arriving to the enlightenment, we have to become the observer, to not make unbalanced judgment of the situation we are dealing with. It is because if we can face the situation without pointing fingers, we are able to understand it more. Feelings are a way to put our answers and judgment forward without seeking the real fairness in it. In a way, feelings are distractions from the “justice” answer. On the other hand, if we look at the situations as calmly and fairly as possible, we see that it might not have been a big deal, that there was no need to have started it anyway.

Enlightenment plays an essential role in Buddhism. It is a process where we try to not feel anything, to achieve a pure mind. Once we do not feel anything, and that all energy and thinking are withdrawn, the sense of “pure emptiness” will come. Because if we do not think about anything, just breathing and relaxing through our body and our inner state of mind, it’s not a dark hole we are experiencing, it’s the sense of lightness, which equals light or what the Buddhists called, “Clear Light”. In Buddhism: “emptiness is form. Form is emptiness” (translated from the sutra). In my opinion, the form of emptiness is something we make of it but it is the same as everybody because it’s the same light and light can take many forms or none. It can be anything but more importantly, it needs to have light to connect to Buddha as it does for all the other Holy Gods. By having enlightenment, people would began to understand the nature of, I guess, mostly everything. It’s like taking away everything and then sees everything differently because of what’s been taken away.

Thanks to my friend, Michelle:

“有即是无，无即是有” means “having is nothing, nothing is having”. This is similar to “Emptiness is form. Form is emptiness”. Even if you have something, it is nothing; the concept of emptiness. In Buddhism, to not ask for anything that normal human wants but asks for the good prosperity and peace. To be able to sacrifice yourself for everybody without asking for any payback gives you the emptiness that Buddha or Siddhārtha Gautama is asking for. This is hard for humans to do. It is also hard for us to empty ourselves into the form that is emptiness because we have all these emotions and desires that Buddha does not want. It is because we are human that we would not be able to “Awaken” like Buddha has been called “Awakened One” or free of ourselves (http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM).

Siddhārtha Gautama, the originator of Buddhism, or the Buddha himself explained his “Four Noble Truths”, which is the foundation of all Buddhist belief:

1.) All human life is suffering (dhukka ).
2.) All suffering is caused by human desire, particularly the desire that impermanent things be permanent.
3.) Human suffering can be ended by ending human desire.

4.) Desire can be ended by following the "Eightfold Noble Path": right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM

When reading this, I thought if human suffering is ended, there would only be nothing. However, in that website, it is explained that the Eightfold Noble Path is “the elimination of one’s desires and one’s attachment to one’s self”. If we are able to do that, we can understand the nature of the universe, which this starts to follow the Eighfold, the right understanding. After all that eight steps are finished, we are left with no longer existing because we are going to be one with the others. Or maybe, that it is saying the human self would not exist, but end up as a celestial being that follows under Buddha/ Siddhārtha Gautama. In the article, it said its not clarified what Siddhārtha Gautama teachings have bought to people because Buddhism has been split into sects. I think it is because the humans have not sought enough emptiness in themselves that started the sects. We keep thinking this and that as to whether how Buddha wanted us to achieve the emptiness but it is simple, just glide yourself to emptiness.

I think I can see that emptiness is not a negative feeling or positive but both from reading the emptiness that our culture have and Buddhism have. Emptiness is always connected to the middle, the neutral side so it's one reason why we can never explain emptiness well enough that now the idea of emptiness has been split into many explanations. Humans always want an answer and I think being in the middle, there are no answers because it contains both. So when describing the form of emptiness, we tend to say it is a dark hole or it is light (enlightenment) because we want to stick it into one single answer (hmm, I think there's another word for it but I'm not sure). However, another idea that made people describe emptiness is the color because color can have a lot of meanings but common ones we use to describe emptiness is black is dark, gloomy and white is good and positive. Therefore, the color that is reflected in our inner mind allows us to form emptiness.

Here are the articles. I didn't place the link above for some because I combined the reading I have to answer the question. Sorry for the inconvenience.

http://wapedia.mobi/en/Emptiness
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Emptiness
http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html
http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/BUDDHISM/SIDD.HTM

*

As what you ask saying what is “inherent existence”, his example was a pen that I am holding. You can imagine, this is a pen, P-E-N, pen. Then think more detail of a pen, here is this part, there is this part, in there is the ink…etc., then you notice you write with it. Then you put down your pen, and then you ask, is this a pen? You know this pen is not going to be a pen forever, but the moment you put it down, does that moment that you are holding the pen, the pen a pen? Because that moment passed already, so you think and ask yourself, does that once exist? You can think of it is all about our own perception of the world, (okay, this is complicated; I hoped I can explain it right). We named it a pen for our own convenient, so in our world, we think the pen exists. But going back, obviously, this is not a pen. We have the temptation to give things a meaning, to avoid emptiness. But ultimately, in our lives, nothing really does exist. “Inherent existence” means something that will not changed, unable to change. It is already the way it is, like nature, most natural things; they might be considering inherent existence things.

In Buddhism, emptiness is the most fundamental concept. Like you asked, people can’t really empty their minds or emotions…absolute detached. They are still there; these things are still in your mind. BUT, if you can imagine a cup as your brain, and they are muddy, what we are doing, is stirring them every day, so we barely can see the water. It is all mixed, just like the way we function ourselves every day in lives. But by doing meditation, practice Buddhism, they learned how to calm themselves down, let everything be, just like stop stirring the cup of water, then the mud will sink to the bottom, a clear cup of water. So emptying something doesn’t mean they are not there. It is still there, my own thinking of this, was that, perhaps, “emptiness” itself, it an inherent existence, because it is there, although it keeps changing, but the concept or experience that we have towards emptiness, is still there. So I guess, the feeling of emptiness, is part of us, and it is consider, inherent existence in our lives.