Home | Community | Message Board
You are not signed in.
Sign In New Account
Forum Index Search Posts Trusted Vendors Highlights Galleries FAQ User List Chat Store Random Growery

Magic Mushrooms Zamnesia
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   Original Sensible Seeds Feminized Cannabis Seeds   North Spore Injection Grain Bag   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
Contemplating "nothingness"
    #5901255 -

The Buddhists say that all there is is a void, or nothingness. I've always had trouble with that. I have no problem believing that our lives on planet earth are not real, but what is this "void" business?

When I contemplate absolute nothingness, it frightens me. Imagine what "was" before the big bang. Nothing. No matter, no space, no time. Not a grain of sand, no information. And what if this miraculous event never happened? There would never have been anything, there would never be a chance for anything to happen. That scares the shit out of me, it really does!

So can someone explain to me this "nothingness" and what it actually means? If there is mind in the nothingness, what is the mind made of?


--------------------
_______________________________________________________________
namaste said:
no flamz in da ODD, if you got nothing to contribute then keep yo lips zipped
_________________________________________________________________

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5901276 -

To over simplify...

It's more that the void is a starting point from which everything transpires - like a blank piece of paper before you are inspired to add something to it. The void is a constant, what we put on or mask it with is transitory.

In terms of contemplation or meditation if you clear your mind in Zen meditation you aren't just emptying your mind of all thoughts, you're opening it to let everything in. Buddhism, like most Eastern philsophies is non-dualistic, you have to hold the idea of everything being nothing and something at the same time.

Read Zen Mind Beginner's Mind by Suzuki for a good foundation on Zen Buddhism. It'll certainly explain it better than I can.


--------------------
"You've got to get hold of the thread of marching time, pull the fuck thing down, get on the end of it and pang yourself to the infinitude of absolute mind"
Ken Campbell - Furtive Nudist

"The mystery of life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced" - Aart van der Leeuw

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5901280 -

nothing is defined if there is something in which a nothing can be compared,

can you have absolute nothingness, complete empty space is something,

what would nothing be if everything is nonexistent, including space itself

would be complete absense of demension, not even a single point, but

then if all demensions where nonexistent, and all knowledge was

nonexistent, what would you have left, a total unconsious existence of

all things in all universes in all demensions, I

don't know thats kind of a hard one, some how the concept of nothing

would change, in which nothing became something, sense all definiton

is realitive, we're essentially beings of creation, the 'me' is

nothing more than something comming from nothing

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5901344 -

The Buddhists say that all there is is a void, or nothingness. I've always had trouble with that. I have no problem believing that our lives on planet earth are not real, but what is this "void" business?

The Mahayana concept of nothingness just means that nothing exists. Name anything, and they will claim that it does not exist. ("Dog?" - "Does not exist". "Chair?" - "Does not exist." etc...)

If it is good Zen, it just ends there; if you ask further, the master will put his shoes on his head and walk out of the room.

If it is bad Zen, they will explain to you that nothing exists because nothing exists outside of a relationship, and the idea of something existing, as it is used in ordinary language, entails the idea that it exists absolutely. If you take everything away except the dog, then the dog itself stops existing, for what would it be - he cannot bark when there is no sound; his fur has no colour, for there is no light; he cannot walk in the absence of space. That is, the dog does not exist, what does exist are some kind of dog-sound, dog-light, dog-space relationships. That is why no thing exists, and the universe is void.

But that is bad Zen, because it already contains the notion of absolute existance, namely, the existance of relationships (which is to say, it assumes that relationships exist absolutely, not just as related to another thing). That is, while it is true, it is self-contradictive, and it is better to just put one's shoes on one's head and walk out of the room.

Now, why are our lives on planet earth not real?

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5901381 -

> So can someone explain to me this "nothingness" and what it actually means?

This is my own take on it from personal experience. I try to explain it in terms of logic, but it something that cannot really be understood, only experienced.

Assume that reality is based upon duality. In other words, something cannot exist by itself, without something else to compare it to or reference it against. One cannot have heat without cold. One cannot have love without hate. These comparisons do not have to be polar opposites, but nothing in reality can exist independent of everything else.

Now extend the above assumption about duality to reality itself. If everything in reality must have something to compare against, then it follows that reality itself must also have "an opposite" or something to compare against. This "thing" is the void, or nothingness, or ...

> Imagine what "was" before the big bang. Nothing. No matter, no space, no time. Not a grain of sand, no information.

Another way to think of this is "everything" rather than "nothing". It isn't that there was no space, no time, no sand, no information, but rather there was no difference between anything... space is time is sand is information is nothing is everything.


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5901450 -

Nothingness doesn't exist. It's not dark, frightening, peaceful, etc. etc. because it is "no thing." Nothingness simply is not, and therefore cannot possibly be comprehended by the human mind.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5901457 -

The Buddhists say that all there is is a void, or nothingness. I've always had trouble with that. I have no problem believing that our lives on planet earth are not real, but what is this "void" business?

When Buddhists speak of emptiness (aka nothingness), they mean that everything is empty of an inherent existence. Nothing exists independently of anything else. As Seuss explained, everything can exist only in dependence upon everything else. In order for a table to exist, the necessary causes and conditions must arise. So you must have wood, time, space, a carpenter, and tools. Then each of those must have their own causes and conditions: wood implies the existence of trees, soil, water, sun, air, someone to prepare it, etc etc.

When you look at things this way, it becomes apparent that everything in the universe depends on everything else. Nothing exists independently. This insight is also known as Interdependent Co-arising.

This is also the basis for the insight of no-self. Just like everything else, a sentient human being can arise only in dependence upon the necessary causes and conditions. Therefore there is no 'self' independent from anything else.

When you examine the sentient human being, not one iota of 'self' can be found or located. The phenomena of self is composed entirely of non-self elements. Therefore, there is no 'self' independent from anything else.


--------------------
"Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Fractalated]
    #5901486 -

Quote:
This is also the basis for the insight of no-self. Just like everything else, a sentient human being can arise only in dependence upon the necessary causes and conditions. Therefore there is no 'self' independent from anything else.

When you examine the sentient human being, not one iota of 'self' can be found or located. The phenomena of self is composed entirely of non-self elements. Therefore, there is no 'self' independent from anything else.


Beautiful, thank you!


--------------------
Just another spore in the wind.

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Seuss]
    #5901582 -

if you turn towards creation itself as it is happenning in the instant, now, you are confronted directly with voidness.
then everything washes in from that which is
void of any preconception.
void of intent
void of character

like listenning to a seashell
but more empty


--------------------
:brainfart: _ :finger:

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5901635 -

The void is that which precedes existence. It has the infinite potential for everything, but does not contain anything in itself. But it can't really be said to be nothing either, because it is a source of everything. Therefore, it can be said to be "no-thingness." It is not a thing, but it is not nothing either. It can't even be said to exist, because as I said, it precedes existence.


--------------------

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Silversoul]
    #5901653 -

the big bang is merely energy condensed to its utmost singularity.

the explosion/expansion is simply the dispersement of energy.

"all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration."
"we are all of one consciouness experiencing itself subjectively"

really I mean, there can't be nothing, because right now there is something. the voidness, the no-self. the emptiness, is going back to the source of all energy and uniting with it completely and totally. it is not a non-conscious nonexistance, for you are conscious right now, so to be forever unconscious is simply not possible.

as far as i know/can tell nirvana is light. immersion in light and unison with light, being nothing other than light. however you can attain nirvana and still stay in your body if you choose to stick around and help others. there is also complete dissolution into nirvana from which there is no return.

take it with a grain of salt. i could be saying these things about Jesus right now, thinking I know Jesus, when I don't... and that's how dogma and religion starts.

I state things as "so" but they may not be. We must be careful in making assertions of truth, lest people believe us when we ourselves do not know for sure.

[this is my problem with xtianity......]


--------------------
I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo!

....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human......
Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: it stars saddam]
    #5901655 -

itstarssaddam said:
Nothingness doesn't exist. 


:thumbup:


--------------------
"You cannot trust in law, unless you can trust in people. If you can trust in people, you don't need law." -J. Mumma

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5901855 -

The wordage of Buddhism, like the wordage of Kabbalism is important to define carefully because you are incurring an emotional response to the word 'nothing.' More than likely, the word evokes non-existence, primarily in the sense of death or personal annihilation, and only secondarily in a cosmic sense, i.e., the Zen: 'What was your face like before you were conceived?'

The word 'nothing' really indicates 'no thing' rather than an absolute existential vacuum. 'No thing' indicates that the Transcendental condition described as 'Sunyata' or 'The Clear Light of the Void' is not 'an object' or 'a thing' to be perceived by an observing subject. There is no subject-object distinction at this level of Reality. It refers to the 'Ground of Being' an 'a priori' Transcendental and 'eternal' condition. It is 'nothing' because it is not manifested to anything but itself. One would have to 'Be' the Clear Light to experience its Reality.

This notion, found in Christian mystical theology as well as in Kabbalism, posits that the Unmanifest Godhead is utterly Transcendental, and Known only to Itself. Out of this Ground of Being, duality is created/emanated (depending on the doctrine) and from duality: eternal-temporal, energy-matter, organic-inorganic, life-death, male-female, conscious-unconscious).

Cosmic religions like Hinduism and Buddhism do not care very much about 'why' the universe was created. They seek gnostic liberation from cyclic existence that keeps humans in creation. Historical religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam do not seek to escape existence but rather seek the meaning for its existence including one's personal role to play in creation. There is still a notion of returning to God.

No-thingness in Kabbalism as well does not mean annihilation. Human psychology usually draws upon the single thought-wave of Delta (deep) sleep and its dimensionless field of blackness when the word 'nothing' comes up. Our psychology also tends to associate Delta sleep with death, even though there is nothing which identifies physical death with the deep sleep state! People assume!

Kabbalistic thought speaks of God's existence independently of God's relationship to creation. Although not actually spatial, if one imagines the Being of God as Infinite, and of Infinite density (whatever that means), then Kabbalists posit a Singularity within the Infinite Being of God. God withdraws His Being 'omnidirctionally' the space of a 'point' (called Tsim tsum) like a food vacuole forming in an infinite amoeba. The Big Bang occurs within the Infinite Being of God. God's Being continues to retract to accomodate the expanding universe, which is bounded at the expanding horizon into God's Infinitely Dense Being. The vacuole which is space-time and energy-matter can continue to expand forever because God's Being is Infinite and Eternal.

There IS no such thing as 'nothing' (except in 'The Neverending Story'  :smile:). Even in the vacuum of space, photons appear spontaneously. From where? The Kabbalah says that creation is composed of gradations or degrees of Reality, stepped down in 10 'spheres' so-to-speak. Eventually anything manifest, any thing, derives from the Ground of Being which is God.  Ultimately, No-thingness is identical with Fullness - the Fullness of God's Being. The Gnostics called this the Pleroma (which is Greek for Fullness). It is indivisibly ONE, admitting of no parts, no things, and hence is no-thing - nothing. It is however, Ultimate Reality. The Awareness of the Eternal reality, the Void, the Pleroma is the Eternal Reality Knowing or Realizing itself IN space-time - IN the locus of human beinghood - IN our Heart Center (the Buddhist
Jewel in the Lotus of the Heart, the Kabbalistic Sphere Tiphereth, the Hindu Hridayam, the Catholic Sacred Heart. Nothing is (apparently) not an option.

Peace.


--------------------
γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: Noviseer]
    #5902085 -

"The teachings on emptiness (Sanskrit sunyata or shunyata) find their most articulate development in the Kadampa branch of Mahayana Buddhism (Madhyamika Prasangika philosophy). To the Kadampas nothing exists 'inherently' or 'from its own side'. All phenomena exist in dependence on three things -

(i) their causes,
(ii) their parts, and
(iii) their imputation by the mind of a sentient being.

...all things are totally empty of any defining essence. Consequently all things have no fixed identity ('inherent existence') and are are in a state of impermanence - change and flux - constantly becoming and decaying. Not only are all things constantly changing, but if we analyse any phenomenon in enough detail we come to the conclusion that it is ultimately unfindable, and exists purely by definitions in terms of other things - and one of those other things is always the mind which generates those definitions...

...According to David Loy the English word emptiness has a more nihilistic connotation than the original Sanskrit. The Sanskrit root su also conveys the concept of being swollen with possibility... It is therefore most important not to confuse emptiness with total nothingness. Emptiness implies the potential for existence and change. The mathematical analogy of emptiness is not zero, but the empty set."

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Re: Contemplating "nothingness" [Re: leery11]
    #5902252 -

as far as i know/can tell nirvana is light. immersion in light and unison with light, being nothing other than light. however you can attain nirvana and still stay in your body if you choose to stick around and help others. there is also complete dissolution into nirvana from which there is no return.

Nirvana means exhalation, or the extinction of concepts (such as birth/death, self/other, joy/suffering). Nirvana is the nature of all things, along with impermanence and selflessness. It is one of the three "Dharma Seals".

"Nirvana means pacifying, silencing, or extinguishing the fire of suffering. Nirvana teaches that we already are what we want to become. We don't have to run after anything anymore. We only need to return to ourselves and touch our true nature. When we do, we have real peace and joy."


--------------------
"Now that the principalities and the powers stockpile weapons of mass destruction, contaminate the earth with their feverish industry, release floods of images to trigger insatiable desires, treat animals and humans as commodities and functions of a market, the devil must be grinning from ear to ear."

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: Myyco.com Golden Teacher Liquid Culture For Sale   Original Sensible Seeds Feminized Cannabis Seeds   North Spore Injection Grain Bag   Unfolding Nature Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
Threaded Mode Threaded  Previous topic Previous  View all topics Index  Next topic Next 

Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* I have philosophical evidence for the existence of God!
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 all )		 Anonymous 13,371 109 02/13/04 11:28 PM
by SpecialEd
* *cough* EXISTENCE *hack*
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 all )		 buttonion 22,684 173 03/19/04 12:03 AM
by Frog
* Death & Time don't exist. Where God comes from...
( 1 2 3 4 all )		 Shroomalicious 9,734 69 12/18/02 06:30 PM
by Strumpling
* What is nothing?
( 1 2 all )		 soulflyer 1,794 27 09/11/03 06:39 AM
by Rhizoid
* Does Existence Imply That The Absolute God Is Suffering?
( 1 2 all )		 Source 2,661 23 08/01/03 03:01 PM
by Malachi
* aliens don't exist, I have proof
( 1 2 3 all )		 chodamunky 12,737 58 09/26/02 04:53 AM
by In(di)go
* objective reality does not exist
( 1 2 all )		 monoamine 6,630 34 11/01/02 08:55 AM
by Newbie2000
* Independent Verification
( 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 all )		 Swami 11,630 162 09/05/03 07:28 AM
by tak

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: Middleman, DividedQuantum
2,352 topic views. 2 members, 41 guests and 36 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2026 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.029 seconds spending 0.008 seconds on 16 queries.