Hi JMG- Last week, I asked you about the Zen SOP. Your response gave me a lot to chew on, and now I have some more questions 1. I've done some research into the concept of sunyata. One Zen teacher stated that it roughly means that things are themselves, empty of any meaning that we assign to it. This is different than the explanation you gave last week, when you said to "Feel yourself to be empty of any inherent existence, and then extend the sense of emptiness outward, dissolving all apparent phenomena into void, so that all that remains of the universe is pure void, and no hostile energies or entities exist because nothing exists." Unless these are two different ways of trying to explain what is roughly the same concept, a concept which lies just on the edge of human understanding and logic, with words that can at best barely describe the ideas that are trying to be communicated. What are your thoughts on this? 2. If sunyata is the understanding that things are themselves, then how would dissolving all of the meaning from everything around us protect us from negative and hostile forces? Is it because part of their power comes from the meaning which we assign to them?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
branchandroot
More Questions About Zen
Date: 2025-01-27 02:41 pm (UTC)Last week, I asked you about the Zen SOP. Your response gave me a lot to chew on, and now I have some more questions
1. I've done some research into the concept of sunyata. One Zen teacher stated that it roughly means that things are themselves, empty of any meaning that we assign to it. This is different than the explanation you gave last week, when you said to "Feel yourself to be empty of any inherent existence, and then extend the sense of emptiness outward, dissolving all apparent phenomena into void, so that all that remains of the universe is pure void, and no hostile energies or entities exist because nothing exists."
Unless these are two different ways of trying to explain what is roughly the same concept, a concept which lies just on the edge of human understanding and logic, with words that can at best barely describe the ideas that are trying to be communicated. What are your thoughts on this?
2. If sunyata is the understanding that things are themselves, then how would dissolving all of the meaning from everything around us protect us from negative and hostile forces? Is it because part of their power comes from the meaning which we assign to them?