Emptiness In The Heart Of Understanding

“Emptiness stretching for miles, the sense of space, the vastness of the sky above, passing no farm or cottage, no kind of dwelling house at all in three miles. All was emptiness.”

Even though Zen and Pure Land Buddhism are usually considered to be quite different, they are actually part of the same type of Buddhism, Mahayana, and thus have an underlying similarity. This essay will argue that, in particular, the Mahayana concepts of non-duality and no-self are present in both schools, and that the ways employed in each school to reach their respective goals can be analyzed in a similar fashion, proving that these two schools are part of, rather than deviations of, Mahayana Buddhism.

‘—What is it, a destination?—There where it arrives.—So then everywhere that it arrives there was a destination?—Yes.—But not before?—No.—That’s convenient, since if it arrives there, it is that it was destined to arrive there. But then one can only say so after the fact?—When it has arrived, it is indeed the proof that it had to arrive, and arrive there, at its destination.—But before arriving, it is not destined, for example it neither desires nor demands any address? There is everything that arrives where it

In her book, An Unquiet Mind, Kay Jamison instills an understanding of bipolar disorder from two opposing perspectives. Initially, Jameson tells a tale of herself as a long-term victim of bipolar. It is from her description that a reader is highlighted about the various avenues through which the condition attacks. Besides exploring the disorder as the victim, the book as well depicts Jamison as the healed. That is, she gives an account of her life as an individual who survived the grips of bipolar disorder and became a healer (psychotherapist and a lecturer) instead. Reflecting on Jamison’s work An Unquiet Mind automatically triggers the desire of the reader to unearth more about the author, her context, and diagnosis of the bipolar disorder.

nothingness, but of balanced life of energies at rest in equilibrium (85),” the quote is describing

The core idea of Albert Camus’ philosophy of absurdity centralizes upon the idea that humans exist in a meaningless universe, and follows that humans must simply accept this fact to live life to the fullest. In addition to this absurdist notion, Albert Camus also uses The Stranger to show how humans still strive to create superficial meaning to fulfill their own personal needs. Through the experiences and interactions in Meursault’s life, Camus illustrates that in spite of how events in life follow no rational order, society attempts to futilely create meaning to explain human existence.

In The Heart of Understanding, Thich Nhat Hanh’s uses simple but powerful words and real world examples to illustrate the profound Buddhist philosophy from the Prajnaparamita Heart Sutra, an important representative of Mahayana Buddhist literature. The Mahayana school of Buddhist teachings emphasizes the doctrine of Sunyata- emptiness. The doctrine of emptiness, one of the most important Mahayana innovations, focuses on the relational aspect of existence. Thich Nhat Hanh coins and introduces a new word- interbeing to explain the state of emptiness. This idea of interbeing not only illustrates emptiness well but also provides understanding of other fundamental Buddhist ideas such as No-Self, impermanence and non-duality.

The dichotomy of being and nothingness is a new version of platonic and cartesian dualism with several severe qualifications.

There is a time in all religious experiences that people look for spiritual growth by reflecting on the basics of life. An estimated 376 million people are considered to believe and follow Buddhist practices, the question of the four elements (sight’s), aging people, the sick, funerals processions and religion. These elements that Siddhartha Gautama saw, that led to him to seek religious enlightenment, and to give up his privileged life. These four elements come up in every religious walk at some point. Reflection on these elements can have astonishing effects in someone’s life. By looking at these elements, and by showing the effect they had on Siddhartha Gautama’s life, will show that anyone could grow in their spiritual belief by reflecting

Van Cleve responds to Descartes assertion that the nothing cannot cause something because the cause would not contain the same degree of reality as the effect. Van Cleve analyzes Descartes statement through the production of the “surplus.” He questions why the extra, or surplus, reality of an effect that has a higher degree of reality compared its cause is claimed to have appeared from nothing. Why does the surplus have to come from nothing when it could have easily come from the less real cause? However, upon further evaluation, the surplus idea seems to simply further the false original premise that the cause has an equal or higher degree of reality as its effect; the pre-containment principle remains erroneous and Descartes’s Cosmological Argument is consequently

Anatman is the idea of “no permanent soul” 3. A common misconception is that Anatman means people have no soul. In reality it describes the constant change of the soul during its time on earth. Buddhism holds that while there is no soul, the five elements that make up an individual orient themselves to form a new individual. With each cycle of rebirth, these aggregates, which include mind, consciousness, body, impulse, and feeling, will combine differently to form distinct individuals 4. While Buddhists believe in karma, a summation of positive and negative actions, they

Kenko, the Buddhist monk and author of Essays in Idleness, took great satisfaction in the idea of impermanence. A hefty amount of this work deals with Kenko talking about Buddhist values and the beauty of change. He felt that “if man was never to fade like the dews of Adishino, never to vanish like the smoke over Toribeyama, but lingered forever in the world, how things would

The universe around us is, without a doubt, the strangest place known to man. Mysteries beyond imagination lie in the incomprehensively massive place this little Earth calls home. Consequently, scientist’s greatest mission today lies in the great unknown. Every day these scientists work to uncover the mysteries of the universe, to bring light to the darkness of space. One of these discoveries, and possibly one of the most crucial, is nothing. To clarify, one of scientists’ most important discoveries is the presence of cosmic voids, or the vast emptiness that occupies the majority of the universe. But why is “nothing” so important? In the December 2016 release of the Discover magazine, Adam Hadhazy published an article, Why Nothing Really Matters,

It makes us through the realization that if we aren’t able to recognize the self; we are living in

Eastern enlightenment religions have been gaining popularity throughout the western world for the past few decades, with many people attracted to a "different" way of experiencing religion. As with many other enlightenment religions, Buddhism requires disciples to understand concepts that are not readily explainable: one such concept is that of no-self. In this essay I shall discuss the no-self from a number of modern perspectives; however, as no-self is difficult to describe I shall focus on both the self and no-self. Beginning with psychological aspects, and neurophysiological research on transcendental meditation, I shall discuss the impact of modern brain science on our understanding of the self and transcendence. Next I will outline