Another Memo

 More from the Pure Land.

Empty spaces

Coffee in hand, pissing down, seeking to draw comfort from "what does not destroy us makes us stronger", I read a few bits and pieces from Stephen Batchelor. A man who advocates no position.

He speaks of some obscure Tibetan "view" on "emptiness".....

".....the emptiness of inherent existence is a simple negation as opposed to an affirming negation. This means that the absence opened up by emptiness does not disclose and thereby affirm a transcendent reality (like God or Pure Consciousness) that was previously obscured by one’s egoistic confusion. It simply removes a fiction that was never there."

The Buddha spoke of "dwelling in emptiness". As Mr Batchelor says, "emptiness is first and foremost a condition in which we dwell, abide, and live."

Stephen Batchelor goes on:-

Rather than being the negation of “self,” emptiness discloses the dignity of a person who has realized what it means to be fully human. Such emptiness is far from being an ultimate truth that needs to be understood through logical inference and then directly realized in a state of nonconceptual meditation. It is a sensibility in which one dwells, not a privileged epistemological object that, through knowing, one gains a cognitive enlightenment.

As a Pure Lander I identify with the above and would call it Faith. Always open to the simple hearted. Very egalitarian.

Faith has no content. "Though He slay me yet will I love Him" as theists might say - thus pointless in many ways. It offers nothing. Mocked by many. Yet I find it more and more life-giving.

"What are the teachings of an entire lifetime?" Answer, "An appropriate statement."

Yes.