Much ado about nothing

Lately I have, amongst other things - great and small - been delving into a few philosophical works on "nothingness". All much ado about nothing, but it does seem to be the battleground of much inter-faith dialogue these days. Perhaps there is a more appropriate word than battleground but maybe not. Again, given the lack of belief in anything much in our pop culture - apart from celebrity itself - any talk and debate on "nothingness" will obviously pass under the radar of many, and if heard of at all, be dismissed as academic and of no concern by those seeking to "live life to the full." 

Nothingness? How about a selfie!

I will now drift onto the subject of forgiveness which has also gained my attention for one reason or another. I'm sure there is a connection between "nothingness" and forgiveness (although it escapes me at the moment)  but this change of subject is in keeping with my rambles, so I shall continue. 

For me, I am sure that forgiveness, like all things, is simply a by-product of wisdom - wisdom defined as the mind/heart, thirsting for emancipation, seeing direct into the heart of reality. Trying to forgive because it is the right thing to do, this itself a belief, just disintegrates into the self-righteousness of the Pharisee. "I" have forgiven. Subject and object. Each distinct. 

William Blake, English mystic, poet and painter, saw the need not to dissect, and thus saw that mutual forgiveness of each vice opens the gates of paradise.

Jacob's Ladder (Detail) by William Blake

For me, Grace is the heart of Reality, the hidden ground of love, a love that "has no why". Grace is all things; mercy, relationship, diversity, wisdom and potential. Knowing we live by, in, and with grace, forgiveness flowers towards all others. In fact, often, ideally, no hurt or fault is even recognised.

Knowing deeply our own need for mercy is the ground of forgiveness towards others. Maybe we can try to grade ourselves according to some scale of wrongs, acts or thoughts, but as I see it this misses the heart of reality. Lack of forgiveness, a judgemental heart, witnesses to having not accepted ourselves. Pure acceptance is the catalyst of all potentials and becomes the necessary ground of any diversification which follows. Creating a scale of wrongs, all according to our own calculations, before pure acceptance, inevitably chains us to the world of birth and death. 

Trust the ground

Cherishing opinions, identifying with them, is a form of self justification; but when not "cherished" they can become appropriate in each unique moment, unclaimed yet participating in a truly life bestowing becoming. 

The dharma is for passing over, not for grasping. 

So it is terrible to read of those who condemn others, terrible for our own hearts to harbour hatred. This is simply to be out of synch with Reality.

Well, that's it really. Not sure exactly what nothingness has to do with this except for the faint suggestion that Meister Eckhart's "love has no why" somehow connects things in ways beyond conventional logic. 

Just to say that as far as I understand, to put the "eastern" idea of nothingness in direct opposition to the "western" idea of Being, is to go astray. "Nothingness" to a Western ear, is simply a term of negation, and in the religious sphere, invokes ideas of nihilism, this opposed to the positive ideas of "salvation" and heavenly cities and Kingdoms of God. In Japanese, however, there are various terms for negation.

For the Japanese the Western notion of "being"  is given another term, a term meaning "having at hand" or "manifest", something that "strikes the hand". Its opposite, nothingness, means something like "present, but not in hand." Thus, nothingness signifies a presence that is not anything identifiable, something there without being in any sense "manageable" like other things present to us in the world (thank you James Heisig for much of this)

Nothingness - calligraphy

For me, this seems to speak of a childlike acceptance, seeing everything as if for the first time without preconceptions, giving it no name, more experiencing each and every thing, maybe as if back in Eden before the naming of anything. 

And the end of all our exploring will be to "arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." 

A kind of "unknowing."

Related Quotes:- 

"O happy fault that merited such and so great a Redeemer"

(The "O Felix Culpa" of the Catholic Church)

"One must have the mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the  pine-trees crusted with snow;

And  have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is"

 ("The Snow Man", Wallace Stevens)

 "Ride your horse along the edge of the sword

Hide yourself in the middle of the flames

Blossoms of the fruit tree will bloom in the fire

The sun rises in the evening"

 (Zen Saying - quoted by Thomas Merton in his book "Zen and the Birds of Appetite")

"The birds don't know they have names"

(From the Journals of Thomas Merton)