Emptiness and the One

I put this into the interfaith forum because it is relevant to many religions, mystical or otherwise, and spiritual groupings, such as New Age, etc.

From "The Healing Promise of Qigong", Roger Jahnke

Dao gives birth to the boundless, eternal One,
The Two emerges creatively from the One,
The Three arises dynamically from the Two,
The Three gives birth to all beings and things.

From "Tao, The Way of the Ways", Herrimon Maurer, a less poetic and more terse version:

Tao bore one, one bore two, two bore three;
Three bore the ten thousand things.

Dao de Jing, #42

Reading this one can see that the Oneness so many strive for, and some call God, is not the ultimate reality.

Primordial Nucleosynthesis, an attempt to figure out creation and in 440 BC, Democritus proposes the concept of the atom to describe the indivisible and indestructible particles that were thought to compose the substance of all things.



Science has there views too....atoms, three together bore ten thousand things.

to you, what is the ultimate reality.

This could be a pointer to the same idea

John 1:1 In the beginning there was the word and the word was with god and god was the word

In the beginning there was the word, not god.
The word was with god, and not god had a word, or words, or a vocabulary.

The word was therefore before god. If we equate Dao to the word then John's text can be interpreted to say something very similar as the first few words of the Dao De Jing.

Originally Posted by Gracey

to you, what is the ultimate reality.

One thing I can say is that it transcends thought, is beyond thought.
In practical terms, beyond means 'no thought', which is what is meant by emptiness.
Empty of thoughts, but not necessarily empty of other things, and definitely not empty of everything, although death may get quite close to that.

Empty of thoughts, how can there be thoughts about it? Without thoughts how can anything be said about it?

Originally Posted by pre-dawn

One thing I can say is that it transcends thought, is beyond thought.
In practical terms, beyond means 'no thought', which is what is meant by emptiness.
Empty of thoughts, but not necessarily empty of other things, and definitely not empty of everything, although death may get quite close to that.

Empty of thoughts, how can there be thoughts about it? Without thoughts how can anything be said about it?

have you ever experienced stillness (emptiness) ?

Originally Posted by pre-dawn

This could be a pointer to the same idea

John 1:1 In the beginning there was the word and the word was with god and god was the word

In the beginning there was the word, not god.
The word was with god, and not god had a word, or words, or a vocabulary.

The word was therefore before god. If we equate Dao to the word then John's text can be interpreted to say something very similar as the first few words of the Dao De Jing.

same goes with the chicken and the egg, it had to be the chicken because it came first in a sentence.....at least that has always been my answer to the riddle.

I don't understand, are you saying that something came from nothing?
although there is no way something can come from nothing unless there
was something first that made nothing become something.

Darkness is the absence of light, like cold is the absence of heat
also nothing is the absence of something, which means there
wouldn't be nothing unless something is absent to leave nothing,
which means there is something first!! right?.....I hope this makes sense.


something tells me I used the word something to much, so I'm gonna stop now. LOL

But once we realize that "something" and "nothing" are the same thing and that they give birth to each other, we see that all comes from emptiness. This is emptiness. Emptiness and nothingness are two very different notions.

Like you've said, it sure is impossible for nothing to exist without something manifesting it as it is impossible for something to exist without nothing manifesting it. I see this as true as nothing must define something as hot must define cold. However, "emptiness" is what we title this formless void empty of convention that is perhaps ultimately real.

[Gem]

Originally Posted by jiraiyaNOmonogatari

Darkness is the absence of light, like cold is the absence of heat

So it boils down to the absence of energy.

It kinda makes sence too because energy is neither created nor destroyed...