Osho, The Great Zen Master Ta Hui, says “Only nothingness can be infinite; somethingness is bound to be finite. Only out of nothingness is an infinite expanse of life, existence, possible - not out of somethingness. God is not somebody: He is nobody or, more correctly, nobodiness. God is not something: he is nothing or, even more correctly, no-thingness. He is a creative void.
Never for a single moment think that nothingness is a negative state, an absence, no. Nothingness is simply no-thingness. Things disappear, only the ultimate substance remains. Forms disappear, only the formless remains. Definitions disappear, the undefined remains.
The awakening of a buddha is total. In that total awakening there is a luminous awareness surrounded by a positive nothingness. It is not empty, it is overfull. Things have disappeared... and what has remained is inexpressible. We try to express it as blissfulness, as ecstasy, as eternal joy, but these are just faraway echoes of the real thing.”
In the west we try to rationalize nothingness as being Non-Existence but that is not always true. These are often different. Just as when approached with options and urged to make a choice, to NOT choose IS a choice in itself (though not usually an option presented), the lack of thingness does not necessitate non-existence.
A vacuum exists and alleged by many is the epitome of non-thingness (though some Quantum physicists would disagree with that). The Toaists see non-thingness as ultimate utility, and thus something real and useful, where non-existence has no utility or usefulness. On the other hand, most modern materialists cannot even comprehend in this realm of thought, it is comprehensibly beyond their depth, and outside their frame of reference. Because that is so with the materialist does not make the early Toaists incorrect.
Out of what does not appear to be, that which is comes forth, and then disappears back within. Taken to its logical conclusion the ultimate reality is not something we can consider a THING. Things are mere figures against the ground. All that IS (that we perceive as thing) is dependent on how we perceive. How we perceive is dependent on apparatuses that have already come into being. When there were no eyes or ears the Universe still existed. The range in which eyes and ears can see or hear are extremely limited. If or when we can see or hear in ranges beyond the eye and ears present capacity, the Universe becomes something entirely different. There may be color, geometries, or sounds outside of our perceptual construct ability that are no less real. The still limited but wonderful advances in technology and instrumentation prove this to be true. Once in the past we called lifeforms invisible to us spirits and we claimed many of these caused diseases and disorders now we know these true and call them by other names. This does not mean the former observers were not correct. It is a fact that invisible life forms (now some being visible by instrumentation) were causing disease and disorder.
So when philosophers and scientists, and the general public, discuss “nothing” they first must define what it is they are speaking of and agree to the meaning of the terms they are using. Apparently this is almost impossible. So when we discuss the possibility or probability of the something coming from the nothing we are actually discussing if or how the presently knowable arose from the presently unknowable but does not necessitate that the presently unknowable is or was not equally real.
Think about this...
Never for a single moment think that nothingness is a negative state, an absence, no. Nothingness is simply no-thingness. Things disappear, only the ultimate substance remains. Forms disappear, only the formless remains. Definitions disappear, the undefined remains.
The awakening of a buddha is total. In that total awakening there is a luminous awareness surrounded by a positive nothingness. It is not empty, it is overfull. Things have disappeared... and what has remained is inexpressible. We try to express it as blissfulness, as ecstasy, as eternal joy, but these are just faraway echoes of the real thing.”
In the west we try to rationalize nothingness as being Non-Existence but that is not always true. These are often different. Just as when approached with options and urged to make a choice, to NOT choose IS a choice in itself (though not usually an option presented), the lack of thingness does not necessitate non-existence.
A vacuum exists and alleged by many is the epitome of non-thingness (though some Quantum physicists would disagree with that). The Toaists see non-thingness as ultimate utility, and thus something real and useful, where non-existence has no utility or usefulness. On the other hand, most modern materialists cannot even comprehend in this realm of thought, it is comprehensibly beyond their depth, and outside their frame of reference. Because that is so with the materialist does not make the early Toaists incorrect.
Out of what does not appear to be, that which is comes forth, and then disappears back within. Taken to its logical conclusion the ultimate reality is not something we can consider a THING. Things are mere figures against the ground. All that IS (that we perceive as thing) is dependent on how we perceive. How we perceive is dependent on apparatuses that have already come into being. When there were no eyes or ears the Universe still existed. The range in which eyes and ears can see or hear are extremely limited. If or when we can see or hear in ranges beyond the eye and ears present capacity, the Universe becomes something entirely different. There may be color, geometries, or sounds outside of our perceptual construct ability that are no less real. The still limited but wonderful advances in technology and instrumentation prove this to be true. Once in the past we called lifeforms invisible to us spirits and we claimed many of these caused diseases and disorders now we know these true and call them by other names. This does not mean the former observers were not correct. It is a fact that invisible life forms (now some being visible by instrumentation) were causing disease and disorder.
So when philosophers and scientists, and the general public, discuss “nothing” they first must define what it is they are speaking of and agree to the meaning of the terms they are using. Apparently this is almost impossible. So when we discuss the possibility or probability of the something coming from the nothing we are actually discussing if or how the presently knowable arose from the presently unknowable but does not necessitate that the presently unknowable is or was not equally real.
Think about this...
