The terms Emptiness, Groundlessness, and Suchness slip and slide and connot be pinned down. They remind us that the world of discrete objects -- including the self -- is conditional and empty of permanence or self-sufficiency. And they direct our attention to the flowing of physical reality beneath the level of conceptualization. But they also point to something more. Wilber writes
“This is why, a nondual Suchness [emptiness], is absolutely not tht each being is a part of the One, or participates in the One, or is an aspect of the One. In other words, it is not, as in pantheism, that each is merely a piece of the “One” a slice of the pie, or a strand in the Big Web. . . As Zen would have it, Emptiness is not the sum total of Form, it is the essence of Form.”
And:
“Pure Emptiness and pure Consciousness are synonymous. Consciousness is not a thing or a process. . . It is ultimately Emptiness, the opening or clearing in which the form of beings manifest themselves, and not any particular manifestation itself” ~ Page 268
But what does all this mean exactly? If we arrive at the knowledge that the self at which we grasp is empty, we may imagine this means that we are individuals with personal identities that do not exist. But of course this is not the case – our own personal experiences demonstrate that as subjects and agents of our own lives, we certainly exist. So how, then, do we understand the contest of this insight into absence of self? What follows from this insight? We must be very clear that “only the self that is being grasped as intrinsically real” needs to be negated. The self as a conventional phenomenal phenomenon is not rejected. This is a crucial aspect of the Buddha’s teaching on emptiness. Without understanding this distinction, one cannot fully understand the meaning of no-self. . . Page 37
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Dinesh said:
“This is why, a nondual Suchness [emptiness], is absolutely not tht each being is a part of the One, or participates in the One, or is an aspect of the One. In other words, it is not, as in pantheism, that each is merely a piece of the “One” a slice of the pie, or a strand in the Big Web. . . As Zen would have it, Emptiness is not the sum total of Form, it is the essence of Form.”
And:
“Pure Emptiness and pure Consciousness are synonymous. Consciousness is not a thing or a process. . . It is ultimately Emptiness, the opening or clearing in which the form of beings manifest themselves, and not any particular manifestation itself” ~ Page 268
Dinesh said: