Ku is the transcription of the Sanskrit word sunya or sunyata, literally translated as ’emptiness’, a mysterious abstract idea to a Westerner brought up in the theistic and materialistic Judaeo-Christian tradition. In his kusens on the Hannya shin gyo that have just been published in English (translated by Ilsa), Master Deshimaru gives it many meanings: “In origin, sunyata is sûvi which indicates expansion, centrifugal motion, a little like a soap bubble swelling but staying empty inside. It is also zero, existence without noumenon, devoid of identifiable substance, the non-existence of the subjective and the objective, the plenitude of emptiness, original mind …”. Bodhidharma, questioned by Emperor Wu about ultimate truth, replied: “An unfathomable emptiness and nothing sacred.” True Nature of the world, Absolute Reality, Fundamental Reality, Absolute Principle, Original Source, Supreme Truth, Essential Awakening, many are the names that the masters have used to describe the One Reality. “Buddha” is perhaps the simplest name for us: “Buddha is Mind and Mind is Buddha.” With all these definitions, the novice practitioner, approaching Buddhism through a meditation that is sometimes difficult, is perplexed and has difficulty really understanding why Ku is the central concept of Buddhism. Moreover, according to the explanations given in books and dictionaries, the concept of ‘Ku, emptiness’ has been studied, discussed and argued all through the centuries, giving birth to movements, theories and schools disagreeing on the means of arriving at the experience of Ku, Emptiness. This is discouraging or at least leaves us perplexed!
“The interior doctrine which is never unveiled to the common folk because they must be forced to virtu by the fear of hell and similar things, is in the words of these philosophers the only solid and true teaching. It consists in establishing as the principle and end of all things a certain emptiness [vuide, lat. vacuum] and a real nothingness. They assert that our first forefathers have come from this emptiness and returned to it after their death, that the same is true for all humans who at their death dissolve into this principle; and that we as well as all elements and creatures form part of this emptiness.” ~ Page 177
Couplet prepared the Confucius intnroduced for publication at the very time when according to Bernier, all of Paris was talking about nothing but quietism. In this heavily charged atmosphere, Couplet renamed Intorectta / Rodrigues’s Indo-Chinese sect of the ‘meditantium de nihilo’ (those who meditate on nothingness”; Ch, ‘wuwei jiao) first into the sect of ‘contemplantium de nihilo’ (those who contemplate about nothingness’) and on second thought into nihil agentium secta (the sect of do-nothings) – which is what the readers of Confucius sinarum philosophus’ were in the end faced with. ~ Page 179
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Dinesh said:
Ku is the transcription of the Sanskrit word sunya or sunyata, literally translated as ’emptiness’, a mysterious abstract idea to a Westerner brought up in the theistic and materialistic Judaeo-Christian tradition. In his kusens on the Hannya shin gyo that have just been published in English (translated by Ilsa), Master Deshimaru gives it many meanings: “In origin, sunyata is sûvi which indicates expansion, centrifugal motion, a little like a soap bubble swelling but staying empty inside. It is also zero, existence without noumenon, devoid of identifiable substance, the non-existence of the subjective and the objective, the plenitude of emptiness, original mind …”. Bodhidharma, questioned by Emperor Wu about ultimate truth, replied: “An unfathomable emptiness and nothing sacred.” True Nature of the world, Absolute Reality, Fundamental Reality, Absolute Principle, Original Source, Supreme Truth, Essential Awakening, many are the names that the masters have used to describe the One Reality. “Buddha” is perhaps the simplest name for us: “Buddha is Mind and Mind is Buddha.” With all these definitions, the novice practitioner, approaching Buddhism through a meditation that is sometimes difficult, is perplexed and has difficulty really understanding why Ku is the central concept of Buddhism. Moreover, according to the explanations given in books and dictionaries, the concept of ‘Ku, emptiness’ has been studied, discussed and argued all through the centuries, giving birth to movements, theories and schools disagreeing on the means of arriving at the experience of Ku, Emptiness. This is discouraging or at least leaves us perplexed!
Dinesh said:
“The interior doctrine which is never unveiled to the common folk because they must be forced to virtu by the fear of hell and similar things, is in the words of these philosophers the only solid and true teaching. It consists in establishing as the principle and end of all things a certain emptiness [vuide, lat. vacuum] and a real nothingness. They assert that our first forefathers have come from this emptiness and returned to it after their death, that the same is true for all humans who at their death dissolve into this principle; and that we as well as all elements and creatures form part of this emptiness.” ~ Page 177
Dinesh said: