The dream analogy is my favourite emptiness analogy, as it shows how real we can appear to be; while not existing outside of our mind, but….
“Things appear to exist from their own side, without depending upon our mind.” Geshe Kelsang
Jas with Apple iGadget
Our mind appears to be ‘inside’ of us. It feels like we’re in here, looking out at the world ‘outside’. The outside world seems to consist of discrete, independently existent objects. Their existence is nothing to do with us. ‘Course not.
This post was created by Jas on her Mac. If anything, Jas and Apple are responsible. And Gen Chönden, because it’s based on his teachings. Then there’s Geshe-la, because they’re from his transmissions, which came from Buddha in an unbroken lineage… (and the world wide web of human kindness that we’re connected to, of course…)
The list is endless! So we can see this post isn’t ‘independently ‘ existent. It is dependent on and interrelated to phenomena external to itself, in a chain of interbeing that stretches out indefinitely.
“Empty in this sense, means that it is full of everything, the entire cosmos.”
Tich Nhat Hanh
Nevertheless, this post does seem to exist independently of our mind.
Emptiness so isn’t ‘nothingness’. It’s the meaningful absence that fills our lives.
* None of this could exist without our mind perceiving it. It’s all empty of independent existence, a state known as ’emptiness’.
Emptiness is the ultimate nature of reality, it is how things exist. The screen we’re looking at, the eyes we’re looking with, even the mind we’re using to cognize all this. It’s all an illusion created by that ilusory mind. None of it exists from it’s own side. Not one little bit.
Although we all dream every night, it’s fairly unusual to realize that what we are experiencing is no more than a dream. For the dreamer, it all seems so very real.
Sound familiar? Doesn’t all this, where you are now, look real? Of course it’s real! Well, no. Actually, it’s no more real than last night’s dream.
“The world, indeed, is like a dream and the treasures of the world are an alluring mirage! Like the apparent distances in a picture, things have no reality in themselves, but they are like heat haze.”
Buddha
“Last night’s dream was my teacher. Is it the same for you?”
Milarepa (Tibetan yogi and Saint)
The dream series:
pt 1, Cosmic Loti: Dream Like Emptiness ~ the True Nature of our Reality
None of this could exist without our mind perceiving it. It’s all empty of independent existence, a state known as ‘emptiness’.
pt 2, Life is but a dream: Like a Dream
Nagarjuna’s view of dream-like emptiness.
pt 3, Cosmic Loti: Dream a Better World.
Dream lands and the waking world are experientially the same. That’s why they both feel equally real, and that’s why we can influence them far more than we give ourselves credit for.
pt 4, Kadampa Life: Am I Dreaming?
Buddha’s teachings reveal the truth that everything is like a dream.
Like this:
Cosmic Loti: Equalising Doctor Who & the Daleks with Emptiness
~ Seeing that there is no difference between any of us, in that we all want to be happy, and not to suffer. (With my 1st WP video!!)
Cosmic Loti: Dissolve cupid into dream-like Emptiness
Taking the pressure out of Valentines Day.
Daily Lamrim: Superior Seeing meditations
Luna Kadampa: Discussion on emptiness
Geshe Kelsang Gyatso quote from Modern Buddhism.
(Link to free download on the right hand side!)
