Christian Life 14 - On Emptiness

 Of the three immutable facts under consideration, Emptiness is the one which has caused me the greatest difficulty.  I am, in fact, struggling with it even now as I type this treatise, so, as promised, we have now caught up with my own knowledge level.

The concept of emptiness is both difficult to grasp and difficult to describe.  First, it is completely contrary to Western ideology.  Second, if not understood clearly, it can appear to draw us into that mysticism that I have repeatedly rejected.  I will do my best in the coming paragraphs.

At its most basic, emptiness has to do with the notion of selflessness, but to a level more extreme than most Westerners are comfortable.  The fundamental tenet behind emptiness is that the Self simply does not exist at all in as far as autonomy goes.  This is not meant to be any sort of grim void or empty nihilism, but an expression of freedom from the myth of individuality.

In our examination of suffering, we mentioned that a person cannot exist beyond the gifts received from the earth; air, food, water, shelter, etc.  Just as we are, in a very real sense, made up of "earth stuff," so the earth is made up of "star stuff," as Neil deGrasse Tyson says so eloquently.  Just as each individual is composed of the whole that is spacetime, so are all other individuals, so, again in a very real sense, we are all interconnected.  Rather than thinking of ourselves as individuals, let us think of ourselves as the many cells that make up a single cosmic organism.

Buddha used the metaphor of a chariot.  What is the chariot's essence? he asked.  Is it the wheels?  The seat?  The axle?  The cart?  The answer of course is that the chariot's essence is none of its parts, but the sum total of the whole made up of all the constituent parts.  The chariot is only a chariot as long as all of its parts work in harmony, each serving the purpose for which it was made.

As before, there is much contained within the teachings of Jesus that point us toward this very idea of emptiness.  

"I assure you, unless someone [dies and] is born again, it's not possible to see God's kingdom...Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit." John 3:3,6 (bracketed emphasis mine)

"Hear, O Israel!  The Lord our God, the Lord is one; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.  The second is this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no greater commandment than these." Mark 12:29-31

"A new commandment I give you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you love one another." John 13:34

"I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they may also be in us."  John17:20-23

I could easily add a dozen more, but I suspect the point has been made.  St. Paul sums it up this way: "You are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it." (I Chor. 12:27)

In the Messiah's Handbook, Richard Bach says this: "How many lives on this planet?  How many lives in the universe?  One."

Boiled down to its very essence, Emptiness means precisely this: "I don't actually exist.  I am a delusion of my own creating, as are we all. There is but one life in the universe; I am a single cell in that universal organism incapable of existence except by the existence of all the other cells around me."  We can gain no ground toward that elusive peace until we can accept the complete emptiness of the Self.

I have much more to say on this subject, but I think that's a pretty big bite for one meal.  If anyone actually ever reads this, I believe I'll let you stew on that for awhile and come back to it in a few more days.

Pax