Skip to main content

Emptiness Alive with Fullness

     The famous Mahayana saying goes like this: "emptiness is form, form is emptiness."  And, of course, emptiness is nothing other than form, form is nothing other than emptiness.
     Here's the problem: sayings like this have become so commonplace—even more so with the advent of the internet, and even more so with Twitter and whatnot—that they no longer have much meaning to those who hear them, or read them, all the time.
     They are just words, of course.  Words that point to the real thing.  But they are not the real thing.

     For spirituality to be true, for it to be capable of transforming your life (your interior life as well as your exterior one), then you must make it your own.  You must experience the truth of the words that are spoken, and then live those words with your entire being.
     Inner creativity must explode into outward creativity—the creativity of living.
     But here's an important point: Although you must make this lived spirituality your own, it must be a spirituality that is a Truth.  Not a belief—a belief in and of itself is quite capable of being worthless—but a truth.  (There's a difference.)
     And you must experience this truth—otherwise it's not true—and then put words into what this truth means to you.
     The Mahayanist knows that emptiness is form and form is emptiness, not because he has read the words, but because he has experienced the living truth of it.  And then has applied it to his life.

     So, here's my truth:
     Emptiness is not fullness.  Fullness is not emptiness.  (I simply don't understand that to be true because it goes against—and goes against it only ever so slightly—my experience.)
     No, the truth is that the All is emptiness—shunyata—but it's an emptiness alive with fullness.  It's an emptiness alive with a Divine creativity.
     I understand emptiness.  And I understand the Divine Creativity that pulses in and out of it, weaves its spell through the whole of that utter no-thingness that I call life and Reality.
     I understand it because I have experienced it, so I have made it a Truth.

     What is your Truth?  Are you just playing at being spiritual?  Are you turning True Spirituality into nothing more than spiritual materialism or Boomeritis spirituality?
     Discover your won Emptiness that is alive with Divine Fullness and pulsating Creativity.
     Make this emptiness your own and leave behind the narcissism that threatens to destroy the very heart of Truth.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Marvin Eder’s Mass-Building Methods

  The Many and Varied Mass-Building Methods of Power Bodybuilding’s G.O.A.T. Eder as he appeared in my article "Full Body Workouts" for IronMan  magazine.      In many ways, the essay you are now reading is the one that has had the “longest time coming.”  I have no clue why it has taken me this long to write an article specifically on Marvin Eder, especially considering the fact that I have long considered him the greatest bodybuilder cum strength athlete of all friggin’ time .  In fact, over 20 years ago, I wrote this in the pages of IronMan magazine: In my opinion, the greatest all-around bodybuilder, powerlifter and strength athlete ever to walk the planet, Eder had 19-inch arms at a bodyweight of 198. He could bench 510, squat 550 for 10 reps and do a barbell press with 365. He was reported to have achieved the amazing feat of cranking out 1,000 dips in only 17 minutes. Imagine doing a dip a second for 17 minutes. As Gene Mozee once put ...

The 1-5 Program

Develop Mass and Power with This Unique Wave Loading Method      In my recent article “ Skill Training as Size Building ,” I introduced the concept (on the blog, at least) of the “90% rule.”  I believe it’s one of the most effective ways to make consistent gains in the gym, whether you’re after strength, strength with a size side-effect, or hypertrophy alone.  Basically, the method involves doing the majority of your sets in a workout with 90% of a certain rep range.  This doesn’t mean 90%, necessarily, of your 1-rep max, though it most certainly would if you were to do multiple sets of singles—as we will be doing in this program.      In our previous article, the workout programs I suggested utilized 90% of one’s 5-rep max and 90% of a 10-rep maximum using “cluster sets.”  If you want to know more about what those programs look like, then, please, read that article.  Also, it wouldn’t hurt, if you haven’t done s...

High-Frequency Grease-the-Groove Training - The Intuitive Approach

     In my essay “ Basic Lifting, Instinctive Training ,” I mentioned the approach to training that—in the words of the great Bradley Steiner—the “mature muscle man” should take.  Steiner recommended that the seasoned lifter should know beforehand what exercises he would do in a workout, and what days he would train, but not use a pre-determined number of sets and reps for the workout.  Rather, you should let how you feel once you begin your workout decide what you do in the training session.      And, in my recent article “ Skill Training as Size Building ,” I wrote about the training perspective of approaching your lifting sessions as a skill to be developed rather than a “war” to be waged against your muscles—or a “battle” or an “onslaught” or whatever pseudo-military campaign term that modern bodybuilders like to use when discussing muscle-group training.  I also suggested that one of the best ways to do this is to uti...