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

The 5x10x5 Program

A HIgh-Frequency Muscle-Building Routine So Simple That It Seems Almost Too Good to Be True      A few years ago, after suffering from some herniated discs that were causing me pain, I experimented with a program so simple that I wasn’t sure it would work.  I should have known better.  After utilizing it, and getting good results, I thought it was even too simple to write about.  Readers might think I had gone off the deep end.  But I didn’t.  And I haven’t.  I’m currently using the program right now, after taking a week-long layoff in order to prepare myself for a “bigger” program a few weeks down the road.      Before using this program, I had already had a lot of success with easy strength methods.  I write about them quite a bit, so, unless this is your first time reading one of my articles, you’re already well-aware of the methodology.  With easy strength, you, typically, do no more than 10 r...

Load Cycling

The Principle for Programming High-Frequency Workouts      I know that I’m probably beating the proverbial dead horse here, seeing as how I have gone on more than a few rants on the subject, but the main problem, as I see it, in modern training circles is the all or nothing mentality .  The training culture in America—I have the distinct feeling that it’s no different for my international readers—is one where we think a workout is “good” if it exhausts or fatigues you.  If you’re lying in a pool of sweat once the workout is finished, and the next day your muscles are sore to the bone, then, by God, it must have been an effective training session.  Unfortunately, it just doesn’t work that way.  And if you’re chasing strength and power along with muscle mass, that method will fail you.       “If you want pain, learn Muay Thai. If you want to learn about failure, play golf. If you want to vomit, drink a syrup of ipecac...

More on Load Cycling

       In my previous article, I presented a basic program, for building both mass and strength, that demonstrated how you can best utilize load cycling.  The premise is simple, but it’s the key to making consistent gains.  You start with a lighter load and do workouts where you are not taking any of your sets to failure, or approaching failure, really.  Then, you increase the load from week to week until you reach the point that you are approaching failure.  When you reach that point in the program, you back off again and repeat.  This method has been used by various strength athletes—powerlifters, Olympic lifters, and the like—for decades in order to produce consistent gains.      In this essay, I want to look at some varied ways to make this principle work.  We’ll also look at some different programs.      This principle is more important than most lifters realize.  It’...