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Taylor Lapeyre's avatar

I have always been under the impression that the concept of "emptiness" in Zen Buddhism is not at all a reference to some sort of nihilistic image of nothingness, but rather references a state of mind where the practitioner overcomes their mind's habit of "objectifying" or "categorizing" the world into individual parts, and rather experiences the world "all at once" as a singular, unitary being which their mind is a part of.

The word "emptiness" is not a moniker for "nothingness", but a reference to a realization of existence as "empty" of the form which our minds impose upon it.

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Jason Schock's avatar

Addison, another bullseye hit! As a practicing Christian who has some interest (though less of late) in what Zen has to teach us, the one area of Zen I've struggled with is the implication of nihilism - the worst of all philosophies, especially if true. I realize Zen doesn't teach nihilism but I wonder about the implications of non-theism and non-self and how that cashes out in everyday life. To me, and I know I’m biased, the implications of non-theism and non-self point towards nothingness which I cash out in terms of despair, not hope. A grossly simplistic observation: my internal landscape seems to prefer a personal God which ‘guarantees’ victory and divine order and vindication in the end (think of the end of the book of Revelation) over the Buddhist concept of nirvana where the self is swallowed up into the whole (think of the self as a drop of water that is poured into the ocean). Existentially, Buddhism can lean towards ‘feeling’ nihilistic and without purpose to me, though I know intellectually this is not the case (or need not be), which your article nicely reflects - thank you.

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