The Law of polarity is to understand that every problem, regardless of the complexity has a solution within itself.
From the “Heart Sutra”
“Here, Shariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.”
First, “Emptiness” and “Form” in the Buddhist context are quite different than in most other contexts.
Emptiness: is the quality of insubstantiality, impermanence, indistinctness, discontinuity, and ambiguity.
Form: is the quality of solidity, permanence, separateness, continuity, and definition.
Habitually, we adhere to form and reject emptiness. We experience the world as having better and worse components. We attempt to collect and consume that which we see as better, and to rid ourselves of that which we take to be worse. We try to manipulate and stabilize our situations using conceptual trial-and-error understandings of cause and effect. This life strategy intermittently fails due to erratic intrusions of emptiness. Things we thought were objectively desirable prove ambiguous in their desirability. They mutate in terms of what they mean to us. Undesirable situations and phenomena cannot be entirely eliminated, because they are not separate from us.
Often our actions do not have the effects we expect. Just as we think we have everything under control, on the verge of achieving lasting happiness, some unexpected problem arises and wrecks our plans. We experience emptiness as confusion, ambivalence, ambiguity, chaos, termination, insecurity, disarray, loss, disintegration, inexplicable anxiety, loss of direction, and apparent misfortune.
We only fear emptiness because we imagine a characteristic form will be lost, we fear forever. We cling to form as security because form temporarily allows us to pretend that it is not also empty. Dissatisfaction is created by continual bids to secure forms, which subsequently prove to be empty of security. Dissatisfaction is also created by continual bids to dissolve insecurities which subsequently prove indissoluble. It is not possible to find anything other than this. Emptiness and form always define each other, as each other.
Form can be understood as ‘existence’ and emptiness as ‘non-existence’. Emptiness however, is not merely ‘nothing’. Emptiness need not be experienced negatively. Emptiness is the arena in which everything occurs. It is the creative space in which form comes into being. Form can only exist because of emptiness; which is why emptiness is often referred to as ‘the great mother’ or ‘the womb of potentiality’.
Some words which value emptiness positively are: freedom, spontaneity, opportunity, relaxation, serendipity, inspiration, potential, humor, creativity, relief, wonderment, vastness. We must enjoy emptiness if we are to enjoy form. A gracious relationship with form is impossible unless we relate courageously with emptiness – because emptiness and form are non-dual. They are aspects of each other.
Our spiritual practice consists simply of learning to dance with the emptiness and form of phenomena. It introduces the one taste of emptiness and form. We develop the ability to actively savor apparently polarized tension, rather than experiencing it in a victim role. This apparently polarized tension, after all, is merely created through ongoing attempts to attach to form whilst rejecting emptiness.
We need to observe the way in which we attempt to solidify emptiness. In so doing, we crush our freedom through attempting to impose form on situations where reality is in creative flux. Alternatively, in the disconcerting gaps between contrasting segments of life, we might sense a dimension of being that is independent of circumstances.
It is interesting, on finding this space, to allow events to remain undefined a little longer than usual. Settling into uncertainty and feeling its texture, life can disclose itself as emptiness and form: beads on the thread of experience. We can simply flow with the multiplicity of definitions manifested by reality. We can swim in swirling torrents of form and relax in still pools of emptiness.
This requires that we allow polarities to coexist. We can deliberately entertain experiential and existential paradoxes. We can embrace our impulsiveness and caution, credulity and skepticism, craziness and absolute sanity. Unless we are prepared to feel the texture of these erratically alternating possibilities, the feeling of being remains incomprehensible. If we delightedly embrace the possibility of expanding into the fierce totality of each moment, as it arrives, we can know what it is to be alive.
Corlin
From the “Heart Sutra”
“Here, Shariputra, form is emptiness and the very emptiness is form; emptiness does not differ from form, form does not differ from emptiness; whatever is form, that is emptiness, whatever is emptiness, that is form, the same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness.”
First, “Emptiness” and “Form” in the Buddhist context are quite different than in most other contexts.
Emptiness: is the quality of insubstantiality, impermanence, indistinctness, discontinuity, and ambiguity.
Form: is the quality of solidity, permanence, separateness, continuity, and definition.
Habitually, we adhere to form and reject emptiness. We experience the world as having better and worse components. We attempt to collect and consume that which we see as better, and to rid ourselves of that which we take to be worse. We try to manipulate and stabilize our situations using conceptual trial-and-error understandings of cause and effect. This life strategy intermittently fails due to erratic intrusions of emptiness. Things we thought were objectively desirable prove ambiguous in their desirability. They mutate in terms of what they mean to us. Undesirable situations and phenomena cannot be entirely eliminated, because they are not separate from us.
Often our actions do not have the effects we expect. Just as we think we have everything under control, on the verge of achieving lasting happiness, some unexpected problem arises and wrecks our plans. We experience emptiness as confusion, ambivalence, ambiguity, chaos, termination, insecurity, disarray, loss, disintegration, inexplicable anxiety, loss of direction, and apparent misfortune.
We only fear emptiness because we imagine a characteristic form will be lost, we fear forever. We cling to form as security because form temporarily allows us to pretend that it is not also empty. Dissatisfaction is created by continual bids to secure forms, which subsequently prove to be empty of security. Dissatisfaction is also created by continual bids to dissolve insecurities which subsequently prove indissoluble. It is not possible to find anything other than this. Emptiness and form always define each other, as each other.
Form can be understood as ‘existence’ and emptiness as ‘non-existence’. Emptiness however, is not merely ‘nothing’. Emptiness need not be experienced negatively. Emptiness is the arena in which everything occurs. It is the creative space in which form comes into being. Form can only exist because of emptiness; which is why emptiness is often referred to as ‘the great mother’ or ‘the womb of potentiality’.
Some words which value emptiness positively are: freedom, spontaneity, opportunity, relaxation, serendipity, inspiration, potential, humor, creativity, relief, wonderment, vastness. We must enjoy emptiness if we are to enjoy form. A gracious relationship with form is impossible unless we relate courageously with emptiness – because emptiness and form are non-dual. They are aspects of each other.
Our spiritual practice consists simply of learning to dance with the emptiness and form of phenomena. It introduces the one taste of emptiness and form. We develop the ability to actively savor apparently polarized tension, rather than experiencing it in a victim role. This apparently polarized tension, after all, is merely created through ongoing attempts to attach to form whilst rejecting emptiness.
We need to observe the way in which we attempt to solidify emptiness. In so doing, we crush our freedom through attempting to impose form on situations where reality is in creative flux. Alternatively, in the disconcerting gaps between contrasting segments of life, we might sense a dimension of being that is independent of circumstances.
It is interesting, on finding this space, to allow events to remain undefined a little longer than usual. Settling into uncertainty and feeling its texture, life can disclose itself as emptiness and form: beads on the thread of experience. We can simply flow with the multiplicity of definitions manifested by reality. We can swim in swirling torrents of form and relax in still pools of emptiness.
This requires that we allow polarities to coexist. We can deliberately entertain experiential and existential paradoxes. We can embrace our impulsiveness and caution, credulity and skepticism, craziness and absolute sanity. Unless we are prepared to feel the texture of these erratically alternating possibilities, the feeling of being remains incomprehensible. If we delightedly embrace the possibility of expanding into the fierce totality of each moment, as it arrives, we can know what it is to be alive.
Corlin