The mind deals with phenomena. A phenomenon is anything that you become aware of. A phenomenon can be physical, mental, spiritual, real or imaginary. To assess the nature of a phenomenon completely you must view it from a point beyond phenomena.
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Emptiness
That viewpoint which is beyond all phenomena is the viewpoint of emptiness. The Heart Sutra in Buddhism defines EMPTINESS as no Birth no Death, no Being no Non-being, no Defilement no Purity, no Increasing no Decreasing.
The viewpoint of emptiness is just that. It is totally fresh. It is completely clean. There are no preconceived notions, no fixed ideas, and no bias. In short, the concept of emptiness is not viewed through any filters. It is simply what it is.
From a scientific viewpoint, emptiness is like the zero of a scale on which all phenomena may be plotted. Emptiness itself is not a phenomenon, just like zero is not a value. Thus, emptiness provides a reference point from which it is possible to give an objective meaning to any phenomena.
The purpose of a reference point is to align everything that follows. In the absence of a reference point things devolve into confusion. It is common to assume an arbitrary reference point just to avoid the immediate confusion, even when it can’t resolve everything.
GOD is such a reference point. It is there to resolve the confusion of physical reality. But it cannot resolve the reality of itself. To understand the reality of GOD a more basic reference point is needed.
Emptiness is that basic reference point. It has the property of being inherently understood because it denotes the absence of all phenomena. No other reference point is required to understand emptiness.
The basis of mind is emptiness. To see things as they are, the mind must view them from the reference point of emptiness.
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