Vinaire's Blog

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The “emptiness” of Buddha points to the nature of the universe. The same concept of “emptiness” points to the nature of anything that makes up this universe. This is because things are recursive. In other words, things are made up of things, which are also made of things, ad infinitum. Therefore, when you are describing the nature of a thing, you are describing the nature of all things, whether simple or complex.

So, emptiness is a concept that applies to the nature of a thing, which means, it applies to the nature of everything through recursion.

When you look at the nature of a thing, you find that there is a configuration of relationships. There is no permanence among those relationships. There is only a continual flux. You cannot put your finger on something and say that it is going to remain that forever. There is nothing that can be said to be fixed permanently.

We assign a label, for example, “Universe,” to such a configuration of relationships. This label may seem to provide a permanence of some sort. For example, we find the “Universe” to be existing forever. But the same label may mean a different thing to different people. It may even mean a different thing to the same person at a different moment. This is because the relationships represented by the label are in a continual flux.

When Buddha said that a thing is empty, he simply meant that it has neither substance nor sense that could be said to last forever.

Any sense of permanence is an illusion. There is nothing fixed. Any consideration of fixation is an aberration. This is explained in the THE DOCTRINE OF NO-SOUL: ANATTA. 

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Absolute and Relative

Buddha declared.

“The Absolute Truth is that there is nothing absolute in the world, that everything is relative, conditioned and impermanent, and that there is no unchanging, everlasting, absolute substance like Self, Soul, or Ātman within or without.”

DEFINITION: Absolute means, “Viewed independently; not comparative or relative; ultimate; intrinsic.”

This postulate may appear self-contradictory to some, but it essentially says, “There are no absolute certainties; all certainties are relative.” This statement does not degrade any certainty we have. It simply means that one can always come up with a better certainty.

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Theories

We devise theories to fully understand what is there. When we propose a theory, there is always a starting postulate. For example, Einstein’s theory of relativity starts with the postulate that the speed of light is a universal constant. 

This first postulate may appear to be “absolute” because it supports a whole system of postulates. Things make sense to us only because of the consistency of this system of postulates. If the first postulate falls apart our whole sense of reality is shaken. 

The first postulate of religions is the postulate of “God.” The division between Eastern and Western religions exist because the postulate of “God” has different meaning in the East and in the West. An atheist also has a first postulate of “God,” except that his God is not a “Super Being” but some ultimate principle of nature.

Different religions and realities come about because of the differences in the first postulate of “God”; and in the system of postulates arising from it.

The first postulate, and the system of postulates it supports, determines our reality. But even these postulates are empty in the sense that none of them can be said to be permanent. They can be questioned. They can be changed. They can be improved upon.

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The Matrix Model

The Matrix Model starts with the postulate of a MATRIX composed of PERCEPTUAL ELEMENTS, where each perceptual element, in turn, is composed of a matrix of perceptual elements recursively. It represents an infinite number of levels, with each level consisting of an infinite number of dimensions, and each dimension representing an infinity of values.

In a way, EMPTINESS is built into this model because the matrix and perceptual elements represent relationships; and these relationships are changing in infinity of ways like in the universe.

The method of Subject Clearing is based on this matrix model, for the clarity you can obtain from the application of this method has no limits.

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