Empty Reality, Truth and Jesus

Recently had some insight into "reality" which has drawn together most of my life's enquiry. The question investigates the very nature of this world and our life, what they are, and how we should treat them, and leads to a much more enlightened approach to being alive. Essentially I was on a good track, but seeing it through has taken a long time. It also seems that there are many avenues that lead to the same place! Mine being just one of them.

The issue is the nature of "real" reality, or objective reality. This problem arises when we realise that what we perceive is actually dependent upon ourselves. We walk closer to a tree and it appears to grow in size, we understand intuitively that our perception of it grows in size, while the objective tree has the same size. We are familiar with our perceptions, they are often called our "consciousness", what has been a puzzle for me since a very young age is what then do "real" things look like when we aren't conscious of them? We know there is a "real" tree that doesn't change in size when we walk closer to it, but how large is this "real" tree? We know that a tree may fall in the forest, but what size is it and what sound does it make when there is nothing conscious of it?

This is a mine field of confusion that has baffled the greatest minds from Plato onwards. Buddha however and presumably many others did find the answer long ago. It is Easter tomorrow and while in church yesterday meditation on the cross I considered that arguably Jesus taught a similar view.

The answer is incredibly subtle, but simple. There are 3 possibilities. There is a soldi reality, there is no solid reality, or their is something between these extremes. Obviously it is the 3rd which is correct, but first let us examine the other more common sense ones.

It is wrong to say there is a "real" tree existing just like our perception but some how invisible and perhaps more correct and perfect. Plato argued this. Such a Platonic view is useful because at least our *real but invisible* tree can fall over in a forest even when no-one is there. However if such a tree really had fixed size and colour how could it change it's size or colour as we walked closer or the sun set? "Projection" is the mathematical model of size, so that a "fixed" size "appears" to change as we walk closer. But "projection" is the same equation/model regardless whether the true thing is 5mm high or 5km high. Projection tells us the ratio, not the actual size! A "real" tree has to have a "real" size, not a ratio of 15 standard meters, because then how long is a meter? What is a "real" fixed size? There are only ratios. The Greeks were right here! Our *real but invisible* tree actually has no fixed qualities. Many scientists ought be wary anyway of such an idea of *real but invisible* objectivity, since this is their argument against God!


It is wrong also to say there is no real tree, like Bishop Berkeley. This is to believe in a destruction of all the "things" we presume to cause our perceptions, leaving only our perceptions. If our perceptions are things also then we have to destroy them also, which means we are saying that there is nothing at all. In which case what are we even doing investigating it in the first place?

The third option means that we don't say that the "real" world has a fixed solid existence and we don't say that it doesn't exist either, we adopt an indifferent attitude to it. "Attitude" is the point. In the previous two cases we took a fixed "attitude" in the former asserting 'yes', and in the second denying 'no'. The point about reality is that it has "potential" so that when someone arrives on the scene then this potential can be fullfilled in the mind of the viewer. A falling tree doesn't fall all by itself, and it doesn't not exist either, it remains a potential which a person walking through the wood realises in an experience. However it is important to realise that this "potential" is not a new reality, it is simply a "place holder" in an argument, otherwise we don't understand any different from option 1 above. "Potential" is just an attitude of our mind, so that it can walk between believing that reality must be one way, or that reality is no way at all. The potential is only understood after we interact with something, it is not to say that it was sitting their invisible and hidden awaiting someone to turn up and release it. The point is that Reality for the person with True Mind is empty, neither one way or the other, and all thoughts about is are just thoughts.

It is fashionable to link science and philosophy. This is abolsutely NOT to say that Quantum Physics is anything like this. Superposition and uncollapsed quantum waves, Schroedingers Cat that is, is completely different. Schroedingers Cat states that the fixed "reality" is that we don't know until we interact with the system. Quantum Physics is a statement of mathematical law, of objective reality, which people believe in strongly and which can be proven by experiment. Option 3 above is that the True Nature of Reality is only understood by the mind that can suspend a belief about it! That is to not say it is this way, or that way, but to acknowledge that it simply has an "empty" potential to be what it becomes when perceieved. There is No Theory or Idea behind this middle path, it is about an Equanimous Mind. The mind that perceived Reality doesn't even attribute fixed reality to the Laws of Quantum Physics themselves (even while those Laws state that there is only a probability itself)! We don't hold any fixed opinion about reality! That is Emptiness, and the True Mind understanding Reality.

A simple alternative argument comes from historical criticism of Plato: The Third Man Fallacy. The world is as we perceive and think it normally. When we are start this investigation into reality we are at risk of adding "new things". The problem with these new things is finding a place for them in our world. We start to have "ideas" of "invisible" things. This is unnecessary, and makes things confusing and complicated, and ultimately leads to arguments, differences of opinion and wars.  When Plato argued that what makes two people into "people" is that they share in a True Reality called the Form of a Person of which they are copies; The mould so to speak from which they were moulded. The problem is that this "Form" is a new thing. It may be a negative thing like a mould of a person, or a positive thing like a new person but either way around it is a new thing. Then we can ask what is the mould of this mould? If we answer that it is a person, then why invent it at all? If we argue that it is moulded by a different mould then we have an infinite regression, an infinite number of moulds to explain the nature of a person. Inventing new things like Plato, Kant or Science doesn't really explain anything, it just shifts the question into new arenas. The ultimate answer is to the no-answer, which is neither one way nor the other, just a "potential" to be one thing for one mind, and a different thing for a different mind.

What makes one mind different from another? This is the issue of karma, which says that our eithical behaviour determines the type of mind we have, or more accurately the nature of our experiences since Mind has no fixed reality iself!

How does all this have anything to do with Life? Life can be incredibly easy and enjoyable, however it can also seem very difficult and not be fun at all. The point for the Mind that see reality as potential, is that in Truth it is neither easy and fun, nor difficult and not fun!!!! When we think the sky is about to cave in and the ground to give way and our life is pointless, unworthwhile, unwanted, hated pick any horrible thing we can be tormented by, in Reality it is always just a multiple potential and we have only managed to realised it like this with this mind of ours. If our mind was to change so then would the thing we realise from the potential, completely and utterly change with no memory of what was before. Reality is Empty, it has no preference for one thing or another, it can change from darkness to light as easily and as completely as darkness can be turned into brightness by a candle! The only difference is our Mind, and how we interpret it. Karma is tough however to shift, like many years of not cleaning a carpet makes the day we do clean it hard work. However every bit of cleaning we do, is a slightly cleaner carpet, and a slightly brighter mind, with more control over its realising of Realities potential.

This is similar, but also different from the current fashion of self-realisation. The problem with the american view of self-realisation is that we are driven by a fear of failure. We are "expected" to self realise, which means that we must become "someone" or "something" and with this comes the great sadness if we fail. This is not realisation at all, it is dividing the world into success and failure and fighting to be in the part of the world called success. It is believing that the world is absolutely split into halves! It is believing that we Really *are* a success, or a failure. It is absolutely NOT understanding that in reality we are neither and the belief that we are is something we only realised in our mind! This is why it is so dangerous to attribute a fixed reality to ourselves. The Enlightened absolutely DON'T believe that they are enlightened, it is not a belief about a fixed reality: it is the realising that there is no fixed reality! We live our life understanding that our life is manufactured by our own mind from a reality that can be moulded any way at all depending simply upon our mind.

A discussion with a friend found an added dimension to this. A master may scold a chef for over cooking noodles. In this he is very full, and has a strong opinion on the reality. After all the noodles have gone soggy! However the situation is also one of emptiness. The pupil if wise will be empty so that they can be filled with the masters teaching: such a pupil has a mind that interprets the the situation skillfully, many might cry or feel depressed, but exactly the same situation to the skillful mind is also a learning opportunity! This is emptiness. The empty master can be equally empty by being full at this a time, so that the pupil will learn! How without being full can the master teach? However being empty the master may taken a different approach if he sees it as wise, perhaps for arguments sake realising that soggy noodles can make a different dish.

So did Christ see anything of all this talk of emptiness in His life, death and teachings? He certainly taught that entrance into Heaven depended on our deeds. The Jews believe that entrance to Heaven is through favour from God. God can favour some very unwholesome people looking at the old testament. Jesus says that His father will welcome anyone who follows Jesus' example. Some interpret this to mean just follow Jesus Himself, as opposed to follow his example. What would Jesus do? God wiull smile at our Jesus like behaviour and open the doors of heaven for us. Doesn't Jesus ask us to be good, isn't goodness how we clear karma, and liberate the potential for brightness?

Jesus says that faith will save us. This is simply faith that God will help us. This is to say that be must believe that anything is possible, and God can grant any wish. Is not Reality empty and full of infinite potential? Isn't this the faith being discussed here?

Jesus says love both your neighbours and enemies equally. Isn't this to say that we should realise the potential for love for things that only appear to us to be different? Our minds make some people enemies, and some friends, yet in reality they are neither and God views them equally as His creation. There is potential for love for anyone.

Tomorrow Jesus defeats death. Yesterday he experienced the full face of Mans greatest fear and the complete despair of even doubted his own father. In this reading the infinite potential was none of these things, it was Jesus' mind and incarnation that made him despair His death. Thousands have been crucified and felt the same pain, many tortured even worse. But we know that he was fulfilling scripture and that he didn't need to die on the cross: he was innocent, a simple carpenter's son. A promise to accept the Emperor, and humble acceptance of the authority of the Sanhedrin and Priests would have freed Him. No, He needed to experience Man's cruelty, to take on the role of Messiah as it was written and understood then, to adopt a particular mind and reality to show us who have this mind that it isn't the end of freedom. Even in despair, when we can't see it, the infinite potential is there. So on the third day he rose again... I admit I am unsure what happened here: he looked different, people didn't recognise Him, I'll leave this to faith for now, it isn't necessary for this reading anyway.

And finally for the skeptics: Does God exist? Suspend that thought and stop grasping for fixed Reality immediately; He is neither existing, nor not existing; He is the potential for wonderful things to occur to those who have prepared their minds and who believe!