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Subject: Form and Emptiness (Prajnaparamita Sutra -- Mahayana Buddhism)
Date: 27 Mar 1996 07:27:03 -0800
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|>Form is emptiness 
|>Emptiness form 

this resembles the Heart of Wisdom Sutra (Prajnaparamita Sutra)

it is chanted at some Zen Buddhist temples, often in low, monotone
 single-syllables and occasionally with the intermingling of a heavy
 bell.  there are likely variations within the tradition of Zen 
 Buddhism as a whole

one of these is

	form is not different from emptiness
	emptiness is not different from form

imagine

  	kernel is not different from husk
	husk is not different from kernel 

but is living in urban splendor ecological?

|>These last lines by the way are stated to show 
|>interdependence is itself empty 

remember the old scientific experiment in which light is measured and
 observed in different environments?  how it could be thought of as
 either waves or particles and no necessary primacy between the two?

I think this may be a similar type of assertion as is being stated
 here.  that form is not different than emptiness indicates that 
 the concepts of apparentness and duality are dependent upon others
 for their meaning, and therefore could not function as 'badness
 indicators' ('independent' = bad; 'interdependent' = good), even
 if one appears to conform more closely to the teachings of the Buddha

attempting to 'get away from dualism and move into nondualism' might 
 be seen as just as much a demonstration of suffering as is favoring 
 broadly extravagant and polypartate metaphysics or vying for one pole of
 a dualism over another.  even the metaphysics become the trap in the 
 philosophies of subjectivists

|>and emptiness is itself interdependent. 

I am hardpressed to render an accurate justification (explanation!) for 
 this assertion (though I do so below), and encourage alt.zen people to 
 attempt it as a service to the readership

|>But how is interdependence empty? 

all concepts are empty of their own being by virtue of having a context
 in lingual and conceptual nets.  'interdependence' has been described 
 to me as the result of this world being manifested by the buddha-nature 
 simultaneously and in every moment

in this sense, emptiness, the phenomenon, arises with everything else,
 just like all of the various facets of our experience, and is therefore 
 interdependent with things even though it is a quality related to 
 independence

|>Likewise how is emptiness interdependent? 

in omitted text, the 12-link Chain of Causation was mentioned, which 
 appear to me more subjective elements than objective:

			spiritual ignorance
			constructing activities (initiative)
			(discriminative) consciousness
			mind-and-body
			the six sense-bases (including thought)
			sensory stimulation
		        feeling (emotional)
			craving
			grasping
			existence
			birth
			ageing, death, sorrow, lamentation,
			 pain, grief and despair

given this, perhaps this is also the concept being explained here, in
 that 'form' and 'emptiness' are (from a Western perspective mainly) 
 SUBJECTIVE characteristics, the material world merely perhaps being 
 considered a fabrication of consciousness or a kind of dream of the 
 Mahabuddha

'form' in this way is a kind of insubstantial and conditioned creation
 of Mind, the great Stage.  even 'emptiness' itself: that quality
 of non-own-beingness, lack of a separate and individual existence,
 is a type of manifestation or form, the crude description of a profound
 and complex cosmological principle (or one which it serves many Buddhists
 to indulge at least! ;>)

|>Can somebody help me? 

I think you'll get lots of input where I'm Xposting it, yes