Thursday, July 19, 2012

An attack on emptiness

See this IPS discussion where Layman Pascal makes some good points about the notion of emptiness. My responses follow.

I've invested a lot of exegesis on postmetaphysicalizing the emptiness of emptiness doctrine, most recently in the OOO thread through the withdrawn. I agree that as is in Buddhism it still contains some metaphysical problems, hence my philosophical policing. Though plenum has its own metaphysical connotations, also discussed in that thread. Recall this post on asserting a positive through double negation and the specter. And poetically expressed here as:


I see a ghost on the horizon
calling me to follow.
When I get there
loose rags on a tattered fence.
I look up and he's still there on the horizon
beckoning.

And recall the chorus from The Three Veils which re-un-posits via triple negation, or as you say, "emptiness is empty of emptiness."

That's right, that's right, nothing
and not just nothing, but no nothing
and not no nothing neither.

Though the hermetic qabalah version is also metaphsycial with the plenum from which the universe springs, akin to Kennilingam's conscioussness per se. See my differe(a)nce(s) with plen(um)itude in this thread. Hier(an)archy.

The language used for the name of this thread also reminds me of my old tai chi training. And how the latter can itself be recontextualized in light of more recent OOO rhetaphor. In tai chi one meets an attack by becoming empty at the point of attack and withdrawing. But the body is never fully empty or full. When one side is empty the other side is full (and various combinations therewith) so that while one withdraws at the point of attack one simultaneously attacks from another angle. So when one attacks emptiness they are met with not just nothing but counter-attack!

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