(© HKU Press, 1966)'Emptiness' is absence of anything or anyone to be 'empty'. (As long as there is someone to crave there will be craving, etc., etc.)
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Absence of absence is the essential absence: it represents a further dimension of absence.
It is the absence of that absence which is absence of presence.* * *
The absence of (the concept of) 'the absence of presence and absence', or the absence of the concept of 'neither presence nor absence', was Vimalakirti's definition of non-dualism (see J. Blofeld's 'The Zen Teaching of Hui Hai', p. 111 and n.132).
That is the absence of the concept of 'neither ... nor ...' or Absence of (that kind of existence which is) non-existence.
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Noumenon is ubiquitous, all pervading; there cannot be anywhere in which it is not, nor any moment at which it is not present.
But itself also is not.* * *
We need not only phenomenal absence in order to cognise noumenal presence, and phenomenal presence in order to cognise noumenal absence.
But the absence of both phenomenal absence and of noumenal presence if we would recognise what we are.* * *
Empty
A Chan Abbot said to me in parting 'Empty everything!', which indeed is both excellent and classic.
'Everything is empty' means that every thing is not there as such. Any other interpretation is just misleading and wrong.
'Emptiness' is just overboard with everything.
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Conceptualisation conceals what we are.
That is why mind must 'fast'.* * *
'Forgetfulness of the Self (omitting to remember This-which-I-am) is the source of all misery.' (Ramana Maharshi).
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Love-hate can have no existence outside the dualistic universe of sense-perception and personal experience. 'Impersonal love' is like 'immaterial matter', or any other contradiction in terms.
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There are diverse absences. There is absence of every sensorially perceptible object whose phenomenal presence is the noumenal absence of Me. And there is the absence of my personal phenomenal presence, which is of what I personally appear to be: that absence is coexistent and coextensive with my phenomenal appearance. And there is the absence which I am, whose presence is whatever is sensorially perceptible to me.
But Absolute Absence is the source of all presence.
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When I am absent there is no Time, and it is always the present.
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'I am the presence of the absence of all that seems to be.' (see Ch. 37. 'Essential Definition')
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One must recognise oneself as one's absence as subject.
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Colophon
Ultimate Insight
There has never been an objective 'being'. That is the only absolute truth there could ever be. Why? Because from that alone can perfect understanding arise. Nor is any other apprehension needed, for all comprehension lies therein.
The perfect understanding of that is perfect understanding itself. And that is because only non-objectivity itself can know it.
There is nothing more to be said, and - ultimately - nothing but that need ever have been said.
'Knowing that, the rest is known.' (An Upanishad)
