Nothing Truely Exists

[sonamdhargey]

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another.
Eventually he called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said,
"This mind,the Buddha, and all sentient beings, after all, do not exist.
The true nature of all phenomena is emptiness.
There is no realization, no delusion, no sage wisdom, and no mediocrity.
There is no thing to be given and nothing to be received."

Dokuon, who was smoking , lstened quietly but saying nothing. Then he motioned Yamaoka to approach him.
When the student approached he suddenly hit Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe.
This made the youth quite angry, and he raised his hand to strike Dokuon.
"Stop!", yelled Dokuon, ""If nothing really exists as you say, then where does your anger come from?"

What do you all think?

[dondrup]

Emptiness means the lack of inherent existence.  Emptiness means things do not exist from their own sides.  Every object or phenomenon exists in dependence upon causes and conditions.  Every object or phenomenon exists in dependence upon our imputation.  Emptiness does not mean nothingness.  Nothingness means things do not exist at all.  Though all phenomena are empty, they exist conventionally, they function conventionally.

Anger is a feeling that arises when we perceive an unpleasant object.  We know anger will subside and we won’t stay angry continuously! Hence we say anger is empty [of inherent existence] and does not really exist.  Anger still exist because it is functioning as a feeling.

[Big Uncle]

Emptiness means the lack of inherent existence.  Emptiness means things do not exist from their own sides.  Every object or phenomenon exists in dependence upon causes and conditions.  Every object or phenomenon exists in dependence upon our imputation.  Emptiness does not mean nothingness.  Nothingness means things do not exist at all.  Though all phenomena are empty, they exist conventionally, they function conventionally.

Anger is a feeling that arises when we perceive an unpleasant object.  We know anger will subside and we won’t stay angry continuously! Hence we say anger is empty [of inherent existence] and does not really exist.  Anger still exist because it is functioning as a feeling.

Emptiness means the lack of inherent existence.  Emptiness means things do not exist from their own sides.  Every object or phenomenon exists in dependence upon causes and conditions.  Every object or phenomenon exists in dependence upon our imputation.  Emptiness does not mean nothingness.  Nothingness means things do not exist at all.  Though all phenomena are empty, they exist conventionally, they function conventionally.

Anger is a feeling that arises when we perceive an unpleasant object.  We know anger will subside and we won’t stay angry continuously! Hence we say anger is empty [of inherent existence] and does not really exist.  Anger still exist because it is functioning as a feeling.

Actually anger exist only because we have a false inherent belief that the self exist. We are angry because we are protecting ourselves. But upon closer examination, where does the self actually exist? We project its existence from the collection of its parts. There's no definite answer where we can say this is the self, it is imputed as you had said upon the collection of parts. Anyway, all these are technical theories that require a lot of merit and pure meditation to penetrate its subtleties.

[Ensapa]

Yamaoka Tesshu, as a young student of Zen, visited one master after another.
Eventually he called upon Dokuon of Shokoku.

Desiring to show his attainment, he said,
"This mind,the Buddha, and all sentient beings, after all, do not exist.
The true nature of all phenomena is emptiness.
There is no realization, no delusion, no sage wisdom, and no mediocrity.
There is no thing to be given and nothing to be received."

Dokuon, who was smoking , lstened quietly but saying nothing. Then he motioned Yamaoka to approach him.
When the student approached he suddenly hit Yamaoka with his bamboo pipe.
This made the youth quite angry, and he raised his hand to strike Dokuon.
"Stop!", yelled Dokuon, ""If nothing really exists as you say, then where does your anger come from?"

What do you all think?

The fact that Yamoka even needed to say that statement proved that he does not realize emptiness because he is only scratching it out on the intellectual level. It does not mean a thing. If he truly understood emptiness he would have have just kept quiet, or like in the case of both the mad monk ji gong of china who ate pigeons and spat out live pigeons and tilopa of india who ate fish and spat out raw fish, would have shown it to demonstrate exactly that in order to realize emptiness, mental restrictions would have to be removed in totality.

[Manjushri]

IF the mind does not exist, then why is he even living? Why does the mind exist in the realm that he is living in? Why are we even in existence? If there is no wisdom, how did he even come to understand the true nature of existence?

With reference to what Dokuon said that "If nothing really exists as you say, then where does your anger come from?" ..  the context of anger used here, I dont think it is meant to define the true meaning of the nature of existence. Analysing a little deeper, why do we have anger? By our own wrong view and grasping of our own ego, and self. We have anger as we allow it to rise. We let ourselves show it, feel it , "perceive" it because we don't like it. So we are dictated by our false perception of the existence of ourselves.

When you realise emptiness, it is not that you don't have a mind, but that all perceptions, things, concepts, ideas, materials, that you are so attached to are empty of true existence because they fade eventually.

[Ensapa]

IF the mind does not exist, then why is he even living? Why does the mind exist in the realm that he is living in? Why are we even in existence? If there is no wisdom, how did he even come to understand the true nature of existence?

With reference to what Dokuon said that "If nothing really exists as you say, then where does your anger come from?" ..  the context of anger used here, I dont think it is meant to define the true meaning of the nature of existence. Analysing a little deeper, why do we have anger? By our own wrong view and grasping of our own ego, and self. We have anger as we allow it to rise. We let ourselves show it, feel it , "perceive" it because we don't like it. So we are dictated by our false perception of the existence of ourselves.

When you realise emptiness, it is not that you don't have a mind, but that all perceptions, things, concepts, ideas, materials, that you are so attached to are empty of true existence because they fade eventually.

Another explanation of emptiness that I have heard before is that it is not that our minds are inherently empty, but our perception of the world around us are empty because they are based on our senses and they could be wrong. The realization of emptiness simply means letting go of the older and invalid impressions of how things work, but letting go of them could proof harder to remove than what it seems to be, which is why we need to follow the Buddha's teachings. In other words, getting rid of something that has been conditioned for so many lifetimes is not something that will go away that easily.