Voidness
 

If everything is impermanent,what was there before voidness?

A simple question!

a simple buddhist named
loong

Is there any essence to voidness, incomprehensible to materialism?
Our determination of phenomena may be quite remiss, as expressed in particular by our terminology.

What is 'voidness'?

You know! It's that 'thing' Buddhists talk about a lot http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/wink.gif

Yes Sri...'Buddhists' talk about lots of 'thing(s)' ... at times I don't assume anymore that we're on the same page on the same 'thing'... lol

That's very true plwk. Still, we can at least be confident that our 'void-thing' is a better 'thing' than anyone else's (whatever it is?)

Hey, if you ever get your hands on any of it, let me know http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...milies/lol.gif

To Plwk. voidness and emptyness are the same ,See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunyata#Dalai_Lama

loong a simple buddhist

yes, and voidness and nirvana are the same

both are unborn, unconditioned

regards

Nonexistence is isomorphic to the set of all self-consistent possibilities. That's why the universe is simultaneously everything and nothing. Time is entropy, random movements that tend toward certain patterns more than others, like DNA tends to grow life even though it moves left equally often as it moves right. There's no such thing as time at the deepest level. In physics they say this as "time symmetry".

If everything is impermanent,what was there before voidness? The void is "Nonexistence is isomorphic to the set of all self-consistent possibilities." Your question doesn't make sense because time is 1 of an infinite number of patterns inside those possibilities.

Depending on what direction through the infinite possibilities you look, any event in the future (or other patterns of reality) has already happened, since there is some path between every part of the universe and every other part.

So therefore greed, hatred and delusion came before voidness? (emptiness, sunnata)




.

The word void on its own makes no sense to me. Void of what?

emptiness - makes no sense
empty of a permanent entity which can be called a self - makes sense

In my reading, "emptiness" is simply shorthand for emptiness of self.

Suñña Sutta: Empty (SN 35.85)

Ven. Ananda went to the Blessed One and on arrival, having bowed down to him, sat to one side. As he was sitting there he said to the Blessed One, "It is said that the world is empty, the world is empty, lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?"

"Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said, Ananda, that the world is empty."

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....085.than.html http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/hands.gif

Yes and I have a feeling that the OPs original question arises from a general misunderstanding of what emptiness means in Buddhist context

If the OP is so inclined, I might recommend reflecting on Nagarjuna's verse here:

Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 24.18

Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness.
That, being a dependent designation,
Is itself the middle way.

From The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, trans. Jay L. Garfield (1995)

Hi loong

I think this question needs a standpoint. It's like the issue in relativity

theory. We need a stangpoint to look at what we're observing. And when

we talk about it we have to talk about it as it relates to something else.

We cannot talk about it without referring to another thing.
(for example the world is moving in such and such speed when compares

with such and such thing etc.)
Everything is impermanent because everything is changing. Still, there

are three kinds of change: nonchange, cyclic change and sequent

change. Nonchange is the "voidness" (or the "backgroung.")
However, when we look at voidness and talk about it, we have to talk only

it's void from anything when compares to another thing. Besides, it's the

background so there's nothing before the background. It's just a

reference point.
As for cyclic change, it's the recurrent change such as seasons. And

sequent change is the change that doesn't return to the starting point.

(children to old man and never return to children again.)
Therefore, everything is impermanent becuase they are changing. And

there's voidness in the background.
By the way, I believe "impermanent" in buddhism has less to do with the

change "without" but the change "within." Even everything is changing

(without) but if we know about this and our mind don't cling to that

changing, then we will not affect by them.

As for your question, "If everything is impermanent, what was there

before voidness?"
My simple answer is "Everything is impermanent becasue everything is

changing. There was nothing there before voidness because voidness is in

the background of everything that is changing (impermanence.)" http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ilies/grin.gif

There has got to be a better question than this. The cosmos and viodness just are! It isnt why why why it just is and always will be.Voidness is a play on words absolute potential would be a better description! Why cant people get past beginnings and creationism!http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/tongue.gif

I've always thought of the void as a blank canvas, as opposed to absolute lack of anything.
When you see the canvas, you are free to create something on it. But either way, the canvas is what you make of it. It had no inherent meaning beforehand.

It isn't a perfect metaphor, but I like it.

I find the Buddha's metaphor for emptiness extremely helpful. In the Phena Sutta, the Buddha compares the aggregates to foam in a river, bubbles in water, a mirage, and other illusory, impermanent phenomena. They are all empty, he asserts: "However you observe them, appropriately examine them, they're empty, void to whoever sees them appropriately" (SN 22.95).

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipit....095.than.html

Yes, Phena Sutta is one of my favorites ! I like the ending verses:



That is what the Blessed One said. Having said that, the One Well-Gone, the Teacher, said further:

Form is like a glob of foam;
feeling, a bubble;
perception, a mirage;
fabrications, a banana tree;
consciousness, a magic trick —
this has been taught
by the Kinsman of the Sun.
However you observe them,
appropriately examine them,
they're empty, void
to whoever sees them
appropriately.

Beginning with the body
as taught by the One
with profound discernment:
when abandoned by three things
— life, warmth, & consciousness —
form is rejected, cast aside.
When bereft of these
it lies thrown away,
senseless,
a meal for others.
That's the way it goes:
it's a magic trick,
an idiot's babbling.
It's said to be
a murderer.
No substance here
is found.

Thus a monk, persistence aroused,
should view the aggregates
by day & by night,
mindful,
alert;
should discard all fetters;
should make himself
his own refuge;
should live as if
his head were on fire —
in hopes of the state
with no falling away.

http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...lies/hands.gif

The Phena Sutta sounds remarkably similar to the concluding verse of the Diamond Sutra:

Diamond Sutra Chapter 32

"So I say to you -
This is how to contemplate our conditioned existence in this fleeting world:"

"Like a tiny drop of dew, or a bubble floating in a stream;
Like a flash of lightning in a summer cloud,
Or a flickering lamp, an illusion, a phantom, or a dream."

"So is all conditioned existence to be seen."

http://www.diamond-sutra.com/diamond...xt/page32.html