Getting Old and Sunyata

Did you never see in the world a . . . woman, eighty, ninety, or a hundred years old, frail, crooked as a gable roof, bent down, resting on crutches, with tottering steps, infirm, youth long since fled, with broken teeth, grey and scanty hair, or bald-headed, wrinkled, with blotched limbs? And did the thought never come to you that also you are subject to decay, that also you cannot escape it? - Buddha, in "The Three Warnings".

Valuable Experiences

Brain research suggests that words like "Divine Mother" calls forth a certain association pattern in the brain. There is room for billions of other association sets. The number of networking brain patterns may be beyond firm calculations. The psychologist Tony Buzan has indicated how many brain patterns that are possible in Make the Most of Your Mind [Mum], an all right book for self-help study.

There is room for more perceptions in our minds.

If by Srwityb we understand that everything is empty, that nothing is of value, we overlook things, for example that the "I" inside holds the notion Srwityb too. Ramana Maharsi when he talks about the void (sunyata) that one may experience in deep meditation. He said.

"You must have been there during the void to be able to say that you experienced a void. To be fixed in that 'you' is the quest from start to finish. [. . .] It is the mind that sees objects and has experiences and that finds a void when it ceases to see and experience, but that is not 'you'. You are the constant illumination that lights up both the experience and the void. [. . . Illustration:] In complete darkness we do not see [. . .] and we say: "I see nothing." In the same way, you are there even in the void you mention." - Ramana Maharsi [Osborne, Arthur ed: The Teachings of Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharsi in His Own Words. New ed. Rider. London, 1971. p. 132]

Also, according to Daizetz T. Suzuki (1870-1966), the total self-identity of "I am I" is the state of non-time and is equivalent to the emptiness of Buddhist philosophy.

That emptiness is not "nothingness, non-existence, or non-reality," according to Eihei Dogen, founder of Soto Zen in Japan. He states, "Sunyata is not non-existence." Roshi Nishijima explains, "In Master Dogen's teaching sunyata is not the denial of real existence - it expresses the absence of anything other than real existence." [Nishijima, Gudo Wafo and Cross, Chodo, trs.: Master Dogen's Shobogenzo. Book 2. Windbell Publications. London, 1996, chapter "Bussho"]