(Everybody Knows this is Nowhere)

A friend wondered if there is such thing as space; I answered that It is now known that what we called “vacuum” is really ‘dark matter” and that 90 percent of the universe is composed of this dark matter, of which we know nothing. There is no empty space, it appears.
Having said this.. all unenlightened mind states which function under the assumption of rupa and nama (form and name/conceptual categorization) cannot see that when we are still, we step out of the world. the world keeps moving, but when we are still and have “stopped” then we are in the centre of the mandala/circle/storm of events and thus have renounced all involvement/entanglement in it (why am i talking about this now??? wait and you will see) – the “wondering/wandering” mind which seeks answers based on logic and scientific evidence is still entangled in the world (action and reaction.. the “desire or inclination” to seek is precisely a setting of a ball into motion (curiosity) which is one of the aspects of the whirligig of movements in what i refer to as “the storm of events” - once abstention of involvement (including the desire to be involved in such) events is attained, then it is as if one were in the centre of the mandala/lotus. the metaphor compares with the eye of the storm.. the centre of the tornado is still but surrounded by a storm of moving events – the mandala is like a circle in the sense that the centre (if sought in its exactitude as a singular point) is impossible to locate (going ever smaller and drawing a small dot in the center of each expanded dot drawn would result in you running out of microscope magnification before finding the centre point – just as marking the number Pi on a ruler is impossible too.

Around this non location which is the centre (zero point, or point zero – inactive) is a series of concentric layers like the different houses or realms drawn around the tibetan mandala paintings, or even the petals of a flower.. which increase in complexity as you travel outwards towards the perimeter.
This centre is nowhere – stepped out from the world (and thus free from action and reaction/dhukkha) – this is perhaps the real vacuum of space – the only real space of nothingness can be this. because you azre in the centre and have stopped revolving in the wheel/whirligig of entanglement in events, cause and effect, actions and reactions, one is not in the world. The world is still there however and all around one, but one is no longer involved in it – althogh one is thus then in the centre, there is no real centre, the centre is everywhere.. any given point in the infinite Universe can be considered to be centre (point zero – which is null) – therefore the centre is everywhere, and nowhere in the same time. It could also be said that there is therefore no centre, or even that there are an infinite number of centres. The “problem ” of this anomaly lies in the fact that with what we call infinite space, which is stretching out in all directions with no physical or measurable perimeter to measure with (the same goes for time at least as far as the future goes, if not the past also). We have no point to measure a centre of infinity nor do we have a reference point to really say whether something (a world or even a person) is big or small (big and small are relative concepts which have no real substance). We might see the Universe as massive but then it might be contained within one atom of an object in a much larger world , making it small.. or the atoms of our world might be containing universes, making us big. We are both large and small and neither, we are both in the centre and also without any centre.. all these opposites can be found to be simultaneously true and also not true at the same time as each other.

there might be some actions/reactions or movements in the storm of events, but with no observer there to take note of it or to synthesise a model of the composition of various events (such as molecules vibrating in different frequencies which an orifice such as an ear might be used to interpret as making a sound), there would be no nameable event. When the illusions of self and world are dissipated, then all that is left is mahabhutarupa - form – there is a form but not as we see it – if the ’spaces” between the molecules of the foot of the table and the ones between the molecules of the floor are evenly spaced out and distributed, then we can assume that there is nothing separating the molecules and the space distances between the edge of the table foot and the edge of the floor.. all objects percieved as separate (such as “floor, table, door, room, ceiling, house” etc) are in fact one single massive cloud of atoms and spaces, with nothing separating them except for our consciousnesses, which when the cloud of material form comes into contact with our perceptive senses is split by our minds and named as various things, which we tend to think of as separate entities.. a house is a unit in our consciousness, but then so is a chair and a table and a floor.. but all the chairs and tables and floor etc are components of one unit which is the house.. (or not?).  Is a house a colony of chairs tables beds walls roof and floors? if so then what is a table?  A colony/composition of subsequent separate units/entities such as legs, surface, feet, edges etc… are we one man or are we a “cloud” of other individuals (bacteria, blood cells, enzymes, sperms, eggs, stomach, …) What is an individual unit in fact? all percievable units can also be seen to be clouds/compositions/groups of other seemingly individual units. Where is the self? where is the end of this?
Time and Space do not exist, and neither do we, we only seem to in a relative way.
relatively it does, objectively, it doesnt, both are true, and neither…
this is the true nature of the Universe (omniverse?)
Whoever said there must only be one answer, one version of truth?.. this in itself is a dumb assumption which has no foundation.
A table is a conditioned thought.. (sangkhara), a box of KFC is also conditioned conceptual thought.. break it down and go beyond kfc to say it is a box and some fried chicken.. then see it is an amalgamation of an ex tree which was pounded into mash and made into paper and mixed with color and then a dead animal which was immersed in hot oil and burnt.. (burned? or cooked? or oxidised?) – then see that actually is it a mixture of elements (solid, liquid vapour and posession a certain temperature [earth water air and fire] – this is the last four qualities definable when you take the conditioned thought and names away from objects form is rupa and name is nama – our minds are under the power of rupa and nama and thus extract an imagined “world” from the great cloud of un-nameable matter and space by naming it. The great cloud/mountain of cosmic goo we call spacetime and matter is the Mahabhutarupa, which without nama would not be separate from us at all, as neither would the table foot from the floor. what makes us see floor and table and door and wall as separate entities? the “nama” aspect of course – we percieve and name based on conditioning. a baby sees a blurry cloud and hears a blurry barrage of  inseparable sound sources.. this is something like mahabhutarupa, before the baby develops the tendency to invoke nama (names) upon the objects of his perceptive awareness.
End of Musing.

Volitional Phenomaena seen as Dhukka from the perspective of Non-Self.
All movements are disturbances to Nirvana and its empty nonself in stillness. be they sounds, thoughts, desires, emotions, inclinations or tactile impressions and the reaction to such.
From Arupajhana, the inclination to communicate with “others” does not exist.. as one retrogresses back into rupajhana, the concept of otherhood returns. Inclinations are noisy disturbances; like a train passing your bedroom window. In the subtle state of non-self and emptiness (formless state), all subtle “movements” or volitional phenomaena are seen as suffering and distrubances to the Void in it’s stillness of non becoming.
Becoming is Dhukka – liberation is stillness and cessation

Look at this world:
Beings, afflicted with thick ignorance,
are unreleased…
from delight in what has come to be.
All levels of becoming,
anywhere,
in any way,
are inconstant, stressful, subject to change.
Seeing this as it has come to be
with right discernment,
one abandons craving for becoming,
without delighting in non-becoming.
From the total ending of craving
comes dispassion and cessation without remainder:
Unbinding.
For the monk unbound,
through lack of clinging/sustenance,
there is no renewed becoming.
He has conquered Mara,
won the battle,
gone beyond all becomings
Ud 3:10

Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu from the Loka Sutta

Download Pdf Book by Thanissaro Bhikkhu;
the paradox of becoming

All sounds, wishes, inclinations, actions, desires and other apparitions of movement are just erroneous distortions on the still ocean surface, which is Anatta or Nirvana. All the things happening within and without, are simply disturbances to the ultimate silence and peace that is Non-Self. There is thought and emotion present, but that is not the self, nor is it part of such. As the sound of the ventilator humming and the wind it emits, the sounds of the people speaking and the physical sensations of warmth, cold, pain or excitement are also not such. Such phenomaena are indeed in the process of occurring, but they are not self. They are simply ripples on the surface of the water, disturbing the stillness. To silently watch these occurences as not self, with a mind that is unblemished by thoughts or attachment to the occuring phenomaena, is pure bliss, and peace. Nirvana is something that is.? The occurrences are there but they are separate from the silent watcher. Even mind is not the watcher. The watcher is not anybody.. not even oneself. Oneself is just another of those occurrences disturbing the stillness, with the slight difference that some watcher may consider that particular conglomeration of occurences oe incidents, as “his/her self”. This is where suffering resides, this is the self made prison, and this is the veil of illusion which obscures Nirvana, Sunyatta and Anatta.

Image sources:

http://www.electric-chicken.co.uk/gallery.html

http://www.andrewhalcro.com/sean_gone

http://pulickal.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/empty-room-b/

http://baybeeblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/scene-3-empty-room.html

http://ezkarma.com/

http://photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=484267 (Ben Goosens)

http://www.sodahead.com/blog/58987/emptiness/

Nobody will ever attain Nirvana; because in Nirvana, there is Nobody there. When the Watcher and the Thinker/Doer separate forever – Nirvana is apparent.When this Happens to a living entity, the result is that the inner experience of the watcher is different to the way that that living entity appears to exist to the outside observer, who is still blinded by the limits of identification with the surrounding phenomaena of arisal, becoming and cessation, which the outside observer (unenlightened), percieves to be part of his/herself, or at least related to self. Such a being residing in Sunyatta, disconnected forever from the abundance of disturbances occuring around this silent unblemished and untouchable watcher, is known in Human terminology as an Arahant.

Avalokiteshvara to Saribhutra (Heart Sutra).

Phra Saribut

Therefore, Saribhutra, all experience is emptiness. It is not defined. It is not born or destroyed, impure or free from impurity, nor incomplete or complete.

Therefore, Saribhutra, in emptiness, there is no form, no feelings, no concepts, no mental formations, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no appearance, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no mind object; no eye element up to no mind element, no mind object element, no mind consciousness element; no ignorance, no end of ignorance up to no old age and death, no end of old age and death; no suffering, no origin, no cessation, no path; no pristine awareness, no attainment, and no non-attainment.

Therefore, Saribhutra, with nothing to attain, bodhisattvas rely on and rest in the perfection of wisdom. Their minds are not clouded and they have no fear. They go completely beyond error and come to the end of nirvana. All the buddhas of the three times, by means of the perfection of wisdom, fully awaken to unsurpassable, true, complete awakening.

Therefore, know the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, a mantra of great understanding, an unsurpassed mantra, a mantra equal to the unequalled, a mantra that completely calms all suffering, to be true because it is not false. Thus, to voice the mantra of the perfection of wisdom:

Om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha

Shariputra

Huh??? (I hear you say)..

how can you attain liberation from impermanence and suffering if “all things are such”
either its true or it isnt no?
well there you go.. its badly explained again.. what is meant is that “all things in “all things in Samsaric existence are Impermanent, Void of inherent qualities, and therefore, also a cause of suffering.
But that when you have attained liberation from such samsaric perceptual states and have managed to project your consciousness into a non-attached state of pure perception, then you are no longer subject to such rules. The self or non-self is a conceptual celtic knot of dogma that people have been arguing about since Buddha’s time.. and still are.. arguing about it or trying to define it semantically will only tie you up in knots.
If you REALLY wish to know i suggest that you do what Buddha did;
Find out for oneself and stop all the dogmatic retorts.. the only way to know is not to post and ask on a forum, rather to practise VIpassana Gamatana and still your mind practise watching your thoughts breath mind emotions sensations, sights etc and see how it relates to you as the watcher..
Watch what you feel to be your “self”… where is it? is it in your thoughts? where are your thoughts? is it in your body? if it is in your thoughts, then it is impermanent because all thoughts rise and fall as does the breath..
I suggest that you meditate and try to pinpoint the self .. i am sure you will find that you cannopt find a self…
The self that is void of permanent unchanging self does not exists.. if that is what the hindus mean by Atta then no.. there is no self.. but the consciousness, the observer that watches.. whether he has 5 khandas, eyes ears or just a stumpy awareness in a black void with no body no sense etc (i believe such would be still there and have the most basic perception.. thought.. thought seems to need no medium like a body to exists.. ok brains make electricity and that can maybe be seen as our mind house.. but if so then the reincarnation theory is als bust.. and we dont have to discuss things furhter.. if there is rebirth from many lives this would mean that the disintegration of our aggregates back to the source state would either leave us with nothing (meaning we dont exist anymore) or…
assuming what Buddha said that we are all reborn and reborn many times till we attain enlightenment..

HUH????
there is no self? but we can be reborn? so what is it that is separate from the other people that can be reborn???
a soul? no.. the Buddhist theory says there is no such thing no?
so what the heck is being transferred? from one life to the next?
case closed.
There is no permanent unchanging self – but there is an everchanging phenomaena of consciousness/mind which appears to be able to transcend endless lifetimes. This is the “real self” the “Overself” – the nature or “Dhamma” of this self is emptiness of a any permanent unchanging aspects or qualities, and always in flux and change – never the same in any two moments. this is what is meant by “Non Self”.

but the word self is obviously applied to the concept of a living being existing under the impressione that he or she is that certain character that one is conditioned into thinkng is onesefl “Fred Bloggs” “Andy Capp”, etc. For me, “Se;f” means that everchanging void of permanence percieving consciousness “mind” that is that what i now am all the beings i once was and also the ones i shall be

Mind pages (category) will be presenting some theories involved with;
Enlightenment, Vision of reality, self and non-self, Sunyatta (Emptiness), Anicca (Impermanence) and perhaps even Dhukkha (Suffering). The nature of the non-Self and Emptiness of Mind shall be attempted to be explained, along with its relationship to the universe percieved as within, and also without.

We are all One.

On “Oneself”……. (Emptiness and the Non-Self against the Atman)

Coming soon…..