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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
 Posted - Sep 01 2013 : 09:37:38 AM
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http://www.amazon.com/Emptiness-Joyful-Freedom-Greg-Goode/dp/1908664363
Synopsis:
quote:
"The pinnacle of Buddhism's understanding of reality is the emptiness of all things. Exploring reality towards the realization of emptiness is shockingly radical. It uncovers an exhilarating freedom with nowhere to stand, while engendering a loving joy that engages the world. This path-breaking book employs the emptiness teachings in a fresh, innovative way. Goode and Sander don't rely solely on historical models and meditations. Instead, they have created over eighty original meditations on the emptiness of the self, issues in everyday life, and spiritual paths. These meditations are guided both by Buddhist insights and cutting-edge Western tools of inquiry, such as positive psychology, neuroscience, linguistic philosophy, deconstruction, and scepticism. The result is a set of liberating and usable tools for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike."
Amazon Reviewer:
quote:
"Realising emptiness is about looking for an eternal truth - a `real' self-existing thing - and not being able to find one! - and it is about discovering that this does not make everything seem meaningless but is ironically the very outcome that frees us from our rigid beliefs and allows us to celebrate our life with a `joyful freedom'. It also promotes a feeling of connectedness and compassion as the fixed boundaries between things melt away."
Recent experience takes me entirely beyond words and concepts, which are pale shadows for expressing experience.
I find myself joyfully empty with nowhere to stand, unable to define myself: Not Nothing, Not Everything, Not Awareness, Not a Person, Not No-Self. Identity shifting changing joyfully and spontaneously, appropriately moving with each moment to encompass a range of frequencies and understandings. Attempting to define and express this conceptually just feels limiting and constricted.
I'm finding myself deeply drawn to the Emptiness teachings at this time. I've experience the "empty of self" Buddhist type realization and found deeply liberating. Also experienced advaita shifts - I am nothing, I am everything, I am awareness - these have left a state of abiding joy and experiential freedom even in the presence of negative emotions or buzzing thoughts. Language and thoughts have now become transparent there feels to be little point in trying to condense experience into words, its just seems to harden and solidify something which is inherently constantly moving, flowing, changing - like water.
Expressing it is like grasping at sand, taking a conceptual understanding of a realization is identifying with a position, which is pointless. There's just this, movement, flow, flux, nothing solid or defined.
If anyone wants to come to the launch party of this new Greg Goode book in NYC, let me know, it's on Thursday this week I will be going. Suggested donation of $10, so its cheap ;-)
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Emptiness and Joyful Freedom - G.Goode
