The Wisdom of Emptiness – a Story of Cause and Effects Linkage

The wisdom of emptiness. Einstein’s E=mc2 demonstrates that all matter, all of material reality is actually light-energy (prana, shakti, lung, pneuma, ch’i) arising from its vast basal primordial emptiness matrix or source-ground, just as the Hindu Vedas, Upanishads, Buddhism and other teachings of our Great Wisdom Tradition have told from the very beginning. 

On the account of our wisdom traditions then, the physical cosmos is not simply a linear, material chain of cause and effect from the “Big Bang” (“First Cause”) to the present, but rather, an atemporal, continuous emanation, manifestation, objectification, solidification or reification of light-energy from its great timeless, ultimately or perfectly subjective, utterly ineffable (to concept-mind but not yogic contemplative mind) base or source, the “supreme source” (cittadhatu), of all-inclusive Kosmos (gross/physical cosmos, subtle, causal and nondual aspects of the real dimensions of Body, Mind, Spirit), the primordial emptiness ground, Tao, Nirguna Brahman of our Great Wisdom Tradition.

The concept of emptiness often confuses people. We feel so real in the circumstances around us. The duality fools most of us, tricking us into all kinds of illusions that lead us into wrong thoughts/actions and misinformed emotions. Here is a creative work of the story of Hitler to illustrate the point.

In ancient Chinese Buddhism history, there is a famous case teaching on Cause Effect. 百丈怀海禅师与野狐禅公案的启示 —— 不昧因果. A wild wolf used to be an excellent Buddhist teacher 500 incarnations before. In that life, he made the mistake of telling his student that cause and effect stop functioning once they achieved the status of Buddhahood. As a result, he turned into a wild wolf this life and begged the help from Zen Master 百丈怀海. The Zen Master only made a word correction for him, and that made the whole difference between heaven and earth of this wild wolf. This may be a good answer to Hitler’s question in the previous paragraph.