Sunday, May 29, 2011

Infinite fullness v/s emptiness

Not sure who first wrote this, but I love it. It beautifully illustrates the mindboggling wonder of the universe and speaks to me of these mind chattering insights that come in flashes during meditation and under the guided influence of psychedelics. 

***
Having a magic piece of chalk I began to write on the blackboard, faster and faster, until it was covered with an infinity of figures, from the Mona Lisa to all of geometry to music and elephants. Being totally full the blackboard was now pure white.

A student from the island of Sunim, where the blackboards are white and the chalk is black, came in and remarked that my chalkboard was empty.

"No," I replied, it is infinitely full - and I went off to another class.

He took out his black magic chalk and soon covered the chalk-white board with an infinity of black figures.

I returned and said, "Your chalkboard is black, and it is completely empty."

"No," he replied. "It is infinitely full."

"Then everything is nothing and infinity is zero," I exclaimed.

"No, he replied. "Nothing is everything and zero is infinity. There is a difference."

"No," I said. "There is not."
We argued far into the night.

***

If we were to journey past all the boundaries of “reality”, wouldn’t we end up in the same place whether we journeyed inward or outward? If so, we should probably start to consider that just as “emptiness” and “infinite fullness” can be understood as being one and the same, contraction and expansion are also only two different ways to look at the same thing. If you have ever felt, during meditation, your life force expand outward and focus inward at the same time, you know what I’m talking about. Shouldn’t we then consider that at the same time as the universe is expanding, it is also contracting?      

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