[Buddha-l] Emptiness

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Curt Steinmetz schreef:
> Erik Hoogcarspel wrote:
>   
>> Hi Curt,
>>
>> ultimus is the superaltive of ulter and means last, nothing beyond, so 
>> the dhamma's are ultimate in the sense that they the components of 
>> everything, but have no components themselves. They are the ulitmate 
>> components. No permanence or unchangingness is intended. I know that 
>> some dhammas are composed of the four or five elements, but I'm not sure 
>> if onecan call the elements real components, maybe one should call them 
>> qualities. If not then the elements are the true ultimate components
>>
>>   
>>     
>
> But are these "ultimates" eternal and unchanging? If not they must arise 
> from nothing and pass away - return to nothing. This is an extraordinary 
> claim that would require extraordinary evidence to support it. For one 
> thing it violates the conservation laws that are fundamental to 
> everything that we know, scientifically speaking, about the natural world.
>
> A far more reasonable view, in my opinion, would be that the ultimate 
> stuff of the physical universe is itself uncreated (and not subject to 
> destruction). All apparent impermanence and change is just the constant 
> rearrangement of this stuff. This requires neither creation out of 
> nothing nor destruction into nothing - both of which are highly 
> questionable ideas to say the least.
>
> Reasonableness or unreasonableness are, of course, separate questions 
> from what is generally accepted as Theravadin orthodox teaching on the 
> matter. Do Theravadin's generally hold that (1) there are, in fact, 
> "ultimate" "dhammas", and (2) that these arise and pass away?
>
> Curt Steinmetz
>
>   
That's my understandig of it anyway. Mind you, it's not as unreasonable 
as it seems. From what I read from modern hyperphysics it seems to be 
the general idea nowadays too. Of course this is stuff for specialists, 
but when people talk of things like antimatter, unparticles with 
variable mass, mini black holes, etc., arising from nothing seems to be 
not very far fetched. The structure of the world is however not lost: 
not anything can arise at any time. The human imagination is very rich, 
if you want more stuff like that: try the Kaalacakratantra, that 
mentions even spaceparticles.


-- 
Erik

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