Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing? Leo Gura Jul 19, 2020

[Nak Khid]

Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?  Leo Gura Jul 19, 2020

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However in the video Leo says: 

" Everything is Nothing"  and  " there is no distinction between something and nothing "

But the title does not say this.   The title says that nothing exist only something exists. 

So where is the evidence that nothing exists other than "nothing"  being an abstract dualistic concept but not a real thing? 

The title of the video is not " There is no Distinction Between Something and Nothing "

Similarly Leo has said there is only Love and that hate doesn't exist and he justifies that because assuming nonduality is true 
then if we add hate to Love it's two things not one. 
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So we return to the original title   Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?  
Prove that that is not true.  That "nothing" doesn't exist. It's a mental construct. 

What about the idea Nothing is all there is , everything is an illusion? 
 It doesn't matter, an illusion is not nothing. 

What about the statement alone Nothing is all there is ?  

That doesn't  work because we experience different things. We only experience things, thoughts etc
You go into a  pitch black dark room insulated from sound yet you can sense your feet standing there, or your own breathing , thoughts memory etc. 
Just being alive you are experiencing and that is not nothing. 

Ok what about  statements like

Infinity is Zero 
Up is Down 
Hate is Love
Everything is Nothing 
I am you
You are Me

If you take two words like this that are considers opposites and you put the word "is" or "am" in between.
The are  interesting because they doesn't make sense. They seem clever , paradoxical and your brain tries to make sense of them but it keeps looping an it can't 

In the video the idea is raise why does the universe have various things in it ? Wouldn't it be simpler and more elegant to have nothing? 
Hypothetically yes but that would be extremely boring. 

So we return to the original title  
Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?  

Why wouldn't only something exist?  Where is the proof that nothing exists? 
See, the intuition gets it right the first time.   There is only something 
Then the mind comes in, intellectualizes and imagines that nothing also exists 
That's the minds illusion, nothingness.  It's elegant in it's simplicity. 
However reality is not elegant in that way.  Sometimes we find peace in simplicity. 
But that is because our minds can be overwhelmed if attempting to be aware of a multitude of things at once. 
To focus on on one sometimes is a needed relief from the whole universe 
Meditation is an artificial thing,   But it is useful to use to step out of distracting, repetitive chatter 
We need to get away from "it all" sometimes 

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https://www.huffpost.com/entry/emptiness-most-misunderstood-word-in-buddhism_b_2769189

Emptiness: The Most Misunderstood Word in Buddhism

“Emptiness” is a central teaching of all Buddhism, but its true meaning is often misunderstood. If we are ever to embrace Buddhism properly into the West, we need to be clear about emptiness, since a wrong understanding of its meaning can be confusing, even harmful. The third century Indian Buddhist master Nagarjuna taught, “Emptiness wrongly grasped is like picking up a poisonous snake by the wrong end.” In other words, we will be bitten!

Emptiness is not complete nothingness; it doesn’t mean that nothing exists at all. This would be a nihilistic view contrary to common sense. What it does mean is that things do not exist the way our grasping self supposes they do. In his book on the Heart Sutra the Dalai Lama calls emptiness “the true nature of things and events,” but in the same passage he warns us “to avoid the misapprehension that emptiness is an absolute reality or an independent truth.” In other words, emptiness is not some kind of heaven or separate realm apart from this world and its woes.

The Heart Sutra says, “all phenomena in their own-being are empty.” It doesn’t say “all phenomena are empty.” This distinction is vital. “Own-being” means separate independent existence. The passage means that nothing we see or hear (or are) stands alone; everything is a tentative expression of one seamless, ever-changing landscape. So though no individual person or thing has any permanent, fixed identity, everything taken together is what Thich Nhat Hanh calls “interbeing.” This term embraces the positive aspect of emptiness as it is lived and acted by a person of wisdom — with its sense of connection, compassion and love. Think of the Dalai Lama himself and the kind of person he is — generous, humble, smiling and laughing — and we can see that a mere intellectual reading of emptiness fails to get at its practical joyous quality in spiritual life. So emptiness has two aspects, one negative and the other quite positive.

Ari Goldfield, a Buddhist teacher at Wisdom Sun and translator of Stars of Wisdom , summarizes these two aspects as follows:

The first meaning of emptiness is called “emptiness of essence,” which means that phenomena [that we experience] have no inherent nature by themselves.” The second is called “emptiness in the context of Buddha Nature,” which sees emptiness as endowed with qualities of awakened mind like wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage. Ultimate reality is the union of both emptinesses.

Some Buddhist students think that a meditative state without thought or activity is the realization of emptiness. While such a state is well described in Buddhist meditation texts, it is treated like all mental states — temporary and not ultimately conducive to liberation.

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Reality is impermanent. Things come and go.    When they go do they go into "nothingness? " 
No they disappear.  They don't go into a place called "nothingness"  
Nothingness is the mental construct. That is the idealistic illusion 

things don't have "no" or "non" in front of them. Those are abstractions 
There is.
There is no such thing as nonduality.   Absence of duality is not a thing 
And because it's not at thing that doesn't mean duality is real. 
that is another construct 

There only are things 

And if you says there are only illusions of things illusions are not nothing

They are something 

Welcome to somethingness 

 

Edited July 20, 2020 by Nak Khid

[Leo Gura]

@Nak Khid It's like you're trying to be dense on purpose.

The reason you don't get it is because your mind is closed and you are attached to your own position. Drop it and have a genuine desire to understand what was said. Stop arguing. You are clueless about this stuff.

Any idea you have of Nothingness is wrong.

[Shmurda]

@Nak Khid That was quite a long and confusing essay my guy and I thought the arguments were pretty circular. I give it a C minus.

Anyway the point is, the origin of something-ness is not a thing. What we refer to as God, the creator, cannot be defined conceptually. It is devoid of  a fundamental structure, parameters or objectivity. What is that? It's No-thing. 

Also, you seem to be gunning for Leo a lot. Is it because Leo is usually wrong and you're here to show us the way? Or is it that you have some bias going on where you're always trying to outsmart him? I think it's the latter. 

[Artsu]

Nothingness might be real but we can never prove it.

[bejapuskas]

I think looking at this in terms of infinity = zero is misleading. Because the word/number zero still holds meaning, as can the word infinity. In maths you can have many kinds of infinity that you can count with and arrive at sensible solutions to real world problems, or you can also use zero in maths. But what Leo is talking about here is none of that.

[James123]

3 minutes ago, bejapuskas said:

infinity = zero

Yes it is wrong. Formlessness can be formlessness and simultaneously every from. Nothing is nothing simultaneously everything or infinite .  Thats why nothing is all there is , now. 

Edited July 20, 2020 by James123

[traveler]

The separate self only sees objects, it even makes "nothing" into an object. You can't understand nothing. Understanding nothing is the death of the understanding/the knower. There would be no position left to know anything.

Edited July 20, 2020 by traveler

[JayG84]

100 ➗100 = 1

100 ➗10 = 10

100 ➗ 1 = 100

100 ➗0.1 = 1000

100 ➗0 = Infinity

100 ➗Infinity = 0

Infinity = 0

Nothingness = Everythingness

[VincentArogya]

5 minutes ago, JayG84 said:

100 ➗100 = 1

100 ➗10 = 10

100 ➗ 1 = 100

100 ➗0.1 = 1000

100 ➗0 = Infinity

100 ➗Infinity = 0

Infinity = 0

Nothingness = Everythingness

Too intellectual! 

[JayG84]

1 minute ago, VincentArogya said:

Too intellectual! 

Lol. Just pointing to the nature of it. Infinity is too complex to explain with symbols and words, but it's fun to think about how infinity and zero always collapse on each other, like a fractal. You're always in the middle, zoom out forever and you'll still be no closer to the end or beginning.

[VincentArogya]

14 minutes ago, JayG84 said:

Lol. Just pointing to the nature of it. Infinity is too complex to explain with symbols and words, but it's fun to think about how infinity and zero always collapse on each other, like a fractal. You're always in the middle, zoom out forever and you'll still be no closer to the end or beginning.

Words (logic) corrupt what Is. What other choice do we have?

[seriousman24]

I give S+ to every single one of you; every single one of you are right at every possible level.
The energy raised from a "confrontation/interaction" has inherent worth in it.

[sustainably]

1 hour ago, JayG84 said:

100 ➗0 = Infinity

100 ➗Infinity = 0

Infinity = 0

100 ➗0 = Infinity ✅

100 ➗Infinity = 0 ✅

Infinity = 0             [What are you smoking bro ?]

Infinity ≠ 0              ✅

[JayG84]

3 minutes ago, sustainably said:

100 ➗0 = Infinity ✅

100 ➗Infinity = 0 ✅

Infinity = 0             [What are you smoking bro ?]

They are interchangeable. 2 things that are interchangeable are equal. the " 100 ➗" becomes irrelevant. Everything else cancels out.

[Artsu]

1 hour ago, JayG84 said:

They are interchangeable. 2 things that are interchangeable are equal. the " 100 ➗" becomes irrelevant. Everything else cancels out.

So...

1 x 100 = 100 x 1, therefore 100 = 1?

[JayG84]

2 hours ago, Artsu said:

So...

1 x 100 = 100 x 1, therefore 100 = 1?

What? No. The redundancy gets cancelled.

100 ➗0 = Infinity

100 ➗Infinity = 0

0 = Infinity

Infinity = 0

So:

1 x 100 = 100

100 x 1 = 100

(1 x 100) = (100 x 1)

100 = 100

But from the absolute perspective, Everything = Everything, so you're not exactly wrong...lol

Edited July 20, 2020 by JayG84

[James123]

@JayG84 @sustainably @Artsu

0= infinite but, 
 

0 x infinite  = 0

So, 0=0 at the same time 0= infinite. So infinite is not 0. 0 is infinite. Nothing is nothing therefore infinite. Formlessness can be any form at the same time no form. 
 

So big bang never happened. Matrix is just labeling and naming thoughts, visuals, sensations and feelings. Non duality and void is now. World is just a thought.

Edited July 20, 2020 by James123

[WaveInTheOcean]

"Why wouldn't only something exist?"

Because you need something to contrast something with to even beware of something.

That something is nothing.

Something cannot exist without nothing, you see? Just as up cannot exist without down, or heads without tails, or buying without selling.

Hence death.

Death is what stage orange people perceive as absolute nothingness. And in a sense they are right, only that they forget that even that nothingness is equal to something, namely life. What happens after death? Life. What after life? Death. Life. Death. Life.

They imply each other. The only natural thing that can happen after death is life.

Just like a wave of light has an infinite sequence of repeating crests and troughs. See, the wave is ultimately only one thing: a wave.., it just assumes different shapes, up, down, up down. The same goes for existence. It is non-dual: there is only existence (equal to Consciousness/Love/God) but it assumes different forms: life, death, bad, good, love, hate, self, other, finite, infinite, conscious, unconscious, etc.

[Nak Khid]

3 hours ago, WaveInTheOcean said:

"Why wouldn't only something exist?"

Because you need something to contrast something with to even beware of something.

That something is nothing.

Something cannot exist without nothing, you see? Just as up cannot exist without down, or heads without tails, or buying without selling.

Hence death.

Death is what stage orange people perceive as absolute nothingness. And in a sense they are right, only that they forget that even that nothingness is equal to something, namely life. What happens after death? Life. What after life? Death. Life. Death. Life.

They imply each other. The only natural thing that can happen after death is life.

Just like a wave of light has an infinite sequence of repeating crests and troughs. See, the wave is ultimately only one thing: a wave.., it just assumes different shapes, up, down, up down. The same goes for existence. It is non-dual: there is only existence (equal to Consciousness/Love/God) but it assumes different forms: life, death, bad, good, love, hate, self, other, finite, infinite, conscious, unconscious, etc.

.

 

Quote

"Why wouldn't only something exist?"

Because you need something to contrast something with to even beware of something.

That something is nothing.

Something cannot exist without no

No that is dualism, the idea that something needed to contrast something else. 

What is "needed" to contrast an apple? 

A non-apple ?

No there is no such thing such  "non-apple" that is a mental construct 

what about an orange?    No, oranges could have never existed. They don't need to exist for an apple to exist

Things exist 

"nothing"  does not exist like  non-apples do not exist 

"Nothing" is a mental construct  and everything or something does not "need" it

That would be dualism

 

 

 

 

[WaveInTheOcean]

7 hours ago, Nak Khid said:

.

 

No that is dualism, the idea that something needed to contrast something else. 

What is "needed" to contrast an apple? 

A non-apple ?

No there is no such thing such  "non-apple" that is a mental construct 

what about an orange?    No, oranges could have never existed. They don't need to exist for an apple to exist

Things exist 

"nothing"  does not exist like  non-apples do not exist 

"Nothing" is a mental construct  and everything or something does not "need" it

That would be dualism

 

 

 

 

What was there before you learned apple?:-) 

Dualism and non-dualism is one and the same thing.

Non-dualism 101?

You say things exist. Okay. Fair enough. Did things exist before you were born, before your earliest memories??

Edited July 26, 2020 by WaveInTheOcean