Beingness

Several months ago I wrote a book exploring Nothingness as the Absolute, entitled God is Nothingness. More often than not, when people speak about the Absolute--either as some unchanging or universal principle--they conceive of it as an extension of Being. In other words, to them the Absolute represents some higher or transcendental reality, perhaps existing on some hitherto unexplored plane of experience, but nonetheless existing in some way. For instance, God is very often viewed as the Supreme Being.

The limitation of this point of view, in my opinion, is that it only covers Being, failing to allow or account for anything larger than Being. I call this Non-being or Nothingness.

More Taoist than Buddhist, Absolute Nothingness is not the opposite of Being; it is its foundation, the very basis of it. Just as life depends upon carbon, so too does existence or Being rely upon Nothingness.

Like the Buddhist sunyata, Nothingness is not a thing. It does not exist per se, for to assert that Nothingness exists merely reduces it to the plane of Being. Nothingness allows for existence, not the other way around. Nonduality, the interconnection or interbeing of all existents, is possible only because of Nothingness.

Sunyata, not a thing any more than Nothingness is, describes how things are--interconnected. And as such, it refers to things, all of which exist. As the Heart Sutra explains, without form, there is no emptiness; the two are mutually dependent.

Absolute Nothingness, on the other hand, does not depend on anything. Everything depends upon it (or its non-existence).

With all of that said, my next writing project is going to explain the role of Beingness. Recognizing Beingness' dependence upon Nothingness does not cheapen existence any more than acknowledging that a baby relies upon its mother; rather, it places Beingness in its rightful place as the manifestation of Nothingness.

Nothingness is the womb and Existence its baby.

As a companion to God is Nothingness, this new book will attempt to delineate how Beingness is the portal through which we realize the Absolute. True practice embraces both Non-being and Being, while simultaneously placing them in their appropriate places. This, to use Zen Master Dogen's terms, is authenticating both the One, as well as the ten-thousand things.