Silver Screen

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Silver Screen

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"Form is emptiness, emptiness is form."

If you want to be a Buddhist monk, they tell you that on your first day, before you even get your robes. Then it's up to you to figure out what it means.

The best analogy I think that's available to us in modern times is this:

Imagine a movie screen that expands infinitely in every direction. And on the screen, the entirety of the universe plays out. This is the realm of the relative. The world of objects, people, places, things, events.

But regardless of the images playing out, there is only ever the screen. This is the realm of the absolute. When people speak of nonduality, of oneness, even of God, this is its true essence.

Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Relative is absolute, absolute is relative. The movie is the screen, and the screen is the movie.

Just because there's only a screen, though, doesn't make the movie any less riveting. You'll laugh, you'll cry, it'll become a part of you. That's why this realization does not lead to passivity or apathy.

And why in one sentence we can say "there is no spoon", and then in the next, ask for a spoon, so we can have our chili.

Form is emptiness.

Emptiness is form.

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