I used that sentence to express the idea of "nothing after and before life".
The Bhagavad Gita addresses the idea of existence before and after life:
“
The soul is neither born, nor does it ever die; nor having once existed, does it ever cease to be. The soul is without birth, eternal, immortal, and ageless. It is not destroyed when the body is destroyed.”
If I believe the Gita, there is NOT “nothing after or before life,” there is certainly something……the question is
What Is before and after, and what indeed is "life" itself? Or (looking at the concept from another angle) the Zens say, “‘Show me your original face, the face you had before your parents were born” and Nietzsche says, "We must become what we already are."
"
Nothing after and before life" also nitially reminded me of nihilism – i.e., "nothing" “matters,” though additional explanation was provided later on in the thread.
To quote Wikipedia: “The etymological origin of
nihilism is the Latin root word
nihil, meaning 'nothing', which is similarly found in the related terms
annihilate, meaning 'to bring to nothing', and
nihility, meaning ‘nothingness.’”
The Tao [11] has an interesting comment on nothingness/emptiness:
We join spokes together in a wheel,
but it is the center hole
that makes the wagon move.
We shape clay into a pot,
but it is the emptiness inside
that holds whatever we want.
We hammer wood for a house,
but it is the inner space
that makes it livable.
We work with being,
but non-being is what we use.
And the Zen Master Hui-neng made the following statement: "
From the beginning nothing is." What does that mean?
Nothing might be rephrased as “No-Thing.” So the statement could mean, “From the beginning no thing is,” which implies (to me) that all creation, including life, and the transitions of birth and death, is purely spiritual. (To quote or paraphrase Cassiopaea: "The soul she doth matter, the body she doth not.")
Heidegger speaks about the “
dread of nothingness.” But he also states, "Nothingness by contrast to all that seems to be, is the veil of being." This is one of my favorite koans. At this stage, I interpret it to mean that things/material SEEM to be, but they are really just phenomena, holograms, appearances, with no real substance. When the “material” no longer holds its sway over me, I am left with nothingness/emptiness. But nothingness (in contrast to my absorption in the material world) is the VEIL of true being. If I search
behind the veil of nothingness, true being may be found. Intriguing.
My neighbor still has that 1970’s bumper sticker on her car: “Life’s a Beach, and Then You Die.”
It’s humorous I suppose and, if she judges by appearances, the sentiment may have some accuracy. But the whole evolution of human consciousness is based on NOT settling for appearances but piercing the veil, mining the depths, scaling the heights, asking “What Else Is There?” …… and ultimately uncovering it.
I enjoy the search; knowing “
about” things is not difficult for me. I can "Ace" almost any test when I put "my mind" to it. However, “integrating,” “becoming,” “realizing” knowledge that has been unearthed (or unheavened) is a challenge. I have tried numerous methods to rise beyond "knowing about" to “realizing.”
Oddly enough, the best method/yoga I have found so far has been the Eiriu-Eolas program -- where simple practice of a simple process has a way of working for good (without my help, no less) in an almost mysterious way. "Cleanse my heart, that I may know and love the holiness of true existence." It makes me wonder if “The Struggle” can become a
Self-confirmatory and ego-enhancing intellectual distraction. Maybe “the work” does not always require blood, sweat and tears; maybe it requires something along the lines of simple rigorous discipline and an ability to admit to our ignorance and open our minds to the “miraculous.”
As they say in the movie
Ertugrul: "May it be easy."
