Everything Reverts Back To Nothing, Nothing Becomes Everything Again

The title of this entry is deliberately absurd, for if everything becomes nothing through some incalculable act of self-obliteration, why would there be the need to become everything again? If everything achieves the state of nothingness and is infinitely pleased with the nothingness in every single way, why would the nothingness want to create everything again? Why would the nothingness want to piss off “the everything” that just sacrificed itself? Why would nothingness revivify “the everything” when “the everything” just wanted a permanent sojourn in the infinite blank-land of nothingness itself?

Of course we can look at this from another angle.

When everything reverts back to nothing, there is no nothing/everything dichotomy in sight. There is simply nothingness, emptiness, lack of “you name it,” blankness, vacuous-being, void-mind, no-mind, not-was, not-is, never-was, never-land, neither-here-nor-there. So in this instance, nothingness has the clear advantage over “the everything” that may or may not have existed, and, irrefutably, the nothingness can create everything once again if it so chooses. Or does “the nothingness” really have a choice in the matter? After all, nothingness is nothingness. Choices are moot and null in a placeless place where there is no one to make the choices.

I obviously have no idea how to answer these questions. Even though I made up the questions, I have no way of answering them. The metaphysical and unspeakable implications these questions carry quite easily surpass my ability to answer them. But maybe, just maybe, I will be able to answer them if I follow the sagacious words of Bunan: “The Law: unchain the mind from all.” If I could release myself from the fetters of my mind, those pesky manacles of thought, maybe I could come up with answers. Yes? No? Sadly, no. After those words, Bunan added, “Still, mind is chained to Law.” The mind that thinks it can release itself from the alcatraz of language is still subject to the laws that govern the alcatraz of language. In others words, there is no way a mind can reach no-mind through some silly act of self-obliteration. A prisoner of alcatraz can’t escape alcatraz by saying, “I think I can, I think I can.” It only works in fairy tales or fanciful, fictional yarns where the imagination is stretched to the limits of itself.

Even though I personally have no way of answering my own oracular questions, I do believe we as a society have certain fears associated with nothingness, or reverting back to nothingness. Just think about the guy or gal who “wants to be nobody or nothing in particular.” This person is reproached for taking such a stance. This person is pushed to the periphery of society without a second thought. In fact, he or she doesn’t exist in society at all, because society is made for all the people who desperately want to be something or someone. We push this person outside the circle of society because we fear this person’s stance on life. When you think about it, it is a very corrosive stance for people to be around. This is why the circle was never constructed for such a person. “Out with the outsider,” we say, and then we get back to constructing ideologies from dust, and dreams from the broken, decrepit trinkets of the mind.

We also fear nothingness because it gives us nothing to hold onto. There is no chair in the realm of nothingness, so we can’t sit down. There is no oxygen in nothingness, so we can’t breathe. There is no form in nothingness, so we can’t admire ourselves. Everything that we rely upon for support and sustenance is gone. Without a point of reference, our lives cease to contain or convey meaning. Seemingly, we would enter what John Lilly—the once brilliant explorer of distant zones of consciousness—described as “Hell” in his marvelous book, “Center of The Cyclone”:

“I was being programmed by other senseless programs above me and above them others. I was programming small programs below me. The information that came in was meaningless. I was meaningless. This whole computer was the result of a senseless dance of certain kinds of atoms in a certain place in the universe, stimulated and pushed by organized but meaningless energies.”

Or would we enter hell when we have nothing to hold onto? Just because we having nothing doesn’t mean we have lost some great battle against the powers that hoard everything. Giving credence to that sense of loss would be like adding fuel to the fires of illusion. Besides, the nothingness can create everything once again if it so chooses. A flower can blossom where there was once no flower. A person can evolve where there was once no person. These things we know to be true.

I would like to end these ruminations with the words of Ni-buttsu, because Ni-buttsu had the ability to explain all of this rather succinctly:

“One who rises, rises of himself
One who falls, falls from himself.
Autumn dew, spring breeze—
Nothing can possibly interfere.”