All is Nothing

If lives can be likened to a reel of film then a few frames would make one lifetime and a collection of many frames would make many lifetimes. But the difference is that there is no beginning to be found, and of course no end in sight. It is all made up, on what was nothing, is nothing, will be nothing, but just our own creations, and our own sense of reality at each time.

Our enemy today can be our friend tomorrow or in our next life, and can also be our son, our daughter, our father or mother. An Israeli yesterday, born a Palestinian now - one distrusts the other, only to distrust now what one was earlier, as if the actors changed their roles.

Apologize to your friend today for being his enemy yesterday he doesn’t remember. Nor would you when someone apologizes to you for what he did a few years ago or if he is able to see, for what he did in the last life or many lives ago.  

In the narrower scheme of things it all did matter, it all does matter, very much - all the happiness, sadness, the anger, the hatred, the jealousies, and the pride. For, it is what makes us who we are today, tomorrow and the next. It all adds up to something. It is our reality. But the same continues even though that the actors have changed their roles, when all seemed comical, inane and ludicrous.That's when all of what was yesterday would sum up to nothing, so will today and tomorrow.


All that happens in lives would seem like child’s play. In the greater scheme of things we are like children, squabble this moment and make up the next only to squabble again. If each squabble was a life time and all squabbles many life times then it would all surely seem petty, insubstantial, in vain, futile, and amounting to just nothing. That’s what you would tell a child: just don’t fight for nothing.

Albert Einstein
c.1875-1955

 Craving, clinging and becoming one with some or all things in one's lifetime enables the turn of the round to the next. Only by seeing that all of it is nothing can one still the turns. But try becoming nothing by making it one or the only thing of all things only makes it something and the rounds continue.  

 So nothing ever matters, never did, never will, except leave its indelible mark on this “nothing”.  This thing called nothing is what makes everything something for us. This is what you will see if you revisit past lives. This is emptiness.

This something that is nothing, this emptiness is our memories, our experiences, our anger, our hatred, our jealousies, our pride and preening, our hopes, our expectations, our habits, our cravings, and all of our attachments - all just but nothing.

Form is emptiness, emptiness is form,

Emptiness is not separate from form or is not other than form,

Form is not separate from emptiness or is other than emptiness,

Whatever is form is emptiness and whatever is emptiness is form,

The same holds for sensation and perception, memory and consciousness,

All dharmas (phenomena) are defined by emptiness, not birth or destruction, purity or defilement, completeness or deficiency,

Therefor in emptiness there is no form, no sensation, no perception, no memory and no consciousness;

No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body and no mind;

No shape, no sound, no smell, no taste, no feeling and no thought,

No element of perception, from eye to conceptual consciousness;

No causal link, from ignorance to old age and death,

And no end of causal link from ignorance to old age and death;

No suffering, no source, no relief, no path;…..

- an excerpt from the Heart Sutra