{"id":90641,"date":"2019-06-21T16:58:24","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T23:58:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=90641"},"modified":"2019-06-21T16:58:24","modified_gmt":"2019-06-21T23:58:24","slug":"meditation-on-emptiness-shuniya-meditation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/06\/21\/meditation-on-emptiness-shuniya-meditation\/","title":{"rendered":"Meditation on Emptiness (Shuniya Meditation)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ruwan M Jayatunge MD\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Sunyata is a Sanskrit word that means emptiness. Emptiness\nis the true nature of reality. Emptiness is the true nature of things and\nevents. It is the actual nature of all phenomena. It is the absence of any self\napart from the mental and physical elements of existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

All phenomena in their own-being are empty. All phenomena\narise dependent on other phenomena. All things have no fixed identity,\nconstantly becoming and decaying. All phenomena of existence are marked by\nemptiness. There is nothing at all which is not dependent and\ntherefore, there is nothing at all which is not empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A person cannot step into the same river twice,\nbecause the person and the river are constantly changing.Existence is always in\na state of transformation. Things are in a constant state of flux. It is\nneither existent nor nonexistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunyata explains that everything is interrelated and\ninterdependent .The Buddhist Philosopher Nagarjuna says that all phenomena\nexist interdependently and are void of self-essence. This doctrine explicates\nimpermanence and insubstantiality.  Non-being and being are\ndialectically interdependent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunyata is emptying the mind.  Sunyata is a state\nof meditative consciousness. Emptiness as a meditative state is said to be\nreached when “not attending to any themes or themeless concentration of\nawareness. This is not nihilism. There is no judgment, expectation,\ndesire, opinion or wish. It is bare attention – awareness without\nthought). According to Yogi C. M. Chen the nature of Sunyata is one,\nbut the condition therein and there out are many. Sunyata provides inner\npeace, there is no egoism. The realisation of sunyata leads one to no\nattachment and clinging.    <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this meditation the meditator brings his mind to a\nstate of awareness in which the mind is brought to complete stillness. He\nexperiences inner calmness.  It is a state of emptiness, where no\npositive or negative is assigned to things. The meditation is practiced through\nemptiness of thoughts with silence and stillness. It is a neutral state without\nattachments. This state of consciousness can be called pure awareness\u201d or\nempty mind,\u201d because it has no cognitive content (McGee, 2008).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As described by Michael Erb of the Universtity Hospital\nTuebingen, Germany ,  Sunyata meditation practice is aimed to develop\nan ability to avoid discursive (wandering, long-winded) thought, and instead\nacquire insight into the nature of reality through direct perception of the\ninternal (bodily) and external (sensory) states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hinterberger and group (2014) found decreased\nelectrophysiological activity represents the conscious state of emptiness in\nmeditation. Hern\u00e1ndez and team (2018) state that the depth of mental\nsilence is associated with medial fronto-insular-striatal networks that is\ncrucial for top-down attention and emotional control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to J .Krishnamurti meditation really is a\ncomplete emptying of the mind. He further states that the meditative mind\nhas no horizon. The mind cannot go from the limited to the immense, nor can it\ntransform the limited into the limitless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ruwan M Jayatunge MD <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ruwan M Jayatunge MD\u00a0 Sunyata is a Sanskrit word that means emptiness. Emptiness is the true nature of reality. Emptiness is the true nature of things and events. It is the actual nature of all phenomena. It is the absence of any self apart from the mental and physical elements of existence.  All phenomena in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-ruwan-m-jayatunge-m-d"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}