OSHO Zen Study Group: V No-Thingness

Judith D

Isn't it amazing that a card with basically nothing in it speaks so loudly!
Yes, Huredriel, I absolutely agree with the cradling, nurturing thoughts - back to the darkness of womb perhaps, again with all possibilities before you.
I have just started reading with this deck and have been absolutely amazed at the clarity and depth of my readings. I thought I would need to wait until I had studied more, then for several reasons just decided to go ahead. It is incredible!
 

firecatpickles

What is that Pet Shop Boys song --"We All Feel Better int he Dark?" This is what I am reminded of.

The difference between 'nothingness' and 'no-thingness' is liek the difference between the zero, 0, and the mathematical "no set," ∮ which means that it is impossible or doesn't compute. The zero implies that there was something attainable but that was lost. The latter that it didn't exist in the first place.

I can appreciate the implication of the '5' being the eastern antithesis of the western pope, or hierophant. It is such as intimidating card. The blackess doesnt change that for me at all.
 

Master_Margarita

I love this card. I mean, I really, really love this card.

I especially love that it is slotted into the Hierophant position in the RWS sequence.

"There is no spoon." And no Hierophant, and no hierarchy.
 

Rev_Vesta

No-thingness

I have been working with Osho Zen tarot for awhile.......
and i have noticed when it comes up, clients will jump......... but when i look at the surrounding cards and explain the possibilties that are available to the client at this time they start to calm down.....

For me No-thingness opens up to so much available, so many doorways, gateways, bridges to new from a blank canvas to so much colour within one's own life, to use your own imagination on your own goals and desires......to start fresh, full of hope.........

Five -Communication.........so now is the time to communicate how you wish to bring colour onto this blank canvas ........Communication is not only spoken but could be through music, painting, pottery, poetry.........dancing and so much more.... you choose........

from my own personal experience.............

Vesta
 

kayless

I now understand why there's been three pages on this card..I find it really hard to understand. I have the Zen Osho Tarot since december now. I understand each of the meanings of the cards separately but when No-Thingness show up in a reading for instance, I never know how to interpret it. Is it more negative? Is it more positive? What does it mean exactly? lol
 

Gypsyspell

Hi, I really like this card. To me it says its really not out there what you are looking for -the message that you seek ,you wont find the answers here so look within yourself!
Just my pov with a new deck!!
 

Carla

This is a very good thread. I am a Buddhist and I have some thoughts about how the No-thingness card slots in for the Hierophant. I read somewhere that the Hierophant represents the synthesis and resolution of the eternal inner question: what is the meaning of life? And that the word Hierophant means 'revealer of secret things.'

I'm new to tarot, but I have learned that the Hierophant is taken to mean seeking after wisdom or enlightenment in spiritual matters, seeking guidance.

When seeking after the meaning of life, the Zen answer to that question is that there is no meaning--there is only life. Life itself is glory enough. All else is emptiness: shunyata. (Shunyata is a concept in Mahayana Buddhism which teaches that beings and things have no intrinsic existence in themselves. All phenomena come into being because of conditions created by other phenomena. Thus, they have no existence of their own and are empty of a permanent self. There is neither reality nor not-reality; only relativity.)

The concept of no-thingness (or emptiness, or shunyata) is a key theme in the Heart Sutra, which is considered the most succinct summation of Buddhist doctrine. Here it is (translated by Thich Nhat Hanh):

'The Bodhisattva Avalokita,
while moving in the deep course of Perfect Understanding,
shed light on the Five Skandhas and found them equally empty.
After this penetration, he overcame ill-being.

'Listen, Shariputra,
form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.
Form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not other than form.
The same is true with feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.

'Listen, Shariputra,
all dharmas are marked with emptiness.
They are neither produced nor destroyed,
neither defiled nor immaculate,
neither increasing nor decreasing.
Therefore in emptiness there is neither form, nor feelings, nor perceptions,
nor mental formations, nor consciousness.
No eye, or ear, or nose, or tongue, or body, or mind.
No form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind.
No realms of elements (from eyes to mind consciousness),
no interdependent origins and no extinction of them
(from ignorance to death and decay).
No ill-being, no cause of ill-being, no end of ill-being, and no path.
No understanding and no attainment.

'Because there is no attainment,
the Bodhisattvas, grounded in Perfect Understanding,
find no obstacles for their minds.
Having no obstacles, they overcome fear,
liberating themselves forever from illusion, realizing perfect nirvana.
All Buddhas in the past, present, and future,
thanks to this Perfect Understanding,
arrive at full, right, and universal enlightenment.

'Therefore one should know
that Perfect Understanding is the highest mantra, the unequaled mantra,
the destroyer of ill-being, the incorruptible truth.
A mantra of Prajñaparamita should therefore be proclaimed:

'Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha
Gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi svaha.'

[The last 3 lines are a mantra that means basically, 'Over, over, all the way over, all the way over to the other shore to enlightenment, hurray.']

This is a very heavy thing to bring up on a tarot message board, but there you have the basis for the No-thingness card.

The Buddha discouraged questions such as 'What is the meaning of life?' What good do such questions do? They are not helpful. The Buddha taught that asking such questions is akin to a dying man demanding to know who shot him and why before he will allow the arrow to be removed from his heart. The card suggests that if you are seeking guidance from an outside source, an authority like the Hierophant, you are like that wounded man.

All of these concepts are contained in this one black card.
 

Sanctum_Priest

Indigo Rose said:
Being 'in the gap' can be disorienting and even scary. Nothing to hold on to, no sense of directions, not even a hint of what choices and possibilities might lie ahead. But it was just this state of pure potential that existed before the universe was created. All you can do now is to relax into this nothingness...fall into this silence between the words...watch this gap between the outgoing and incoming breath. And treasure each empty moment of the experience. Something sacred is about to be born.Osho Zen Tarot by Osho

.

I never realised that Buddhism was so meaningless and simultaneously so meaningful. This is so much more of an interesting paradox than the Trinity. I think I might be a convert!