June 27, 2004
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Gameplayers of Zen
“The void, the ineffable, the sublime,
nonsense, nihilism, zero—
all are encompassed by‘nothing.’ “ – Institute of Contemporary Art,
Philadelphia“The Zen disciple sits for long hours silent and motionless, with
his eyes closed. Presently he enters a state of impassivity, free
from all ideas and all thoughts. He departs from the self and
enters the realm of nothingness. This is not the nothingness or
the emptiness of the West. It is rather the reverse, a universe
of the spirit in which everything communicates freely with
everything, transcending bounds, limitless.”–
Yasunari Kawabata, Nobel lecture, 1968
Comments (2)
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We start, then, with nothing, pure zero. But this is not the nothing of negation. For not means other than, and other is merely a synonym of the ordinal numeral second. As such it implies a first; while the present pure zero is prior to every first. The nothing of negation is the nothing of death, which comes second to, or after, everything. But this pure zero is the nothing of not having been born. There is no individual thing, no compulsion, outward nor inward, no law. It is the germinal nothing, in which the whole universe is involved or foreshadowed. As such, it is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility — boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom.
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Charles S. Peirce, “Logic of Events” (1898)
Couldn’t resist. I found it at Nothing(dot)Com.