Last time I asked A.I. about Meister Eckhart. We were speaking of Emptiness.
Meister Eckhart?
"Ah, Meister Eckhart—now there’s a mystic who knew how to dance with emptiness. If the WingMakers are cosmic futurists, Eckhart is a medieval minimalist who carved spiritual clarity out of silence."
"Eckhart’s Core Philosophy: Emptiness as Divine Ground
- Eckhart taught that the soul must become utterly empty to receive God—not as an object, but as pure presence.
- He spoke of the 'Ground of the Soul', a place beyond thought, image, and even God-as-personality. This ground is identical with the Godhead, which he described as 'pure nothingness'—not absence, but unconditioned fullness.
- His radical detachment, or Gelassenheit (translated as 'releasement'), meant letting go of all concepts—even the idea of God—to enter divine union."
"Birth and Breakthrough
- Eckhart described two mystical movements:
- Birth: God gives birth to the Son in the soul—an act of divine intimacy.
- Breakthrough: The soul breaks through God into the Godhead, transcending even divine attributes to merge with pure being.
- This mirrors your idea of identity as zero—a return to the unconditioned, where karma and narrative dissolve."
"Eckhart and the Ancients
- His emptiness aligns with Nagarjuna’s śūnyatā, Padmasambhava’s Dzogchen, and Zen’s beginner’s mind.
- Scholars have compared Eckhart’s “pure nothingness” to Buddha-nature, and his mystical detachment to Prajñāpāramitā wisdom.
- Japanese philosopher Ueda Shizuteru even wrote a dissertation comparing Eckhart’s 'breakthrough' to Zen’s self-emptying."
"Influence and Legacy
- Eckhart was tried for heresy in the 14th century for his radical teachings, but his ideas survived through mystics like Johannes Tauler and Henry Suso.
- Today, he’s seen as a bridge between Christian mysticism and Eastern nonduality, influencing thinkers from Heidegger to Matthew Fox."
"If WingMakers seek activation through symbolic immersion, Eckhart offers liberation through radical subtraction. He doesn’t build a metaphysical architecture—he dismantles it, brick by conceptual brick, until only the silent ground remains."
"Want to explore how Eckhart’s 'releasement' compares to Zeland’s mirror-screen or the Sovereign Integral’s behavioral intelligence? I think you’d find the divergences delicious."
https://www.jstor.org/stable/48619074
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meister_Eckhart
https://buddhism-thewayofemptiness.blog.nomagic.uk/marburg-dissertation-on-meister-eckhart/
Then I asked A.I. about Milarepa as a Teacher of Emptiness.
"Ah, Milarepa—now there’s a mystic who turned emptiness into a living song.
"Who Was Milarepa?
- An 11th-century Tibetan yogi, poet, and spiritual master.
- Famously transformed from a vengeful sorcerer into an enlightened hermit through intense meditation and purification.
- His life is chronicled in The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa, a collection of spontaneous verses that blend emptiness, compassion, and raw experiential insight."
"Emptiness in Milarepa’s Teachings
- Milarepa didn’t teach emptiness as a concept—he embodied it.
- He described the mind as formless, ungraspable, and transparent:
'If I try to see its nature, it refuses to be seen. Yet I cannot deny it is there.'
- His realization of dharmakaya—the “truth body”—was a direct experience of non-dual awareness, where seer and seen dissolve:
'A seer and seen refined until they’re gone… This way of realizing view, it works quite well.'”
"Why He Belongs in the Emptiness Lineage
- Like Nagarjuna, he dismantled conceptual grasping.
- Like Padmasambhava, he practiced Dzogchen-like immediacy, seeing mind as luminous emptiness.
- Like Eckhart, he taught that true religion is living without regret, and that happiness arises from letting go."
"Practice and Realization
- Milarepa meditated in caves for years, surviving on nettles and snowmelt.
- He achieved enlightenment in a single lifetime—through radical solitude, devotion to his guru Marpa, and direct insight into mind’s nature."
"You’re right to place him alongside Nagarjuna, the Buddha, and Eckhart. Milarepa’s emptiness isn’t sterile—it’s wild, poetic, and fiercely compassionate. Want to explore how his view of mind compares to Dzogchen’s 'Great Perfection' or Zeland’s mirror-screen metaphor? There’s a lot of resonance—and some beautiful dissonance."
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/blog/2017/09/08/milarepa-the-profound-definitive-meaning/
https://www.inspiringquotes.us/author/4391-milarepa
https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/story-milarepa
Show me a passage on emptiness from Milarepa.
"Here’s a luminous passage attributed to Milarepa that captures his view on emptiness with poetic clarity:
'If ye realize the Emptiness of All Things, Compassion will raise within your heart;
If ye lose all differentiation between yourselves and others, fit to serve others ye will be;
And when in serving others ye shall win success, then shall ye meet with me;
And finding me, ye shall attain to Buddhahood.'”
"This isn’t just metaphysics—it’s a blueprint for ethical awakening. Milarepa links emptiness not to detachment, but to radical compassion. When the illusion of separation dissolves, service becomes natural, and realization follows."
"Want to explore how this passage compares to Nagarjuna’s dialectics or Padmasambhava’s Dzogchen view of mind as luminous emptiness? There’s a beautiful triangulation forming."
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/925269-if-ye-realize-the-emptiness-of-all-things-compassion-will
That's a good one.
