[poem: The Lecture was posted 6/30/16]
This poem is about change. Not just change noticed in daily life but change as a fundamental construct of reality. Change is not an accident. Change is the condition of all existence. This idea was arrived at by two ancient teachers: the Indian spiritual teacher Buddha and the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. Both lived nearly at the same time but not at the same place. What Heraclitus called change, the Buddha called impermanence. Sunyata is the Sanskrit word for the formless void, the condition making possible existence. Existence is impermanent. Everything is in constant flux. We in the West have been exposed to Eastern modes of thought long enough to be curious about the way it tells a truth. On many occasions at the Cleveland Buddhist Temple I have chanted the Heart Sutra which gives voice to the paradoxical nature of reality: form is void, void is form. Most Western philosophy departments today study Asian texts; sometimes finding interesting parallels, sometimes finding insightful divergences.
The Greek thinker Heraclitus chose to look beyond appearances. From casual observation the world appears to be made of solid stuff. Subatomic physicists know that is not true. The basic construct of the material world is whirling swirling subatomic bursts of energy. Heraclitus arrived at the same conclusion – intuitively.
The poem about change contains within itself the process of flux. Just when you’ve get a solid image, disintegration and reintegration occurs and you see something else. proceeding from ship to professor to idea, to illusion, to reality. Change is inherent in the shifts within the poem. And allowing change to take place is sunyata – emptiness. The poem does what it is about – emptiness, impermanence and change.