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| Professor Robert Thurman |
On Monday 3rd I followed up an invitation which came from Tibet House to attend a presentation at the House of Commons. Given by Professor Robert Thurman it was celebrating the life of the Dalai Lama, his friend and mentor since the early sixties.
In relation to my study of the counterculture, back in the USA from India in 1967, Thurman was present at Timothy Leary's LSD commune Millbrook. Renouncing his monk status for the purpose, he married the German-Swedish model and psychotherapist Nena von Schlebrügge, who was divorced from Leary. The couple are still together.
I have a copy of Jack Kerouac's "Wake Up" which Thurman authored an introduction to, and his translation of "The Holy Teaching of Vimalakirti". Both were very useful in writing "Retreat" the former because it gives an educated Buddhist commentary for Kerouac's account of the life of The Buddha; the latter because it focuses on the sickness of Vimalakirti and the Buddhist response to illness. Before the start of the event I asked Thurman whether he would mind signing my copy of his book "Essential Tibetan Buddhism."
I'm a huge fan of Thurman's and so it was a big kick for me to meet him and be in his presence. Previously I had attended an online talk organised by Jeffrey Mishlove at which Jeffrey very sweetly introduced me to Thurman, and was able to ask a question about the counterculture. Thurman recommended that I read Curtis White's book "Transcendent", which I did, and when I met him on Monday was able to say that I done so.
I can't think of a more intoxicating speaker than "Bob" as he likes to be referred. Thurman is at once completely hilarious and entirely profound. At Mishlove's event, the carousel of laughter and nuttiness entirely derailed what I think Jeffrey was expecting was going to be a sincere discussion about Buddhism. And it was the same at the House of Commons, the room which was arranged by the Scottish MP Chris Law had apparently never been so full.
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| Inscription from 682-3 AD containing the first known zero. |
The highlight for me was Thurman's discourse on zero - which he points out first appeared in Hindu mathematics before it was adopted by the Arabs. He'd evidently read the manuscript of William Dalrymple's book "The Golden Road", which he recommends, and he presented what is the most succinct and coherent description of the Buddhist conception of nothingness - Śūnyatā - that I've heard.
What NOTHING represents, Thurman said, was not a void, but INTERCONNECTEDNESS. Talk about light bulb moments! This enabled me to get my head around the concept better than anything else I've come across.
This is how I articulated it in my own notes to myself:
ZERO as that plane of mutuality upon which all things rest. You subtract something from itself and what are you left with in its absence? Not NOTHING! The field of interrelations remains.
This led me to other thoughts about the nature of the number zero. When you add a 0 to 1 to create 10, 100, 1000 etc - you invoke the invisible architecture of the field of relations. The number zero is like scaffolding - not the edifice itself - but something which, without its presence, the edifice would not stand up.