~Suzuki Teitaro Daisetz
The only means we have to make it more approachable and communicable
is to resort to figures of speech. The self in its is-ness,
pure and simple, is comparable to a circle without circumference
and, therefore, with its center nowhere—which is everywhere.
Or it
is like a zero that is equal to, or rather identical with, infinity.
Infinity is not to be conceived here serially as an infinite continuum
of natural numbers; it is rather a group whose infinitely multitudinous
contents are taken as a totality. I formulate it in this way: 0 =
Infinity.
Of course, this identification transcends mathematical
speculation. It yields a kind of metaphysical formula: self= zero, and
zero = Infinity; hence self = Infinity.
This self, therefore, emptied of all its so-called psychological contents
is not an “emptiness,” as that word is generally understood. No
such empty self exists. The emptied self is simply the psychological
self cleansed of its egocentric imagination.
It is just as rich in content
as before; indeed it is richer than before, because it now contains
the whole world in itself instead of having the world stand
opposed to it. Not only that, it enjoys the state of being true to itself.
It is free in the real sense of the word because it is master of itself,
absolutely independent, self-reliant, authentic, and autonomous.
This Self—with a capital S—is the Buddha who declared at his birth:
“I alone am the most honored one in heaven and on earth.”
The Buddha Eye. An Anthology of the Kyoto School. World Wisdom