III - Emptiness

Those who are confused by teachings on emptiness should first take heart from the fact that while there is plenty of agreement, there is also profound disagreement about this matter within the tradition. Parts of the tradition also disagree on whether the issue is complicated or not; some schools have an elaborate theoretical system that other schools consider both unnecessary and plain wrong.

Analysis

The idea of emptiness is similar to the idea of "no permanent independent controlling self", but goes a little further. When we look for the person who "has" a body, "feels" pain, "sees" a tree, "is" angry or "remembers" yesterday, we always fail. Similarly, whether we take something concrete like a shoe or the taste of pepper, or something abstract like glory or mathematics, and then look for its essence, what makes it what it is - we don't find it. We can analyse material things into parts, the parts into particles, but final "partless particles" are not to be found. Abstract things have no meaning without their relationship to other things. The past has gone, the future hasn't come, and the present can't be pinned down. There is a vast literature about these kinds of analysis. Of course it is reasonable to talk, in ordinary senses, about the existence or non-existence of things - this is called the "relative truth". But we never find any essence that makes things what they a re, and the very concepts "exist" and "do not exist" turn out only to have provisional value. Putting it another way, the ultimate truth is that everything is empty.

And so?

Does this matter? In many ways, no. It is perfectly possible to be generous, responsible, well-balanced and intelligent without paying attention to emptiness. But it comes to be important if we accept that the world, with all its suffering, is woven by our own thoughts and actions, and if we seek to find a way out of that cycle. It is perhaps not difficult to see that a shoe does not have any ultimate "essence of shoe". In fact I rather doubt that anyone thinks it does have. In spite of that, we still tend to approach life by seizing upon everything as if it were a solid, real thing that is going to be nice or nasty to us. It is just that seizing that gives them power over us, that makes them real, and that obscures the open spaciousness of our mind. Seeing, from an intellectual point of view, that things have no essence, can be an important factor in letting the mind relax at a fundamental level.

"Seeing" emptiness is a paradoxical phrase, as there is nothing to see. It is just a matter of abandoning exaggerated ideas like "exist" and "does not exist". It has been said that having a "realistic" view (one that does not appreciate emptiness) is like a sickness that can be cured by emptiness, but having the view of emptiness (thinking that it is something to "see") is like a sickness that can not be cured. Indeed, Saraha said that believing in existence was like the stupidity of cattle, but that believing in non-existence was worse. In some aspects of Kagyu teaching, at least, there is much more emphasis placed on cutting through wrong views than on developing the right view.

The goal

In a rather different context, this question is echoed by the "goal" of Buddhism. For some, this is Nirvana, and for some, Nirvana is equivalent to extinction. (At least, it is said that there are those who think this. Whether such Buddhists actually exist or are merely straw men, I am not so sure.). Others say that a Nirvana of extinction is one sided, and an illusion. It is perhaps more convincing to suggest that enlightenment (or liberation, or awakening) is just the removal of delusion. Removing delusion brings freedom from self-made imprisonment. It is said that a Buddha acts spontaneously with body, speech and mind for the benefit of sentient beings. Descriptions of this tend to be rather poetic. On a practical level, we can go a long way by remembering that compassion is one wing, insight into emptiness is the other, and that flight is only possible with both.
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