Emptiness in Buddhism
Emptiness in Buddhism
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Emptiness in Buddhism
The article deals with the concept of “emptiness” (shunyata) in Buddhist philosophy, a term introduced by the early students of Buddhist scriptures as emptiness or nothingness, although the original meaning is different.
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Emptiness, Shunyata, the most common term in Buddhist philosophy.
Emptiness, Shunyata, is the most common term in Buddhist philosophy. Emptiness is described as the ground that makes all things possible. The 12th Dalai Lama said in his book Awakening, the Old Buddha, that the sense of spaciousness that comes when one completely releases one’s mind is called emptiness in Buddhist terms, and it is perhaps one of the most common terms in Buddhist philosophy.
For Buddhists, this term is challenging enough, but for Western readers it is even more challenging. Early translators of Buddhist scriptures from Sanskrit and Tibetan into English interpreted emptiness as emptiness or nothingness, mistakenly identifying emptiness with the idea that nothing exists at all. Nothing could be further from the truth that the Buddha intended to convey.
While the Buddha did teach that the essence of mind, and indeed of all phenomena, is emptiness, he did not mean that this essence was truly empty, like a vacuum. He called it emptiness, and in Tibetan the term is tungpa-ni. Tungpa means empty, but only in the sense that it is something beyond our sensory perception or conceptual expression.
A better translation might be inconceivable or indefinite. Meanwhile, the word ni has no particular meaning in everyday language, but when used after another word, it implies possibility, that is, anything can arise, anything is possible. So when Buddhists speak of emptiness, they mean nothing at all, but an infinite potential that allows any event to materialize, change, or disappear.
This idea may find parallels in the strange and wondrous phenomena observed by physicists studying the workings of the atom. According to the physicists I spoke to, all subatomic phenomena arise from a fundamental state often called the vacuum state, the state with the lowest energy in the subatomic universe. In this vacuum state, particles appear and disappear continuously.
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Emptiness is very dynamic and full of potential for the creation of any substance.
Thus, although it may appear empty, this state is actually very dynamic and full of potential for the creation of any matter. In this sense, the vacuum state shares some properties with the emptiness of consciousness. Just as a vacuum is considered empty, but is the source of all particulate forms, so consciousness is empty in the sense that it escapes any tangible description.
Yet, from this indefinable and unknowable basis, all thoughts, feelings, and sensations arise constantly. Because the nature of your consciousness is emptiness, you have the capacity to experience an unlimited variety of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Even the misunderstandings about emptiness are just phenomena that arise from emptiness.
Here is a simple example that may help you understand a little about the nature of emptiness on an experiential level. Chapter 1. The story of Yongge Mingyur Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist master. Several years ago, a Buddhist practitioner approached me asking me to teach him about emptiness.
I explained the basics to him, and he seemed very pleased, even very happy. Wonderful, he exclaimed at the end of our conversation. From experience, I knew that emptiness was not completely easily understood after just one lesson, so I advised him to contemplate what he would learn in the coming days.
A few days later, this man suddenly appeared outside my room with a look of terror. His face pale, his body bent and trembling, he made his way cautiously across the room, as if checking the ground in front of him for quicksand. Finally, stopping in front of the chair where I was sitting, he said, Rinpoche, you told me to contemplate emptiness, but last night I suddenly thought that if everything is empty, then this whole house is empty, the floor is empty, even the ground beneath is empty.
If that is true, then why don’t we fall through the floor into the earth? I waited until he had finished, and then I asked, Who would fall? He pondered the question for a moment, and then his expression changed completely. He exclaimed, Oh, I see now, if the house is empty and the person is empty too, then there is no one to fall through and nothing to fall through. He took a deep breath, relaxed, and his face brightened.
I instructed him to go back to contemplating the emptiness with this new understanding. Two or three days later, he suddenly appeared in my room again, pale and trembling, just as before. He moved around the room, obviously trying very hard not to breathe, afraid to exhale.
"I understand that like the house and the ground beneath it, I am also empty"
He sat across from me and said, Rinpoche, I am meditating on emptiness as you have instructed me, and I understand that like the house and the ground beneath it, I am also empty. But the more I continued meditating in this way, the deeper I went into this meditation, the less I saw or felt. I was afraid that if I were nothing more than emptiness, I would surely die.
So I ran here this morning to see you. If I am nothing more than emptiness, then I am nothing, and there will be nothing to prevent me from dissolving into emptiness. After making sure he had finished speaking, I asked, who will dissolve? I paused to let the question sink in, and then I continued.
You have confused emptiness with vacuum. This is a common initial mistake, always trying to understand emptiness as a concept or idea. I have made the same mistake.
But there is really no way to conceptualize emptiness. It can only be truly known through direct experience. I am not asking you to believe me.
I just suggest that when you sit down to meditate next time, ask yourself, if the nature of everything is emptiness, then who or what can dissolve, who or what is born, and who or what can die? Try it, and you might be surprised by the answer. After a deep breath, he agreed to try again. A few days later, he returned to my room, smiling calmly and reporting, I think I am beginning to understand emptiness.
I encouraged him to explain. I followed your advice, and after a long period of reflection on the subject, I realized that emptiness is not emptiness, because there must be something before there can be anything. Emptiness is everything, all the possibilities of existence and non-existence happening at once.
So, if our true nature is emptiness, you cannot say that anyone really dies, and you cannot say that anyone really is born, because the potential to exist this way or not, to exist this way, is always there within each of us. I told him, good job. Now forget everything you just said, because if you try to remember it exactly, you will turn everything you have learned into an idea, and we will have to start over.
Chapter 2. Truth is known only when consciousness is absent
To understand the truth, the mind must be quiet. It must cease all activity, be still.
This does not mean that thought can lead to truth, but once enlightenment comes, thought can be used to serve truth. This is the path that the Buddha and the saints have walked before us. I am presenting an idea, but the real essence behind it is emptiness.
This empty space is not a product of thought. It exists beyond the reach of thought. No thought can touch it.
It even eludes contemplation. Have you ever noticed the phenomenon that you cannot think about this empty space, cannot make it an idea? You cannot think about it. It is inconceivable.
If you could think about it, it would no longer be empty. Thought must make room for the empty space. These two entities never meet.
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Intuition is the state of being without thought.
When that empty space comes, it can use any means to express itself. Intuition is the state of no thought. Whenever you discover something, you do so in the absence of thought.
Sometimes when you listen to me speak, you may come to this state. But these moments are the gaps, free of thought. Between two thoughts, there is a gap.
And within that gap, something shimmers, begins to resonate. Like the emptiness in a drum, it becomes useful. Sound is created from the emptiness.
When your mind is free of thought, something can, and very likely will, happen. You can understand what I am saying. What I am saying is not just the words that you hear, but it becomes intuition, insight, revelation.
You have experienced it. You have shared it with me. Intuition, in essence, is a state of no thought, free from mental structures.
That is the gap, a break in the thought process, and within that gap lies the truth. Chapter 3. Emptiness and Mind in Buddhist Philosophy The word emptiness, in English, comes from an ancient term related to leisure and idleness. It is interesting to understand that this word, from its roots, carries a deep meaning.
It is related to leisure, to being idle, and to the act of letting go. When you are idle or engaged in your leisure, your mind becomes empty. This is contrary to the idea, “Idleness is the devil’s workshop,” which implies that a busy mind is the dwelling place of the devil.
In reality, an empty mind is the temple of God, not of demons. It is important to understand the emptiness I am talking about. It is about relaxation, being free from tension, without disturbances, desires, or dreams, being fully awake.
An empty mind is full presence, and in that full presence, anything can happen because everything comes from this absolute presence. Trees grow from this pure presence, and stars are born from it. We and the enlightened all grow from this pure presence.
In this pure presence, you merge with God, you are God. When the mind is busy, you fall. When the mind is busy, you are expelled from the heavens.
When you are idle, you return to Him. When you are idle, you return home. When the mind is not busy with reality, with objects, with ideas, then you truly see the nature of things.
And this nature is the truth. Only in emptiness is there a meeting, an integration. Only in emptiness do you open your heart to the truth, and the truth penetrates you.
Only in emptiness do you become harmonious with the truth. Three states of consciousness. The first state includes content and consciousness.
The mind is always full of content. Thoughts move, desires arise, attachment, anger, ignorance. Your mind always contains an idea, never idle.
The movement of thoughts is constant, day after day. When you are awake, you call it thinking. When you sleep, you call it a dream.
They are both just processes. Dreaming is thinking in pictures, not using concepts, but images. It is a simpler form of thinking, one that children use.
That is why children’s books are often filled with large, colorful pictures to help them form thoughts through pictures. Gradually, as they grow older, these pictures fade and eventually become unnecessary. Prehistoric people also thought in pictures, and the earliest form of writing, hieroglyphics, attests to this.
The discoveries of psychoanalysts are important because they study dreams. The reason is that in dreams, you become simpler. You are not trying to fool anyone.
You are more real. During the day, you often put on many masks to hide yourself, switching from one personality to another, which makes it difficult to find your true self. You have to dig through these masks, which can hurt your ego and cause resistance.
But at night, when you undress and get ready for bed, you also remove your personality.
But at night, when you undress and get ready for sleep, you also remove your personality. You don’t need it anymore because you don’t communicate with anyone, only with yourself. You cut off communication with the outside world and you are completely alone in your own private space.
There is no need to hide or pretend. That is why psychoanalysts want to study your dreams because they reveal more about the truth about you. It is just another game played in a different language.
The normal state of consciousness includes consciousness and its content. The second state of consciousness is consciousness without content. This is the essence of meditation.
You are fully awake, with a gap, a pause. No thoughts appear in your consciousness. You are not asleep and you are fully awake, but there is no thought.
This is meditation. There is a third state. When the content is gone, when the object is also gone, the subject cannot exist because they are dependent on each other.
When only the subject remains, it exists a little longer by the momentum of the past. Without content, consciousness cannot last long. It has no more use because consciousness is always consciousness of something.
When you say consciousness, someone might ask about what? An object is necessary for the subject to exist. Once the object is gone, the subject will soon disappear too. First, the content disappears, and then consciousness follows.
The third state is called meditation, samadhi, without content, without consciousness. But remember, this state of no content, without consciousness is not a state of unconsciousness. It is a state of transcendental consciousness.
The consciousness is now just consciousness of itself. The consciousness has turned itself inward. The circle is complete.
You have returned home. This is the third state, samadhi, which Buddha refers to as emptiness. First, remove the content.
You are half empty. Then remove the consciousness. You become completely empty.
And this complete emptiness is the most beautiful thing that can happen, the greatest happiness. Chapter 4 Summary In this emptiness, you realize that there is perfect safety and peace when the individual self no longer exists. All fears disappear.
Why? Because the most basic human fear is the fear of death. Every other fear is a reflection of that.
We are afraid that one day we will cease to exist, that one day we will die. Our current existence will end, and that is a frightening idea. This is the most basic fear.
To escape this fear, we try every means to live as long as possible. We try to make our lives safer, we make compromises to have more safety. This leads to paralysis, because the more we try to live safely, the less we live.
Real life thrives in the face of challenges and grows in crises
Real life thrives on challenges and grows in crises. It requires insecurity to mature. When you feel unstable, you feel more alive and alert.
That’s why overconfident people become inert. A kind of stupidity and drowsiness surrounds them. They have no more challenges, no need to use their intelligence.
Intelligence is sharpened by challenge. So, afraid of death, we strive for security, to have money in the bank, to have insurance, to be married, to have a stable job. We become citizens of a country, join political parties, join religions. These are the ways we seek security.
If you are fearless, no politician or priest can take advantage of you. Because you are afraid, they have the opportunity to take advantage of you, because they can promise to make you safe, at least they can promise that. And it is these promises that lead people to be exploited and oppressed.
Once you understand this inner emptiness, you are no longer afraid of anything, because death has already happened. In this emptiness, you disappear. So what is there to fear? Who is there to fear? You no longer exist to fear.
In this emptiness, all fears disappear because death has already happened. Therefore, there is no more death. You feel immortal, beyond time.
Eternity has arrived. Now, you do not need to seek safety. This is the state where a person does not need countries, religions, or such groups.
Only when you become truly empty, can you truly be yourself. It may sound paradoxical, but you do not need to compromise. Because of fear and lust, people often compromise.
But you can live with nothing because you have nothing left to lose. You can be invincible, you have nothing left to fear. Nobody can kill you because you have already done it.
Nobody can take anything from you because you have already given up everything that could be taken. Now you live in emptiness. You are emptiness.
Therefore, the paradox. Sit in this emptiness, there is great safety, great stability, because you cannot die again. And with death, time also disappears.
And all the problems caused by death and time disappear with it. What remains is a clear sky. This clear sky is samadhi, it is nirvana.
Buddha spoke a lot about this.
