Emptiness: The
Most Misunderstood Word in Buddhism
Posted:
03/06/2013 5:14 am EST Lewis Richmond
"Emptiness" is a
central teaching of all Buddhism, but its true meaning is often
misunderstood. If we are ever to embrace Buddhism properly into the
West, we need to be clear about emptiness, since a wrong
understanding of its meaning can be confusing, even harmful. The
third century Indian Buddhist master Nagarjuna
taught, "Emptiness
wrongly grasped is like picking up a poisonous snake by the wrong
end." In other words, we will be bitten!
Emptiness is not complete nothingness; it doesn't
mean that nothing exists at all. This would be a nihilistic view
contrary to common sense. What it does mean is that things do not
exist the way our grasping self supposes they do. In
his
book on the Heart
Sutra the Dalai Lama
calls emptiness "the true nature of things and
events," but in the same passage he warns us "to avoid the
misapprehension that emptiness is an absolute reality or an
independent truth." In other words, emptiness is not some kind of
heaven or separate realm apart from this world and its
woes.
The Heart Sutra says, "all phenomena in their
own-being are empty." It doesn't say "all phenomena are empty."
This distinction is vital. "Own-being" means separate independent
existence. The passage means that nothing we see or hear (or are)
stands alone; everything is a tentative expression of one seamless,
ever-changing landscape. So though no individual person or thing
has any permanent, fixed identity, everything taken together is
what Thich
Nhat Hanh calls "interbeing." This term
embraces the positive aspect of emptiness as it is lived and acted
by a person of wisdom -- with its sense of connection, compassion
and love. Think of the Dalai Lama himself and the kind of person he
is -- generous, humble, smiling and laughing -- and we can see that
a mere intellectual reading of emptiness fails to get at its
practical joyous quality in spiritual life. So emptiness has two
aspects, one negative and the other quite positive.
Ari
Goldfield, a Buddhist teacher at
Wisdom Sun
and translator of Stars
of Wisdom , summarizes these two aspects
as follows:
The first
meaning of emptiness is called "emptiness of essence," which means
that phenomena [that we experience] have no inherent nature by
themselves." The second is called "emptiness in the context of
Buddha Nature," which sees emptiness as endowed with qualities of
awakened mind like wisdom, bliss, compassion, clarity, and courage.
Ultimate reality is the union of both emptinesses.
With all of
this in mind, I would like to highlight three common
misunderstandings of emptiness: emotional, ethical and
meditative.
Emotional
When we say "I feel empty," we mean we are feeling
sad or depressed. Emotionally speaking, "emptiness" is not a happy
word in English, and no matter how often we remind ourselves that
Buddhist emptiness does not mean loneliness or separateness, that
emotional undertow remains. At various times I have looked for a
substitute translation for the Sanskrit sunyata -- I have
tried "fullness," "spaciousness," "connectedness," and
"boundlessness" -- but as Ari Goldfield points out, "emptiness" is
the most exact translation. "Emptiness" is also the term that my
own teacher Shunryu
Suzuki used, though he usually added
context. Once, speaking of emptiness he said, "I do not mean
voidness. There is something, but that something is something which
is always prepared for taking some particular form." Another time,
speaking of the feeling tone of emptiness, he said, "Emptiness is
like being at your mother's bosom and she will take care of
you."
Ethical
Some Buddhist students rationalize or excuse bad
behavior of their teacher by asserting that through his
understanding of emptiness the teacher is exempt from the usual
rules of conduct. One student said, "Roshi lives in the absolute so
his behavior can't be judged by ordinary standards." While it is
true that Buddhist teachers sometimes use unusual methods to awaken
their students, their motivation must come from compassion, not
selfishness. No behavior that causes harm is acceptable for a
Buddhist practitioner, teacher or otherwise.
Meditative
Some Buddhist students think that a meditative state
without thought or activity is the realization of emptiness. While
such a state is well described in Buddhist meditation texts, it is
treated like all mental states -- temporary and not ultimately
conducive to liberation. Actually emptiness is not a state of mind
at all; it is, as the Dalai Lama says, simply "the true nature of
things and events." This includes the mind. Whether the mind of the
meditator is full of thoughts or empty of them, this true nature
holds.
Conclusion
Finally, since emptiness seems so difficult to
understand, why did the Buddha teach it at all? It is because of
his profound insight into why we suffer. Ultimately we suffer
because we grasp after things thinking they are fixed, substantial,
real and capable of being possessed by ego. It is only when we can
see through this illusion and open ourselves, in Ari Goldfield's
words, "to the reality of flux and fluidity that is ultimately
ungraspable and inconceivable" that we can relax into clarity,
compassion and courage. That lofty goal is what makes the effort to
understand emptiness so worthwhile.