The Buddha says that
everything is "empty". Some think that this is empty, that
is empty, or everything is empty. Since everything is empty, and
meaningless, one does not need to do either evil or good. These
people understand the concept vaguely, and lead an aimless life. In
fact, "emptiness" in Buddhism is the most profound philosophy. The
Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are the people who have realised the truth
of emptiness. "Emptiness" does not mean nothing at
all, in contrast, it includes everything. The world is world, life is life, suffering
is suffering, happiness is happiness, everything does
exist.
To put it in layman
term:
persons (like you and me) and all other phenomena (tables, etc.)
are empty of our fantasized projections on them. One of the
principle deceptive qualities that we project onto persons and
phenomena is that they are inherently existent, that is,
that they exist without depending on causes and conditions, parts,
and the consciousness which conceives them and gives them a name.
Thus, in our ordinary view, things appear to have some true
of inherent nature, as if they were really there, as if we could
find these real, independent entities if we searched for them. They
appear to be there, independent of the causes and conditions that
created them, independent of the parts of which they are made, and
independent of the mind which conceives and gives them a name. This
is the appearance of true or inherent existence and our mind grasps
it as real.
However,
when we examine analytically if things exist in this independent
way as they superficially appear to, we find that they do not. They
are empty of our fantasized projections onto them. Still, they do
exist, but they exist dependently, for they rely on causes and
conditions, on parts, and on the mind which conceives them
and gives them a name.
