An Introduction to Buddhist Wisdom

We live in a confusion. The world does not exist the way it appears to. Sensory appearances give the impression that objects exist as separate, concrete things. Conceptual images deepen this surface impression, creating the sense of an independent, fixed nature into what it names, including a self.

From an early age, a view of the world as consisting of separate objects is deeply assumed. To conceive of phenomena existing in of themselves, independent from anything else and as if powered by their own nature or essence is called inherent existence. This is the target to be refuted on the path of emptiness teachings. The absence of inherent existence is referred to as emptiness and when realized, one sees all phenomena as dependently co-arisen, “as like moons in water.”

Our senses and concepts appear to solidify objects with a separate nature, with the impression that forms exist with their own thingness. This conceptual image is merely an abstraction, not a truth. However, this appearance is a most convincing illusion and the belief in inherent existence, in a self and all other phenomena as grounded in their own independent nature, is so ingrained, so automatic and pervasive, that it is difficult to recognize.

For example, people will say “my mind, “my body,” as if there exists an autonomous and separate self that is their owner. This constructed self appears to claim the mind and body parts as its possession, and as if an unchanging self exists apart from them. However, there is no such independent self to be found among these empty parts, no separate self that stands alone after these parts are accounted for.

Inherent existence is a mental trick, an illusory appearance which is seen as the way things ultimately exist. The realization of the absence of inherent existence is the realization of interrelated and dependent existence. As nothing exists in and of itself, everything is without its own thingness, dependent upon everything else without independent establishment.

Buddhist emptiness teachings are profoundly nondual. Objects of every kind, apples, cars, planets, as well as people and subtle mental objects such as thoughts, feelings and perceptions, etc., are a web of empty interrelatedness. For one cannot identify anything without considering it in relationship to something else. And what exists dependently cannot exist inherently.

This accounts for how things originate also. What exists dependently cannot originate independently. What is taken to exist so fundamentally such as fire, requires fuel as fire does not burn itself. Fire exists dependently. Despite our understanding that everything changes, objects and entities, including people, are believed to have an inborn nature that remains the same.

“When we imagine change, we imagine one thing retaining its identity, but changing its properties.” Jay Garfield

To see through this falseness is very important, because the belief in inherent existence is the root error that leads to suffering. However, one must first clearly identify the target of inherent existence in order to aim the arrow. To then pierce this mental fiction is to unburden a person from believing and behaving that she or he is a truly separate self living in a world of separate people and things, and then needing to protect and defend this self.

 

Conventional and Dependent Existence

In emptiness teachings, conventional existence refers to how things are named by way of their dependent, relational existence and as established through ordinary perception, cognition and function. Conventional existence does not mean usual existence. For the way that things usually appear is inherently, as distinct entities. Because phenomena do not have their own nature, because they exist dependently, they can only be named in a conventional way.

Conventional existence then, is also called nominal existence, because no independent nature or thingness can truly be singled out. The appearance and functioning of objects are valid perceptions. If there was no valid establishment, there could be no coherent understanding of anything, including the negation of an object's inherent existence, meaning its emptiness.

An apple is not the same as a rock. However, it is not inherently different either, as an apple also depends upon rock elements. It's not that apples don't exist, it's the way that they exist that is the issue. Apples exist dependently, interrelatedly, rather than by way of an independent or inherent nature. The characteristics and properties that appear to be owned by the apple, are the result of innumerable interrelationships that cannot fundamentally be pinned down. Forms are neither the same nor different from each other, because they lack their own self-contained properties. Everything is an interrelationship, an interreflection.

The interdependence of all conventional things makes them empty. In this sense, conventional existence and emptiness are the same.

For example, an apple is produced in dependence upon clouds, water, sunlight, air, insects, wind, seeds, etc., none of which exist as their own things either. An apple is made of what are considered "non-apple" elements, and so an apple does not have its own separate nature. Because apples are produced in dependence upon parts, conditions and mental labeling, apples cannot exist independently and are therefore empty of inherent "appleness." So what is an apple really? An apple is a conventional, practical, valid naming of what cannot truly be defined because it is not its own thing.

This same is true for subtle phenomena such as thoughts, emotions and sensations, none of which stand alone either. (See “Selflessness” and go to the subheading of “The Thinker, Feeler and The Doer”).

Emptiness

Emptiness too, does not exist by way of its own being. Emptiness is the realization of the mere absence of inherent existence. It does not mean “nothing,” nor is emptiness a universal essence. When a person discovers that things do not exist the way they superficially appear, when the establishment of inherent existence is refuted, emptiness is realized.

During meditation on the absence of inherent existence, emptiness is experienced as non-conceptual and without a subject-object duality. However, emptiness teachings resist reification, resist turning this absence back into an independent foundation or nature. And so it is said that emptiness too, is empty.

Emptiness is not the substance of phenomena, not a substratum or essence. Emptiness is not an independent entity. It is a realization. It is the realization that inherent existence is a misconception, an illusion. It is seeing that nothing exists autonomously, with its own foundation. Even the non-conceptual experience of the absence of inherent existence, is dependent upon the conceptual to discover its absence.

Nothing stands independently, even though at the time of abiding in emptiness, there is no conceptual mediator present. Many things are not conceptually mediated, not within the domain of words, such as the awe of a beautiful sunset, the taste of an orange, or sight of color, despite there being some perception of what occurred.

This is why there is some ability to talk or write about the experience of non-conceptual emptiness afterwards, even though the words are not the same as the experience. For what cannot be perceived at all cannot be known.

Emptiness teachings are also called the path of the Middle Way. While there are no independent entities or essences, we cannot say that nothing exists or that non-existence exists. That would be a contradiction. In Buddhist emptiness teachings we avoid the errors of both essentialism and nihilism.

Everything is inter-reflective, being neither existent nor non-exsitent, as neither the same nor different. Emptiness teachings are about freedom from the mistake of believing in either extreme. When they refute inherent existence, it is not about trying to find an absolute, transcendent place to try and feel free in. For there is no such fundamental existence.

No Separate Self

Central to emptiness teachings is the importance of seeing through the myth of an inherently separate self. This autonomous self is seen owning mind and body parts the way a shopkeeper owns his or her goods. It is seen as having its own intrinsic and unchanging character that is inherently born and that dies, steering itself through life through its own nature and will. When such a self is thoroughly investigated using emptiness teachings, it is realized that no such inherent ownership, separation or containment can be found.

Seeing through the illusion of the inherently existent self and all phenomena is like being the magician who understands the trick and can’t be fooled by it. One comes to realize that the superficial appearance of inherent existence is a deeply conditioned, but mistaken troublemaker.

In recognizing that an intrinsically separate self and other phenomena cannot be found to exist, it is recognized that there is nothing to fearfully defend or attach to. There is the understanding that the designated self is an abstraction from a web of seemless dependent relations that just can't be pinned down. And so the realization of emptiness also becomes the realization of the heart of compassion, the fruit of its wisdom.

One sees that as even emptiness is empty, there no mountaintop view, no ultimate judgement or truth to be claimed, including a “view from nowhere.” There is no leaving nonduality, everything is empty, dependent interrelatedness. And with the realization that there is no true place to stand, arrives the deep conviction that there is no place to fall.