Possibility. . .
The Buddhist teaching of emptiness can sound bleak when first encountered. If everything is “empty,” does that mean nothing is real? Does nothing matter?
Quite the opposite. Emptiness points toward the understanding that things do not exist completely independently, permanently or entirely from their own side. Everything depends upon conditions.
Consider a tree. The tree exists. But where did it come from? Seed, soil, rain, sunlight, minerals, air and time all come together to help a tree form. Remove enough conditions and there is no tree. The tree is therefore both real and relational.
Now consider yourself.
Your language came from others. Your beliefs were influenced by culture. Your body depends upon food, water, oxygen and countless biological processes and your identity formed through relationships and experience. So where exactly does the completely independent “you” begin?
Emptiness isn’t a declaration of meaninglessness. It is a revelation of relationship. Because things depend upon conditions, conditions matter enormously. A cruel word changes conditions. So does kindness.
A polluted river changes conditions. So does restoring one. Ignoring suffering changes conditions. So does helping. If everything existed permanently and independently, nothing could change. Because things are empty of fixed existence, transformation is possible.
Seeds become forests.
Children become adults.
Enemies can become friends.
Ignorance can become understanding.
Suffering can become wisdom.
You can become different from who you were yesterday. That is the hopeful side of emptiness. Nothing is frozen and nothing exists entirely alone. Everything participates in everything else.
The next time the Buddhist word “emptiness” feels cold, perhaps replace it temporarily with another word:
possibility.
Because things aren’t permanently fixed, possibilities remain. Because we are interconnected, our actions matter. Because conditions change, healing can occur.
Emptiness doesn’t drain the world of meaning. Properly understood, it can reveal why this fragile, changing, interconnected world deserves our deepest attention, our greatest compassion and our wisest compassion.
Peace and Love, Jim
#attention #thedailybuddha #tdb
