We live in a confusion. The world does not exist the way it appears to. Sensory appearances give the impression that objects stand as separate things. Conceptual language deepens 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 a collection of separate objects is deeply assumed. To conceive of phenomena existing in of themselves and as if powered by their own nature or essence is called inherent existence. This is the target to be negated on the path of emptiness teachings. The absence of inherent existence is referred to as emptiness and when realized, one sees all phenomena as interconnected, interdependent, “as like moons in water.”
Our human use of concepts appear to cover what they name with an autonomous nature, with the impression that things exist with their own thingness. This conceptual image is merely an abstraction. However, it is a most convincing one and the belief in inherent existence, in a self and all other phenomena as having their own separate 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, as if there was a self existing apart from them. But there is no such separate self to be found.
Inherent existence is a mental trick, an illusion in which a conceptual label is seen as a representation of the way things ultimately exist. The realization of the absence of inherent or independent existence, is the realization of interrelated and dependent existence. As nothing exists in and of itself, everything is empty, without “own essence,” related to and dependent upon everything else, with no autonomy left over.
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 also referring to what is not that thing.
As nothing exists independently, nothing can originate independently either. 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, 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 as if one 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 existence and as established through ordinary, but valid 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 inherent being, because they lack “own essence,” they can only be named in a relative and linguistic way.
Conventional existence then, is also called nominal existence, because no independent nature or thingness can truly be singled out. Differences between the character and functioning of things are valid, conventionally speaking. An apple is not the same as a rock, but it is not different either. It is not the case that things exist without characteristics, but this need not imply inherent characteristics or essences. Things are neither the same nor different from each other, because they are related. Properties are essenseless, nondual, and yet diverse associations that cannot fundamentally be pinned down.
For instance, 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 non-apple elements, and so it exists dependently, not as its own essence. Because apples are produced in dependence upon conditions, apples cannot exist independently. So what is an apple really? It’s an mental abstraction, a mental construct. 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 stands alone either. (See “Selflessness” and go to the subheading of “The Thinker, Feeler and The Doer”). This is why death too, is merely relational. For nothing can be born or die as its own thing either.
Emptiness
Emptiness too, does not exist by way of its own being. Emptiness is the realization of an absence. It does not mean “nothing,” nor is it an 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, 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 of inherent existence to be a misconception. It is seeing that nothing exists autonomously, fundamentally.
Nothing stands alone, even though at the time of abiding in emptiness, there is no conceptual mediator present. Many things are not conceptually mediated, such as being startled, feeling pain, or the awe of a beautiful sunset, despite there being some perception of what occurred.
This is why there is some ability to talk or write about the experience of emptiness afterwards, even though the words are not the same as the non-conceptual experience. For what cannot be perceived cannot be known.
Emptiness is the absence of inherent existence, but not all existence. While there are no independent entities or essences, it is not the case that non-existence exists. For how could non-existence be known to be if it did not exist? What is uncharacterized cannot be perceived.
Everything is inter-reflective, being neither thing and nor no thing, neither one nor many. Emptiness teachings are about freedom from the mistake of believing that things inherently exist, not about finding an ultimate, unlimited truth 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 sense of a self is usually seen as a distinct entity that can be assigned an individual value, that is born and dies and that steers itself through life of its own volition. When this self is thoroughly investigated using emptiness teachings, it is realized that no such self, no such inherent containment, essence or separation can be found.
This realization is also applied to all phenomena. Seeing the illusion of inherent existence is like being the magician who understands the trick and can’t be fooled by it. One comes to see that the superficial appearance of inherent existence is a deeply conditioned, but unnecessary troublemaker.
In recognizing that an intrinsic self and other phenomena cannot be found to exist, it is seen that there is nothing to defend or attach to. There is the understanding that you are everyone and everyone is you and so, the realization of emptiness is the realization of compassion, the fruit of its wisdom.
One sees that as even emptiness is empty, there no mountaintop view, no ultimate truth to be claimed, including a “view from nowhere.” There is no leaving nonduality, as all is a web of 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.
An Introduction to Buddhist Wisdom
Because we say hello, we say goodbye. In being born, death arises. The belief in inherent existence creates the appearance that everything is solid and unchanging. However, what is, is already what is not. Birth and death are in each instant. They are always right here. And so death is as much a part of life as birth. Even emptiness, not being a thing in itself, but the absence of independent existence, shows us that loss and gain are interconnected, a part of each other, and furthermore, that nonexistence does not exist. Where in this can fear be sustained? Beneath superficial appearances, coming and going arise dependently.
Primary references for this website include the founding Middle Way philosophy and works of Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti and Aryadeva, and His Holiness The Dalai Lama. References also include the writings and influences of Jay Garfield, Jeffrey Hopkins, Richard Rorty, Greg Goode and Scott Kiloby. Writing, poetry and all original website contents © 2010 by Susan Kahn.
No True Things
To see that there are no true things.
Is to fall through crevasses,
Through the appearing bedrock
And into an emptiness.
One finds a freedom
To wander among open fields
Of neither thing nor no thing.
With everything arising dependently,
And so, without inherent natures,
The many are not fractured.
And because nothing stands alone
But for the veil of empty names,
The barren desert blooms.