The Moment of Direct Realization

The Prasangika presentation of the path to enlightenment is encapsulated in one defining moment: a direct realization of emptiness. This one moment is the quintessential experience of the entire path and thus serves as a pivot on which the whole Prasangika method rotates. This experience is revered as a pure, unfiltered glimpse of ultimate truth – a perception of the true nature of reality. It represents the culmination of one’s conceptual understanding of emptiness and the dawning of non-conceptual insight. And because of its ultimate reliability, this experience is taken as the definitive arbiter when determining which minds are capable of discerning truth. In other words, the direct experience of emptiness is seen to establish both ultimate truth and the validity of the mind that realizes ultimate truth. On the foundation of these two established premises, the entire Prasangika path is constructed so as to lead the student to that direct experience.

For many years now, i have found it curious that so much emphasis is placed on this one moment along the path to enlightenment. If it really is a path, then how can one section of the path be elevated above all the rest? Every journey will have some moments that are more memorable than others but the success of the journey depends equally on the all the steps that we take. How can we say that any particular moment is the “real experience” of the journey?

And even more suspicious is the fact that the one moment which is held up as a direct realization of ultimate truth does not occur at the end of the path, as we would expect, but somewhere in the middle. After this direct glimpse of emptiness there are experiences that must be cultivated before enlightenment is reached. This begs the question of why an incomplete experience of enlightenment, which comes at an intermediate stage of the path, is adopted as a realization of the true nature of reality and why such a (not yet fully-matured) state of mind is the assumed standard-bearer of a valid mind. Surely the mind of enlightenment perceives nuances of truth that are not perceived by an initial realization of emptiness and surely the mind of enlightenment is a more appropriate candidate for the prototypical “valid mind”. So why is the path structured around a direct realization of emptiness instead of around the mind of enlightenment?

A more wide-ranging question is: If we over-accentuate one section of the path to enlightenment, how would that effect our understanding of the entire path? What distortions and exaggerations might we expect to find? For example, if someone were attempting to climb Mt. Everest and he focused all his energies on reaching a temporary shelter half way to the peak, how would that effect his efforts to get all the way to the top? If he spent almost all of his time and attention on trying to get to the temporary shelter under the assumption that the trek from the shelter to the peak would be effortless, would he be prepared for the second half of the journey?

There are good reasons for emphasizing the importance of a direct realization of emptiness – beyond the belief that it is an instance of a completely valid mind observing ultimate reality. However, we also need to understand the limitations and deceptive nature of this experience. Perhaps most important is that a direct realization of emptiness is the direct realization of something which is assumed to be partial. It is a direct realization of an emptiness that is assumed to exist separately from conventional truths. Up until the meditator experiences a direct realization, he has been meditating on an emptiness that has been conceptually distinguished from all other phenomena. This emptiness does not actually exist because the two truths are the same nature; emptiness only exists in union with conventional truths. Thus, if the meditator realizes “only emptiness” without simultaneously realizing conventional truth then he has realized a false emptiness.

The direct realization of emptiness is the core of the Prasangika method but we should not accept everything that is said about this experience as a literal truth. We need to investigate this event based on our personal experience and come to our own understanding.

Reflecting Truth

What makes emptiness different from other phenomena? What distinguishes the concept of emptiness from other concepts? I have written about this topic before but it is very interesting and i think it is the key to understanding the meaning of emptiness. It is not enough simply to gain a rough understanding of emptiness, we need to understand how emptiness relates to and resembles other concepts.

Yesterday, i was thinking about how emptiness is like a mirror. Although we often think about emptiness as a “phenomenon” – an object of mind – it does not have any characteristics that can be used to identify it and distinguish it from other phenomena. Emptiness does not present a unique appearance that we can learn to see, like learning to “see” the force of gravity; it merely reflects back to us our own projections and preconceptions. It is like looking into a mirror: we clearly see something and therefore assume that something real is there. The appearance of the object is correct but our belief about why it is appearing or where it is coming from is wrong. We assume that its appearance indicates that it is coming from itself, “out there” (on the other side of the mirror) and we do not realize that its appearance is actually coming from here, from our world on this side of the mirror. We do not think that we are looking at our self and our world; we think that we are looking at other things, things outside of our world. Emptiness is not something to be perceived, it is the fact that everything we are perceiving is a reflection of our current situation.

And yet, this is not the whole story for even if we accept that emptiness represents the boundary of our (present) experience, we can still wonder about what is beyond that boundary. Once we realize that the things we are seeing are not real but are just reflections in a mirror, we might then ask what exists behind the mirror. Of course, whatever we find “behind the mirror” will also be a reflection of our experience but that does not mean that the inquiry is meaningless.

The problem is that by merely asking the question “What exists behind the mirror?” we cease to be deceived by the reflected appearances and automatically consolidate our perception of reflection into a thing (a mirror) which is limited and therefore can be mentally transcended. The same process of consolidation and objectification occurs when we describe emptiness in terms of being a phenomenon. When we portray emptiness in this way it begs the question of what characteristics and properties this “thing” has. What distinguishes it from other phenomena? What are its limitations? What makes it relative to other things? It also conveys the impression that there is something more than emptiness, that we can go beyond or “look behind” emptiness – which of course conflicts with the belief that emptiness is ultimate truth.

I think a complete understanding of emptiness depends on understanding this dual nature. Emptiness is neither just “ultimate” truth nor just a relative, conventional truth. It is both. And it is necessary to understand both of these aspects in order to realize the union of the two truths. But what is really beautiful is that all phenomena are both ultimate and conventional truths. Everything is a manifestation of ultimate truth (which can be discovered upon analysis) and everything is a conventional truth because it can only be defined in relationship to other phenomena. In other words, there is nothing that distinguishes emptiness from any other phenomenon except for its conventional characteristics. Emptiness is not a special concept. It does not contain any special meaning or truth that other concepts lack. It may have a unique definition but all phenomena have a unique definition and the truth that is realized by meditating on emptiness is the result of one’s unflinching analysis, not the effect of believing in a privileged concept. Emptiness is the true nature of all phenomena… but we do not need to know emptiness in order to realize it.

The Unmentionable

Emptiness is the unmentionable truth. It is the ultimate ground of reality, the foundation from which all appearances arise, and the source from which all phenomena manifest. But emptiness itself is not a thing. It is not a phenomenon, it is not something that can be conceived and defined by the conceptual mind, and it is not something that can be expressed with language. By nature of being the ultimate, fundamental truth, it is confined to the background of reality. It is the fabric from which reality is woven and so can never be pointed out as a “thing”, or a part, within reality. Thus, emptiness must forever remain implicit, unconceived, and inexpressible. It may pervade every corner of our world but it is the Unmentionable, the one thing that is distorted and corrupted by the mere act of attempting to articulate it.

The problem is that if we want to fully realize this “ultimate nature of reality,” we first need to identify it, which requires conceiving, naming, and defining emptiness. However, it is important to keep in mind that this process of describing emptiness is merely a teaching device. Its sole purpose is to illustrate emptiness for the novice student so that he or she will eventually realize its unmentionable nature. The practice of presenting emptiness as an distinct phenomenon—a “thing” that can be known, named, and particularized—should not be assumed to mean that emptiness exists as a discrete entity in contradistinction to other phenomena. Explaining the idea of God to a child by saying that God is an old man who lives in the sky does not mean that God actually exists in that way; it is just a useful way of presenting a profound concept to a simple mind.

Once we identify emptiness, however, we need to proceed to reconcile this phenomenon with all the other conventional things that occupy our lives. This practice, known as unifying the two truths, depends on learning how emptiness and other phenomena can mutually exist without exaggerating one and denying the relative validity of the other. In other words, once we have conceived emptiness and brought it into our world as a unique entity we have to find its proper place in relation to all the other things in our world.

For most students of emptiness it might seem that the proper place for emptiness is front and center, at the forefront of our consciousness and at the center of our attention. This is understandable considering the strong emphasis that Buddhist teachers and texts place on emptiness. Also, a genuine realization of emptiness can require many years of dedicated study and meditation and such concentrated effort would only be possible if emptiness were kept “front and center” in the student’s awareness throughout his training. However, when emptiness is granted status as an individual phenomenon in relation to other phenomena, we exaggerate the proper place of emptiness and fail to understand the union of the two truths. The mere identification of emptiness within a context of conventional phenomena implies something that it is not: a phenomenon with conventional characteristics that can be conceived, defined, and named in relationship to other phenomena. Rather than being a conventional thing like everything else, emptiness is like the space between conventional things: present only in an implicit, negative way.

The proper place for emptiness is the background of reality. As the ultimate truth and true nature of all phenomena, it necessarily remains behind the scenes, providing the existential basis for all things but forever hidden from view. It cannot even be said to exist for we cannot ascribe any qualities to it without evoking it into the domain of conventional truths. All our attempts to know it and describe it only succeed in creating a conventional truth called “emptiness.” The ultimate truth that we seek refuses to be known or named; it is unmentionable.

Before we encounter teachings on emptiness, emptiness is an unknown phenomenon. Although it may be the ultimate truth of all phenomena, we have no knowledge of it. Then, by studying the teachings on emptiness, we learn to identify it. We mentally carve it out of our reality by conceiving it, defining it, and understanding it in relation to other phenomena: “It is the mere lack of inherent existence. It’s like empty space but it’s not nothingness. It’s permanent. It’s a negative phenomenon. Etc.” In this way, emptiness becomes a known phenomenon. Eventually, with diligent study and meditation, emptiness becomes so familiar to us that it is as real and tangible as conventional truths. At this point, our understanding of emptiness as an individual phenomenon—a thing—is complete. The reality of emptiness has been incontrovertibly established in our mind. Our study and meditation has succeeded in convincing us of the undeniable reality of emptiness and, once this point is reached, no amount of study or analysis will make emptiness any more true, substantial, or factual. This may appear to be the end of one’s training in emptiness but, actually, this stage, at which one’s understanding of emptiness itself becomes more or less complete, represents a turning point and a halfway mark on the path to realizing our true goal: the union of the two truths.

The reason that a complete understanding of emptiness itself does not mark our final destination is that it leads to a sort of ontological crisis between emptiness and conventional truths which must be resolved if we hope to extract the meaning of emptiness from our private meditation and incorporate it into our life in the world. The basic problem is that once emptiness is established in our mind as a real and true phenomenon, it appears that emptiness and conventional truths are incompatible. As we develop a sense of the equal realness of emptiness and conventional truths, it seems that we are forced to choose between them. This dilemma is the principal challenge for the practice of unifying the two truths and, again, the practice of unifying the two truths primarily depends on understanding their relationship—finding their respective places in our experience of reality.

When considering the proper place for emptiness we may be inclined to grant emptiness precedence over conventional truths, or perhaps try to maintain both on the same level—equal opponents locked in constant tension. However, these uninspired attempts at a “union” of the two truths fail to appreciate the purpose and significance of presenting emptiness as a thing with its own characteristics. Emptiness is depicted as a “phenomenon” in order to help us draw it out of (non)existence and then use as a contrast to conventional truths so that we can, through a process of comparison and reconciliation, gradually develop an understanding of the true nature of conventional truths. Emptiness is described as if it were a thing, but it’s not. The thing-ness of emptiness is an artificial fabrication that is designed to induce the above “ontological crisis” in the mind of the student so that he will be forced to question and examine his beliefs about the nature of conventional phenomena. The creation of emptiness-as-a-phenomenon leads to the unavoidable confrontation of emptiness vs. conventional truths, which can only be resolved by investigating and discovering the true nature of things. Thus, the concept of emptiness as a phenomenon is a philosophical prop—a pragmatic tool that is used to lead the student’s mind into a philosophical quandary. In this case, that quandary is the question of the nature of existence.

Emptiness is not actually a thing in the way that conventional truths are things because emptiness is merely the mode of existence of things, not a thing itself. It is an answer to the question of how things exist not an answer to the question of what exists. We could say that emptiness is a false phenomenon. The teachings on emptiness describe it as if it were a phenomenon but we must keep in mind that this description is merely provided for the benefit of our limited understanding; it is not intended to be a definitive statement about the nature of emptiness.

If we remember that emptiness is a false phenomenon while attempting to unify the two truths, it will be easier to reach a resolution. Or rather, we will be able to recognize that in fact there is no conflict, no incompatibility, that needs to be resolved. Since emptiness is not a thing, it contains no qualities or characteristics that could clash with conventional truths. “In emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness. There is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mentality; no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no tactile object, no phenomenon…” When viewed in comparison to conventional truths, emptiness has no distinguishing features and indeed has no appearance at all. It would appear that emptiness does not even exist! It is this nonappearance or nonexistence of emptiness that marks the union of the two truths for only when emptiness fades invisibly into the background of reality do we cease to experience a conflict between ultimate truth and conventional truths. Thus, the proper place for emptiness is nowhere (or everywhere?!)—a place where it is not seen, heard, or felt, a place where it remains permanently non-localized, a place where it can suffuse and permeate all phenomena without being limited to any one phenomenon, a place where it remains forever hidden unless we decide to draw it out of reality. We could say that emptiness is the formless, existential context of conventional truths. It does not really consist of anything; it is a name without a reference.

The objective of the practice of the union of the two truths is to allow emptiness to return to its proper place by learning how to let it become more and more invisible, without denying its reality. At the beginning of our study, our efforts are focused on drawing emptiness out of the unknown: conceptualizing emptiness, making it an explicitly known phenomenon that has a certain definition and meaning, and treating it like a thing. But once this has been accomplished and emptiness is established in our mind as a real entity, we then need to learn how emptiness naturally exists without being sculpted or molded into existence in any form, even thought-forms. We need to allow emptiness to recede back into the unknown from which we created it while somehow maintaining an understanding of its significance. We need to reach a state in which the meaning of emptiness has been so thoroughly internalized, so deeply imbedded into our mind, that it appears as if emptiness does not exist at all. As Chandrakirti says, we need to “see emptiness by not seeing it.”

As you might imagine, this practice of becoming so familiar with emptiness that it appears to fade away requires great spiritual integrity. The practitioner who is learning to unify the two truths must be willing to patiently abide within the tension between the two truths until his mind has surrendered the desire to escape from that tension by grasping at the extremes of existence or nonexistence. Furthermore, he must mold his faith, discipline, and other virtues to the specific needs of his task. For instance, he must develop faith in an unseen and unknown emptiness. In the beginning of his study, the practitioner’s faith in emptiness is predominantly based on reasoning and conceptual understanding; he only believes in the emptiness to the extent that he can logically prove that it exists. However, with a direct realization of emptiness followed by the practice of unifying the two truths, the practitioner must learn to relinquish his reliance on the conceptual forms of emptiness and develop faith in a formless, nonconceptual version of emptiness. He must also cultivate a commensurate form of mental discipline which resists the compulsive tendency to express emptiness in conceptual form. He must learn to accept that emptiness “just is” without yielding to the conceptual mind’s demand to know precisely what emptiness is. He must accept that emptiness is inexpressible, indefinable, and unknowable and resist the temptation to express it, define it, and know it. He must learn to be satisfied with the unmentionable nature of emptiness.

Reason and Transcendence: A Response to Stephen Batchelor

[The following is a response to Stephen Batchelor’s blog-post, Reason and Transcendence (2), which can be found on Tricycle’s website.]

First of all, i want to thank Stephen for his thoughts in the Reason and Transcendence posts. They raise several questions that are important and relevant for Western Buddhists to reflect on. As someone who has spent several years wrestling with questions like these – questions that are often dismissed or ignored by some of the more dogmatic members of my Buddhist family – it is reassuring to know that other people recognize the unique dilemmas that these questions pose for Western practitioners. In particular, like Stephen, i have also been interested in and confused by the progression from a conceptual understanding of emptiness to a non-conceptual realization of emptiness. How and why does a non-conceptual experience emerge from a conceptual understanding? Although we first need to understand the traditional explanation of how and why this progression occurs, i think we also need to develop the ability to translate this experience into terms that are recognizable and meaningful to the established fields of Western epistemology and psychology.

The question of how a conceptual understanding of emptiness can transform into a non-conceptual experience is a good example of a Buddhist belief that needs to be translated into Western terms. What is the psychological explanation of this transformation? The resolution of this question has been one of the main objectives of my meditation practice in the last few years. An authoritative answer would demand not only that the practitioner experiences and completes each stage of the path to realizing emptiness but that he or she also have sufficient experience of other psychological models in order to elucidate the areas in which the two models (Buddhist and Western) either overlap or conflict with each other. While i cannot claim to have either of these requisites, my investigation so far has led me to believe that a resolution is perhaps simpler than we usually imagine.

As Stephen mentioned, Dharmakirti makes an epistemological distinction between objects that are known by the senses (evident objects) and objects that are inferred through reason (hidden objects). (As for the category of very hidden objects, perhaps it is just a faithful way of referring to things that are beyond the capacity of the human mind…) This distinction between sensory objects and conceptual objects is a mental separation of two things that actually constitute an indivisible whole: our experience of the world. The world that we experience is divided into two parts – evident objects and hidden objects – which each have a corresponding state of mind: sense perception and conceptual inference. This division is useful for conceptually understanding phenomena, such as emptiness, but it is important to recognize that it is a false separation because things that we experience do not actually exist as either ‘objects of the senses’ or ‘objects of the mind’, but as a union of both.

By separating things into categories such as ‘evident objects’ and ‘hidden objects’, we are able to refine our conceptual understanding of phenomena, which helps us clearly identify obscure concepts like emptiness. However, a merely conceptual understanding of emptiness is misleading because it is an abstracted idea separated from the reality of sensory experience. The concept of emptiness is the mental appearance of a hypothetical, abstract emptiness which supposedly points to the real emptiness. Like all concepts, the concept of emptiness is somewhat deceptive because it is the representation of emptiness instead of emptiness itself.

In order to overcome the deceptive nature of the concept of emptiness (and all concepts), we need to progress to a non-conceptual, direct experience of emptiness; we need to realize emptiness itself. Like Stephen mentioned, the traditional explanation for this progression is that single-pointed concentration is unified with a conceptual understanding of emptiness to induce a non-conceptual direct realization of emptiness. Although i accept the practical efficacy of this method, for the modern psychologist or cognitive scientist it does leave several unanswered questions. Why does such a concentrated state of mind induce a non-conceptual experience? What change is occurring in the mind at that moment of realization? What type of knowledge does a non-conceptual realization induce?

It seems to me that what we call a ‘non-conceptual realization’ is simply a act of reintegrating what has previously been conceptually divided. All of the conceptual discriminations that we make on the path to a conceptual understanding of emptiness are introduced merely for pragmatic purposes, to help us develop a clear idea of emptiness; those discriminations are not intended to be adopted as absolute definitions. Once we have clearly identified emptiness, those distinctions have fulfilled their purpose and need to be dismantled so that we can again see the world as a unified whole instead of as disparate parts. In particular, we need to deconstruct the practical, but ultimately false, dichotomy between sensory experience and conceptual experience so that we again relate to the world as one holistic experience.

This process of dissolving the conceptual distinctions that we have been utilizing is essentially non-conceptual because we are undoing our conceptual projections of how the world exists; we are non-conceptualizing our experience of the world. It is as if we are erasing all the conceptual lines that divide and fragment our uniform experience of the world into things and non-things. Contrary to our usual interpretation, we do not develop a non-conceptual state of mind which then observes and realizes emptiness because such a view implicitly separates the mind and its object, which prevents a direct and immediate experience of emptiness. This hypothetical ‘non-conceptual’ state of mind – which is presumably beyond both sense perception and rationality – is a transcendental state of mind, which we assume provides transcendental knowledge. Rather, a non-conceptual realization of emptiness is an experience in which the conceptual distinction between emptiness and other phenomena is unmade.

This unmaking of conceptual distinctions can be achieved by meditating on emptiness with a mind of deep concentration because such a concentrated mind does not experience the duality between subject and object. This mind does not relate to emptiness as an object outside itself; the mind and emptiness merge into each other. First we develop a conceptual understanding of emptiness which is implicitly dependent on projecting emptiness as an object and then, when we combine this with deep concentration, the objective quality of emptiness is undermined, which functions to neutralize its conceptually fabricated nature. Our concentration induces a de-conceptualizing experience: a non-conceptual realization.

Essentially, what we are doing is adopting a series of conceptual classifications (such as evident/hidden objects), using them to reach a clear idea of emptiness, and then discarding them. It is like drawing a line on a sheet of paper to separate it into two halves and then erasing the line to reunite the two halves into one whole. One might think that since we ultimately abandon the conceptual divisions that there is no difference between our experience prior to their adoption and our experience after their abandonment (i.e. that our experience of reality before we study emptiness is the same as our experience after we fully realize emptiness). This is worthy of debate but my feeling is that there is a difference. Although it could be argued that there is not a difference between the objects that an ordinary being realizes and the objects that a Buddha realizes, it seems to me that the process of differentiating emptiness and then reuniting it with conventional existence will add a quality to the Buddha’s experience of those objects that the ordinary being will not have. There is a difference between drawing and then erasing a line, and never having drawn the line at all.

This process can be likened to someone who lives in a village at the base of a mountain. One day he walks to the top of the mountain where he gets a very different perspective of his village and the surrounding area. At the top of the mountain, he observes the village from a distance and sees how small and insignificant it is in relation to the vastness of the countryside, which provides a stark contrast to his normal view of village life as all-important. Then he returns to the village and reintegrates with ordinary village life. From one perspective, that villager has not done anything significant; he simply went for a walk one day up a mountain that all the other villagers know and see. And, from the perspective of the other villagers, he did not do anything noteworthy because his life in the village was the same before and after climbing the mountain. However, for him there is a great difference between how he saw the village before his hike and how he saw the village after his hike. The experience of hiking to the top of the mountain gave him a broader perspective of life in the village that he didn’t have before. Although there may not be any externally recognizable change in his life, he is a changed man for having undergone the journey to the top of the mountain. Likewise, the journey to realizing emptiness – first conceptually and then non-conceptually – may not change any of the particular facts about our life but, yet, the process will completely change our life. (Of course, the change in perspective that emptiness brings will naturally lead to other more tangible changes but the point is that emptiness is not a transcendental truth that will magically create the type of life that we have always dreamed of.)

When we understand emptiness conceptually we are viewing emptiness in a reified and abstract way. We are seeing emptiness as a thing, ‘out there’, which can be observed and analysed. When we interpret a non-conceptual realization of emptiness through the eyes of the conceptual mind, we imagine that this non-conceptual realization realizes something beyond the concept of emptiness. We assume that the abstracted emptiness known by the conceptual mind is further abstracted by the non-conceptual mind. This leads to the conclusion that a direct experience of emptiness is beyond our normal understanding, inaccessible to thoughts and words. While emptiness can be very difficult to express in words, we have to be very careful to avoid the tendency to over-abstract it by supposing that it exists in a transcendent epistemological realm, inaccessible to ordinary knowledge. (I think this may be the main point of Stephen’s posts.) I believe that the reason why a profound experience of emptiness can be so difficult to articulate is because it so closely resembles our ordinary experience, not because it is a transcendental experience.

We often think of the Buddhist path of realizing emptiness as progressing in a linear fashion with the effect that we assume that our practice will take us further and further away from our present location on the line. It can be helpful to use the metaphor of travelling along a path but i think it is more accurate to visualize the path as circular because by continuing in one direction our practice eventually leads us back to where we started – though when we reach that place again it is no longer the same place because we have been transformed by the journey. In this analogy, the first half of our journey along the circle corresponds to developing a clear conceptual understanding of emptiness. During this part of the path it feels as if we are progressing farther and farther away from our original position. (Imagine starting at the uppermost point of a circle and tracing the curve on one side downwards to the lowermost point.) The second half of our journey along the circle corresponds to developing a non-conceptual experience of emptiness. This part of the path is a continuation of the first half: we progress from the lowermost point of the circle upwards along the other side of the circle until we arrive back at the starting point. Although we might expect (based on our experience of the first half) that the second half of our journey will continue to lead us farther and farther away from our starting point and culminate in some unknown (transcendental) destination, this expectation is simply the result of an unjustified preconception, an over-abstraction of emptiness. Eventually we arrive back at our original location (at the top of the circle) but, because of the process of actually undertaking the journey, it is not really the same place as it was in the beginning. Although the second, non-conceptual half of the journey functions to see through and undo the conceptual distinctions that were drawn during the first part, the process is not the same as simply retracing one’s steps backwards to return to the starting point; the process must be carried forward to completion. There is a world of difference between regressing to a simpler, more peaceful state of mind and progressing to the peaceful mind of enlightenment.

In short, a complete realization of emptiness depends on both developing a clear conceptual understanding of it and then dissolving the conceptual framework for that understanding. The construction of a conceptual understanding of emptiness depends on logical reasoning but the destruction of it is carried out by subverting the foundation of conceptual discriminations. This can be achieved with the help of deep concentration because such a concentrated mind does not support subject-object duality, the premise of all conceptuality. Although it may appear that the construction and destruction of a conceptual understanding of emptiness achieves nothing because it does not provide any new specific knowledge, the achievement derives from undergoing the process of creating and destroying that understanding.

Questioning the Answer

In the process of investigating and pondering the meaning of emptiness in the last few years i have encountered a substantial amount of blind, dogmatic belief within Buddhism, especially with respect to the teachings on emptiness. Somehow, this belief in emptiness – as opposed to the living experience of it – has always felt like hypocrisy and a betrayal of the true meaning of emptiness. In my discussions with fellow practitioners i have often struggled to describe and identify this dogmatic belief in emptiness but perhaps it can be explained by considering the difference between viewing emptiness as an answer and viewing emptiness as a question.

Is emptiness an answer or a question?

Usually we interpret emptiness as an answer. It acts as an answer to questions like, “What is ultimate truth?” “What is the gateway to liberation and enlightenment?” and “What is the true nature of all phenomena?” Emptiness is seen as a definitive truth that provides a conclusive resolution to our search for Truth or Reality. By interpreting emptiness in this way, we think of it as a response that decisively settles our questions of existence. Thus, as the ultimate truth and final answer to our deepest concerns, emptiness is deemed worthy of our veneration and belief.

We can also interpret emptiness as a question. In this perspective, emptiness does not provide a simple response to our inquiries into the nature of existence but instead functions to reflect back the beliefs, assumptions, and preconceptions that underlie our desire to know the true nature of existence. Emptiness merely acts as an antidote to our delusions: our self-grasping mind supposes the existence of things and emptiness negates that existence, leaving us in the original groundless position of not knowing what exists. Rather than conveying new information or new realizations, emptiness simply mirrors ourself back to ourself thereby re-presenting our original doubts and desires. In this way, emptiness is asking all the big questions that we are seeking answers to: Who am i? What is the purpose of life? What is the true nature of existence? Thus, as a question, emptiness acts to confront and neutralize all our beliefs that we assume to be true answers – including the belief that emptiness is an answer.

Although both these perspectives can be beneficial, it seems to me that emptiness is most fundamentally a question that functions to oppose and break down all our dogmatic answers. It does not tell us anything about the world we live in but challenges all our assumptions about that world. This provocative and deconstructive nature of emptiness is what gives it vitality and makes it relevant to our spiritual development. By adopting a spiritual practice based on (the experience of) emptiness we commit ourself to facing and wrestling with all the complicated and profound questions that life presents. We humbly admit that there are no easy answers and that all conclusions are ultimately unreliable.

This is why a dogmatic belief in emptiness is such a betrayal to its spirit. By allowing ourselves to accept ‘emptiness’ as an answer to all the wonderful questions of life, we assume that all the great questions have been resolved, which in turn makes us spiritually complacent. We reify emptiness as a concept and proceed to believe in it instead of experiencing it. This causes our spiritual practice to degenerate from a method of directly engaging with life to a form of worship that idolizes direct experience as a distant and abstract ideal.

We can reinvigorate our spiritual practice by approaching emptiness as a question that is constantly probing our subconscious beliefs and forcing us to face life with an open and receptive mind, free from preconception and prejudice. Emptiness is not telling us who we really are, it is asking us who we really are – and it will never stop asking. The only convincing way to answer the question of emptiness is through action. In the end, our understanding of emptiness is demonstrated by who we are and what we do, not by the doctrines we adhere to.

The Emptiness of Emptiness

I had a direct and profound experience of emptiness this week, which was triggered by a statement in Heart of Wisdom (by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso):

"Although emptiness itself is an ultimate truth, the generic image of emptiness is a conventional truth."

This one sentence reveals many insights about the nature of emptiness and can be considered the heart of all the emptiness teachings. At first glance it may appear self-evident and unimportant but when juxtaposed with other aspects of emptiness, it can lead to deep insight.

This quote seems to indicate that there is a conventional truth (the generic image of emptiness) which refers to an ultimate truth (emptiness itself). This is how we usually understand the relationship between concepts and their objects; the former refers to the latter. For example, we would say that the concept ‘car’ refers to the actual car and the concept ‘space’ refers to an actual space. Likewise, the concept ‘emptiness’ refers to actual emptiness.

However, this ordinary use of referential concepts is not acceptable by someone with experience of emptiness. For a view grounded in emptiness, everything is ‘mere name’, with the implication that names and concepts do not necessarily point to other ‘real’ phenomena. Rather than receiving their meaning from the more substantial objects that they supposedly refer to, names and concepts receive their meaning from their relationships with other names and concepts. Their meaning is therefore simply the result of their unique place in the context of other names and concepts.

This means that, for someone who understands the meaning of emptiness, the concept of emptiness does not refer to an actual emptiness that exists beyond the web of conceptual relationships but that emptiness is also ‘mere name’, lacking any independent, substantial reality. If we apply this insight to the above quote, we will see that our initial interpretation of it is radically altered. Now, ‘emptiness itself’ is seen to be a hypothetical, substantially real emptiness that is referred to by the generic image of emptiness. This ‘real’ emptiness is merely imagined by a mind of self-grasping; it is an inherently existent emptiness. When we realize that this presumed emptiness does not exist, we are left with an experience of the emptiness of emptiness, in which there is no emptiness, no ultimate truth, and phenomena have no ultimate nature. Everything is conventional, including emptiness; there are no ultimate truths. Things just are as they are: suchness.

If this realization is conceptualized it can be called a realization of emptiness but we should not be misled into believing that there is something being realized. It is the realization that there is nothing to realize. How obvious!

Madhyamika Humor

I came across this great joke on another blog:

Q: How many Prasangika-Madhyamikas does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A: Four. One to screw it in, one to not screw it in, one to both screw it in and not screw it in, and one to neither screw it in nor not screw it in.

Ultimate Truth

Why is emptiness considered to be ultimate truth? To a student of Buddhism who has experienced the undeniable immanence of emptiness, this may seem like a trivial and naïve question but if we look into it with an open mind the answer is not so clear.

If we assume that emptiness is the lack of inherent existence (or lack of essence) of any phenomenon and that this absence does indeed exist – i.e. it is true – what makes this truth an ‘ultimate’ truth? For instance, there are many true facts about a car: it has four wheels, it has weight, it does not have wings, and it does not have inherent existence. So, why is one of these facts granted special status? Why is the fact that phenomena lack inherent existence elevated to the status of ‘ultimate’ when all other true facts about phenomena are relegated to the level of ‘conventional’ truths?

Our instinctual response to this question is that emptiness is ultimate truth because it is the true nature of phenomena. This reflects our normal interpretation of the term ‘ultimate truth’ but this meaning is not consistent with the Madhyamaka view. Outside the Madhyamaka, the term ‘ultimate truth’ is normally used to indicate a phenomenon’s essence, or true nature. It is meant to pick out the most fundamental property of an object. For example, for an idealist, the ultimate truth of anything is that thing’s ideal form. That ideal represents an object’s most perfect and essential characteristic. Similarly, the Greek atomists believed that the essence, or ultimate truth, of all physical objects was that they were composed of atoms. Thus, if we were to use ‘ultimate truth’ in this sense we would be saying that emptiness is the essence, or true nature, of all phenomena. Although this is a common belief in Buddhism, i believe that it betrays a misunderstanding of emptiness.

If emptiness were the essence of phenomena, then we would have to conclude that phenomena do have ultimate existence. We would be saying that a phenomenon’s ultimate existence is its emptiness. For instance, when we perform an ultimate search in an attempt to discover whether or not a phenomenon has inherent existence, we would find that it does have inherent existence – the existence of emptiness – rather than simply finding nothing. We would find something (emptiness) that could be pointed to as the real nature of that phenomenon. However, the student of emptiness will correctly argue that this ‘thing’ that we claim to ‘find’ is not actually emptiness but rather the conceptual reification of a mere absence. Like Chandrakirti said, it is like walking into an empty shop, being told that there is nothing for sale, and then asking the shopkeeper if we can buy that ‘nothing’. Emptiness is not something that can be found existing within phenomena; it is the mere fact that nothing will ever be found. Thus it is not acceptable to claim that emptiness is the essence or true nature of phenomena because, according to emptiness, nothing is the essence or true nature of phenomena. In other words, if it is indeed true that all things lack inherent existence, then we cannot substitute emptiness in for that lack of essence. If things have no essence, then emptiness cannot be the essence of things.

This is a very subtle point that often causes confusion for students of emptiness. Nagarjuna and Chandrakirti provide extensive analyses of philosophical concepts in an attempt to refute the possibility of any ultimate truth. Then, they turn around and say that this fact – that there are no ultimate truths – is itself an ultimate truth! This paradoxical twist is both brilliant and bewildering. It would appear that these two ideas cannot coexist: either there are no ultimate truths (and therefore emptiness is not an ultimate truth) or emptiness is ultimate truth (and therefore there is one ultimate truth). However, we may be able to make sense of this conundrum if we reconsider what the Madhyamaka means by ‘ultimate truth’.

Lets assume that the lack of inherent existence can be expressed with the statement, “There are no ultimate truths.” In this context, when a Madhyamika philosopher uses the term ‘ultimate truth’ to indicate emptiness, he is not referring to the essential nature of phenomena because he is already aware that there is no such nature. In other words, by proving that phenomena have no inherent nature, he has proven that they have no ultimate nature, and so he cannot be using ‘ultimate truth’ to refer to a phenomenon’s ultimate nature. By refuting the possibility of any ultimate truth, the term ‘ultimate truth’ becomes meaningless to him and so he is free to use it with a radically different interpretation. The Madhyamika scholar is not restricted to an ordinary usage of the term ‘ultimate truth’ because he rejects the presumed foundation on which that interpretation is based. For him, phenomena have no essential qualities so it is meaningless to use ‘ultimate truth’ to refer to the essence of phenomena. So, how does the Mahyamaka interpret ‘ultimate truth’?

In Heart of Wisdom, Geshe Kelsang Gyatso provides a definition and explanation of ultimate truth. Perhaps what is most interesting and relevant is not what is said but what is not said in this commentary. For instance, Geshe-la never says that emptiness is an ultimate truth because it is the true nature of phenomena. The closest he comes to this is saying that emptiness is ‘ultimate’ because it “opens the door of liberation.” This casts emptiness in a significantly different light. Instead of saying that emptiness is how things really exist (which is our normal view of ultimate truth), he is saying that emptiness is ultimate truth because of the effect it has on our mind. With this perspective, it might be more helpful to label emptiness as an ultimate experience rather than an ultimate truth.

I think this reveals the true purpose of meditating on emptiness. Our study and practice of emptiness is not meant to lead us to a deeper and deeper conviction of what is objectively true and false but rather to lead us to a deeper and deeper experience of liberation and enlightenment. By meditating on emptiness we are attempting to alter our moment-by-moment experience of life, which only occurs when one is continually immersed in emptiness. By satisfying ourselves with a conceptual belief that emptiness represents “how things really are,” we remain neutral observers of that supposed objective truth, alienated from the very experience of liberation that is the heart and soul of emptiness.

By rejecting inherent existence, the Madhyamaka view denies the existence of an objective and independent reality. It says that there are no concrete, findable things ‘out there’. However, this ‘view’ can only be fully understood if it is experienced directly; as long as the practitioner is relates to emptiness indirectly, through conceptual representation, he will not have realized its true purpose and meaning. This leads the Madhyamaka to interpret ‘ultimate truth’ as that which induces the experience of enlightened reality. Thus, the association of emptiness with ultimate truth is intended as a pragmatic device to point the student in the direction of the desired experience; it is not intended as a ontological statement.

By labelling emptiness as ‘ultimate truth’, Nagarjuna is basically saying that if we want to effect the experience of an enlightened being we should head in the direction of emptiness. He is not saying, “This is how things really exist;” he is saying, “If you want to know how things really exist, go that way.” There is a subtle but important difference between these two. In this way, the Madhyamaka uses the term ‘ultimate truth’ as like a spiritual road sign showing the traveller where to go – toward a direct realization of emptiness. But the sign does not say specifically what the traveller will find when he gets there because that is a matter of subjective experience.