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.