Understanding emptiness

When we start to read up on spiritual scriptures or study spiritual philosophy, at some point or another, we can be sure that we shall come across the term emptiness. Emptiness is sometimes also expressed as shunyata in Sanskrit or tongpanyi in Tibetan. Whatever term is used, we do not want to get caught up in the names, and we shall stick to the term 'emptiness' for the sake of this article.

So, what is this emptiness actually? What does it mean? The intention of this article is to shed a little bit of light on this topic, as it is a topic that can be misunderstood easily. It is an exceptionally broad topic, which can be explained in extreme depths and detail, but here we just want to have a short article, just touching on the subject. There are honestly many books, many profound books on this topic, which goes into extreme detail. If this article awakens the interests of any readers, they can definitely explore this deeper, through the profound wisdom of our spiritual teachers and gurus.

With that said, we may often hear or read about how important it is that when we are on a spiritual path, or when we are seeking freedom from suffering, we need to understand or realize emptiness. This is quite true, we need to have some insight or realization into this because this brings about a huge change to how we perceive reality and ourselves. This is not to say that once we understand emptiness that our True Nature will immediately be revealed to us or that all our suffering will immediately cease to exist. It merely means that without having an understanding of emptiness, we would find it challenging to renounce or conquer our more gross levels of attachments, desires, and spiritual challenges.

A common misunderstanding 

When we first hear about emptiness, we can be confused. What does this mean, this emptiness? Does this mean that everything is simply empty, dull, and means nothing? Does this mean that nothing really exists and that it is all just illusions? This topic has the potential to be very much misunderstood, and even pose some dangers for us.

When we are not careful, we can fall into this trap of nihilism, feeling that everything is just 'empty' and that everything is dull, meaningless and that life is purposeless. We can quickly start to feel that everything is a hoax, just a mirage with nothing to offer us. This has the potential to make us fall into depression, seeing the world as grey, lifeless, and closing ourselves to others. We start to numb ourselves, closing our hearts towards others, and we lose our passion for life, stop being compassionate, stop enjoying life. This is of course a complete misunderstanding of emptiness.

Even the word itself can easily be misunderstood, as it can make us focus on the 'empty' part, but in reality, we can also see the concept of emptiness as fullness, or wholeness, togetherness, interdependence. As said in the Heart Sutra, "form is emptiness, emptiness is form." Thus, instead of seeing it as something dull and grey, we can see it as something really magical, colorful!

Saying this may sound good, but this does not bring us to an understanding of emptiness, does it? We want to have a deep insight or a realization of it, not mere theoretical knowledge of it. Trying to make logical sense of it can be beneficial, we can do contemplative meditation on it, but the mere theory of it is not enough to bring us to a deeper sense of reality. We want to have the experience of emptiness. This is definitely possible for all of us, as it is part of the basic nature of the mind. 

Going about it practically 

Now, of course, the next question would be, how do we experience it? For some of us, it can happen spontaneously, but this may not be very likely. However, it can quite possibly be experienced by meditating on it. Studying the philosophy around it, contemplating it, and meditating on it, is one way. There are different philosophies and methods on how to meditate and contemplate, but this is not to be discussed here.

What we want to understand is that everything that comes into existence for us, comes into existence by labeling it, by conceptualizing it. For example, if there is a wooden chair, how do we perceive it? One person can place the label 'wood' on the object, and another person can place the label 'chair' on the object. However, what is it actually? Is it a wooden chair? Or just a bunch of wood? Or just a chair? Further, we can ask another person to look at it, and this person may see it as a bedside table, placing the label 'table' on it. Now, who is right? See, in everyone's reality, what they see or label is true to them, it does not make them wrong. Further, what exactly is labeled the chair? Is it the wood? The shape? Is the shape alone a chair? Is the wood alone a chair? Can the chair exist without the wood? What we want to point out, is that these objects are merely labeled objects. Without the label, do they exist as something? Consider this...

Another aspect we want to consider is how things depend on another, in order to exist. For example, the wooden chair needs wood to exist. The wood depends on a tree, the tree depends on soil and water, and so it goes on and on and on... Even what we consider us to be ourselves, this human depends on parents, which depended on their parents, which depended on theirs. It goes deeper, we depend on cells, atoms, minerals, etc. and this depends on another set of circumstances. So, can we ever say that anything truly exists from their own side, or does everything just depend on another set of conditions to exist? Meaning that anything we believe to exist separate, is empty of its own existence? Consider this too...

We conveniently use these labels to communicate and express ourselves, but we should look deeper and understand the basis of these labels. This is very important when we want to have some insight into the concept of emptiness. By understanding the emptiness of ideas and objects, it helps us to not generate attachment or desire towards these ideas and labels, and it has a direct impact on the happiness we experience!

The essence of it

Now comes a very very important part. If we say that all concepts are empty of inherent existence, that nothing truly exists as we see it... then, we can apply the same understanding to the concepts we have of ourselves. If everything is bound to emptiness, then this separate 'me' or 'I', this ego, is also empty! When we consider this and meditate on this, we can shatter this illusion of 'self' we have, and this opens the door to inner freedom for us! Not just inner freedom, but it makes us understand our interconnectedness with everything, with our whole Universe. It allows us to experience Oneness. 

However, we do not want to stop by saying that the nature of our minds is pure emptiness and that everything exists from and in relation to this emptiness, this would only be one aspect of it. We want to bring attention to the awareness, the awareness that is witnessing the emptiness, that is experiencing the emptiness.

With a combination of the emptiness of the mind and awareness or, the witness of the emptiness, we can experience something profound that we may not have been aware of all along! However, this is not to be discussed in this article.

To conclude, we want to highlight the fact that emptiness is not a mere void that is meaningless and grey, but that all that we experience comes from this space, and it dissolves back into this space too. It is a magical space, which has unlimited potential, and we can use this beneficially to manifest phenomena into existence!

Buddhism brings us the profound Heart Sutra, which tells us about the nature of reality.