The Concept of Emptiness is Filled with Meaning

The concept of emptiness should be rich and useful rather than a vision of nothing. In Buddhism emptiness is often an intriguing concept many struggle to understand. It is an strange, confusing and after all, difficult concept to fully grasp.

The beginner usually sees emptiness as if there was nothing there, or that everything surrounding us is not real, or worse — nothing has meaning. But if you fail to grasp the concept of emptiness well, you may think nothing has meaning and that can get you in trouble, hopelessness and depression.

The problem with the concept of emptiness is that it is an unspeakable phenomenon. We can talk about emptiness all we want, but as long as we keep it on an intellectual level, we’ll never fully understand. We may think we understand but can never be sure. But not being sure is part of the answer.

Emptiness is like the flavor of some exquisite food — it can’t be described, you have to taste it for yourself.

I am not a teacher so my words are for the most part —are empty. I’m in no authority in emptiness, but who is? You have to earn it yourself. You don’t have to trust me and please don’t. And while you’re at it, don’t trust anybody.

First off, the concept of emptiness have a few tenets. We need to first define what kind of emptiness are we referring to. The first question we should ask is empty of what. Empty of meaning? Empty of matter? Empty of consequence? Not defining these boundaries it will get us nowhere. There’s the quantum physics argument that all matter is empty because molecules don’t even touch each other. Even though this is an interesting concept, it is not the kind of emptiness this text is about.

Scientists are finding amazing things about the Universe. New studies show that our Universe is less solid than we previously though. There are hundreds of billions of galaxies. Each one of these galaxies contains billions of stars; our eye can only see a fraction of what’s out there. Yet if we map everything we assume to be solid, it amounts to less than 5% of what we see. The rest of the universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy which is intrinsically empty space.

“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is just opinion.” –Democritus of Abdera

Don’t try this at home it could be disastrous. By firmly believing things are not solid we might attempt to prove it by crossing the street in front of a fast-moving truck. Please don’t do it.

The other common concept is that things are empty of meaning. I think that is more useful because it gives us more room for interaction. One has to be careful with this one because it could be easily misconstrued.

People read Buddhist books and conclude that events are devoid of meaning and therefore devoid and so they have no validity. Our next logical reasoning is to think that nothing matters anymore, or nothing is real. Why do anything — nothing means anything anyway. This is what I call the destructive approach to emptiness and it only leads to unhappiness and it can be quite tragic.

Under this idea we may ignore other people’s pain saying that nothing matters or it’s simply an illusion. Most atrocities committed by the worst dictators and mass murderers have somewhat been done under this guise. After the meaning is removed is easy to no longer care about other human being. It simply doesn’t matter anymore and killing becomes an easy task.

In my view everything is real but don’t have real meaning because we are not able to determine their true or absolute value. Everything is dependent on other events that came before. There is a viewer and an interpreter therefore there is never a conclusion and a final value to anything. So emptiness here is the impossibility of determining a constant value and a defining a permanent true or solidity. I find this to be very useful because it keep us open to observation and waiting for what comes next, and something always comes next.

I rather see emptiness in this way because it aligns with the building blocks of Buddhism which always emphasizes goodness of heart; something is going on we just don’t know, so we sit and wait with kindness.

The concept of emptiness is so interesting because it creates a state of pure awareness. We don’t really know what is out there so we are constantly observant. Something we may think is bad turns out to be good and the good turns bad. It just keep changing again and again.

So when I think of emptiness I think of infinite possibilities, we simply cannot predict anything anymore. We live in this ocean of change and have little or no control over it. I think of events arising from nothing and then disappearing. With the ideal of emptiness there should be a component of acceptance to what is out there without trying to define, or change it.

The more we drop our idea of understanding reality the closest we are from viewing emptiness and avoiding mistakes. Easier said than done but practice will help connect the dots.

I’ll leave you with the dancing lady. A simple optical illusion but a beautiful analogy to how our perception can change inexplicably — Is the lady spinning clockwise or counter-clockwise? If you stare long enough she will revert directions; or is simply your mind perceiving it differently.

Throughout life you see that happening with people too. People that always had a firm point of view on a particular subject, now are arguing with you trying to prove the opposite!

I believe this illusion can be seen in almost all events in life — by observing any situation without drawing any conclusions you’ll find that they don’t really have an absolute direction, that they are empty of meaning.

Have a great day!

Image credit: flickr.com