Introduction:
​Emptiness, Conditionality and Non-Permanence

Terms such as emptiness, conditionality and non-permanence (or impermanence) are often found in Buddhist teachings, and for good reason: they help pinpoint how it is we delude ourselves into believing that how we currently perceive ourselves and the rest of the world is somehow correct.  Thus, rather than being truths to realize, they are correctives.  They are also interrelated, by which each helps illustrate what the others mean.  The following essays explore what each of these correctives are and how they can help us as we awaken.

      -    Emptiness
      -    Conditionality and Non-Permanence
      -    The Conditioning Process
      -    Going Beyond Conditionality
      -    Conventional Buddhism
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As described in the final essay, what emptiness, conditionality and non-permanence (or impermanence) mean can differ from how they are often used.  Conventional connotations can tend to affirm, rather than remove, our delusions regarding ourselves and the world.  A typical summary of how they are seen to interrelate is that emptiness points us toward the true nature of phenomena, which is impermanent, always changing, and dependent on causes and conditions.  

However, this sort of approach is merely what makes sense to us at the beginning of the path, rather than being what we realize at the end of it.  As a result, even though these terms are ubiquitous in many Buddhist approaches, it may be advisable to not use or rely upon these terms, especially conditionality and impermanence, at least until we are able to use them in a helpful way.  Otherwise, rather than being signposts on the way to awakening, these terms can end up leading us in a much different direction.  
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As you read the essays linked above, or more generally if you engage with Buddhist teachings, it may be helpful to keep in mind the following comparisons that illustrate how conventional understandings of emptiness, conditionality and non-permanence contrast with what we realize in the course of awakening:
Emptiness
  • Conventionally, emptiness is seen as pointing us toward the true nature of phenomena, which is impermanent, always changing, and dependent on causes and conditions.  Emptiness can be contemplated by reflecting on how everything is interconnected, in which nothing can have an independent or permanent essence.  Emptiness therefore affirms how everything exists and is dependently-originated, including and especially ourselves, which means that we can change and grow.  Also, emptiness is something we can know today, in daily life: we can reflect on the fact that things arise, change and cease.  
  • Awakening shows that emptiness simply corrects our assumption that either we or anything else is “full” of a nature or essence that makes us what and who we are.  Emptiness can be experientially seen when we no longer project a substance called "me" onto what appears to be "my" experience, or substance onto anything else.  Emptiness therefore means that the versions we create of everything, including and especially of ourselves, aren't actually there.  Also, emptiness is not something we can know through the lens of how we currently perceive and reflect on things in daily life: we need to directly see the emptiness of experience.

Conditionality
  • Conventionally, conditionality is taken to mean that everything arises or is created from causes and conditions, resulting in everything being interconnected.  Conditionality therefore applies to everything in and around us.  The principles of dependent origination (conditioned co-production) and “this being, that becomes…” illustrate this universal principle of the composite nature of everything: they describe “the way things really are”.  Because of this, we can see how nothing exists in isolation: since everything is conditioned, everything is therefore interconnected.  Realizing conditionality and interconnectedness leads to relinquishing of the permanent self, and seeing how we exist as impermanent beings.  While everything in the world is thus conditioned, there is one thing that is unconditioned: nibbana (nirvana), which is beyond causation (i.e., it is the unconditioned).  
  • Awakening shows that we condition how we see everything: we manufacture a conditioned version in the mind, especially of ourselves.  Conditionality therefore only applies those versions which we create.  The principles of dependent origination (conditioned co-production) and “this being, that becomes…” are specific to what we manufacture in our minds: they therefore describe the way things really aren’t. Because of the conditioning that results from our projections, nothing exists as we think it does, especially "me".  Realizing that we manufacture "me" removes all sense of identity, whether permanent, impermanent or otherwise: we see we don’t exist at all.  Nibbana (nirvana) is “what’s left” when we remove all that conditioning: what we then experience is free of conditioning (i.e., everything happening is now unconditioned).  

Impermanence (Non-permanence)
  • Conventionally, impermanence refers to the fact that everything changes: everything arises from causes, persists for a time, and inevitably disintegrates.  Because this also applies to us, we can change and grow as individuals.  The Three Characteristics mean that everything is impermanent and subject to change, therefore nothing can have a substantial essence and cannot satisfy us in the long run.  We exist, but as impermanent and interconnected beings, linked to what happened in our past and to the world around us in a web of existence.  Because of impermanence, we cannot have a fixed essence: impermanence and change is our fundamental nature. 
  • Awakening shows that non-permanence means that if we don’t manufacture a version of something in the mind, that version ceases to be experienced.  The Three Characteristics mean that nothing is permanently part of our experience; mind-manufactured phenomena have no essence, and lead us to resist what is simply happening.  The sense of "me" is mentally projected onto experience; "I" don't actually exist.  Once the illusion of identity ceases, we no longer feel in any way separate from anything else, and see through our projection of “existence”.   Because our projections are not permanent, once awake we no longer assume we or anything else has a nature or essence.