Emptiness
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As the name of the Shorter Discourse on Emptiness (Shorter Discourse) makes clear, a primary focus is on emptiness (Pali suññata). Following the discourse’s instructions, we start from perceiving the various things and/or people around us as they appear in daily life, and continually let go of not just that, but all of the cognitive infrastructure we normally perceive (such our sense of three-dimensional space in which all that appears to reside) as well. At the end of the discourse’s instructions, there is literally no sign whatsoever of anything being perceived. And yet, we can somehow still "perceive" that.
As we let go of perceiving something at each step, its absence means our experience is empty of that “something”. Eventually, even the most subtle aspects of experience are temporarily absent, leaving us in the “signless abiding”. In this regard, we see that the term “emptiness” is not a stand-alone or absolute principle; instead, it is only meaningful because there was something of which something else (i.e., experience) is now empty. Perhaps the most important example of this is seeing that experience is empty of a "self", which in the signless abiding can readily be seen.
The Buddha declares that each step is an unmistakable and clear establishment of emptiness, in that it is obvious that some aspect of experience such as “space” is now absent. He is elsewhere recorded as saying that it is once one “breaks” the first fetter, and sees there not actually a separate “self”, that his teachings on emptiness can be pursued: it is at that point where one really knows what “emptiness” means, because one has seen that experience is empty of such a “self”. Eventually, once we have awakened, all of the projections which cause us suffering are absent, which is of course the ultimate focus of “awakened” (buddha) teachings.
In the Shorter Discourse, emptiness is taken to the extreme, resulting in a temporary meditative state that is empty of… everything. Even though you are conscious and aware, you are not aware of anything in particular: there is nothing in particular that is seen, thought, felt or otherwise happening. This is because nothing in sensory consciousness is taken to be a sign or indicator that something in particular is happening. Normally, the signs available to us include words, colors, shapes, sounds, etc. - anything that we assume convey meaning to us. However, by the end of the Shorter Discourse, we drop those assumptions: experience is empty not just of particular things, but it is empty of their associated signs as well.
The final meditative state is aptly termed the signless abiding which, as you might guess, is very quiet and peaceful - we really can abide here. Because experience is now empty of everything that is normally “there”, it is also called the empty abiding. Finally, because it is so peaceful, by which there is no compulsion to recognize or identify anything, much less start thinking or otherwise do something, it is also called the aimless abiding. These aspects are, if you will, three sides of the same coin, and may be used interchangeably to describe this temporary state - you can’t have one without the other two. This is important to note because, despite the name Shorter Discourse on Emptiness, the Buddha chose to focus on the signless aspect of this temporary state to conclude the discourse.
Those familiar with broader Buddhist teachings may note, perhaps with some surprise, that the above connotation of emptiness, having to do with what we do not perceive, is not the typical meaning of the term. Instead, emptiness is typically applied to what we do experience. For example, the Heart Sutra provides that all that we perceive is empty of nature (or “self-nature”). As a result, the term suññata in this context might best be rendered as “naturelessness” to clarify what exactly something we perceive is empty of, and to distinguish it from the type of emptiness presented in the Shorter Discourse.
On the surface there may appear to be a conflict between these two types of emptiness. However, we eventually come to see that, from the perspective of awakening, they are complementary. On the one hand, our experience can be seen as being empty of constructs such as space and consciousness, as well as any and all sort of identity, both during the meditations in the Shorter Discourse and 24/7 once awake. On the other hand, once awake, we do continue to experience (what is conventionally called) our body, other people and the world around us: otherwise, we couldn't navigate daily life. However, the versions of these which we experience will no longer seem substantial and “real”; they will instead be seen for the natureless mental interpretations that they are, and in fact always have been.
Of these two types of emptiness, it might be said that the former is the type of emptiness we need to experience in order to awaken, and the latter is the type of emptiness we naturally experience once awake. In “personal” terms, awakening entails seeing experience to be empty of “me” and that, in relative or conventional terms, the “me” that then ostensibly navigates daily life and is referred to by that pronoun is seen to have no nature or substance: “me” is just a word that points to nothing in particular.
Aspects of Emptiness
When we start out, one way of approaching emptiness conceptually is to reflect that everything is impermanent, by which it couldn’t have a “self” or a (self-)nature. While using the concept of impermanence in this way can be helpful initially, having reflected on it for many years, I can attest that it didn’t stop me from nevertheless projecting a self and/or nature onto all that I perceive, including and especially onto “me”. In fact, it actually seemed to affirm that there was a “me”, albeit an impermanent, insubstantial and/or empty “me”. Instead, awakening is about seeing and knowing that there is no “me” whatsoever; for example, seeing that experience was in fact empty of a separate self was decisive for me in breaking the first fetter.
In terms of what we experience in daily life, the naturelessness of what we experience once awake doesn’t mean there necessarily are, or aren’t, actual “somethings” that our sensory faculties are picking up on; it’s just that we cannot definitively know, since all we have is an indirect interpretation of what appears to be happening. For example, if I am seated in a room with a blue pillow in my hand, and 100 people come through the room and are asked what I have in my hand, they will all say (assuming they aren’t color blind, and in whatever language they speak) that it is a blue pillow. This will be true regardless of where each person is “at” on the path to awakening (though some may qualify their answer with something like “well, what is seen is called, at a conventional level…”).
In other words, the result of awakening isn’t that our experience of what is happening becomes completely random; the fact that all 100 people (and I) say there is a blue pillow in my hand is circumstantial evidence that there may well be something which we commonly refer to as a “blue pillow” in my hand. As neuroscientist Anil Seth describes it, what we experience is a "controlled hallucination", in this case controlled by what is presumably something in my hand that everyone sees. However, because all we experience is an interpretation of sensory input, we are not able to directly verify there is something called a “blue pillow”. All we have is an insubstantial mental interpretation that we all agree can be labelled "blue pillow".
Thus, an important aspect of awakening is realizing that we do not have a transparent or immediate experience of an actual blue pillow, of ourselves or of anything else, but only a mental representation of it which is displayed on what might be called the video screen of our mind. In other words, we realize that our experience is inferential, rather than direct. Prior to awakening, the combination of what we see, hear smell, taste, touch and think result in what seems to something (such as a pillow) that is tangible and real: it seems to exist just as we experience it. However, once awake, that sense of tangibility and existence falls away. Fortunately, we will remember what the visual and other information being processed “means” in a conventional or everyday sense, as well as the corresponding names and words to be used in everyday conversation; if we want someone to pass us a blue pillow in order to be more comfortable, we will still be able to do that. What we won’t do is experience anyone or anything as something real, substantial or self-existing.
As we let go of perceiving something at each step, its absence means our experience is empty of that “something”. Eventually, even the most subtle aspects of experience are temporarily absent, leaving us in the “signless abiding”. In this regard, we see that the term “emptiness” is not a stand-alone or absolute principle; instead, it is only meaningful because there was something of which something else (i.e., experience) is now empty. Perhaps the most important example of this is seeing that experience is empty of a "self", which in the signless abiding can readily be seen.
The Buddha declares that each step is an unmistakable and clear establishment of emptiness, in that it is obvious that some aspect of experience such as “space” is now absent. He is elsewhere recorded as saying that it is once one “breaks” the first fetter, and sees there not actually a separate “self”, that his teachings on emptiness can be pursued: it is at that point where one really knows what “emptiness” means, because one has seen that experience is empty of such a “self”. Eventually, once we have awakened, all of the projections which cause us suffering are absent, which is of course the ultimate focus of “awakened” (buddha) teachings.
In the Shorter Discourse, emptiness is taken to the extreme, resulting in a temporary meditative state that is empty of… everything. Even though you are conscious and aware, you are not aware of anything in particular: there is nothing in particular that is seen, thought, felt or otherwise happening. This is because nothing in sensory consciousness is taken to be a sign or indicator that something in particular is happening. Normally, the signs available to us include words, colors, shapes, sounds, etc. - anything that we assume convey meaning to us. However, by the end of the Shorter Discourse, we drop those assumptions: experience is empty not just of particular things, but it is empty of their associated signs as well.
The final meditative state is aptly termed the signless abiding which, as you might guess, is very quiet and peaceful - we really can abide here. Because experience is now empty of everything that is normally “there”, it is also called the empty abiding. Finally, because it is so peaceful, by which there is no compulsion to recognize or identify anything, much less start thinking or otherwise do something, it is also called the aimless abiding. These aspects are, if you will, three sides of the same coin, and may be used interchangeably to describe this temporary state - you can’t have one without the other two. This is important to note because, despite the name Shorter Discourse on Emptiness, the Buddha chose to focus on the signless aspect of this temporary state to conclude the discourse.
Those familiar with broader Buddhist teachings may note, perhaps with some surprise, that the above connotation of emptiness, having to do with what we do not perceive, is not the typical meaning of the term. Instead, emptiness is typically applied to what we do experience. For example, the Heart Sutra provides that all that we perceive is empty of nature (or “self-nature”). As a result, the term suññata in this context might best be rendered as “naturelessness” to clarify what exactly something we perceive is empty of, and to distinguish it from the type of emptiness presented in the Shorter Discourse.
On the surface there may appear to be a conflict between these two types of emptiness. However, we eventually come to see that, from the perspective of awakening, they are complementary. On the one hand, our experience can be seen as being empty of constructs such as space and consciousness, as well as any and all sort of identity, both during the meditations in the Shorter Discourse and 24/7 once awake. On the other hand, once awake, we do continue to experience (what is conventionally called) our body, other people and the world around us: otherwise, we couldn't navigate daily life. However, the versions of these which we experience will no longer seem substantial and “real”; they will instead be seen for the natureless mental interpretations that they are, and in fact always have been.
Of these two types of emptiness, it might be said that the former is the type of emptiness we need to experience in order to awaken, and the latter is the type of emptiness we naturally experience once awake. In “personal” terms, awakening entails seeing experience to be empty of “me” and that, in relative or conventional terms, the “me” that then ostensibly navigates daily life and is referred to by that pronoun is seen to have no nature or substance: “me” is just a word that points to nothing in particular.
Aspects of Emptiness
When we start out, one way of approaching emptiness conceptually is to reflect that everything is impermanent, by which it couldn’t have a “self” or a (self-)nature. While using the concept of impermanence in this way can be helpful initially, having reflected on it for many years, I can attest that it didn’t stop me from nevertheless projecting a self and/or nature onto all that I perceive, including and especially onto “me”. In fact, it actually seemed to affirm that there was a “me”, albeit an impermanent, insubstantial and/or empty “me”. Instead, awakening is about seeing and knowing that there is no “me” whatsoever; for example, seeing that experience was in fact empty of a separate self was decisive for me in breaking the first fetter.
In terms of what we experience in daily life, the naturelessness of what we experience once awake doesn’t mean there necessarily are, or aren’t, actual “somethings” that our sensory faculties are picking up on; it’s just that we cannot definitively know, since all we have is an indirect interpretation of what appears to be happening. For example, if I am seated in a room with a blue pillow in my hand, and 100 people come through the room and are asked what I have in my hand, they will all say (assuming they aren’t color blind, and in whatever language they speak) that it is a blue pillow. This will be true regardless of where each person is “at” on the path to awakening (though some may qualify their answer with something like “well, what is seen is called, at a conventional level…”).
In other words, the result of awakening isn’t that our experience of what is happening becomes completely random; the fact that all 100 people (and I) say there is a blue pillow in my hand is circumstantial evidence that there may well be something which we commonly refer to as a “blue pillow” in my hand. As neuroscientist Anil Seth describes it, what we experience is a "controlled hallucination", in this case controlled by what is presumably something in my hand that everyone sees. However, because all we experience is an interpretation of sensory input, we are not able to directly verify there is something called a “blue pillow”. All we have is an insubstantial mental interpretation that we all agree can be labelled "blue pillow".
Thus, an important aspect of awakening is realizing that we do not have a transparent or immediate experience of an actual blue pillow, of ourselves or of anything else, but only a mental representation of it which is displayed on what might be called the video screen of our mind. In other words, we realize that our experience is inferential, rather than direct. Prior to awakening, the combination of what we see, hear smell, taste, touch and think result in what seems to something (such as a pillow) that is tangible and real: it seems to exist just as we experience it. However, once awake, that sense of tangibility and existence falls away. Fortunately, we will remember what the visual and other information being processed “means” in a conventional or everyday sense, as well as the corresponding names and words to be used in everyday conversation; if we want someone to pass us a blue pillow in order to be more comfortable, we will still be able to do that. What we won’t do is experience anyone or anything as something real, substantial or self-existing.
Shane Kell
In particular, and most importantly, the information we normally process as affirming that there is a “me” will no longer lead to that conclusion. We will recognize what is conventionally referred to as “a thought” or “left hand”, but without any sense of identifying with or as that thought or hand. It might be said that, upon awakening, the only thing missing… is “me”. While experience is then forever empty of all sense of identity, at the level of convention we will still be able use first-person pronouns, for example to tell a doctor that “I don’t feel well: my stomach hurts”, without the pronouns “I” and “my” referring to what we believe is a real “someone”.
Awakening and emptiness therefore do not mean or lead to nihilism, and the conclusion that nothing exists and/or that there is no meaning, purpose, or value in life. In terms of existence, while we start out believing that everything, especially "I", exists as it appears to us, awakening reveals that, as with Santa Claus, there is no actual “I” to either affirm or deny - neither eternalism nor nihilism apply. We come to see that what "exists" is the result of mental interpretation, and become reconciled to the fact that, as with the blue pillow above, we can't know (and fortunately don't need need to know) anything more than that. In other words, the "existent or non-existent?" question we start out with isn't answered one way or the other; instead, the question itself thankfully falls away, which in the unfettering process occurs with the "breaking" of the 7th and 8th fetters. Once awake, as the phrase from the Zen tradition provides, mountains are still mountains, and rivers are still rivers, though not the mountains and rivers we once presumed.
Awakening also reveals that our search for meaning, purpose and value is actually part of maintaining, and helps validate, our identity. As it turns out, we don't need these qualities in order to lead a happy, productive life: in fact, we see that the search for those was part of why we suffered. In the guiding I have done, some have remarked at how the search for meaning was such a driver for them, and how surprising it was to see that it wasn't available or needed. In practical terms, if we let go of the need for "meaning", then the term "meaningless" is let go of as well - the same is true for "purpose" and "value". These mutually-defined opposites fall away with the 9th and 10th fetters, where we see that what we expect or want to find in daily experience simply isn't available, rather than finding their opposites.
In sum, the result of awakening is that neither nihilism nor eternalism apply even though, prior to awakening, it can seem as though one or the other must be true. Put another way, if awakening seems like it will be tinged with nihilism, that's only because life is currently tinged with eternalism.
Finally, please keep in mind that emptiness or naturelessness is not something to realize or otherwise hang onto once it has fulfilled its purpose. Rather, emptiness is simply a conceptual corrective to our tendency to imagine that what we experience is “full”: i.e., that it contains tangible “somethings” that have a substantial, knowable or describable nature. In particular, we come to assume that our experience contains (a) "me". As above, emptiness has no meaning as a stand-alone term: we need two other concepts, or pieces of information, namely what is empty of what. Also, the dualistic concepts of “emptiness” and “fullness” mutually define each other - you can’t have one without the other. We may have, perhaps for our entire lives, seen ourselves and all else as having a nature of some sort, but that doesn’t mean that we go from that extreme view to the opposite extreme and “realize emptiness”. Instead, neither fullness nor emptiness is true in any ultimate sense, nor will they seem significant once awake.
For example, we tend to superimpose a certain “cup-ness” onto a coffee cup, a nature which makes the cup “what it is”, and we may assume that awakening involves seeing the cup as “empty”. After awakening, however, we will no longer experience a coffee cup as a particular “something” that could have a describable nature: neither “full” nor “empty” will any longer apply. Instead, we will know (should we stop to reflect on it) that what we are experiencing is a mental interpretation. Though that brings uncertainty with it, it is nevertheless sufficient to get through daily life, just as has always been the case (whether we realized it or not). Thus, rather than emptiness being a quality or characteristic of reality, or reality itself, it is a potentially helpful pointer or corrective that, like “fullness”, can at some point be set aside. It’s not that we will never use the term “emptiness” ever again: it’s just that it won’t immediately spring to mind as a descriptor or quality as we drink a cup of coffee.
Awakening and emptiness therefore do not mean or lead to nihilism, and the conclusion that nothing exists and/or that there is no meaning, purpose, or value in life. In terms of existence, while we start out believing that everything, especially "I", exists as it appears to us, awakening reveals that, as with Santa Claus, there is no actual “I” to either affirm or deny - neither eternalism nor nihilism apply. We come to see that what "exists" is the result of mental interpretation, and become reconciled to the fact that, as with the blue pillow above, we can't know (and fortunately don't need need to know) anything more than that. In other words, the "existent or non-existent?" question we start out with isn't answered one way or the other; instead, the question itself thankfully falls away, which in the unfettering process occurs with the "breaking" of the 7th and 8th fetters. Once awake, as the phrase from the Zen tradition provides, mountains are still mountains, and rivers are still rivers, though not the mountains and rivers we once presumed.
Awakening also reveals that our search for meaning, purpose and value is actually part of maintaining, and helps validate, our identity. As it turns out, we don't need these qualities in order to lead a happy, productive life: in fact, we see that the search for those was part of why we suffered. In the guiding I have done, some have remarked at how the search for meaning was such a driver for them, and how surprising it was to see that it wasn't available or needed. In practical terms, if we let go of the need for "meaning", then the term "meaningless" is let go of as well - the same is true for "purpose" and "value". These mutually-defined opposites fall away with the 9th and 10th fetters, where we see that what we expect or want to find in daily experience simply isn't available, rather than finding their opposites.
In sum, the result of awakening is that neither nihilism nor eternalism apply even though, prior to awakening, it can seem as though one or the other must be true. Put another way, if awakening seems like it will be tinged with nihilism, that's only because life is currently tinged with eternalism.
Finally, please keep in mind that emptiness or naturelessness is not something to realize or otherwise hang onto once it has fulfilled its purpose. Rather, emptiness is simply a conceptual corrective to our tendency to imagine that what we experience is “full”: i.e., that it contains tangible “somethings” that have a substantial, knowable or describable nature. In particular, we come to assume that our experience contains (a) "me". As above, emptiness has no meaning as a stand-alone term: we need two other concepts, or pieces of information, namely what is empty of what. Also, the dualistic concepts of “emptiness” and “fullness” mutually define each other - you can’t have one without the other. We may have, perhaps for our entire lives, seen ourselves and all else as having a nature of some sort, but that doesn’t mean that we go from that extreme view to the opposite extreme and “realize emptiness”. Instead, neither fullness nor emptiness is true in any ultimate sense, nor will they seem significant once awake.
For example, we tend to superimpose a certain “cup-ness” onto a coffee cup, a nature which makes the cup “what it is”, and we may assume that awakening involves seeing the cup as “empty”. After awakening, however, we will no longer experience a coffee cup as a particular “something” that could have a describable nature: neither “full” nor “empty” will any longer apply. Instead, we will know (should we stop to reflect on it) that what we are experiencing is a mental interpretation. Though that brings uncertainty with it, it is nevertheless sufficient to get through daily life, just as has always been the case (whether we realized it or not). Thus, rather than emptiness being a quality or characteristic of reality, or reality itself, it is a potentially helpful pointer or corrective that, like “fullness”, can at some point be set aside. It’s not that we will never use the term “emptiness” ever again: it’s just that it won’t immediately spring to mind as a descriptor or quality as we drink a cup of coffee.