[i]“This mode is called emptiness because it’s empty of the presuppositions we usually add to experience to make sense of it: the stories and world-views we fashion to explain who we are and the world we live in. Although these stories and views have their uses, the Buddha found that some of the more abstract questions they raise - of our true identity and the reality of the world outside - pull attention away from a direct experience of how events influence one another in the immediate present. Thus they get in the way when we try to understand and solve the problem of suffering.”
“To master the emptiness mode of perception requires training in firm virtue, concentration, and discernment. Without this training, the mind tends to stay in the mode that keeps creating stories and world views. And from the perspective of that mode, the teaching of emptiness sounds simply like another story or world view with new ground rules. In terms of your views about the world, it seems to be saying either that the world doesn’t really exist, or else that emptiness is the great undifferentiated ground of being from which we all came and to which someday we’ll all return.”[/i]
In Buddhist philosophy and practice 'emptiness’ and 'virtue’ are both highly regarded concepts. For many people these two concepts initially seem to be diametrically opposed. But it is precisely to the extent that these concepts are seen as separate or opposed (rather than as at least integral with each other) that they are in fact misunderstood. The misunderstanding itself is not essentially problematic - all Buddhists (let alone non-Buddhists) misunderstand these concepts as essentially separate to varying degrees.
Introduction
Buddhist philosophy and logic are always grounded in the direct experience of living. As a practical philosophical tradition, the primary concern of the practitioner is to utilize the views and methods received from one’s teachers in order to help know how to fully engage in one’s own subjective experience of self and world without dishonesty or diversion. As a popular religion, the ‘believer’ (who might not be an actual practitioner) has at least some level of trust in the experience of Gautama Buddha and his various lineages - and in the philosophies and logics which naturally arose in response to these revered practitioners’ own direct experiences of reality free from distortion.
Discerning what is real or true or valuable, as opposed to what is unreal or false or negligible (i.e. fabricated and simultaneously misapprehended by the volatile imagination) is a very basic and necessary human project, connected to survival as well as to happiness or to any other human goal. The scientific method is of course completely built on this foundation, and scientists typically separate wholesale the subjective from the objective (largely discarding subjective experience as untrustworthy) as a matter of course. Scientific materialism, at least in the typical simplistic sense, generally can’t ever approach the place where the subjective and the objective might meet, since subjective experience is so often trivialized as fundamentally false. That subjective experience is ultimately the only way to apprehend and comprehend objective reality at all is rarely acknowledged as anything more than a truism.
Discerning what is real from wholly within the subjective sphere (not as opposed to it), is of fundamental concern in Buddhist theory and practice. Subjective mental states aren’t seen as completely real or unreal, or equally worthy or unworthy (i.e. since they are all ‘merely’ subjective), but are valued and cultivated systematically in relation to what is traditionally established as valid criteria - that suffering always arises from a mental outlook that is in fundamental conflict with the ways things are. Buddhism is often and not incorrectly seen as a worldview and set of methods ‘designed’ to lead people away from frivolous suffering (as opposed to the basic realities of life which are unavoidable), but this aspect might in fact be somewhat overemphasized. It is also true that unnecessary suffering can be evidence of a mental outlook which is at odds with living reality. It is in this sense that philosophical and even mythological Buddhism can be considered “mind science”, as it sometimes is - but it is the role of science, not of Buddhism, to be concerned with materialistic projects such as mapping the brain’s territory in ever more detailed correlation with subjective experiences such as fear, joy, and so forth.
Shamatha
The practices undertaken by Buddhists are for the most part surprisingly straightforward. At its most basic level, meditation is nothing other than maintaining awareness of the qualities, contents and movements of the mind, utilizing the mind’s natural clarity and intelligence for the purpose. The stated result possible from undertaking the foundational practice of shamatha (“calm abiding”) meditation is a likely increase in the mind’s innate stability, clarity, and strength. These qualities are revealed as innate to the sentient mind, rather than added to the mind as some kind of antidote. It is the Buddhist view that our delusions and conflicting emotions are adventitious and that we are in fact naturally and fundamentally sane and ‘good’. The power of Buddhist meditational practices comes from their correctness (for instance in the sense that the scientific method is correct in relation to scientific goals) and from undertaking them regularly and with sincerity.
The basic initial insight - the experience which gradually dawns for someone who may be a beginner but has nonetheless undertaken a fair amount of regular practice, is that it is not necessary, and is in fact inhibiting and imprisoning, to prop up our egos in the various subtle and obvious ways in which we typically do. We are not our opinions, and when we drop our opinions we don’t disappear or stop functioning. We are not the roles we inhabit, and we are not the thoughts which seem to chaotically bounce off the walls inside our brains. Whichever props we habitually (and for the most part subconsciously) utilize to reinforce our sense of selfhood - they are just props and can be fruitfully seen for what they are. My own experience in letting go of these props is that when I simply exist, with my human perspicaciousness fully intact, there is a palpable sense of existential buoyancy - it is possible to “let go” and in doing so a natural sense of ease and wellbeing arises that is both functional and liberating. Prior to this kind of insight, many newcomers to Buddhism and meditation will often say they just want a little more peace in their life - but they definitely do not want to go so far as to “get rid of” their ego, which they mistakenly think and feel to exist as a reality in the first place. The ability to live with strength and purpose and the know-how and willpower to accomplish projects and goals are human qualities that are enhanced, not diminished, through correct Buddhist practice.
One of the instructions given in shamatha meditation is that when thoughts or images arise in the mind during meditation the meditator should simply be aware of what is happening in the mind. A meditative object has been given, such as mindfulness of the physical process of breathing, and the meditator repeatedly returns to that object of attention, without either getting carried away by the mind’s distractions or attempting to shut them out or turn them off. In this way the mind’s innate qualities of mindfulness and awareness are revealed and developed.
Vipashana
Following from some level of cultivation of the stability, clarity, and strength of the mind, the practitioner may then undertake the practices of vipashana or ‘insight’ meditation. Insight meditation can take various forms, and may include systematic logic and intellectual analysis.
The artful joining of calm abiding and insight (shamatha and vipashana) can be considered “a meditative way of knowing”. It is in the context of this “way of knowing” that a person can most efficiently come to realize their own nature, their own self-potential, and the nature of the greater world. All Buddhist meditative practices can be classified as either shamatha or vipashana. In an ideal sense it is only after the practitioner has established beyond doubt that the essential nature of meditation is in letting things be and coming to some understanding of reality as it is (rather than fabricating some sort of mental fantasy) that he or she would engage in further practices which could otherwise be misconstrued as such a fantastical fabrication. Even practices that are simply concerned with the development of virtues are ideally understood as not a construction of ideals which might with some sort of poverty mentality be regarded as a necessary antidote to the supposedly fundamental evil or chaos of the world.
Emptiness
Emptiness, as a formal philosophical concept, arises out of logical and inferential investigations into the nature of reality as well as from direct meditative insight. A common synonym for ‘emptiness’ is ‘openness’ which can have more experiential and practical connotations, as opposed to the seemingly abstract or intellectual connotations of ‘emptiness’. Both English terms are loose translations of the Sanskrit term ‘shunyata’. The meaning of ‘shunyata’ is more complex (and in some ways different) than ‘emptiness’ or ‘openness’ suggest though, having additional positive experiential connotations which the English terms are insufficient to convey. Nonetheless, ‘emptiness’ is the English term now most commonly used to express ‘shunyata’.
Perhaps the most basic meaning of emptiness is that reality is empty of our preconceptions or ideas about it. No matter how refined our inferential understanding of reality is, that understanding is always incomplete or in some way wrong. No matter how much we know about ourselves and the world we always have the capacity to be surprised by new circumstances. Stories we tell about ourselves to give sense and meaning to our lives are in one respect just stories. Theories regarding how or why events occur are likewise just theories. Conceptions of the past and future are in one respect simply presently passing conceptions. Stories, theories, and conceptions are certainly powerful tools in our everyday lives and (importantly) have tremendous utility and can even point us away from delusion, but it would be a mistake of some magnitude to see such limited conceptions as identical to measureless reality itself:
“There is unlimited sound, unlimited sight, unlimited taste, unlimited feeling and so on. The realm of perception is limitless, so limitless that perception itself is primordial, unthinkable, beyond thought. There are so many perceptions that they are beyond imagination. There are a vast number of sounds. There are sounds that you have never heard. There are sights and colors that you have never seen. There are feelings that you have never experienced before. There are endless fields of perception.”
Emptiness is also a description of ‘reality’ in its ultimate inclusive sense though - that is, of all conceivable phenomena, whether ‘real’ or imagined - free of all categorical dualities. Emptiness is not expressive of some negative static state at all, but of the full dynamic reality which pervades all phenomena. All phenomena are empty of essence or self-nature, and modally exist in a dynamic state of complete relativity. If an object’s essence (“from its own side”) could be said to pervade that object’s entire modal reality, it is in the exact opposite sense that emptiness is said to pervade all reality, as emptiness in part means exactly this lack of essence. Emptiness is the true mode of existence of all phenomena, whether subjective or objective. Though a real experience of emptiness can in fact become a solid basis for living life in a full and meaningful way, that experiential reality does not at all imply that there is some metaphysical substance pervading the universe, on which we can depend for security and comfort. Reality is empty of both essence and duality, phenomena arise in dependence on a plethora of causes and conditions, and we can never release ourselves from our own subjective experience into some supposedly independent objective reality. Emptiness is not a ‘true’ reality which is in some way ‘behind’ illusive appearance, but is in fact no different than appearance itself. According to the Heart Sutra:
“Form is emptiness; emptiness also is form. Emptiness is no other than form; form is no other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, perception, formation, and consciousness are emptiness. Thus, Shariputra, all dharmas are emptiness.”
(Nalanda Translation Committee)
The concepts of karma and of dependent co-production formalize in a meaningful way an understanding of how cause and effect work in relation to the ultimate principle of emptiness. Emptiness might be understood most straightforwardly as the ultimate expression of the principles of complex causality and relativity, which describe the processes of functionality and utility from a non-ultimate perspective:
[i]“The method of understanding other things as like the example of illusion is as follows: For example, when a magician manifests an illusion, though there never was any horse or ox there, the appearance of horse and ox undeniably arises. In the same way, things such as persons, although they were always empty of any objectively established intrinsic reality as objects, are understood as undeniably appearing to have that status. Thus the appearances of gods and humans are represented as persons, and the appearances of forms and sounds and so on are represented as objects, and although not even an atom in persons and objects has intrinsically identifiable intrinsic reality, all the functions of relativities such as accumulation of evolutionary actions and seeing and hearing are viable. Voidness is not nihilistic, since all functions are viable because of it. Since one simply becomes aware of that voidness, things having always and ever been void, neither is it just a mentally made-up voidness. Since all things knowable are accepted in that way, it is not a partial voidness, and when one meditates upon it, it serves as the remedy for all the automatic reifications of the truth habits.”
“When those two facts - that is, the viability of relativity and the absence of intrinsic reality - seem contradictory, one should consider the pattern of their noncontradiction by using examples of mirror images and so forth. Thus the mirror image of an object, such as a face, although it is void of the reality of the eyes and ears and the like that appear in it, is still produced depending on the object and the mirror, and it is destroyed when either of those conditions is removed. Those two facts - its voidness of the objects and its being produced depending on them - are undeniably coincident in the same phenomenon.”
“Like that, there is not even an atom of intrinsic reality status in the person, and yet this does not contradict its being the accumulator of evolutionary actions, the experiencer of evolutionary effects, and its being produced depending on the actions and addictions of previous lives. One should cultivate this consideration. Thus one should understand illusoriness in this way on every such occasion…”[/i]
It is a common point of confusion that Buddhist expositions of the emptiness principle categorically deny the reality of cause and effect. But cause and effect is typically understood as linear and deterministic and it is essentially that limited understanding that is refuted. A more complex or holistic understanding of cause and effect is reached in the light of a preliminary understanding of emptiness. Since all phenomena lack inherent existence, manifesting only with respect to a plethora of underlying and simultaneous causes and conditions, it is possible to approach our life’s goals with far more intelligence and skill. It is possible (and likely the most effective route) to deal with problems in an indirect manner - working with the causes and conditions that give rise to a particular phenomenon, rather than directly with the particular phenomenon (whether mental or non-mental) which seems to be the direct source of our confusion or suffering. Emptiness is not a static alternative to the problems which seem so solid and real to us - it is not an alternative mental state - it is a description of the non-fixed nature of the very ‘problematic’ phenomena which seem in our everyday life to be so stubbornly persistent. From a Buddhist point of view a mental phenomena is problematic (a ‘defilement’) when it blinds the practitioner to the reality of its own insubstantiality:
“‘Defilement,’ according to Buddhism, is any state of mind that will prevent us from gaining knowledge and insight. Defilement is a direct translation of drib pa in Tibetan, which literally means ‘veil.’ There is something between you and insight/knowledge that you have to remove. Actually ‘veil’ is a better translation, because ‘defilement’ suggests that we have been tainted, but there is actually no real connotation of that in Buddhist thinking.”
Virtue
Virtue then is intimately connected to emptiness, and is functional precisely because of emptiness. The Tibetan word translated in English as virtue is ‘gewa’:
“The word gewa doesn’t have the moralistic quality that we in the West might associate with virtue, by the way. Rather, it connotes any beneficial activity - such as generosity or meditation - that brings delight. All happiness comes from virtue. Suffering arises from migewa, or nonvirtue - actions based on self-obsession. Because such actions are nonvirtuous, they give rise to obstacles.”
Virtue is also a natural expression of emptiness, in the sense that fundamental dualities are at least to some degree understood as fabrications of the deluded mind. As the “I-other” duality is softened through committed practice, virtue arises as a natural response to this new understanding of the world and the practitioner’s own place in that world. It becomes more and more obvious, both intellectually and intuitively, that we are not just isolated individuals, fundamentally alienated from a world in which we mysteriously happen to find ourselves in, but are in many ways completely interdependent with other people, as well as with all aspects of reality. Qualities such as love and compassion are not in fact antidotes artificially applied to a deficient world, but arise spontaneously out of a more direct and intelligent relationship with this same world. The conscious cultivation of these innate qualities (through skillfully working with the adventitious ‘defilements’ which obstruct self-existing realization) is the cultivation of virtue, which is a discipline which in itself leads in the direction of a direct realization of emptiness.
The bodhisattva ideal is generally seen as the purest or highest form of virtue. The Bodhisattva’s main practice is the cultivation of ‘bodhicitta’, which in one word summarizes the complete integration of the seemingly opposite concepts of emptiness and virtue (or more correctly, of wisdom and compassion). A bodhisattva is a practitioner who has vowed to work for the benefit of others. Additionally, a bodhisattva in a strictly classical sense is said to have reached the first stage of stable realization, in that he or she has had a direct, non-inferential insight into the reality of emptiness - of the selflessness of both persons and objects. From this stage forward it is said that there can be no falling away from that insight, which provides a solid (and ironically completely groundless and insubstantial) foundation for all further realization. The main formal practices of a bodhisattva are directly connected to both emptiness and virtue. ‘The Six Perfections’ describe virtuous practices which are brought to perfection through an understanding (or direct realization) of emptiness. For instance generosity (traditionally the first of the six perfections) is perfected through the realization that “there is no giver, there is no receiver, there is no gift”. The Six Perfections are generosity, discipline, patience, enthusiastic effort, meditation, and wisdom.
Conclusion:
Wisdom is the subjective corollary to emptiness. Consciousness purified of delusions and defilements is completely transformed, and becomes wisdom itself. Through wisdom the nature of the subjective mind is seen as emptiness and as well the nature of the objective world is seen as emptiness. So a true experience of non-duality isn’t a mere inferential conflation of subjective experience with objective facts, but is an unfaltering realization that those two aspects of existence are of the same fundamental nature. This wisdom is intricately connected to virtue, and can only be finally realized through a dual path of the cultivation of both wisdom and virtue:
“To the extent that one has progressed in the first five paramitas, one’s wisdom increases; to the extent that one has progressed in wisdom, one improves the practice of the first five paramitas. Wisdom sees all phenomena without error.”
This is my understanding of the connection between emptiness and virtue in Buddhist worldview. All of my understanding is due to my teachers and all faults are completely my own. I know everyone says this kind of thing, but in this case it is very literally true. How would I know anything at all about this subject on my own?
It is extremely difficult to coordinate and make basic sense of the Buddhist teachings in a practical and personal way through casual perusal of internet sites or books, though those may certainly be beneficial. I have found living, breathing teachers to be indispensable to developing any understanding I have. In terms of meditation practice, it is best by far to receive meditation instruction in person. The body is not at all negligible and a qualified meditation instructor will be able to help in terms of posture (and method of course) in a way that no book can.
“Our understanding of Buddhism is not just an intellectual understanding. True understanding is actual practice itself.” (Shunryu Suzuki)
EDITS: to fix formatting issues.
](https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/uploads/default/original/2X/7/7c349bf1053f368a5729d053e1e91215f22ce66c.gif "Brick wall"){kind=small}