On Emptiness

Emptiness is not mere nothingness or voidness or non-existence. Saying so is a common and pervasive misunderstanding especially among non-Buddhists. It can become a straw-man argument used by those seeking to discredit Buddhism as pessimistic or nihilistic. Emptiness is a teaching, a pedagogy that serves as strong medicine for a serious ailment of the mind. This ailment is perhaps the single most important cause of suffering in our lives - the ailment of misapprehension of and mis-response to reality.

Reality Missed
Reality that is by nature inconstant and stressful is misapprehended as worthy of being grasped and clung onto. Reality that is misapprehended creates mis-response on our part. We mis-respond by reactivity centred around a sense of ownership and independent agency. Reactivity in terms of our emotions and intentions forms and further solidifies this sense of independent ownership and agency. We can all identify our sense of 'I,' 'me,' and 'mine.' This instinctive sense presupposes a truly existing subjective self and truly existing objective things that belong or not belong to the self. We, perceived as true centres of self and experience, either desire or reject the things we like or dislike. As we do so, the seemingly valid sense of a real concrete self bifurcated against a real concrete world of things is intensified. Experience becomes dense and thick, laced with reactivity and prone to affliction.

This manner of misapprehension and reactivity exactly opposes the manner of experiencing we call "emptiness." Here, when we say "emptiness," we are not so much describing the nature of reality per se as we are drawing out the act of wise responding to experience. In other words, "emptiness" is a way of relating to oneself and the world experientially with non-clinging, spaciousness and lightness, and open contact with the present. Technically, we say that emptiness is not so much ontology (or how things exist truly) as it is epistemology (a way of knowing) and phenomenology (a way of experiencing). With emptiness as mode of experiencing ourselves and the world, we realize the direct and immediate freedom of non-clinging.

The autonomous self and its separate world of objects are but precipitations out of the open field of awareness, our primordial nature. This experience of emptiness as non-clinging foreshadows the dissolution of the precipitated self and object of experience. By no longer being engrossed in story-making of self and world, but by seeing through the empty concocted nature of experiential duality, we begin to dwell in the non-clinging space of awareness. Emptiness, as insight into the concocted nature of dualistic experience is indivisible from awareness, bliss and luminosity seamlessly united.

Reality Realized
Like undivided awareness-bliss-luminosity, emptiness as non-clinging and open responsiveness without affliction is intrinsic to our fundamental nature. Yet, the fall of humanity in Adam wrecked this intrinsic spontaneity of freedom in spirit. It took the incarnation and atonement of the One who was enfleshed in grace and truth to radically and subversively recreate this freedom for us. On our own, we could never have attained this freedom by our striving and effort. We may think we could but in reality we could not. This is because the root of our self-grasping and pride opted for inherent autonomy over primordial relational dependence on God. As a result, original harmony and goodness was shattered into pieces and our life-giving connection to the uncreated ocean of awareness, bliss, luminosity and emptiness that is of God was irreparably severed. From that moment on, the chaotic torrents of brokenness and sin continued to multiply and grow unabated.

Until Jesus. He came into our world; He assumed our human nature so we could participate in His divine nature. He bore the penalty for our sinful rebellion. He made a way when there was no way. Now we are invited to enter the unimpeded sky of awareness, bliss, luminosity and emptiness beyond compare in and through the Son who is Christ. The incarnation of Christ occurred at a specific point in historical time. But that did not mean the restorative and saving effects of the incarnation were limited to and accessible by humanity only after that point in time. Rather, the eternal purpose of God could be effected in a way that transcended historical time though operating within it. Thus, with respect to the historical appearance of Christ, potentials for humanity coming to realization of emptiness existed albeit in a different manner pre- and post-incarnation. But for those who received and believed into the Christ who came, the gift of regeneration of spirit was actualized. By grace alone, our spirit regenerated by the Spirit could respond with faith in Christ as our Messiah and Redeemer. Then, in our new life of faith in the Spirit, the superlative mind of Christ that freely responds to all in non-clinging emptiness is ours to partake and enjoy. Emptiness as teaching and pedagogy reaches its climactic fulfilment. In Christ alone.