(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be beneficial!)

Many of us have found the concept of “emptiness” difficult to understand, to “get a handle on,” to “come to grips with.” Not surprising, as even the concept of emptiness is empty!

Why would I want to write about it? Because it describes the true nature of our minds, of reality, of the universe. Put another way, what we think exists in a permanent, solid way is just an appearance.

Phenomena are  like firecrackers. They flash (appear) in the sky, stay for a second, and then pass away. They have no inherent existence apart from the causes and conditions that produced them. You may have heard the phrase “the world of appearances.” That is what I am referring to here.  So everything that arises in our lives is actually an “appearance,” not some solid,  permanent reality.

I have come to believe that without an understanding of this true nature, we cannot really live the best of lives. Why? Because we are fooled, deluded, duped. That’s what is meant by the phrase “we are fooled by our own projections.”  The problem isn’t so much that we project, but that we don’t acknowledge it. Personally, I do not want to live in this state.

We experience this “emptiness” everyday: things change all the time, manufactured items like cars, a supper plate, etc. etc. fall apart. But while we understand the concept intellectually, it is emotionally difficult to accept. Why? Because our ego resists this truth.

So what? Who cares?

What possible usefulness is it to understand ideas like emptiness, appearances, the 12 factors of dependent origination, cause and effect.(1) Whenever I’m about to get caught up, hooked, in something that is happening in my life (relative, conventional plane), I try to flash on the ultimate nature of things, “the bigger picture.” To flash is like waking up from a dream. I realize that what I was about to get all caught up in is “like a dream.”

The result? I feel a lot less anxious. I can say to myself “Of course things happened this way — it arose out of all the preceding factors!” this lead to this lead to this lead to this…..

Certainly, we are concerned about things. But I find that fear, anxiety and worry, depression lessen.

(2) Because things depend on other factors [the 12 factors of dependent origination]  in order to appear, they cannot have a solid existence. If they don’t have a solid existence, then maybe there’s “nothing” to get attached to, to cling to, to make a big deal about. And if there’s nothing to get attached to, I have the opportunity to cut any karma that may be about to accumulate.

Thoughts, feelings and sensations aren’t things-in-themselves, but occur through a variety of causes and conditions. (Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche)

Here’s a quotation that I think summarizes the theme of this post:

Since all phenomena, outer and inner, are dependently existent mere appearances,
They have no inherent nature, they are just appearance-emptiness {like the firecracker example I used above}.
If you know how they resemble dreams and illusions,
All comings are goings will be open and relaxed.
(source: song by Khenpo Tsultrim entitled Living an Appearance-Emptiness Life, composed June 24, 1998)

And while everything that arises in our lives is dependent on causes and conditions, the next time you hear someone say “Something can’t come out of nothing, you know,” you can say “Yes it does!”

Just one of the many paradoxes of our universe…….

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