Emptiness, Part Deux (by Danaeah Ballinger)

In his review of Introduction to Emptiness by Guy Newland, Tricycle contributing editor Andrew Merz says:

Emptiness, alongside “life is suffering,” the full-lotus position, and a seeming obsession with death, sits high on the list of misunderstood principles associated with Buddhism that bring the uninitiated to label it a “depressing” tradition. (“The Greatest Lack; Explaining Emptiness” by Andrew Merz, Tricycle, Winter 2008, pp. 92-95)

Merz, a master’s student at Harvard Divinity School goes on to offer one of the most succinct and positive interpretations of this difficult concept that I have seen:

We can think of emptiness as like the clear, blue sky – a transparent space that is wide open. In that way our empty natures mean that there is no limit to what we can become. We are not blocked, obstructed, or tied down…Inevitably we face difficulties – sometimes great difficulties…But the obstacles are not insurmountable because they are not intrinsic to the structure of reality. Fundamentally, all things are empty – and so we are empty – of any intrinsic nature. This is why the reality of emptiness, properly understood, is a tremendous wellspring of hope and inspiration. Only because we are empty, the possibilities for what we can become are wide open. Ibid, p. 93.

Like most westerners, I guess, I’ve always had trouble with the concept because the word “emptiness” so often implies barrenness, lack, the empty carton in the “got milk” commercials. But in a few brief words, Merz gave me a new image to consider – the emptiness of the cosmic womb, from which all things, including our own awakening, can emerge.

Gassho,

Danaeah