(Wherein a practitioner tries to relate his own confrontation with the direct experience of emptiness.)
Contingency is the center of our existence. Our lives, too often clouded by a fixation with the fantasy of a solid and enduring self, are the results of conditions. They are conditions, and they are the origins of further future conditions. There is truly nothing that is solid stable or eternal. All phenomena are impermanent, impersonal, and conditioned from a myriad other phenomena. Contingency is the central track upon which we live our lives. It is the source of everything we can know or experience.
The sky above changes constantly. The earth below also changes constantly. Looking at our bodies, we can directly experience them growing, changing, getting hungry, getting satisfied, getting sick, getting well, growing old, etc. Eventually our bodies dissolve when the contingencies for their lives change. There is death. No one can argue with death, whether you believe in some personal life after death or not, you must admit to yourself that this body through which you now experience life is going to die. This most radical change of all life changes is the key to realizing the nature of existence in its three most poignant expressions: impermanence, selflessness, unreliability. ("anicca, anatta, dukkha" or anitya, anatman, duhkha in Sanskrit.)
Looking at one's own mind/heart, you can directly experience your shifting moods, feelings, perceptions, prejudices, attitudes, judgments, thoughts, fantasies, dreams, wishes, desires, and beliefs. They change with experience. They change through time. Even the longest held most strongest beliefs can be shown to have changed however slightly throughout the years of living. This mind/heart is often assumed to be the center or the seat of who we are. We imagine it to be the core or root of ourselves. We think this mind/heart is the "self," if anything is to be. Yet we forget that the idea of "self" only makes sense when in relation to others. Even basic language, from where we get a lot of ideas about the self in words like "I," "me," "mine," you," yours," "hers," "she," or "her" demonstrates this relational and shifting quality of who we are. "I" means nothing without the context of other words like "you." Our selves only take any sort of meaning from within the vast continuum of relationships with other beings and phenomena. If you look directly into this, you will see that the separation between self and other is only in context and ultimately there is no fixated truth of self that withstands. It is ever-created, a process, a set of constantly changing contingencies. In this is the real beauty of existence and of our lives. Like snowflakes, we individuals are the ever changing matrix of causes, results, and contingencies that are never again to be repeated. We are like never repeatable works of art in progress. We are not fixated and enduring "souls" that simply pass through the conditions of life, for nothing can be discovered to be that "soul." That is why our individual lives matter.
Our measure is in our relationships and how our lives express their unique never to be repeated conditions. Without "you," there can be no "me." Language itself, the highest cultural expression of our species, is a directly experienced truth of this relational existence. Without words shared in common with others, how can any part of language mean anything to anyone? Strangely, though we should seek no validity or reification of our "self," it is many times through relationships that our true measure can be glimpsed. If we are honest, those relationships and interactions are the measure, if any measure can be said to exist. And this does not need to be reified or validated. It may need to be made better or more honest, but it already exists. This is why Buddhists train themselves in ethics.
If you think you have a stable and solid self, then your perception gets distorted into accepting things as "self" or as personal when they never should have been. You begin assuming that the universe can be understood in terms of "mine" and "not mine." You forget that these are simply conventions of language, for ease of communication and not for expressing any ultimate truth. This fixation upon "mine" and "not mine" is in direct contradiction to what can be experienced. The chasm between this idea of "self" and reality begins to create an angst or suffering because deep down we intuit that there is no such enduring and stable fixed essence that we can point to as "self." Instead of investigating the truth of the matter, a truth that the Buddha, and the many Buddhas after him, challenged us to see for ourselves, we run into our mental circuses, hoping that if we can make our hearts or egos strong enough, we can find permanence. Or we can find something at long last that will assuage our suffering or our gnawing anxieties. We hate the idea that even if we make a billion dollars, or if we make our heart so closely guarded and locked up, that we are still as vulnerable as we were when we were open to sensitivity or when we had no money. We look for self through a validation of our attachment to desires all the while ignoring the clarion call of impermanence all around us and through us. In fact, without impermanence, nothing could be possible. Without emptiness, there'd be no existence. So if you are looking for the nature of existence, start off with its source, its expression, and its result: emptiness.
Emptiness, not as another idea, but as directly experienced, will help you to ease your fixations with dysfunctional cravings and attachments. You can let go of the "self" idea and learn to need no validation. You can begin to really grow up. You can begin to see what millions of Buddhists have discovered throughout the centuries: It is possible to become free from suffering and to mature into an awakened fulfilled being.
But strangely, it is only when we realize what suffering, anxiety, or existential angst (dukkha) is that we can learn to become free of it. The original word in the old source languages of Buddhism referred to an axle being improperly aligned or broken. It was never meant to be taken as a definition of life. It was only to be seen as something that you realize is happening because we haven't stopped to investigate what could be wrong. Like driving with a badly aligned axle, the Buddha was telling us we are trying to get somewhere or become something without even making sure that we first understand the problems that are holding us from getting anywhere. Life, by its very poignant sad and happy beautiful nature of being contingent, is unreliable from the standpoint of a belief in a fixed and enduring permanent essence of a "self" or from the view of any thing being permanent. This unreliability (which is what dukkha can mean after one realizes the cause of suffering) in the face of our desires to make our lives into permanent and solid fantasies in which we can get rid of all we dislike, gain all we like, and ignore the rest, is the crux of the matter. And the realization of our attachment to this desire is what gives us a glimpse of hope, because now we know the source of this suffering, or this 'dukkha.' Now that we know the root, we can let go of the project of supporting fantasies. We can stop the hold that suffering has on us. We can let go of our attachment. Only our fear may hold us back, but in the face of direct experience, we can now see that failure to let go will only result in a failure to mature.
The unreliability or uncertainty of existence becomes transformed into the matrix of possibility. Instead of crying about how meaningless life is because it is contingent and cannot be held onto in the end (or even now), we can take charge of our lifestyles and destinies. We can learn that even "meaning" is relational. Without other beings, life would not be. So we begin to start caring about what happens to other beings as well as ourselves. Because we no longer hold onto the tightwad self idea, we discover a taste of what the Buddha found: the human heart is capable of feeling every other being's pain and happiness as if it was our own. This newly discovered vulnerability leads us to further resolve to stop the sufferings of other beings because we are all limbs of life. For those who cannot bear to have this ocean of suffering that is wandering dysfunctional self-fixated existence (samsara) go on any longer for even a minute, the new resolve is to liberate all of these beings from suffering and to help them toward becoming awakened and fulfilled. This sort of person or being is precious to all that lives because without such beings dedicated to the happiness and welfare of others, human existence would not only become a full-blown hellhole for every human, it would become the source of hell for all existence on Earth.
Emptiness, once realized or directly experienced, becomes the path or lifestyle upon which the centered person walks. Such a person knows that they won't suddenly stop existing after they have seen through the perceptual distortions of the "self" idea. The "self" doesn't go anywhere. It is simply now seen in its true nature as a part of a larger context, a continuum of life. You cannot take the self out of this context because outside of being a part of life, or being relational, you cannot find the "self" anywhere. Nor should you have to. All phenomena, whether imagined or thought about, or whether existing outside of our imaginations, are impermanent, contingent upon only more contingencies. Many have said that there is a universe inside each human being. This points to the basic fact that individuals are continuously changing processes and matrices of relationship. Birth and death are the mere points or waves on the ocean of existence. Like the miracle of a never before existing unique snowflake that will never again be seen in its own likeness after it melts, the same everyday yet extraordinary contingency is the center of each one of our lives. Much of the processes are impersonal, but that doesn't mean we have nothing to do, or that we have no say in our interaction. It's just that once we see how much it is "not self," we are free to engage existence as fully as possible. From this point of view, we can learn to let go of points of view. If our consciousness survives after death, it is much like our consciousness survives the changes in this life. We can't point to anything that is inherently "self" in any of this. Life is contingency. What "we" are is a continuum which shifts and turns. Investigating this further, you will find that the fixed essence of soul you are seeking turns out to be ideas you hold to and once you let go of these, you become mature enough to realize that you still exist without need for such ideas.
The process of awakening is really stripping away the fixations and emotional dysfunction. When desire is let go of, suffering has no way of stopping you from acting when you need to. Suffering has no way of making you a slave to the fear of unfulfilled desires. There is nothing that can enslave you any longer. You can become free of the inner dictator that is the fixated idea of self. Emptiness can set you free, but only as experienced directly, not as in some metaphysical abstraction or idea. More fluid and open yourself, you become more open to others. Allowing yourself the space to live fully, you stop grasping at others in attempts to get them to fit your schemes. You allow others the same freedom you have discovered. Depending on your lifestyle, others around you may even catch a glimpse of that radical taste of freedom. Awakening is not something other than who we are now. Bereft of the mountains of drama and bullshit caused by attempts to reify or validate the "self," awakening is not just some future possibility. It becomes here and now. What we do is try to realize this inexhaustible source as much as we can.
The vast relativity, spontaneity, and endless flux of emptiness that is the source of existence...that is in fact existence, can be directly experienced right now by anyone with the courage to learn freedom. It is right here, right now. If it wasn't, there'd be no possibility of directly experiencing it. You don't need spiritual seminars to learn this "spiritual" truth. You don't need to read books, or spend inordinate amounts of time or money following the programs of self-righteous teachers. From a Buddhist point of view, the purpose of any mentor or spiritual friend, the purpose of any dharma sisters and brothers, is to make the teacher redundant. However, even if you cross over and realize the highest liberation, even if you become a buddha, you will still love your teachers, friends, and mentors who helped you, and you in turn help them. But there is no slavery to another being. That is why you will hear and see enlightened masters still paying respects to their mentors and teachers. The thanks for the exposure to the taste of freedom is an expression of the precious nature of beings who have dedicated their lives to helping you directly experience that freedom for yourself. In this context, you can see the emphasis on lineage to be an expression of gratitude.
Take care though, for emptiness is not some new idea to attach to. Like handling a snake, one must be alert and diligent so that any experience or teaching on emptiness doesn't create any more fixations. Nihilism is one such fixation. Some people misunderstand emptiness and think that it means that either nothing really exists or that nothing really has meaning. So they justify all manner of actions. Eternalism or essentialism is the opposite fixation. If everything takes on eternal or essential significance then you may become too paralyzed to act for fear of doing anything to upset your hold on eternity. You may forget that karma is action and your intention to act. You may start to see your life as destined. Or you may act and think that everything you do is the crux of the matter not just for yourself but for others too, thus thinking that everyone should be interested in whatever you do. In either one of these extreme views there is the error of fixation. You run the risk of forgetting that emptiness is something to experience like a taste. It is not some idea about reality that you must believe in.
You must take care not to attach to either one of these fixations. If you can just remember that reality is non-conceptual, you may be able to escape any extreme views about existence and remain free of any further fixations, even if you have yet to directly experience emptiness for yourself. Once you do experience it for yourself, you will find it isn't even necessary to explain or express what it is. You may simply just wish to be and to celebrate that being. Others around you may see something about you. They may catch a glimpse or taste of the freedom that now propels you forward. They may catch reflections of the clear light of awareness in your life. So you may have to try to explain it or show it to them. You can play a trick on them and show them how to meditate. They may think that they are bearing fruits of meditation because they get more clear minded. But meditation properly done will give them a direct confrontation with the experience of emptiness. If they persevere, their spiritual materialism will dissolve and they will see for themselves the spiritual urgency of the clear light of awareness. They will experience emptiness. This would be the most precious gift you could give them. Even if you have no urge to become a buddha yourself, you never know what help you give, or what taste of freedom others get from your interaction with them, will do in the life of someone else. Maybe such things will become a spur to someone else who will eventually become a buddha. It has happened in the past thousands of times. It is happening right now, even as you read this, in hundreds of places around the world.
Emptiness is the start and it is the central path. You can let go of the baggage which you have until now confused with who you are. Even the "spiritual" baggage that may be leading you to thinking that I or someone else will point out who you are so you don't need to investigate the matter for yourself. Unload that notion right now. Stop imputing into existence your preconceived fantasies, ideas, philosophies, beliefs, and feelings. Stop the attachment to your desires. Stop trying to manipulate the outcome of the process of awakening. Stop looking for some easy-fit prefabricated answers. You need to taste for yourself what life's flavor is. Others can show the way and they can share certain experiences to aid you, but you must walk the walk.
It is my earnest wish that what I have written above will aid you in your quest, for your sake, for my sake, and for the sake of all beings. I dedicate any merit or good that results from anyone reading this towards the liberation of all beings from suffering. May all beings realize happiness and the root of happiness. GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA!