by Khenpo Tashi
Emptiness (in Buddhist thought) is like this. Do you see this table? It is made from a tree, right?
Let us go back to the original tree. Can you see a table inside the tree? No. Because there is no table found in the tree, we can make a table out of the tree. We can make all kinds of shapes and sizes of tables out of the tree.
We say, the tree is empty of a table. Therefore, a table can arise from the tree.
If the tree has a permanent table with it, then you cannot make a table from it. You cannot make all kinds of tables, shapes and designs, because the tree always permanently has a specific table with it. But we know it does not have a table with it.
From its ‘emptiness’ of a table, all kinds of tables, of all kinds of designs, sizes, shapes, can come from the tree.
Similarly, ‘emptiness’ is not ‘nothing’ in Buddhism.
To understand the right kind of emptiness in Buddhism, you cannot study emptiness using a nihilistic mind, which thinks, “Everything is nothing. My family is nothing. There is no pain. No pleasure. No positive Karma. No negative Karma..“ That is nihilism. That is wrong and dangerous.
Instead, if we want to learn proper emptiness, we look at the complex workings of Karma. If you study that working of cause and effect, properly, and fully, you will see the ‘right emptiness’ there inside Karma. Arya Nagarjuna said that.
But, if you study emptiness as if everything is nothing, you will not get the right emptiness. You will get nihilistic attitude. In general, that is the right view of emptiness (through the study of Karma).
Another way of saying it is, to understand the absolute truth, look at the relative truth. The absolute truth is not higher or more special than the relative truth. It is together with the relative truth, right there. The two cannot be separated or ranked, that one is more important than the other.