Nothing is Empty
Everything is empty
Form, feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness are empty
Suffering, origination, stopping, path are empty
Enlightenment is empty
Delusion is empty
Emptiness is empty
All concepts are empty.
One of ZM Seung Sahn’s students once asked whether a female can be enlightened—apparently there had been some consternation about that at one point—the best a woman could hope for was rebirth as a male. He said no. Then he went on to explain that “woman” can’t be enlightened. “Man” can’t be enlightened. Don’t make man, don’t make woman.
Let’s say you rent a new apartment or move into a new house. The previous Tennant’s furniture, paintings, lawnmower, all gone. You feel very satisfied, very hopeful. You may say to yourself, “How wonderful, it’s totally empty.” It’s open, and full of potential, and that you think of as a good thing. But let’s say you come home after a night out sometime, and you see your house has been burgled, totally cleaned out, even your lawnmower. You may think of the house being empty in that case I not so good.
DT Suzuki said that all conditioned phenomena is characterized by emptiness. That’s a clever way of saying that if you can see, hear, taste, touch, smell, or think it, it’s empty. Emptiness is conditioned by other factors, not the least of which is our thinking.
It just means they’re all dependent upon something else, that there impermanent, always changing. Our feeling about them changes. Our perception of them changes. If we use our senses to perceive an object and form some sort of consciousness about them, they’re empty. No eyes, no ears, etc. until no realm of mind consciousness as the Heart Sutra says. That realm of mind consciousness is the thinking dependent upon the sensory perception of an object.
Don’t make anything. Don’t make concepts about nothing, everything, empty, gender, or awakening, and help all beings. That is awakened action.
