Let’s look at this word emptiness. I think we really need to look at it carefully because we get very, very confused.
First of all, let’s look at an ordinary example – as Lama Zopa says, “There’s ordinary emptiness,” so let’s use examples of ordinary emptiness. It’s very easy – these are examples I use all the time, you know?
Let’s say you’re color blind, and every time black appears to you, you see pink. We get that, we understand the idea: you’re color blind – “Poor Robina, she’s color blind” – so whenever black appears to you, you see pink. Now even intellectually you might know it’s not pink, but because it has only ever appeared to you as pink, you keep forgetting, don’t you? That makes sense?
In other words, your ignorance is decorating “pink thermos” on top of a black thermos: you’re decorating a lie – something that doesn’t exist – on top of what does exist. We get that concept.
Now, we know we can fix that: we know the problem is your eyes, so we can fix your eyes. So we get your eyes fixed, and we present the black thermos again, and we sort of assume you’re going to go, “Oh, look at that, fancy that, it’s black!”
No, no, no, no! What will appear to you first? You’ll get the shock of your life and you’ll go, “Oh my God, it’s not pink!” Won’t you say that? “Oh my God, it’s not pink!” You’ll say that. In reality, what you just saw then was the “absence of pink.” What you just saw then was the “emptiness of pink.” What you just saw then was the “emptiness of pink.” Can you hear that? Can you hear that?
That’s all emptiness means: it’s the absence of something you thought was there. Don’t make it holy! And it does not mean nothingness! And the only person – listen, this is so important – the only person who will go, “Oh my God, it’s not pink!” – in other words, who sees the absence of pink, in other words, who sees the emptiness of pink – is a person who thought it was pink. You understand me?
Now we need to get our head around how the absence of pink – and indeed the absence of an inherent I, which is the emptiness we need to comprehend – is a thing that exists.
Buddha’s telling us he wants us to get in touch with that which exists. And why is that? Because he says right now we’re living in la-la land, believing in things that don’t exist: we’re believing in non-existents –things that don’t exist.
There are five or so synonyms for that which exists: phenomenon, object, object of knowledge, existent, established base – something like that.
Another example of an ordinary emptiness would be if you look into your cup expecting your tea, and then there’s no tea, you’ll go, “Oh, there’s no tea in my cup!” Put it this way: what you’ve just observed is a phenomenon, an existent, an established base, a phenomenon, an object called “absence of tea.” In other words, a phenomenon called the “absence of tea” exists in my cup. That’s a fact. Can you hear that? It’s not being clever; it’s helping us to understand how the absence of something, the emptiness of something, is a real thing that exists.
Of course, the absence of something is more abstract – you can’t see it, taste it, smell it. Nevertheless, it’s very real.
If there is tea there, there is the phenomenon called “tea” in my cup. If there’s no tea there, what you’re observing is a phenomenon, a thing that does exist, which is called the “absence of tea.” And where does it exist? In my cup.
Things exist. Whatever can be cognized by the mind is a phenomenon, an object, something that exists – it’s what defines it as existing, in fact. If you can cognize the “absence of tea,” then “absence of tea” is the name of a thing that exists. Can you hear this idea? Can you get that idea? Can you hear the concept? You’ve got to get your head around that approach.
The mind always has to have a thing that it cognizes: mind is subject, and whatever it cognizes is known as an object of that mind. Color is an object, thermos is an object, pink is an object, “absence of pink” is an object, “absence of tea” is an object. It exists, your mind can cognize it: in that sense it’s something that exists that your mind can grab hold of. It’s in that way you say it exists. It’s helpful because the mind’s always cognizing something.
Can you hear those words? That’s how to think, you know? Get used to that thinking: that the absence of something is an object, a phenomenon, something that can be cognized by the mind. Then you can utilize the idea of absence – of emptiness – more easily, rather than thinking it’s a nothingness, a sort of vague nothingness, you know? That’s just like demented, meaningless, foolish. And it’s the worst mistake we can make in our efforts to realize emptiness.
So now, the actual emptiness we need to realize: the absence of an inherent I. The yogi, in the subtlest level of meditation, after many lifetimes, no doubt, of thinking about dependent arising and tasting insight into emptiness, finally one day the penny will drop and they will realize that there never has been, isn’t, and never could be an inherent I. That is the moment that they see for the first time the absence of what they’ve believed in since beginningless time.
For the greatest yogis, Rinpoche says, this brings utter joy!
Something to look forward to!