One Zen teacher recently posted on a Buddhist Facebook page that a report by over a hundred scientists recently indicated that we have entered an era of mass extinctions largely due to climate change. The post encouraged taking care of the planet the way we care for our zendos. Responses were largely positive, but a few people responded that we should not worry but should just sit and become enlightened; everything is impermanent, so essentially, who cares? In other places, I have seen people make the case that since all things are empty of selfhood, there are no beings who suffer, so there is no cause for us to be concerned about beings who are suffering. Another take is that "I just cultivate my own inner peace, and other people need to cultivate theirs. Their suffering is just in their minds (and not in mine)." So there is this idea out there that insight into emptiness liberates a person from caring about people's suffering. This view can lead people to dismiss the suffering caused by climate change, racism, and poverty as fabrications of the imagination. It also elevates a separate sense of self (me versus those who suffer) that is actually born out of privilege. This is not my understanding of emptiness, nor is it my understanding of Buddhism.
The Dalai Lama writes in his wonderful book, Practicing Wisdom, that insight into emptiness deepens one's compassion and that if it does not, then one's "insight" is both misguided and worthless. He writes, "If as an individual meditator you have a sense that your realization of emptiness is deepening yet there is no corresponding increase in your compassion toward others, then this is perhaps an indication that your understanding of emptiness is not really profound or genuine.... If your understanding of emptiness does not contribute positively in any way toward [the development of compassion], there is no worth in it at all.... We should not have the notion that buddhahood is a state of total apathy, devoid of feeling, emotion, and empathy toward other sentient beings. Meditation on emptiness is not some kind of escapism, refusing to deal with the diversity and complexity of the conventional and relative world. The aim is to be able to relate with the phenomenal world in a correct and meaningful way" (27).
The Heart Sutra discusses emptiness at some length. In it, Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion (a bodhisattva is one who vows to awaken and save all beings from suffering), explains to Shariputra that "emptiness is exactly form," and insight into this fact transforms "all suffering and distress." The sutra goes on to say that there is "no eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind..., no suffering [and no] cause of suffering." Those who study Buddhism can be easily confused by these statements and come to believe that Avalokiteshvara means that nothing exists. If taken literally, this is a pretty nihilistic sentiment for a bodhisattva of compassion.
How we understand "no" in the Heart Sutra is important. Avalokiteshvara is pointing to the living truth. When we conceptualize reality, we tend to put things in separate categories that often do not reflect how interwoven and fluid things really are. For example, we might think that we see with the eye alone, that seeing is just a function of the eye, but this is not true. Seeing actually is a "dependent arising" that includes the eye, the mind that processes images, light reflecting off objects, and the objects themselves. If we remove any part of the entirety of seeing, we no longer have any vision. Therefore, we can say that there is no vision, no "eye," without the entirety of creation, just as there is no separate "I" that exists independently from the rest of the world. Our physical bodies are made of the rain, the food we eat, and the air we breathe. Logically, it makes sense that we would therefore care for the environment. Even our minds, which we often think of as entirely independent, are constituted of things that are not the mind -- fleeting thoughts, perceptions of sensory objects, etc. Things, including ourselves, do not exist as stand-alone, permanent entities. Reality is "empty" of unchanging, independent essences. This is not the same as saying things do not exist or that we cannot provisionally distinguish one thing from another. Rather, things exist as dependent arisings.
When we awaken, the result is not apathy or a nihilistic understanding based on notions of emptiness, impermanence, or non-existence. Awakening involves a remarkable appreciation of the aliveness of each moment and the deeply interpenetrating nature of reality itself. When we hear the song of a bird, it floats through our own hearts. We are not separate from the bird's song. Sometimes this recognition is called "no self," but it does not mean there is nothing. This intimacy and fluidity is so moving, we call it awakening. As Torei Enji wrote, "Everything reveals the mysterious truth of the Tathagata. Things can’t help but shine with this light."
But here's the key: awakening is not limited to beautiful experiences. When we see suffering in the world, and when we feel the way all beings reside in our hearts, this suffering touches our own being. To realize emptiness is not some aloof state of negation; it is actually quite a vulnerable enterprise.
This appreciation of how interwoven we are -- or of dependent arising -- is the root of compassion. Being interconnected, we are touched by the suffering in the world. Since suffering lacks fixed essence but arises out of specific causes and conditions, we need not identify with it or get caught up in reified conceptions of it, and this is liberating. This is one way insight into emptiness alleviates suffering. But there is still pain in the world and pain that touches our hearts. And since pain is not a fixed essence, pain can also be alleviated if we are able to remove its causes. Of course not all causes of suffering can be removed, but many can. So insight into the emptiness of phenomena often brings with it a sense of possibility and motivates us to take compassionate action to alleviate suffering whenever we can.
There are many beings who are suffering in this world. In paying attention and not turning away, we will see that climate change has already led to refugee crises and may cause the mass extinction of species. In America, there is great suffering caused by white supremacy, including historic and ongoing systemic racism, the disproportionate use of force by police, and the often unacknowledged biases and blindnesses we perpetuate within our own heart-minds. The notion that we should not care about these and other problems because we are somehow "enlightened" is contrary to the lived experience of realization. This is why Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion who offers the teachings of the Heart Sutra, is depicted as having tears running down her face and a thousand arms and hands with which to save the many beings of the world.
We personally don’t have a thousand hands. And we can’t work 24-7. The point isn’t to burn out. But we can see what speaks to our hearts, and do something.
The term "emptiness" as used in the Heart Sutra does not mean that nothing matters. Nor does it mean that there is some separate metaphysical entity outside phenomena in which we take refuge. On the contrary, it suggests that we are so interwoven that we care for all beings as ourselves, and there is the real possibility of alleviating suffering. It is this compassion that led the enlightened one, Buddha, to rise from under the Bodhi tree, return to his sangha, and teach them. "Bodhisattva practice," or activism inspired by the compassionate witnessing of suffering in the world, is a natural result of our deepening insight into emptiness. We can't do everything, but compassion inspires us to do what we can.
The term "emptiness" as used in the Heart Sutra does not mean that nothing matters. Nor does it mean that there is some separate metaphysical entity outside phenomena in which we take refuge. On the contrary, it suggests that we are so interwoven that we care for all beings as ourselves, and there is the real possibility of alleviating suffering. It is this compassion that led the enlightened one, Buddha, to rise from under the Bodhi tree, return to his sangha, and teach them. "Bodhisattva practice," or activism inspired by the compassionate witnessing of suffering in the world, is a natural result of our deepening insight into emptiness. We can't do everything, but compassion inspires us to do what we can.
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