Emptiness

Yesterday we talked about interconnectedness in Buddhism, and how everything is dependant on other things - not one object or person can exist on its own. Which leads us nicely onto the Buddhist concept of emptiness.

Emptiness is based on this idea of interconnectedness - if nothing can exist without relying on other things, e.g. a good meal can't exist without crockery, shops, their workers, vegetable farmers, cutlery, the person who made it, and so on - then that means that people and objects are "empty". I know the expression empty doesn't sound particularly joyful, but it really is.

It doesn't mean that there's just nothing there at all. Take a chair as an example, and picture this in your mind - it wouldn't be a chair without its wooden legs. It also wouldn't be a chair (or at least, not a really nice, comfortable one) without its cushion. Take away the wood, the fabric, the cushion stuffing, and what's left? Where is the chair now? It doesn't exist on its own.

Emptiness also means that things, quite simply, *are*, and anything we feel towards them is something we have projected onto them ourselves. For example, a teddy is just a teddy, until we think about where we got it from - who gave it to us, under what circumstances, how long we've had it for, and so on. This creates feelings we have for the teddy. Take those away, and it's just a stuffed bear. Emptiness is the absence of attachment, the acceptance of impermanence, and therefore, a very good thing to recognise.