If you continually look to the empirical data to identify yourself or
your environment, you are no doubt to any school of buddhism looking
at conceptions - and as the Tibetan texts say Nangtsul dang gNes Tsul
mi thun pa (the way things are and the way they appear are not the
same). Sitting and doing zazen, giving something to someone, any
event that one thinks I have done this, is conceptual. And conceptual
things are part of Kundzob Denpa, Samvritisatya, or "conventional"
truth. But can there be TWO truths? Can this truth be true when there
is another skin to the onion? The ultimate truth? What is that
ultimate truth? Even this "I" or "ME" is conventional, it is only
nominally existant.

That is the essence of emptiness as Nagarjuna has taught, not that
emptiness is some other inherently existent thing, but that it is the
other quality onto conventional phenomena. Things do not simply "not
exist" when we analize them down to their parts, and those parts'
parts...we don't find that emptiness is itself the inherenly existent
thing behind things. We find that the things that we analized work
exactly as they did before we started to analize them. Emptiness is
that they don't exist in some other fashion: one that Suzy says is
this, but Tommy experiences as that! If you're depressed, try eating
your favorite food and see if that blissful meal changes the fact
that someone you love dearly has passed away and left you feeling sad
and lonely. Don't think cookies and ice cream have that kind of power!

Now, so what, right? So what about this "word play". How does that
change your life or make you free...or create Buddhas? There must be
something to that that Nagarjuna, Shantideva, Je Tsongkhapa and our
own Precious Lord Buddha understood - no, experienced to have such a
profound effect on their teaching.

Today, there are many religions that experience through faith or
logic levels of spirituality that bring them to grasp at selfish
actions less and less and "give up" to others more than before. They
may have a moment of focus that gives them a broadening of the
landscape of their mind. Now, their mind has not been broadened, but
maybe their "cross-hairs" aren't as focused in that moment. Parts of
the brain that are normally active become less active, and latent
areas awaken and begin to render new function that has yet to be
experienced. This may be a physical indication of what is happening
on the inside, but nonetheless something is happening, something to
which all these religious experiences have in commmon. Where is the
difference? Is it God? Shiva? A saint? That would mostly depend on
the "path" to get to that level. Surely one seeking Shiva doesn't
have a "higher experience" seeing Jesus, and likewise a Christian
isn't going to believe that their experience was the Powerful Kali
coming to them in a vision. And Buddhists can experience the same
thing and label it with their vernacular.

However, mediation on emptiness is not (something as other schools
would say is "taboo" and shouldn't be discussed)just another
conceptualization. It is the coming to see directly that the images
and experiences you are having are nothing more than a product of
your own mind! Yes, like an angel sitting on the holodeck of the Star
Ship Enterprise or somewhere wearing virtual-reality glasses and
believing the experience they are having to be Reality! Emptiness is
withdrawing from those projections...but those projections-where are
they from?

They are from your past deeds! From your karma! Karma has taken root
in the mindstream and must render its results when all the conditions
for its ripening come about. You will be forced to see yourself
experiencing the feelings of your fingers hitting the keys of this
keyboard, or tasting the coffee that you had finished before you
began to type or read this, and you will most certainly be forced to
believe that the one who is reading this (you) is inherently real,
though analytically not stable, always changing.

That's what makes everything that you experience seem so real! The
word Tib: Kundzob Denpa or Snskt: Samvritisattya don't
mean "Conventional Truth" or "Conventional Reality". They mean fake
truth. That's an oxymoron! Fake or Artificial. Why we say
conventional in our language is simply to show that humans call these
boxes that these words are being displayed upon "computers", but it
is deceptive because the idea of "computer" is a concept. This thing
infront of me has the characteristics of what the quality
of "computerness" is in my mind. Therefore, I see this thing that
seems to function in a way in which that quality dictates and label
the thing "computer". Now, go further with that idea- for there is
liberation in them thar hills! What about the idea of "box"? Or
screen? or glass? or cords and wires? or black? or square? You come
to the same ends - nothing! All of these labels are your own
construction! We have all participated in labeling things and then
sharing the "recipe" with others. Conventionally speaking, if I asked
you to show me the computer, you don't hand me a shoe - no matter
what philosophical teacher tells you you can! The shoe doesn't have
the bases of information that we would see as befitting those of
the "computerness" thingy.

If you can see that the phenomenal thing that you are examining is
nothing more than a series of shapes and colors and understand, no
SEE that the process of "creation" thereof takes place within your
mind, your getting very close! This is where the Zen school may have
a lot to offer. I have talked to so many students of the Zen school
that seem to know as much about emptiness as they did when they
begin: zilch! Sure, you cannot replace an experience with a name, but
we are humans and need to use the conventional world in some way. For
instance, a monk says to his student, "go to the airport and pick up
my uncle." The student says, "what does he look like?" The monk
replies, "Go to the airport and pick up my uncle." The student asks
with confusion "is he tall, short? fat or thin? Is he old or young?"

Certainly we cannot replace the experience of the uncle with simple
labels and language, but they become sign posts to let you know if
your anywhere close so as not to grab that asian woman by the arm and
drag her towards your taxi! When you fall down, you use the same
ground upon which you fell to get back up! We have fallen onto the
ground of samsara and must use it to stand back up into Nirvana.

This is all deceptive because it appears as truly real. Emptiness
shows that things do not exist in a manner from their own side. The
cookie you ate when you were depressed did not change your mood
because it had a power that was being sent AT you. If it did, your
mood would have changed. That shows that the cookie is empty! Empty
does not mean non-existent, it means non-permanent in a sense. It is
the other side of the coin that you need to see about the things that
you examine.

If we can see the UNFOLDED universe around us, emptiness would show
us the ENFOLDED universe within. Nothing around us is permanent, and
nothing is causing itself...for then it wouldn't cease. As Nagarjuna
liked to say "if it was selfpowered, why would it have a cause? It
wouldn't need that cause and the two could exist apart from each
other."

Now, the path of seeing...what does that mean? The path of seeing is
a direct perception of emptiness- the actual witnessing that the
whole phenomenal perceptual process is a projection from YOU. Yet, it
cannot be done with a conception of "I", or "ME" or even "That". You
ain't having it if you can say "I am experiencing emptiness", because
you just created more conceptions - what's behind the curtain Toto?
Not another curtain! You must be able to study intensely what this
thing "inherent existence" is to understand what its ABSENCE is!
Emptiness is a negative, not another positive conceptual phenomenon
to analyze. It is not something that just hangs out there. Emptiness
is not a quality that exists apart from "form". You have emptiness,
this computer has emptiness, the tast of coffee has emptiness. When
any one of those things ceases in the world, its emptiness is gone! A
lively girl isn't so lively when she dies. Her "life force", a
characteristic which made her seem lively when she was overcome with
it, is gone...and so is her ADJECTIVE! Now, the corpse has its
emptiness. and when the corpse has sufficiently decomposed and on all
points of decomposition through to its final disintegration has
emptiness. But the absence of the corpse, no physical thing there,
does it have emptiness? If its a concept, you have a terrific tango
to dance. Think about that one.

Now, on all those different spiritual experiences, those different
focusings-of-the-mind onto concepts...seem to be incredibly valid
underneath the label. I mean, if all these people are experiencing
something, surely there is something about that thing that has a
reality of its own. What is the owner of that thing? Who is
that "light" or that "warmth" that seems to take away my experience
of time and space, or that i seem to connect to and become "one"
with? (pardon the dangling preposition) This is karma, too! You have
to put into the mechanism what you want to get out of it. This level
is a blessing. But your blessings increase and your are on your way
out of Samsara if you see behind THAT curtain. And your little dog
too!


With love and blessings to all and may this explanation be of benefit
to countless beings; may those that understand this precious "thing"
directly experience it in their meditations, see for themselves and
then teach it to others that are ready for it, and all be free from
the binds of Samsara forever.

Marc Preston Moss
(Sonam Tsering)