You know the problem is, if you investigate things in detail, the nature of things, then you can dissolve everything.

– Physicist Anton Zeilinger

The questions can go on and on, and as long as you stay within the limits of the dream, all the questions can have an answer. But as soon as you step out of the dream, the questions no longer produce the same kind of answer.

– David Eckel

The paradox of attempting to say anything about emptiness is that it is totally empty of anything that can be said about it. Even to say that emptiness cannot be described is a description. We needn’t even “look for” emptiness; it is apparent in all that we suppose we are seeing.

The teachings tell us that “form is emptiness.” As such, form ceases to exist, is “empty of reality.” And emptiness “exists” only as that which forms are empty of. That is, emptiness does not exist as its self; emptiness is also empty of reality, or existence. The phrase ought to read, “form is emptiness, and emptiness is emptiness.” Where emptiness is emptiness, this means that there has been nothing from the start. But, for the sake of discussion, we speak of form and we speak of emptiness. The Madhyamaka Shastra says:

It cannot be called void or not void,

Or both or neither;

But in order to point it out,

It is called “the Void”.

More directly:

Everything we cling to, both outwardly and inwardly, is based upon emptiness. From beginningless time, the entire universe and all existing phenomena have been based upon emptiness.

– Khenchen Palden Sherab Rimpoche and Khempo Tsewang Dongyal Rimpoche

Kate Crosby and Andrew Skilton give some definition:

What one must realize is the emptiness, sunyata of all phenomena, including everything perceived as constituting the universe… For something ‘to exist really’ it must be permanent, unchanging and independent of other factors…. Something eternal has no beginning, and so cannot have been created.

Something which has had no beginning is not the subject of cause and effect or of birth and death. Shantideva says:

For a phenomenon which already exists, what purpose would be served by a cause? Also for something which does not exist, what purpose would be served by a cause… It follows that there is no cessation and there is no coming into existence at any time. Therefore none of this entire universe has come into existence, or ceased…. On analysis, what world of living beings is there? Who, then, will die in it? Who will come to exist? Who has existed?

Chandrakirti says:

What lacks origination-by-itself lacks existence, or origination or emergence; and having lacked emergence, it lacks disappearance, or destruction or non-existence.

Bimal Krishna Matilal says:

The first proposition implies that own-beings or essential natures cannot be created and hence they do not originate (or perish). In other words, own-being is INDEPENDENT and CHANGELESS.

Nagarjuna:

How can there be origination without perishing?

Imperishability is never found in things.

Agent depends upon action;

Action depends on the agent as well.

Apart from dependent arising

One cannot see any cause for their existence.

There does not exist anything

That is not dependently arisen.

Therefore there does not exist anything

That is not empty.

Like a dream, like an illusion,

Like a city of Gandharvas [spirits]

So have arising, enduring

And ceasing been explained.

So, in this illusion-like world

Arising and ceasing might appear.

But ultimately, arising and ceasing

Do not exist.

David Eckel puts it this way:

If something arises conventionally, it has to be subject to change, and something that is subject to change cannot exist ultimately. If something does exist ultimately, it cannot change and thus cannot arise conventionally.

Ramana Maharshi has his own way of saying it:

Everyone is aware of two things, namely himself, the seer, and the world which he sees; and he assumes that they are both real. But that alone is real which has a continuous existence. Judged by this test, the two, the seer and the spectacle, are both unreal: these two appear intermittently. They are apparent in the waking and dream state alone.

Emptiness is devoid of cause and effect, time, or the separation called space. In the waking Dream (as well as the sleeping dream) there are the appearances of these things. So, in the Dream, we check our watches or calendars; travel from point A to point B; and avoid breaking laws, or break them and suffer the effects.

While none of the above are real, in the Dream they are treated as, or believed to be, real. After all, the dreamer himself is believed to be real in the waking Dream, and in the sleeping dream as well.

It is not simply that “the world is a dream”: You too are within that Dream. It’s not just that everything you see is unreal; the seer himself has no reality. Therefore, what can an unreal viewer see but further unreality?

Since the universe is an illusion, to say that anything within it is either good, or bad, or indifferent, is folly. As the Precious Jewel Garland says,

      Grasping the world,

      Which is like a mirage,

      Saying it exists or does not exist, is ignorant.

Here’s an example from David Eckel:

Likewise, when an intelligent person has destroyed all the traces of ignorance with the sun of true knowledge, he does not see ‘mind’ and associated mental phenomena as real.

It appears to us that, being “real” persons, we have a mind which is real. But any concerns which this unreal mind arouse are equally unreal. An unreal mind concerns itself with an unreal universe, within which it purports to exist.

Mervyn Sprung says that the understanding of emptiness: “prescribes a certain way of being in and among things; a certain way of dealing with or treating things; a certain way of comporting oneself.”

That is, as Lao Tzu said, “In daily affairs, I do my utmost to maintain emptiness.”

Nagarjuna said it is to consciously recognize that all of “existence” is, ultimately, nonexistence.” As a magic trick, a dream, or a fairy castle—just so should we consider origination, duration and cessation.” That is, life—and death.

Patrul Rinpoche advised:

Meditate single-mindedly on death, all the time and in every circumstance. While standing up, sitting or lying down, tell yourself: “This is my last act in the world,” and meditate on it with utter conviction.

Here is even simpler advice for those presuming they will die:

Dying is simple. You exhale, followed by no inhale.

Since our life is unreal, our birth and our death are equally unreal. This was a Zen master’s final poem:

Myself of long ago,

In nature non-existent;

Nowhere to go when dead,

Nothing at all.

There is no actual birth or death for the nonexistent, and in fact where not anything has ever been created—in emptiness—not anything has ever actually occurred. In your unreal death, your unreal universe will disappear.

As the Bhagavad Gita puts it,

Behold, now I am

become Death, the

destroyer of “worlds.”