The deepest spiritual truth is one in which the arising of questions becomes impossible when it is realized. Once one has this answer, all else is self-revealing. This answer, in a sentence, the sages tell us, is that not anything has ever been created or originated from the very outset. For one, Hui Neng, the sixth Chinese patriarch, has said: Since there is nothing from the start, how can dust [also meaning ignorance, in Buddhism] arise.

Where there is not any thing from the start, the condition would be emptiness. From total emptiness, there is not any thing which can arise. Where not any thing arises, there can only be emptiness. Emptiness and no creation are the same, and mean that not anything exists or has reality (or non-reality).

So anything which it is thought has been created or exits, or has reality, is not so (and this includes thoughts as well).

If there was anything which had actually arisen, from a condition of emptiness, it could not have arisen by way of emptiness: it would have to be self-originating. Being self-caused, it would be independent of reliance on cause. Being independent of cause, it would as well be independent of effect. In other words, it would never effect (or be effected by) the forces of change, of birth, aging or death. Not anything that we know of, that appears to us in this world, fits this description.

This description can fit only emptiness itself—which is the only condition that has ever been present.

And from that condition of emptiness, not anything has ever happened, in actuality, because not anything has ever existed in reality.