The Heart Sutra tells us,

All phenomena are emptiness: They have no characteristics, no birth…

In the Prajnaparamita Sutras, the Buddha taught:

No beginning is perceptible,

No end is perceptible,

And nothing in between is perceptible either.

Chandrakirti wrote:

Phenomena’s true nature itself has no essence—

This is the “emptiness of the true nature.”

It is called “true nature”

Because no one created it.

The emptiness teachings are the epitome of simplicity, once we understand them; and for that understanding we must begin at the beginning: not anything has ever actually appeared, in reality, from the start.

The teachings go on to say that what we think we see as forms—ourselves included—are not real as they appear to us; in fact, the seer of what is seen—ourself—is not real as it appears to us.

The bottom line is that, with not anything ever having been created, not anything has ever actually occurred, in truth.

But because whatever appears to us seems real, the teachings go into helpful explanations to demonstrate each point. For at least 2,500 years the explanations have begun by examining how “form is emptiness”, because it is difficult for one who perceives himself as form to recognize the unreality of form (hint: not anything has ever arisen, in actuality).

Among organized explanations up to our era, Khenpo Tsuyltrim Gyamtso’s book The Sun of Wisdom will be quoted below. (“Wisdom” is understanding emptiness.)

Knowing from the start that forms have never actually been originated (what they are empty of is reality), the Tibetan Rinpoche says:

In the Sutra Requested by the Bodhisattva “Shining Intelligence,” Buddha taught: “Form does not come and it does not go.” In the very same way, all phenomena are empty of coming and going… Just as appearances in dreams, experiences in dreams, and thoughts in dreams neither come from anywhere nor go anywhere, so it is with all phenomena, and it is in this way that we have to analyze.

So, the explanations continue: not anything comes and goes (moves, or happens) because not anything has ever occurred. I won’t persist in the explanations (why they are asserted: that’s in the book) but focus on the general points.

There being not anything from the start—emptiness—not anything has ever been caused to exist. Emptiness is empty, and causation is one of the (endless) things it is empty of. Therefore, any thing which appears has been caused to appear, and thus we know all appearances are empty of reality.

Further, any thing which seems to appear does so within what we perceive as a universe. If there’s anything we can observe about the universe, its inter-dependence; not anything can exist in entire independence: all things are in relation to some other things. Not anything stands out starkly as real in itself. This is called co-dependence, or dependently-arisen. If nothing else, appearances would depend on having been caused, or at least on any conditions that preceded the appearance (which are equally unreal).

Some people ask, what would be the characteristics of something that truly existed? If something truly existed, it would exist on its own, by itself, objectively, without depending on anything else…

It would have to exist independently, with its own inherent nature; it would have to exist without depending on anything else and be impervious to causes and conditions acting upon it. If it were like that, then we could say it was real…

Thus, arising, abiding, and ceasing can exist only in mutual dependence—for one to exist the others must exist, but for those others to exist the first one must exist. They therefore do not truly exist; they are dependently-arisen mere appearances.

The arising of anything, for example, depends upon time; arising is co-dependent upon time, therefore not independent. Time depends upon movement, such as arising, to be a measurement of; time too is inter-dependent.

Your body is dependent upon your brain; your brain is dependent upon your body. Activities, such as thoughts, are dependent upon your brain to process; your brain is dependent upon such actions to function.

View all appearances of forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations and thoughts as appearing while empty, empty while appearing; understand all your experiences to be the union of appearance and emptiness, like illusions and dreams…

In this way, we can see that whatever arises in dependence upon causes and conditions is empty of true existence because it does not really arise at all.

The true nature of appearances is that they’ve never been born.

– Milarepa

What then is the nature of the arising that we see ‘happening’ in the world all the time? It is mere appearance, just like the arising that appears to happen in dreams. As long as we dream and do not know that we are dreaming, we believe that the ‘arising’ we see happening in the dream is real. As soon as we recognize that we are dreaming, however, we know that the arising is just a mere appearance that has no reality to it at all...

However, because we believe so strongly in the existence of things and because we keep having all of these experiences that seem to confirm our belief that things are real, it is difficult for us to gain certainty in emptiness. This is why we need to study emptiness so much after all. It is just as if we had a dream and we did not know that we were dreaming. If someone in the dream came up to us and said, “None of this is real. It does not really exists,” we would not easily believe it…

However, in order to understand the true nature of reality, we must realize that nothing ever really happens. We must realize that arising and birth are not real.

Therefore, Nagarjuna analyzes causes, conditions, and arising, and he proves that they are in fact empty of any inherent nature… They do not arise from themselves, from something other than themselves, from both themselves and something other than themselves, and they do not arise without any cause at all. These are the only four possible ways in which things could arise, and since none of them are valid, things do not truly arise. Therefore, things do not truly exist…

Nagarjuna proves the validity of these statements with logical reasoning… Thus we can see that it is indeed possible to realize the nature of reality by gaining an understanding of emptiness.

An example of how this understanding of emptiness can be practically applied:

In fact, this is not a nihilistic view because there exists no self to have any nihilistic view. There can be a nihilistic view only if there is someone to hold it, but since there is no one to have any view, then there can be no nihilism. Furthermore, since the thought of nihilism neither arises nor abides nor ceases, there can be no nihilism in genuine reality.

The net result of this view is what has come to be known as liberation or, more accurately, awakening from the dream.

We could say that samsara is similar to dreaming and not knowing it is a dream—it is simply a misperception or mistaken understanding of the events that appear to be happening… The very identity of what things are is that they never happen; they never come into existence… If we can simply recognize that we are dreaming, however, then all that trouble just vanishes…

Then you will see that samsara is just the erroneous belief that suffering is real, the erroneous belief that birth and death are real. Once we are free from the thought that suffering is real, we are no longer in samsara. Once we are free from the thought that birth and death are real, we will no longer be in samsara…

Birth, aging, and death are therefore like appearances in dreams. They are dependently-arisen mere appearances that have no true existence.

Like a dream, like an illusion,

Like a city of gandharvas [spirits],

That’s how birth and that’s how living,

That’s how dying are taught to be.

– Nagarjuna

In his Authentic Portrait of the Middle Way, Milarepa sang:

All, animate, inanimate—the three realms

Unborn and nonexistent from the outset.