On Why Emptiness Must Not Become Escape

On Why I Doubt Those Who Speak Too Easily of “Emptiness”

I often suspect that the more urgently a person says, “All things are empty,” the more likely it is that he is not really speaking of emptiness, but searching for a noble hiding place for himself. When wounded, he says emptiness; when he wounds others, he also says emptiness. Seeing injustice in the world, he says emptiness; encountering responsibilities he ought to bear, he says no-self. If such words are merely a momentary self-comfort, they may still be understandable. But if they are mistaken for the ultimate meaning of Buddhism, they become extremely dangerous.

I am not opposed to speaking of emptiness. On the contrary, without emptiness, Buddhism would be unable to break our many attachments to self, others, nation, ethnicity, morality, success and failure, reputation, body, and emotion. The deepest suffering of human life is not only that we encounter circumstances, but that immediately after encountering them, we manufacture within them a hardened “I”: this I is hurt, this I is wronged, this I must prove itself, this I must reclaim justice, this I cannot lose. Thus the circumstance itself is only one arrow, yet through our interpretations, memories, anger, and fear, we create a second, third, and fourth arrow.

In the Saṃyukta Āgama, the Buddha taught the parable of the two arrows. When ordinary people encounter painful feeling, it is as if they are struck by two arrows. The first arrow is the suffering brought about by bodily and mental conditions; the second arrow is the sorrow, grief, distress, anger, and grasping that arise in response to that suffering. Noble disciples are not necessarily free from the first arrow, but they are no longer struck by the second. The more I contemplate this simile, the more profound it becomes. It does not allow us to romanticize practice, as though practitioners would never feel pain, fall ill, be misunderstood, or experience the ripening of past karma. Nor does it allow us to place suffering entirely upon external conditions, as though we were merely innocent victims struck by the world. The cool sobriety of Buddhism lies here: some suffering will arise, but you do not necessarily need to manufacture, on top of that suffering, a self who suffers.

Yet this is precisely where emptiness is misused. Some hear that “suffering is empty” and assume suffering need not be addressed; they hear that “self cannot be found” and assume responsibility cannot be found; they hear that “good and evil are also provisional names” and assume good and evil have no distinction. This is not emptiness. It is using emptiness as an anesthetic. True emptiness does not numb people; it wakes them up.

I recall a kind of question and answer often found in Abhidharma or sectarian treatises. Someone asks: Why did the Buddha not answer certain questions posed by non-Buddhists? The non-Buddhist asks, “The soul was originally non-existent and has now come into being; after it has come into being, is it eternal or annihilated?” The Buddha does not answer. The treatise explains that the Buddha thought, “There is ultimately no soul. How could one ask whether something originally non-existent has now come into being, and after having come into being, is eternal or annihilated?” In other words, the question itself already assumes a “soul” or substantial self, and only afterward asks whether it is eternal or annihilated. The Buddha’s silence is not because he does not know, but because the question itself is “non-existent and unreal.” To answer eternal or annihilated regarding an object that was never established in the first place would already be to accept a false premise.

This helps me greatly in understanding emptiness. Buddhism does not answer every question simply because it is asked, nor does it establish every concept simply because it appears in thought. Sometimes the Buddha’s refusal to answer is not silence, but a refusal to participate in a wrongly designed debate. If someone asks, “Where does the eternal self go after death?” Buddhism cannot directly answer “it goes” or “it does not go,” because the eternal self assumed in the question cannot be found in the first place. Likewise, if someone asks, “If there is no self, then does responsibility also not exist?” this too is not a pure question, for it first builds responsibility upon a substantial self, and then uses no-self to negate responsibility. Buddhism does not speak in this way.

The same passage also says that a non-Buddhist asked the Buddha, “Does one act and receive the result oneself?” The Buddha said this should not be answered. Why? Because the non-Buddhist presupposes “I act and I receive,” whereas the World-Honored One constantly teaches no-self. If one says, “one acts and receives oneself,” one falls into the eternalist view that there is a real self that created karma in the past and receives its result now. The non-Buddhist then asks, “Does another act and another receive?” The Buddha again does not answer. For the non-Buddhist may mean that a creator god acts and I receive, whereas the World-Honored One always teaches that beings experience the results of their own bodily, verbal, and mental actions. To say “another acts and another receives” would fall into an external ruler or other-power determinism, destroying the responsibility of beings for their own actions. The non-Buddhist again asks, “Is there no acting and no receiving?” The Buddha also does not answer. For the non-Buddhist may mean that pleasure and pain do not arise from causes, whereas the Buddha constantly teaches causes and conditions. To say “there is no acting and no receiving” would fall into annihilationism, canceling moral causality altogether.

Reading this, I understand more clearly: the difficulty of Buddhism lies not in how many answers it gives, but in how often it requires us first to examine our questions. Very often we force Buddhism to answer questions that are wrongly framed, and then blame Buddhism for not providing the comfort we wanted. For instance, we ask, “If there is no self, who is responsible?” This question already assumes that without a substantial self, there can be no responsibility. But Buddhism answers: no substantial self does not mean no causality; no permanent ruler does not mean actions have no consequences; no unchanging “I” does not mean there is no continuity among streams of consciousness, karmic seeds, habitual tendencies, and manifest actions.

Thus those who speak too easily of emptiness are often not those who understand emptiness too deeply, but those who have not first examined their questions. They understand emptiness as a kind of cancellation: canceling suffering, responsibility, good and evil, conventional reality, the feelings of others, and the things they themselves ought to do. But Buddhist emptiness has never been such cancellation. Emptiness does not mean “nothing exists”; it means “without intrinsic nature.” It does not mean “there is no need to deal with things”; it means “do not grasp them as truly existent.” It does not mean “causality is invalid”; it means “precisely because causality is without intrinsic nature, it can continue, transform, and unfold.”

Nāgārjuna says in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: “Whatever is dependently arisen, that I call emptiness; that is also a dependent designation; that itself is the middle way.” These four lines, I believe, are the first gate preventing emptiness from becoming escape. Nāgārjuna does not say, “All is empty, therefore nothing needs to be cared for.” He says: because things arise from causes and conditions, they lack intrinsic nature; because they lack intrinsic nature, they can be provisionally designated; because they are provisionally designated, they are neither truly existent nor utterly non-existent. The middle way lies here, not in escape.

If suffering were truly existent, it could never be transformed. If suffering were completely non-existent, there would be no need for compassion. Precisely because suffering is dependently arisen, it can both be felt and transformed; it must not be grasped as an eternal essence, nor lightly dismissed as nothing. This is extremely subtle. Many errors in the world arise because people cannot acknowledge both sides at once: on one hand, something really happened; on the other, it is not established by intrinsic nature.

I have often found human beings strange. When facing our own suffering, we often regard suffering as very real; when facing the suffering of others, we like to say, “All is empty.” When we ourselves are insulted, every word feels like a knife; when others are insulted, we say, “Do not be attached.” When we are misunderstood, we demand that the whole world understand our conditions; when others make mistakes, we fix them as hopeless people. This asymmetry is precisely the technique of self-grasping. It knows how to use Buddhist language, but refuses to be illuminated by Buddhism.

Therefore, I would first establish a simple criterion: if a person’s emptiness makes him more honest, more responsible, more able to apologize, more able to establish boundaries, and more able to sympathize with the suffering of others, then that emptiness is probably on the right path. If a person’s emptiness makes him colder, more evasive, less willing to take responsibility, more dismissive of causality, and more contemptuous of others’ suffering, then it is not emptiness. It is self-defense decorated with Buddhist terminology.

Emptiness in Buddhism does not cancel the world; it loosens the absolute domination that the world has over us. Emptiness does not shut the door; it opens the window. When the door is shut, one hides in isolation. When the window is opened, air enters, light enters, and one sees that things outside are not cast in iron, not necessarily this way, and not forever unchangeable.

On the Two Truths: How One Can Be Responsible in the Conventional and Not Bound in the Ultimate

The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā also says: “The Buddhas teach the Dharma to beings by relying on the two truths: the conventional truth and the ultimate truth. If one cannot distinguish the two truths, one cannot understand the true meaning of the profound Dharma. Without relying on the conventional truth, the ultimate truth cannot be attained; without attaining the ultimate truth, nirvāṇa cannot be attained.” If these lines are truly understood, one can no longer use emptiness to escape reality.

I especially revere the line, “Without relying on the conventional truth, the ultimate truth cannot be attained.” It means that the ultimate is not obtained by bypassing reality. You cannot refuse to face parents, partners, friends, society, institutions, body, language, money, illness, and death, and then claim you have attained the ultimate. If one will not even bear conventional responsibilities, yet claims to abide in ultimate truth, one has merely turned the ultimate into a fugitive’s cave.

In conventional truth, suffering has consequences. Words wound people. Institutions oppress people. Discrimination creates fear. Lies destroy trust. Violence ruins bodies. Poverty limits choices. If someone says, “All these are empty, so they do not matter,” that is not Buddhism; it is cruelty.

But in ultimate truth, these have no intrinsic nature. The so-called perpetrator is not an eternally fixed essence of evil; the so-called victim is not an essence forever condemned to suffer. Events arise from countless causes and conditions. Emotions arise through contact, feeling, perception, and volition. Memory is repeatedly elaborated. The sense of self is appropriated by manas. Language then freezes all this into a story. Ultimate truth does not negate the conventional; it prevents the conventional from solidifying into a prison.

Thus I am willing to understand the two truths in one plain sentence: “Be responsible in the conventional; do not cling in the ultimate.”

If one speaks only of the conventional and does not know the ultimate, one easily becomes trapped in anger. One turns enemies into absolute enemies, oneself into an absolute victim, and events into untransformable fate. If one speaks only of the ultimate and disregards the conventional, one easily becomes cold. One says all things are illusions, forgetting that beings within illusions still fear. One says all things are dreams, forgetting that knives within dreams can still wake people in terror. One says no-self, forgetting that causal continuity has never lost its function.

The Buddha refused to answer questions such as “self-made and self-received,” “other-made and other-received,” and “no making and no receiving” precisely because such questions do not abide in the right view of the two truths. If one says “self-made and self-received,” one mistakes conventional causality for an ultimately real self. If one says “other-made and other-received,” one pushes one’s responsibility onto another being or ruler. If one says “no making and no receiving,” one destroys conventional causality altogether. The Buddhist middle way does not choose one of these three; it sees that conventionally, bodily, verbal, and mental actions and their results continue without loss; ultimately, the agent and receiver cannot be found as permanent, unitary rulers.

Applied to life, this is direct. If someone owes you money, conventionally you may demand repayment, gather evidence, and resort to law; ultimately, you need not freeze yourself as an eternal victim, nor the other as an eternal villain. If someone exploits you, conventionally you may sever the relationship and establish boundaries; ultimately, you observe that the event arose from causes and conditions, and you need not allow anger to become a new karmic seed. If someone discriminates against others, conventionally you may point out the error and protect those harmed; ultimately, you know that prejudice too arises from ignorance, fear, education, media, class anxiety, and many other conditions. Thus you stop the behavior without feeding hatred with hatred.

The Diamond Sūtra says, “One should give rise to the mind without abiding anywhere.” I think this sentence is often misunderstood. Some remember only “without abiding,” and forget “give rise to the mind.” The Buddha is not teaching us to turn our hearts into stone, nor to make no response to the world. “Without abiding” means not abiding in forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, or mental objects; not abiding in the marks of self, person, sentient being, or life-span. “Give rise to the mind” means still giving rise to generosity, compassion, protection, and bodhicitta. If one does not abide but also does not give rise to the mind, one approaches dead wood. If one gives rise to the mind but abides everywhere, one falls into ordinary worldliness. The subtlety of the scripture lies in not allowing us to lean to either side.

People often ask: If everything is empty, why still do good? I would rather ask: If everything were not empty, how could doing good be possible? If human nature were fixed, evil people forever evil, good people forever good, institutions forever as they are, hatred forever as it is, trauma forever as it is, then practice, education, repentance, reform, and compassion would all be meaningless. Precisely because all things lack intrinsic nature, bad habits can change, afflictions can transform, wounds can heal, institutions can be repaired, language can be relearned, and the mind, when conditions change, need not continue flowing according to old habits.

Thus emptiness is not the enemy of action; it is the ground of action. It merely reduces self-worship in action. Those who do not know emptiness often act in order to prove themselves righteous. Those who know a little emptiness act simply because something needs to be addressed, some suffering can be reduced, someone needs protection, some institution needs correction. The former easily cling to victory and defeat; the latter still care about results, but do not turn results into their identity.

On How Yogācāra Prevents Me from Throwing the World Back onto the World

When I first studied Yogācāra, I was most drawn to the phrase “all is transformed by consciousness.” If read crudely, it seems to provide a strange comfort: since everything is transformed by consciousness, perhaps the external world need not be taken too seriously; since conditions do not depart from consciousness, perhaps others’ suffering is merely a manifestation of mind; since self and dharmas are both provisional, why be so attached to worldly right and wrong?

But the Cheng Weishi Lun does not allow me to be so lazy. It says that when the world and the sacred teachings speak of self and dharmas, these are merely provisionally established, not truly existent; their appearances are provisionally designated based on transformations of consciousness. This does not tell us to cancel the world, but to know how the world is established. It does not tell us to deny suffering, but to see how suffering is constructed, appropriated, and continued within consciousness. If I understand Yogācāra as “the outside world is unimportant,” I have merely turned Yogācāra into a refined egocentrism.

The sharpness of Yogācāra lies not in allowing me to deny the world, but in making it impossible for me to blame the world completely. For from the Yogācāra perspective, the world I encounter is not merely external conditions arriving before me. It is also the joint participation of past imprints, seeds of language, the two graspings of self and dharmas, the measuring activity of manas, and the elaborations of consciousness. This does not mean external conditions have no effect, nor that others’ harmful actions are not harmful. It means that what kind of world harmful actions become in my mind is also related to my stream of consciousness. This is difficult to accept, because it does not allow me to be purely a victim.

People like to see the world as an external enemy. It is simpler that way. If I suffer, it is because he is bad. If I am angry, it is because society is bad. If I become extreme, it is because the age is bad. If I am cold, it is because beings are not worth saving. These statements sometimes contain partial truth, because external conditions do have power. But if there is only this part, practice cannot begin. Practice begins with an uncomfortable question: beyond these external conditions, how has my mind participated in the production of suffering?

The Cheng Weishi Lun says that the real self and real dharmas imagined by the deluded are entirely non-existent, merely established according to deluded emotion; the self-like and dharma-like appearances transformed by inner consciousness exist, yet are not real self or real dharmas. Since they appear similar to such, they are called provisional. This word “similar” is crucial. Many things in life have power precisely because they are “similar”: seeming humiliation, seeming denial, seeming loss of everything, seeming inability ever to recover, seeming that the other person is hopeless. They are not truly existent by nature, but they are enough to disturb the mind. They are not absolutely nothing, yet they do not exist as they appear.

I often feel that the beginning of practice is not immediately seeing emptiness, but first seeing this “seeming.” I think I am seeing the world, but I am seeing a “seeming world.” I think I am seeing others, but I am seeing “seeming others.” I think I am seeing myself, but I am seeing a “seeming self” transformed by long-standing imprints. Yogācāra does not deny all experience; it says experience has already been processed by consciousness. If I do not know this, I will take processed goods as originals, elaborations as facts, and emotional scripts as truth.

This is especially important for modern people. Much of the world we see every day is no longer direct experience, but a world processed by media, social platforms, headlines, algorithms, editing, and retelling. These external processes then touch seeds already present within us. Thus we do not see a person, but a label; not an event, but a war of positions; not causes and conditions, but friend and enemy. If Yogācāra still has power today, it lies in reminding me that after external images enter through eye and ear, they still pass through layers of inner seeds and discrimination before becoming the world at which I am angry.

On the Ālaya-Consciousness as a Waterfall, and Why People Cannot Become Sages Overnight

The Cheng Weishi Lun says that the ālaya-consciousness “constantly turns like a waterfall.” I have always felt this to be one of the Yogācāra images closest to lived experience. A waterfall is continuous, yet at each moment it is not the same water. If one says it is cut off, there is clearly a current; if one says it is permanent, every moment is changing. The treatise says that “constant” means a similar continuity from beginningless time, while “turning” means arising and ceasing moment by moment, changing from before to after. Because the result arises, it is not annihilated; because the cause ceases, it is not eternal. Neither annihilated nor eternal: this is the principle of dependent arising.

This makes me think of personality. People often say, “This is just how I am.” This statement is half true and half false. If it were entirely untrue, why would our habits be so stubborn? If it were entirely true, why would practice and education still be possible? A person’s anger, fear, craving, shame, and pride have the inertia of a waterfall. They did not suddenly form today, nor will they disappear immediately because I read a passage of scripture today. Yet they are also not fixed essences. If they were fixed essences, Buddhism would be meaningless. If they had no continuity at all, karmic results could not be established.

Therefore, practice cannot be romantic. One cannot understand emptiness today and be completely free of self-grasping tomorrow. One cannot speak of Yogācāra today and have all seeds cease manifesting tomorrow. One cannot speak of compassion today and have anger vanish tomorrow. A waterfall is a waterfall because it has carved its course for a long time. Practice, too, must long redirect the current.

The Cheng Weishi Lun says that seeds are both innate and newly arisen, and that stained and pure dharmas grow through perfuming. The perfumer and the perfumed arise and cease together, causing seeds to grow, like sesame seeds absorbing fragrance. This teaching is plain and cruel. It tells me that every mental action is producing the future self—not fatalistically, but directionally. One more act of anger today makes the road of anger smoother tomorrow. One more act of observation today makes the road of clarity smoother tomorrow.

For this reason, I remain somewhat doubtful of language that proclaims, “After sudden awakening, all is unobstructed.” I do not deny sudden awakening; I doubt the ordinary person’s tendency to imagine sudden awakening as an escape from gradual cultivation. If the seeds in the ālaya-consciousness continue, if manas has since beginningless time constantly examined and measured, if self-delusion, self-view, self-pride, and self-love have long been associated with the defiled mind, then a change in view is certainly important, but it must enter repeated perfuming before it truly changes the direction of life.

People like climaxes; they dislike repetition. Yet most of practice is completed in repetition: repeatedly seeing oneself become angry, repeatedly pausing between feeling and grasping, repeatedly not turning the other into an absolute enemy, repeatedly apologizing, repeatedly taking responsibility, repeatedly not letting suffering expand further from oneself. None of this is glamorous, but it truly changes seeds.

On Manas, or the Tireless Defense Attorney in My Mind

If the ālaya-consciousness is like a waterfall, then manas is like a defense attorney beside that waterfall who never rests. It constantly says: this is me, this is mine, this is the injury I suffered, this is the respect I deserve, this is what was taken from me, this is the dignity I must protect.

The Cheng Weishi Lun says that manas “constantly examines and measures,” and that before transformation of basis, it constantly takes the storehouse consciousness as its object and grasps it as the inner self, associating with four afflictions: self-delusion, self-view, self-pride, and self-love. These four can almost explain most of ordinary daily psychology. Self-delusion is not knowing no-self. Self-view is falsely taking what is not self as self. Self-pride is the elevation of mind based on the grasped self. Self-love is deep attachment to the grasped self.

I sometimes feel these four afflictions are not abstract terms, but the four most familiar voices in daily life. When someone criticizes me, self-delusion says, “There really is an I who has been hurt.” Self-view says, “This wounded I is real.” Self-pride says, “How dare he treat me like this?” Self-love says, “I must protect myself; I cannot let myself be damaged.” Then consciousness begins elaborating, gathering evidence for them, composing history, designing counterattacks, seeking allies, finally turning a brief circumstance into a complete theater of birth and death.

This does not mean that one who is harmed should not protect oneself. On the contrary, conventionally one must protect oneself. But Buddhism asks me to distinguish: must protection be built upon self-grasping? Must refusal be built upon hatred? Must establishing boundaries first require turning the other into an eternal villain? If manas is in power, the answer is usually yes. It believes that without hatred one cannot leave, without anger there is no justice, and without attachment to self one cannot protect oneself. Practice is gradually discovering another possibility: clarity without hatred, firmness without self-sanctification, departure without repeatedly worshiping the enemy in one’s mind.

The Cheng Weishi Lun says that the defiled mind causes the outward-turning consciousnesses always to become defiled; because of this, beings cycle in birth and death and cannot escape. This sentence helps me understand that what causes me to revolve is not only external conditions, but my inner appropriation of them. Conditions come and go, but manas incorporates each one into the history of “me.” It turns a sentence into my wound, a failure into my identity, a success into my worth, another person’s gaze into proof of my existence.

Without practice, perhaps one spends one’s life working for this defense attorney. Outwardly one may have career, ideals, faith, and learning; inwardly one is only defending “me.” Even practice can become new material for it: I understand emptiness; I understand Yogācāra; I am clearer than others; I am more compassionate than others; I am less attached than others. This is the most cunning feature of manas. It can nourish the self with worldly dharmas, and also with Buddhist dharmas.

Therefore I increasingly feel that genuine Buddhist language must be able to bite back at the one who uses it. If I speak of emptiness, that emptiness must first pierce my grasping. If I speak of Yogācāra, that Yogācāra must first illuminate my discrimination. If I speak of no-self, that no-self must first dismantle my superiority in the name of no-self. Otherwise Buddhism is merely new clothing for manas.

On Why Suchness Must Not Be Turned into the Final Substance

I once understood very well why people love words like suchness, Buddha-nature, original awakening, and pure mind. Life in this world is too insecure. The body decays, relationships change, wealth is lost, ages overturn, memory fades, and even the beliefs we trust are worn down by time. In such impermanence, people naturally long for something unmoving. If Buddhism speaks of suchness, people easily imagine suchness as that unmoving thing.

But the Cheng Weishi Lun speaks of suchness with great care. It says that suchness too is a provisionally established name. To block the denial that it is nothing, it is spoken of as existent; to block attachment to it as existent, it is spoken of as empty; lest it be mistaken for illusion, it is spoken of as real; because its principle is not inverted, it is called suchness. It also says that unlike other schools, it does not posit a real permanent dharma apart from form and mind and call that suchness. These lines almost block every path by which people try to hide inside suchness. Suchness is not an entity apart from form and mind; not a permanent ruler replacing a divine self; not a safe zone allowing me to evade causality.

If I turn suchness into a substance, it has already been contaminated by me. I need it, possess it, make it my final refuge. Such a suchness is not the perfected nature free from imagined construction, but imagined construction under the most majestic name.

I think Buddhism is difficult precisely because it must speak of suchness, otherwise people fall into annihilationism; yet it must also constantly prevent people from substantializing suchness, otherwise they fall into eternalism. It says existence to block nihilistic denial; it says emptiness to block grasping at existence; it says reality to block illusionism; it says suchness to point toward non-inverted dharma-nature. If I cling to only one side, I misunderstand its intention.

This reminds me of the fourfold two truths in Madhyamaka. First emptiness is used to refute existence; then neither existence nor emptiness refutes attachment to emptiness; then non-duality itself is refuted; finally, even “language ceases and thought is cut off” cannot become an abiding place. Yogācāra uses different language, but its spirit is equally rigorous. It says consciousness-only to remove belief in truly existent external objects; but if one grasps consciousness-only as truly existent, that too becomes dharma-grasping. It says suchness to reveal dharma-nature disclosed by the twofold emptiness; but if one grasps suchness as a real eternal dharma apart from form and mind, it becomes another kind of non-Buddhist substance.

Therefore, if I wish to speak of suchness, I had better first ask myself: Am I speaking of dharma-nature after grasping has ceased, or am I searching for an eternal room in which I need not face life? Am I breaking false discrimination, or constructing subtler self-comfort? When I say “originally pure,” have I forgotten that I am still perfuming hatred now? When I say “unborn and unceasing,” am I using it to evade apology, correction, care, and action in the conventional world?

On Misapprehended Emptiness: Why the Most Dangerous Thing Is Not Disbelieving Buddhism, but Misusing It

I often think that non-Buddhist errors are sometimes less frightening than misuse within Buddhism itself. Those who disbelieve Buddhism simply do not take this path. Those who misuse Buddhism may use Buddhism to bless their afflictions. The greedy speak of freedom; the angry speak of justice; the deluded speak of the inconceivable; the arrogant speak of superior views; the evasive speak of emptiness. Thus Buddhist language becomes armor for affliction.

There is a passage in the Cheng Weishi Lun especially worth caution. It criticizes those who, relying on the “emptiness that removes marks,” deny the eighth consciousness and all dharmas, thereby rendering stained and pure causality, knowing, abandoning, realizing, and cultivating all unreal, producing a great wrong view. It says that if all dharmas were not real in any way, bodhisattvas should not diligently gather the provisions for awakening in order to abandon birth and death. This is precisely the critique of misapprehended emptiness. If emptiness causes one to deny stained and pure causality, deny stages of practice, deny bodhisattva provisions, it is not prajñā but wrong view.

This passage is powerful. It tells me that emptiness must not make practice unnecessary. If everything can be canceled by “emptiness,” why should bodhisattvas practice the six perfections? Why cut off the two obstacles? Why transform the basis? Why benefit beings over long kalpas through patience, diligence, meditation, and wisdom? If emptiness leads to laziness, it is not Buddhist emptiness. Buddhist emptiness should lead to diligence that abides nowhere.

I wish to bring this principle into daily life. If after making a mistake I say “all is empty,” that is misapprehended emptiness. If after hurting someone I say “there is no self,” that is misapprehended no-self. If I refuse to correct my habits but say “originally pure,” that is misapprehended original purity. If I am cold toward another’s suffering but say “everyone has their karma,” that is misapprehended causality. True understanding of causality is not coldly saying “that is his karma,” but clearly asking, “Within these causes and conditions, can I reduce suffering?”

On How I Wish to Use These Scriptures and Treatises in Daily Life

If scriptures and treatises remain only on the desk, they easily cultivate an elegant ignorance. I want to place several sentences from the Cheng Weishi Lun into daily life, like carrying small mirrors in my pocket.

When I feel hurt, I remember: “Self and dharmas are spoken of by provisional designation.” This does not tell me to deny the hurt, but reminds me that the wounded self at this moment is being jointly constructed by bodily feeling, memory, language, manas grasping self, and the elaboration of consciousness.

When I feel absolutely right, I remember: “If one grasps consciousness-only as truly existent, like grasping external objects, that too is dharma-grasping.” This reminds me that even ideas that look Buddhist may be another form of grasping.

When I fall into old habits, I remember: “It constantly turns like a waterfall.” This lets me avoid despair over temporary failure, because a waterfall can change direction; it also prevents pride over temporary clarity, because the waterfall still has old momentum.

When I want to use emptiness to escape, I remember the Cheng Weishi Lun’s critique of misapprehended emptiness. If my emptiness makes me not practice, not abandon, not realize, not take responsibility, not be compassionate, then it is not emptiness; it is my laziness wearing a robe.

When I face worldly injustice, I remember: “Because the mind is defiled, beings are defiled; because the mind is purified, beings are purified.” This does not tell me only to cultivate inwardly and ignore the outer world. It reminds me that if I oppose defiled conditions with a defiled mind, the world simply gains one more portion of defilement. A purified mind is not weakness; it is not allowing hatred to become the master of action.

Finally, I wish to encourage myself in this way:

When circumstances arise, do not rush to call them empty.

First see how they arise, how they are felt by me, named by me, placed into old stories by me, appropriated as “me” by manas, and prepared to perfume new seeds.

Then contemplate their emptiness.

Contemplate that they arise from causes and conditions; contemplate that they lack intrinsic nature; contemplate that they are like illusions and dreams; contemplate that self and dharmas are merely provisional designations; contemplate that if this mind no longer grasps, this moment need not become fuel for the next cycle of birth and death.

And finally, still act.

Say what should be said. Stop what should be stopped. Leave what should be left. Bear what should be borne. Correct what should be corrected. Be compassionate where compassion is needed. Only after acting, do not incorporate the result into my success or failure; do not incorporate justice into my greatness; do not incorporate practice into my superiority; do not incorporate Buddhism into a new palace for manas.

Only then does emptiness not resemble escape, Yogācāra not resemble self-enclosure, suchness not resemble metaphysical comfort, and no-self not resemble evasion of responsibility.

If Buddhism is truly a mirror, may it reveal how I escape.
If Buddhism is truly medicine, may it first cure my deepest self-grasping.
If Buddhism is truly a raft, may it carry me into the world without drowning in the world, free from marks yet not apart from beings.

What I now understand as practice is probably only this:

In the conventional, do not evade causality.
In the ultimate, do not establish intrinsic nature.
In Yogācāra, observe how mind constructs the world.
In Madhyamaka, do not even cling to this observation as wisdom possessed by me.

If one day, when I say “all is empty,” my heart can still give rise to tenderness toward a concrete suffering person;
if one day, when I say “no-self,” I can still honestly admit my own mistakes;
if one day, when I say “Yogācāra,” I still do not belittle others’ real situations;
if one day, when I say “suchness,” I am still willing to wash dishes, apologize, work, care for the sick, stop injustice, and bear karmic results;
then perhaps I will have understood a little: Buddhism does not ask me to leave life, but to stop living life in the manner of ignorance.