Applying Emptiness When Stuck in Traffic

Voidness, or emptiness, means the total absence of impossible ways of existing. Nothing can exist established all by itself, by its own power, without relying on anything else. That’s impossible. When, with the understanding of voidness, we deconstruct the deceptive appearance as someone inherently existing as an idiot, for instance, we realize that being an idiot is totally dependent on the mental label and concept of an idiot. This understanding helps us not to get angry when someone is honking his horn wildly and trying to pass us on the road.

Unawareness

Buddha taught in terms of four noble truths. These are four facts that are seen as true by any highly realized being, any arya. These are, basically:

  1. We all face problems in life.
  2. These problems come from causes.
  3. It is possible to have a complete stopping of the problems such that they never return.
  4. Such a stopping is achieved by an understanding that eliminates the cause of the problems.

When we speak about the deepest cause of our problems, it comes down to what is usually translated as “ignorance.” In English, “unawareness” is much better. Ignorance implies that you are stupid, so it’s not a good word. It doesn’t mean that we’re stupid.

There are two different forms of unawareness. With one, we’re unaware of cause and effect in terms of our behavior, that if we act in a destructive way it will cause problems. On a deeper level, we’re talking about unawareness of reality. What happens is that we have the habit of imagining things to exist with inherent existence, which we can also translate as “self-established existence.” This is the habit of grasping for inherent existence. Due to this habit, then automatically, in every moment, our minds make things appear to inherently exist. What this means is that it appears as if there were something on the side of things that, by its own power, establishes them to exist as what they appear to be, without depending on anything else. Unaware that this way of existing does not correspond to anything real, we take things actually to exist in this way.

That’s not so easy to comprehend. Let’s illustrate what this is talking about with the following example. Suppose we’re driving our car and there’s someone in the other lane beeping the horn and trying to pass us. How does this person appear to us? This person appears to be an idiot who is trying to pass us. This person appears to inherently exist as an idiot; he appears to be established as an idiot from his own side, independently of anything. In other words, there is obviously something wrong with this person, making him truly an idiot who is trying to pass me and honking his horn. We hear the horn, see the person, and automatically think, “You idiot!” The person appears like that and we believe that this appearance corresponds to reality: this really is an idiot.

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