From the author: To understand the Buddhist idea of ​​emptiness, you first need to understand the most important thing: Buddhism generally speaks to us not about the world, but about the mind. That is, the essence of his conversations about emptiness is not to explain to us “how the world works,” but to change our worldview. That is, to change our view of the world so that we can achieve Liberation. That is, he is trying to explain to us not so much the “nature of things” as the nature of “our thoughts.” Buddhism generally tells us very little about the “world.” And, by the way, for the same reason! – If the basis of everything is “emptiness,” then all such talk about it is also empty. The world must be Perceived Directly, and not pontificate about it. And you need to speak only when it makes sense. For example, to change your view of the world and begin to Perceive it Directly. So what Buddhism tells us is essentially not so much a philosophy as it is “psychotherapy.” And when he speaks to us not so much in terms of “mind” as in “things,” it is simply for greater persuasiveness. Not everyone is inclined to think too much about their own mind... Well, let the physicists explain the world. (Which they do, and, by the way, in a very pleasant way for Buddhism - indeed, if the world can be described as a set of wave functions, then where are the things? What could be the best “proof” of emptiness?) The article is primarily addressed to followers of Buddhism , and for its 100% perception it presupposes that the reader has some knowledge in this area, but in general it may turn out to be interesting not only for them. Among all the unusual views of Buddhism, perhaps the most mysterious is the concept of “emptiness”. Very few people (at least in Europe) seem to understand what is meant here. That is, for those who have seen the Emptiness, this idea obviously looks elementary simple and self-evident, but for some reason they cannot explain it in words to those who want to see it, but cannot yet. This is probably very difficult indeed. In any case, in order to evoke the Insight of Emptiness in its followers, Buddhism uses many different means - from deep meditation to abstruse logical reasoning, and people have to use these means for years. In this article, we will still try to understand at least a little what Buddhism means when it speaks “about the Emptiness of all things / everything that exists.” And maybe this will help us to see it more quickly. And without the Insight of the Emptiness we cannot count on very much progress on the path of Buddhism - since this issue occupies a very important place in Buddhism, some even consider it to be central. In ancient times, however, there were schools in Buddhism that tried to dispute this issue... But they lost. They have long been gone, and over the past millennia, the principled opponents of this idea have been looking for refuge in other religions... And we cannot even understand what they were actually arguing about! Let's try to figure it out. But first, let us note one consideration that explains why this issue is the most important. Namely: at the center of Buddhism, as we know, lies the desire to free people from “attachment” - to try to make them stop “clinging” to “things”... And if you realize that all things are empty, then it turns out that there is no need to cling for what. How can you cling to emptiness? “But what kind of empty Christmas trees are they!? They are full. “If this thing were empty, I could easily walk through it and not get hurt at all!” Or maybe Buddhism generally believes that things do not exist, and they are all just products of our mind? - Not at all. Some European philosophers went to this extreme, but Buddhism, as a rule, remained within the framework of common sense. According to him, of course, the material world is completely real... Unlike what we think and say about it. To understand the Buddhist idea of ​​emptiness, you first need to understand the most important thing: Buddhism generally speaks to us not about the world, but about the mind. That is, the essence of his conversations about emptiness is not to explain to us “how the world works,” but to change our worldview. That ischange our view of the world so that we can achieve Liberation. That is, he is trying to explain to us not so much the “nature of things” as the nature of “our thoughts.” Buddhism generally tells us very little about the “world.” And, by the way, for the same reason! – If the basis of everything is “emptiness,” then all such talk about it is also empty. The world must be Perceived Directly, and not pontificate about it. And you need to speak only when it makes sense. For example, to change your view of the world and begin to Perceive it Directly. So what Buddhism tells us is essentially not so much a philosophy as it is “psychotherapy.” And when he speaks to us not so much in terms of “mind” as in “things,” it is simply for greater persuasiveness. Not everyone is inclined to think too much about their own mind... Well, let the physicists explain the world. (Which they do, and, by the way, in a very pleasant way for Buddhism - indeed, if the world can be described as a set of wave functions, then where are the things? What could be the best “proof” of emptiness?) If any well-read reader will argue and say: “I carefully read the authors of Buddhism: they specifically talk about things, about their emptiness, their lack of selfhood, self-existence, independent or authentic existence... What does “thoughts” have to do with it?”, then I will answer that he probably I read all this not in Pali or Sanskrit, but in (not very successful) European translations. – Buddhism doesn’t say anything at all about “things”, it talks about “dharmas”, which is completely different from “things”. “Dharmas” (not to be confused with other meanings of this word - “universal order of things” and “Buddha’s teaching about this order”) are “elements of the world” that combine both the material and the ideal. So, for example, “career”, “power”, “beauty”, “self-determination of nations” or “seven colors of the rainbow” are also “dharmas” - and they really do not have “true existence” - people invented them for themselves and became very become attached to them, which is what we’ll talk about later (but they didn’t come up with it out of the blue, not out of nowhere - they “grabbed” some pieces of reality, molded them together and hold them - they are eager to be free, but people cling to them and are afraid to let go - and are tormented by this... And, by the way, the last paragraph clearly suggests that the conceptual approaches to the world view in Europe and Asia are so different that completely adequate direct translations of Buddhist sources will do little and that perhaps we need it now. not so much translations as interpretations of Buddhism - more modern and European. I offer a fragment of my interpretation of Buddhism here. So, what does Buddhism tell us about the nature of our mind? Let’s take a break from talking about “emptiness” for a while and look at the tasks of Buddhism more. broadly, the fundamental idea of ​​Buddhism is that man lives under the power of affects or “obscurations,” called kleshas, ​​which keep his mind tense and restless, and prevent his pure, free, good and creative nature (“Buddha nature”) from fully manifesting itself. . And liberation from the power of these “kleshas” is the main task of a person (which will bring him a lot of good in both “this” and “that” world - whoever does not believe in “that”, “this” should also be enough ). What are these “kleshas”? What does a person live under? Buddhism gives their detailed classifications, but in general classifications of this kind are an arbitrary matter. Therefore, let's try to look at this issue from a modern point of view - simply based on introspection. I can personally identify two largest groups of such dependencies: (A) Those that come from the “organism”, from the “want”, from emotions - from the desire to feel something (in the body and in the soul - for example, from the desire to eat (what - something pleasant) to the desire to feel one’s own importance) (B) Those that come from the mind, that is, from a person’s conviction that as he thought, this should be the case in reality. (“our team is stronger / I’m rooting for it / I bet on it, so it should win”, “my child should go to college”, “tomorrow should begood weather”, “the train should arrive in an hour”, “you owe me 100 dollars”, “I must do everything I planned”... - examples can be given endlessly, but the point here, of course, is not the word “should” , and in the appropriate state of mind, the word can be anything, and the word “should” can also be freely used in a completely different “fashion”.) Both of these “kleshas” are very strong. But if you take a closer look, you will notice that separately, both the first and second “kleshas” pose fewer problems for a person. They truly manifest themselves when they come together, “find a common language” and then, through a positive feedback mechanism, reinforce each other. This is already (from the point of view of a person who takes a Buddhist position) - a complete atas! But this happens to us all the time and every minute. Considering the scope of the article, I will limit myself to one primitive example: When an animal or a small child - that is, a creature whose mind is less developed than ours (and therefore more harmonious than us!) sees some inaccessible delicacy, he will really want it and it will be annoyed that it cannot receive it. But if at the same time they do not experience strong hunger, which can cement the impression, after the treat disappears from their field of vision, they will soon forget about it. An adult can easily have the thought: “Oh cool, I want this!” And thoughts have the ability to last longer. While he cherishes this thought, his desires coming from the body intensify, the thought becomes stronger, acquires details... and can lead to obsession. On the one hand, this mechanism is a source of progress - when these thoughts and desires are well thought out, felt by the mind and soul, as important and good - they become an incentive for reasonable actions, and a person does something good for himself and for the world... But in practice, such things happen hundreds and thousands of times a day and almost all of them simply settle in the subconscious, straining and darkening the mind... This shows what a huge effect can be from the point of view of Liberation if a person learns to gain freedom from his thoughts. Of course, we also need to work on “freedom from emotions...”, but other practices serve this purpose. “Emptiness” has nothing to do with it. But for gaining “freedom from thoughts” it has very much to do with it. Why? Here's why: for some reason, a person is designed in such a way that in order for some thought to take hold in him, it is not enough that it nurtures some of his desires or emotions. In addition, it is necessary that a person “believes” in it - considers it “true” - only then can it serve as a support for him. (Both teenagers, and often adults, often argue until they become hoarse: “you’re a fool,” no, it’s “you’re a fool.” It’s clear why - if it “turns out” that one of them is a “fool,” then “fool” you will have to give in in the argument and the “smart” one will get everything he wants). If a person first at least understands (with his mind), and then begins to see clearly (understands with his “soul”) that no thought of his, in principle, can be true (that is, it cannot have an exact correspondence in the real world), then there are grounds for his thoughts will become fixed and enslave a person much less... And he will feel colossal freedom. This is exactly how the essence of the Buddhist concept of emptiness can be interpreted. All. Just one phrase. Further I will only explain why this is so, how it can be understood, and why I believe that this is exactly what Buddhism means. “How can this thought not be true? What nonsense!?” – people usually exclaim in response to such statements – “I’m hungry now, the sky is blue, 2*2=4...” But: (a) The sky is not blue at all: the light from it has a certain spectral composition, different at different times weather, which is usually generally perceived by us as a “blue” color. But there is no clear boundary between colors, different people often call the same thing different colors, the British “do not see” the difference between blue and blue, the Kazakhs consider the sky white, etc. (b) If at some point you received an impulse from your body that you would like to eat something, this does not mean that you are hungry. Impulses that “influence appetite” come fromstomach, blood, mouth, nose, and their entire combination is quite arbitrarily interpreted by humans as a “feeling of hunger” (which is why people get fat). Feel more attentively into your body, take a break, do a warm-up, and often you will feel that you are not really hungry at all, but full. And 2*2=4 is a mathematical abstraction, true in the mathematical system used, which does not specifically correspond to anything real, and the truth of which depends only on the conditional system (remember about parallel lines, which intersect for some, but not for others) . And the essence here is precisely in “dharmas” - in the correspondence between thought and real life - that is, between a “discrete”, in general, “expressed in words” thought - and the endless vast ocean of possibilities that exist in reality. No matter how many different discrete (“left-hemisphere”) thoughts a person could think, there are still infinite times fewer of them than possible variations of reality... A person can probably see the world more “adequately” .... but, obviously, that only those “thoughts” that do not linger for a second and themselves constantly change like a river - thoughts that can neither be “grabbed” nor expressed in words... And the above explanations can be considered explanations of the emptiness of the dharmas of “blueness” and “hunger” " But if “the thought cannot be true” (let’s say my opponent comes from the other side), then “how did people build skyscrapers, fly into space, and clone sheep in the end”? Because on the other hand, “discrete thoughts” – due to their repeatability and “simplicity” – are power! In the world, of course, nothing specifically corresponds to them, but they are not divorced from the world - they are our tools, with the help of which we cognize and transform the world. And the absence of their “true existence” is precisely what science knows best! No physicist will say: “This theory is true.” He will say “it has been fully proven that this theory, under such and such conditions, satisfactorily models reality”... And when a physicist continues to think in the same way, for example, in everyday life or politics, then it is striking that the person radiates wisdom and light... And when he starts to think like other people... Because of the way “other people” think, wars, greed, cruelty, stupidity and boredom will reign in the world... If you think that “blacks are bad” or “blacks are good” or “I have the right to a better fate” or “my country has the right to more territory” or “the working day should last 8 hours” or “after work you should watch TV and drink beer”... Or whatever “socialism is better than capitalism” or vice versa “capitalism is better than capitalism”... Neither “socialism” nor “capitalism” has ever existed, and will never exist! These are just inventions of people - tools that are more or less suitable for one purpose or another. In each case, used with a different meaning... And the more precisely and strictly you try to give a definition, the more difficult it will be for you to find something that falls under it, and the more difficult it will be for you to say about what you have defined at least something definite (just like Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle!). It is important to note that not only do such “abstracts” as “capitalism” not exist, there are also no “concrete things”: houses, cars, trees, spiders, people... Or, for example, beds. Thus, a Buddhist will not agree with you if you say that “there is a bed in my room.” However, he is not at all a “subjective idealist.” He simply understands that “it is not a bed that exists - the World exists, and with your mind you select a part of it from the World and call it 'bed'.” But each time you can distinguish it from the world in different ways (for example, I am now sitting on a bed, the legs of which are made of bricks, and I don’t know whether these legs are a “bed” or not), and different people can distinguish this part of the world according to -differently (your child, for example, may not even notice that this is a bed - for him it may be 'part of a jumping installation from the closet to something soft') - that is, the “bed” itself