The Truth of Life 6: Unraveling Ignorance and Emptiness in Buddhist Practice
Why meritorious actions alone can't liberate you?
Life is like a movie, due to a kind of Karma, we’re reborn into a movie and become a character in it, thus we have to experience all the happiness and pain that this character will experience.
—Neo Shakya
Preface：
What is the truth of life? This is not just about you, me, or anyone else—it is about every living being.
Let’s continue the special series—The Truth of Life, featuring excerpts from Neo Shakya’s teachings on the Dharma. Friends who are interested in this topic are welcome to leave comments or share.
Now, let us enter the Buddhist worldview and explore the truth of life.
🔔 Suggested Readings：
The Truth of Life 1: The Fixed Ripened Karma and the Drifting Intermediate State
The Truth of Life 2: Seeing Through the Truth of Suffering
The Truth of Life 3: Exploring the Cause of Rebirth in Samsara
The Truth of Life 4: From Sensory Limitations to Pramāṇa Theory
The Truth of Life 5: The Ambition for Liberation from Samsara
Today's Sharing Content：
⭐️ The Essence of Doing Good and Accumulating Virtue
The wisdom generated from this view of no-self can eliminate ignorance, thereby severing the entire chain of twelve links of dependent origination. This is how ultimate liberation is attained—this is Buddhism's most fundamental teaching.
If you ignore this, all you do is accumulate merit.…..Yes, all religions encourage accumulating merit and doing good. But even without religion, shouldn’t we still do good? Does not following a religion mean one must become evil? Of course not.
Living in a society, connected with others, even from a selfish perspective, it makes no sense to constantly harm or mistreat others. Therefore, doing good and accumulating merit are not exclusive to religion.
⭐️ The Universal Desire for Happiness
Moreover, every one of us has the innate desire to escape suffering and attain happiness. Everyone prays for something—wishing for happiness, safety, protection, or well-being for themselves or their families. These aspirations don’t require religious teaching; they arise naturally. Doing good and accumulating virtue are simply common sense.
So, what truly sets Buddhism apart is its emphasis on view—the wisdom that dismantles the root of all obstacles—ignorance.
⭐️ The Unique Focus of Buddhism: Overcoming Ignorance
When we studied selflessness before, we learned that its scope includes both the knowable and the unknowable. Since selflessness is an ultimate truth, even a "rabbit’s horn" (a classic example of something nonexistent) is selfless—because it, too, lacks inherent, independent existence. These philosophical debates might seem like child’s play, but if we truly want to practice and uproot ignorance, we must develop a concrete understanding of this view.
Currently, even in monasteries, the preliminary stages are often glossed over. For example, practitioners don’t usually meditate on the Vaibhāṣika assertion of "selflessness of persons" from an experiential angle.
Similarly, while Yogācāra doctrines claim "no external objects", people don’t meditate on "the emptiness of external objects" as a practical step. Instead, they jump straight to the Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka view of emptiness:
"Since our tradition follows Tsongkhapa, who transmitted Mañjuśrī’s ultimate definitive meaning of emptiness, we’ve already settled on this—so we just meditate on this highest emptiness."
⭐️ The Importance of Gradual Practice
But realizing emptiness requires a step-by-step foundation. As we’ve learned from studying tenets (siddhānta), there’s a graded path—starting from coarse selflessness and progressing to increasingly subtle levels until reaching the definitive meaning.
If we skip the preliminary practices and lack even a basic understanding of how the entire chain of reasoning works, then trying to meditate directly on Prāsaṅgika’s definitive emptiness will be ineffective. Many end up falling into extreme of nihilism.
Without practicing these preliminary steps or understanding the sequence, jumping straight to the ultimate emptiness of the Prāsaṅgika school often yields poor results. Many practitioners fall into the extreme of nihilism.
⭐️ The Fear of Misunderstanding Emptiness
Without genuine analytical meditation:
What exactly is "inherent existence"?
What does it mean for something to be inherently established?
How do the views of Bhāviveka, Śāntarakṣita, and Chandrakirti differ or align?
Naturally, one will not experience the "fear" described in the teachings.
This "fear" arises when someone who has truly penetrated the teachings dives deep into analysis: What is empty? What isn’t? Where is the line? In the process of correctly navigating the Middle Way without falling into extremes, there’s fear, because a misstep means failing to sever the root of cyclic existence: ignorance. Liberation then remains out of reach.
Realizing emptiness requires progressive stages.
So, what is ignorance? In general, it is the clinging to inherent reality. But what does that really mean? To grasp this, we must dive deeply into the teachings.
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🌊To be explored further. Gratitude for your mindful attention. May these insights benefit your practice, and may we reunite to further explore the Truth of Life.
The triple world is aflame with suffering,
A burning house, perilous and foul—
Where birth, age, sickness, death consume,
And endless fires of anguish howl.
—The Lotus Sutra
🪬Friends, if you feel drawn to the Dharma and have developed a sincere aspiration to study it systematically, please feel free to reach out to me.
🔔 Suggested Readings：
The Truth of Life 1: The Fixed Ripened Karma and the Drifting Intermediate State
the Diamond Sutra: “All Samskrta-dharma are like dreams illusions bubbles shadows, like dew or lightning, thus should be observed.”
Om Arapacana Dhih
Author: Neo Shakya
Editor: Arwen Candra
To the seekers of truth, let's forge a bond in this shared space！
Stating that we are playing a character in this life to me, shows disregard for the unique spiritual Incarnation that WE are. WE are not the “other.” We are ourselves.
Try Sufism or the Zen.