Emptiness as an antidote to fear

At our Buddhist center today we heard another teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh, whom I really enjoy as a teacher. Both he and the Dalai Lama write very inspiring books. The topic today was emptiness, which is a term that can be easily misinterpreted. To say something is empty is not to say that it doesn't exist, or that it is worthless, but that it has no self-nature, no independent existence. For example, a sheet of paper does not exist by itself, but depends on many conditions and causes. The example Thich Nhat Hanh gave is that you can see a cloud in the piece of paper. Why? Because the cloud transforms to rain, which then waters trees, which are then cut down and processed into paper. The paper did not arise from nothing. Similarly, I, as a human, did not spring forth from nothingness. I carry with me the genes of my ancestors, as well as personality traits which have been passed down from generation to generation. I carry with me the effects of family tragedies going generations back. I also depend for my existence on many factors beyond my control, such as the existence of other people who built my house, who existed in the past and helped evolve language for me to write with, etc, etc. Another way to put it, he said, is that being empty of self-nature means that you are full of everything else in the universe. Now, just as I did not arise from nothing, I will not turn into nothing when I die. Just as I carry within me the past, so I will contribute to the future. That's why it's so important, as La Misma said, to be nice. The actions we perform now will have wide effects and propagate far into the future. If we pay attention to the present moment, and act positively, we can have a palpably positive effect on the future. If we act negatively, remaining imprisoned in our own habits and obscurations, we will affect the future negatively. It is so tempting to be inattentive and ignore those around you, taking them for granted. What Thich Nhat Hanh said, though, is that once we realize that ultimate interdependent nature of reality, we will want to cherish our friends and loved ones. I guess this is for a couple of reasons. On the one hand, once you realize how much you interdepend (is this a word?) on others, you will love them really as part of yourself. On the other hand, realizing that the way we live after death is through the actions we have performed while alive, we will see how important it is to help and love others.

By the way, the picture at the head of the post is a tiling of the plane by equilateral pentagons. I spent many hours today fiddling around with various pentagonal tilings. They're pretty fascinating.