Wisdom of Emptiness

Venerable Tenzin Palmo is a british woman who spent 12 years in Buddhist retreat. Here is a talk she did on the Wisdom of Emptiness. Emptiness is not like the vacuity of outer space - it is not vacuousness. It is the underlying reality of all things. How is this so? There are two modes to investigate this emptiness - there is the scholarly, analytical way and the experiential way. Tenzin Palmo speaks from experience.

I transcribed this from the talk:

In the west, especially now a days, people think that we are here just to have a nice time, to be happy and to get lots of material posessions, to outwardly show signs of being successful, and to stay healthy, and look beautiful, and have everybody admire us, and if we can manage to do that for as long as possible then we have had a successful life. Therefore, if we age, if we get sick, if we suffer loss, if we are not successful, then we have failed. And this way of viewing life not only puts extreme pressure on to us but also places happiness and genuine accomplishment in the wrong direction. And that’s why people, even though they are outwardly very successful, inwardly they have a sense of meaninglessness because they know that merely getting the next latest fashion or another brand of car or a new computer program is not going to solve the problem. Something inside is lacking. One of the problems is that we are controlled by our minds instead of being in control. We are controlled by our greed and our aversion and our basic confusion and delusion and we don’t know how to deal with these skillfully. So everybody has the basic ego clinging condition. ALmost everybody has greed and averion. But if we react to these negative qualities just with a sense of guilt or self hatred, then we are simply adding more fuel to the flame. We are not solving the problem. And in the west poeple have alot of guilt. Have you noticed? They go on and on about their horible childhood and their personality problems and their neurosis and their psychosis and everyone goes to see a psychologist. There’s an imbalance somewhere. Of course we have to recognize the faults in our mind but we also have to recognize the goodness in our mind and in our hearts. That is not pride. That is just acknowledging the goodness in order to encourage it. Like any other quality . . . it’s like a plant you know, you have to water it and fertilize it and encourage it to grow, and likewise the good seeds in our hearts: our generosity, our kindness, our thoughtfullness, our compassion, our understanding, our caring for others - these have to be watered. The poison seeds which grow - our anger, and our clinging, and our envy, and jealousy are being uprooted or being used in a more skillfull manner. Each of us have the wisdom mind. We all posess the fullness of wisdom and compassion within us. Its like a spring within us which has been clogged and covered over so when we look in our hearts it may appear like a desert or a garbage dump but if we clear away the garbage, if we keep digging down then eventually moisture will appear and if we dig deep enough suddenly the wellsprings of natural wisdom mind will appear because it’s always there. Wisdom isn’t something out there, it isn’t something you are going to find in books. Wisdom is found within each one of us. Each one of us has a wisdom mind. But its not going to appear but its not going to appear unless we look in the right direction and work hard to uncover it. So each of you has to use your life as a means of really discovering your own inate wisdom, your own inate love and compassion.

All of this comes from understanding and realizing the emptiness of mind. Tenzin Palmo shows the nature progression of the wisdom of emptiness.

Listen to the talk here.

Read her biography here.