The impermanence of phenomena depends on external causes and conditions. To say that all things are interdependent means that they have no inherent existence. The very potential for transformation at work in phenomena is a sign of the fundamental reciprocity of life.
Can we determine that a “flower” entity as such exists in itself? The answer is no. The flower is only a collection of characteristics—form, color, smell—but no “flower” exists independent of its appearances.
Our perception of time also rests on a mistaken apprehension of reality. What in fact is the past? The past is not a reality; it’s just a concept. The future corresponds to projections, anticipations that do not have any reality either. The past has already occurred; the future does not yet exist. These notions affect us as realities, although they have no substance. The present is the truth that we are experiencing here and now, but it is an elusive reality that does not last. We find ourselves in a paradoxical situation in which the present constitutes a border, a limit between a past and a future without any concrete reality. The present is that elusive moment between what no longer exists and what has not yet happened.
These notions that we take as “reality” are pure intellectual fabrications that do not involve an independent reality, existent in itself. According to the Buddha, perceived phenomena exist only from the standpoint of their designation—that is, the names and concepts we attach to them. The functioning of phenomena does not reveal a palpable entity that is uniquely theirs. You could compare phenomena to a mirage: the closer you get to it, the farther away it gets, until it disappears. Similarly faced with the mind that analyzes them, phenomena vanish.
So we should distinguish two truths: a relative truth, which concerns the appearance of phenomena, their emergence, their manifestation, and their cessation; and an ultimate truth, which recognizes the absence of inherent reality in phenomena. By saying that phenomena are empty of intrinsic existence, we are declaring not their nonexistence but their interdependence, their absence of concrete reality. And the emptiness of phenomena, far from being a mental construct or a concept, corresponds to the reality itself of the phenomenal world.
The Buddha does not deny that things appear, but posits the union of appearance and emptiness. Thus, the flower exists: its forms and characteristics are inscribed in our mind. But its nature is devoid of any intrinsic existence.
Transforming our mind on the Buddha’s path
MORE THAN JUST A PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW of the world, Buddhism represents a path of transforming the mind, with the aim of freeing ourselves from suffering and its causes. Transforming the mind involves first learning to know it, then identifying how it functions so as to eliminate the three main mental poisons, which are ignorance, desire, and hatred. So it is beneficial to analyze the stream of our consciousness and its variations. Understanding the ultimate nature of consciousness, without beginning or end, whose continuum is distinct from the physical support of the coarse body, is the foundation that allows us to realize the primordial purity of the mind.
Buddhist analysis of reality concurs with the conclusions of quantum physics, according to which particles of matter are real while still being devoid of ultimate solidity. Similarly, in Buddhism the phenomena that exist in interdependence are empty of intrinsic, autonomous existence. Interdependence is a universal concept. Nothing can occur without causes or conditions. Causality, or karma, is the law that governs the world of phenomena. A dynamic flux of changing appearances occurs, responding to causes and effects. But that does not mean that we should think there is an original, unchanging, permanent cause, like an organizing principle. In a world that is constantly changing, mutations are due to qualities that are inherent in phenomena.
Once we have established the conditions for the appearance of the elements of the phenomenal world, we can proceed to an analysis of the mechanisms that create the contrasting states of happiness and suffering in our mind.
Every living being has a basic aspiration to attain happiness and avoid suffering. How are the happiness and suffering we experience linked to the world outside us? Faced with the external world, we have reactions that are expressed in the form of sensations possessing various characteristics. We then evaluate these sensations and connect the experience of them to ourselves as experiencers.
Happiness and suffering do not necessarily have an immediate sensory cause. According to science, electrochemical processes inside the brain are the source of all our mental experiences. But physiological functioning does not account for experiences of subtle awareness. Buddhism does not restrict consciousness to the brain. Meditation and contemplation induce subtle, profound states of mind that themselves have the power to modify physiological processes. Indeed, consciousness is linked to our physical body, but it is not limited to it. Consciousness represents a faculty of clarity and luminosity that allows us to perceive and know phenomena by direct apprehension.
Consciousness produces experiences such as dreams, where we experience happiness and suffering, but these sensations have no substantial object as their basis. We distinguish between waking consciousness, dream consciousness, and the consciousness of profound sleep, which do not depend exclusively on the sense organs. When we are distracted, the eye sees but the consciousness does not register the image. Pure consciousness is the pure faculty of cognition in its essential, naked state.
Consciousness is, of course, associated with the body, but it is qualitatively different from the coarse physical body, since the causes and conditions that maintain it have their autonomy. Consciousness is not interrupted, even when we faint, and it persists in the
