In search of the semantics of emptiness

This chapter investigates the consequences of emptiness for Buddhist ethics. In explicating the Buddha's teachings, Buddhist philosophers of the Abhidharma schools distinguished between conventional and ultimate truth between how the world ordinarily and usefully says things are, and how things objectively are independently of considerations of one's interests and cognitive limitations. There is broad agreement among the different schools of Indian Buddhism concerning the basics of Buddhist ethics. Here are some things that all schools of Indian Buddhism accept: the ideal state for sentient beings is nirva, the cessation of suffering. Suffering arises as a result of ignorance of the three general characteristics of existence: suffering, impermanence, and non-self. The chapter examines a number of different views about the consequences of emptiness for ethics, some holding that emptiness supports certain moral claims, others saying that emptiness undermines those claims.