There Is No Suffering 47

Our lives are fleeting. You may think eighty years is a long time, but it is not. Time is also relative. A hundred-year-old may see a seventy-year-old as a youth. If it were a parent-child relationship, and the child died first, the parent would still think it was too soon. In our practice we reflect that our bodies, our mental activities, and the environment constantly change, and that, therefore, they are empty. This is true for all five skandhas, not just form. If you directly experience this truth, even for an instant, your grip on your sense of self will loosen. As attachment to a sense of self diminishes so too does suffering. In fact, we all suffer because we do not truly perceive the emptiness of the five skandhas. We can practice contemplating the emptiness of the five skandhas at any time. It is not limited to sitting meditation. However, if you do not meditate and study the Dharma, it will be difficult to practice such a method in daily life.

After the phrase “...form is not other than emptiness,” it is of crucial importance to add, “and emptiness is not other than form.” It affirms that emptiness is precisely the five skandhas. Armed with only the first insight, people might develop a negative attitude toward life and a false view of emptiness. They might feel there is no need for responsibilities and forget their families, their jobs, and their health. After all, if everything were empty, what would be the point of caring about or doing anything? This, however, is illusory emptiness. The relationship between form and emptiness is to be understood this way: in the midst of the five skandhas, there is emptiness, and in the midst of emptiness, there are the five skandhas. However, one needs the wisdom of direct experience to truly understand this.