Now what this does mean is that Emptiness, or ultimate Reality, is not separate from anything that is arising. (Technically, even that statement would be denied; but we are now talking metaphorically to get across the general gist of Emptiness—because the main point is that although it cannot be said, it can be shown, or directly realized. More on this as we continue.) Not being separate from anything (“not having a second”), it is the Emptiness of everything that is arising. Emptiness isn’t a realm separate from other realms, it is the Emptiness, or Transparency, of all realms. Looked at free from conceptualization or categorization, everything that is arising is Emptiness, or Emptiness is the Reality of each and every thing in the manifest and unmanifest world—it is their very Suchness, their Thusness, their Isness. Looked at through concepts and categories, the universe appears as samsara—as built of radically separate and isolated things and events—and grasping after those things and attachment to them causes suffering because, ultimately, everything eventually falls apart, and thus whatever you’re attached to will sooner or later cause suffering as it falls apart. But looked at with prajna (or jnana)—nonconceptual choiceless awareness—the world of samsara is actually self-liberated nirvana. (In the word jnana, the root “jna,” by the way, in English is “kno,” as in “knowledge,” or “gno,” as in “gnosis.”) Jnana is a nondual, unqualifiable knowledge or timeless Present awareness, the realization of which brings Enlightenment or Awakening. Awakening to what? The radical Freedom or infinite Liberation or radical Luminosity-Love of pure Emptiness, though those terms, again, are at best metaphors.
