' Karl Brunnholzl - “The Heart Attack Sutra”:

Avoiding Nihilism

Karl Brunnholzl wrote in his book,
“The Heart Attack Sutra”:

“The place where emptiness hits its own ground—or rather its own groundlessness—is called “the emptiness of emptiness.”

When we deal with emptiness, there is still the danger or the tendency to solidify emptiness itself.

Though it is meant as the final antidote for clinging or solidifying, our mind still tries to solidify even the very lack of solidity since it is such an old habit of ours.

This is why the Buddha taught the emptiness of emptiness, meaning that we need to let go of whatever understanding of emptiness we may have too since it is not the real thing.

We need to let go of any sense of insight, realization, or wisdom, any sense of “I got it,” because that still involves duality, solidification, and reference points..

Since emptiness means that there is nothing to solidify and nothing to hold on to, it defeats the purpose if we make emptiness into some kind of principle, universal law, or higher truth because then we are still holding on to something.

It might be slightly better but it could also be a lot worse if we hold on to emptiness, because that usually means that we miss out on the compassion part.

We might just think, “Oh, yes, everything is empty, nothing really matters.”

However, that is not an understanding of emptiness at all; it just means being stuck in nonexistence and nihilism.”