Mahayana Buddhism speaks of the Trikaya, or Three Bodies of the Buddha. These are not actually separate, distinct bodies; rather, they are personifications of different aspects or properties of the life of a Buddha. …

The first Buddha body is the Nirmanakaya, or Transformation-body. This is the historical aspect of a Buddha and refers to the Buddha as a person who is born, becomes awakened, teaches the Dharma, and then dies. This Buddha is an ordinary human being in every respect, except that he or she is awakened to the true nature of life.

The second Buddha body is the Sambhogakaya, or Enjoyment-body. This is the idealized aspect of the Buddha. This body is adorned with all kinds of special marks and characteristics symbolizing a buddha’s transcendent nature. This is the Buddha of limitless life and light, who resides in a pure land far removed from all suffering. The Enjoyment-body expresses the inner life of the historical Buddha and is the Buddha’s enjoyment of the Wonderful Dharma.

The third Buddha body is the Dharmakaya, or Dharma-body. This is the Buddha as universal truth, a personification of the true nature of reality itself. The Dharma-body is synonymous with other Buddhist terms such as Emptiness, Suchness, Buddha nature, or Dependent Origination. The Dharma-body expresses the Wonderful Dharma that is enjoyed by the Enjoyment-body and manifested physically by the Transformation-body.

The word “Emptiness” can sound very bleak and intimidating. However, the word was not chosen to be comforting. It is used in Mahayana Buddhism to challenge the fixed idea that we can grasp the nature of reality or anything within it, or that we can find any real boundaries between one thing and another. Emptiness means that all people, places, and things are empty of anything we can hold on to as unchanging or separate from everything else. Looked at in a positive way, this means that all of reality is without any real boundaries. As the Lotus Sutra says, “all things are open like the sky.” They are not non-dual, which means that they have no fixed boundaries, because all things are bound up with one another as part of the overall dynamic process of life. So Emptiness is not a dark nothingness. It is a way of helping us to open up our minds to the true nature of reality that transcends the rigid and ultimately false categories of birth and death, of self and other.

In the Lotus Sutra, the unity of the Three Bodies in the person of Shakyamuni Buddha is a key teaching. The reason this unity is so important is that none of the three aspects of Buddhahood makes any sense without the others. They are all aspects of one buddha, of one reality. By focusing on only one aspect, we lose sight of the living reality of Buddhahood and are left with mere abstractions. For example, the Dharma-body by itself cannot he perceived through concepts or images, but only through a spiritual intuition of its universal nature. The Enjoyment-body is the embodiment of that intuition in an ideal spiritual form that can impart his awakening to others. But this awakening remains hidden from us until it is expressed in this world by the Transformation-body in the form of the historical Buddha.

Our lives are not separate from the lives or others or the world around us. Our lives are constantly being changed – physically, mentally, and emotionally – through our interactions with our environment and other living beings. Our lives also have a great impact on our environment, and on the lives of those around us. In many ways, our lives extend beyond our own bodies and touch the far reaches of the universe, and our bodily life depends upon the very structure of that universe in order to maintain its existence. The universe as a whole is in many ways our own extended body, for our body depends upon the gravity exerted by the stars, the warmth of the sun, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the ground we stand on, and the many people and other beings who provide us with food, shelter, and companionship. This is true of our ideas and emotions as well.

There is a deeper meaning to Emptiness than simply recognizing the impermanent nature of reality. Emptiness also means that things are without boundaries in terms of both time and space. Again, everything arises and ceases depending upon the coming together of many other elements or factors. But at what point can one say that something has begun or come to an end? For instance, do our lives begin at birth, or at conception, or at the time of our parent’s conception? At what point in the process that we call our lives can we definitely say that the process has begun? The same is true of our deaths. If our lives are carried on through our children or through the impact of our actions on the lives of others, at what point does our life really come to an end? In addition, the Buddha taught that some portion of our existence (composed of our intentions, habits, and to some extent an unconscious storehouse of memories) moves on from one life to another. So it is never entirely correct to say that someone has been born or has died. The reality of our lives defies such a simple description.

Awareness of Emptiness is awareness of the constantly changing nature of life. To understand Emptiness is to understand that there is nothing that we can hold on to forever, and to see that we must not cling to things like money, power, sexual pleasure, fame, the company of loved ones, or even our own lives. All of these things are temporary and do not possess a fixed or eternal nature. On the other hand, through Emptiness we can learn to appreciate things and people as the dynamic and changing things that they are. When we do not cling to the good things in life, we are finally free to appreciate them for what they are for as long as they do grace our lives, but without being burdened by the fear of their eventual dissolution.

Emptiness is a way of pointing to the ungraspable nature of reality. It is not a denial or existence or being, but is a way of seeing things in accord with the Middle Way.

Everything that we can point to or name exists only for as long as other things come together in a certain way to support its existence. A table, for instance, is only a temporary meeting of an uncountable number of atoms working together for a certain period of time. Another example is the human body, which is a changing process that requires a constant supply of new material in the form of air, food, and water to sustain itself, and which is constantly expelling waste material. Even consciousness is not a static thing, but a perpetually changing stream of thoughts and impressions that also depends upon constant input of new material in the form of ideas and sensations.

“Emptiness” is a central concept in Mahayana Buddhism, often associated with the perfection of wisdom. However, Emptiness is really just another way of talking about Dependent Origination. Whereas Dependent Origination focuses on the coming together of many causes and conditions to bring about a temporary thing or being, Emptiness, focuses on the absence of a self-contained or permanent person, place, or thing. In other words, nothing exists forever and nothing can exist on its own.