The perfection of wisdom is the ability to deal with the conventional truth of the ordinary common-sense way of relating to the world as a multiplicity of persons, places, and things and at the same time be awakened to the ultimate truth that all things, all dharmas, are empty. This does not mean that things do not exist at all. That is not what “emptiness” means. Emptiness is another way of talking about how things that are caused and conditioned do not have an unchanging, independent self-nature. It is a deeper way of contemplating dependent origination that points to the flowing, composite, conceptual nature of the things that we experience. Things are empty because they are impermanent. So there is nothing to be permanently grasped. Things are empty because they are composite. So apart from the components (causes and conditions that are all in turn caused and conditioned ad infinitum) there is nothing to grasp. Things are empty because they are not what they seem to be as a result of our mind projecting categories and concepts onto the dynamic interdependent flow of causes and conditions. Apart from our mental concepts there is no singular thing to be grasped in the flow of causes and conditions. Emptiness is not meant to be a theory or belief that we should just subscribe to conceptually. It is meant to be something to observe directly by deeply contemplating the flowing, composite, and conceptual nature of phenomena. Emptiness is not so much a characteristic as a way of pointing out that things are not the solid permanent independent facts they seem to be. Nevertheless, they are contingent realities. By realizing that all things are empty, bodhisattvas overcome undue attachment towards them and also overcome any undue aversion towards them. Free of attachment and aversion, bodhisattvas deal with phenomena in a more graceful, fearless, and wholesome way. They can care about and deal with conditioned phenomena without falling into the trap of craving certain conditions and fearing others. This includes craving or fearing anything within the six lower realms, or even the peace attained in the higher realms of the two vehicles. This is why the perfection of wisdom is synonymous with skillful means and is the spirit that unites and guides the other five perfections.

According to the Lotus Sūtra, the Buddha specifically taught the six perfections for the bodhisattvas. “To bodhisattvas, he expounded the teaching of the six perfections, a teaching suitable for them, and caused them to attain perfect and complete awakening, that is, to obtain the knowledge of the equality and difference of all things.” (Murano 2012, p. 14) It is the six perfections that differentiate the bodhisattva vehicle from the other two vehicles. The knowledge of the equality and difference of all things refers to the ability of the perfection of wisdom to deal both with the ultimate truth of the universal quality of emptiness and also the conventional truth that recognizes the different characteristics of conditioned phenomena in their transience and interrelationships.