Working Emptiness: Toward a Third Reading of Emptiness in Buddhism and Postmodern Thought

by N. Robert Glass

Newman Robert Glass argues that there are three workings of emptiness capable of grounding thinking and presence, difference, and essence. The first two readings, exemplified by Heidegger and Mark C. Taylor respectively, present opposing views of the work of emptiness in thinking. The third, essence, presents a position on the work of emptiness in desire and affect. Glass begins by offering a close analysis of presence and difference. He then fashions his own understanding of essence, or emptiness. He goes on to use this third reading to construct a comprehensive Buddhist position based in desire and affect -- a Buddhism of essence.

160 pages, Paperback

First published January 2, 1995

About the author

Born in Canada, Robert Glass spent seven years as a Buddhist monk at Shasta Abbey near Mt. Shasta, California, studying with Jiyu Kennett, the first woman to establish a Zen lineage in the United States.

After earning a Ph.D. in Comparative Religion, Robert became Director of the Comparative Religion and Culture Program (CRC) at Global College, Long Island University. In that role, he traveled with students as they explored the world’s great religions during ten-week terms in Japan, India, and Israel, with breaks in Thailand and Nepal. Notable experiences included overnight stays at Zen Buddhism's two main training temples in Japan, a pilgrimage to Bodhgaya to visit the site of the Buddha's enlightenment, a visit to Rumi's tomb in Konya, and, later, an audience with the Dalai Lama. After his years with the CRC, Robert became Dean of Global College and spent another decade visiting students and centers around the world.

Robert’s research and travels yielded new insights into his experiences at Shasta Abbey, Buddhism, and spiritual practice more broadly. His scholarly book, Working Emptiness: Towards a Third Reading of Emptiness in Buddhism and Postmodern Thought, examines conflicting interpretations of awakening and desire in Buddhism. Follow-up articles in academic journals continued this exploration.

In one of life’s great ironies, the central thread of Robert’s scholarly work is clearest in the more intimate setting of his memoir, The Book of Two Loves: Trauma and Awakening on the Journey to Love. Robert lives in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews

[Corbin]

I'm no expert on Buddhism, but I thought Glass provided a careful analysis of three different ways of interpreting the notion of "emptiness" and comparing it to three different veins of "Continental" or "postmodern" thought. He drew parallels between Nagarjuna and Heidegger, Nagarjuna and Mark Taylor (and vicariously, Derrida), and Dogen and Deleuze which served as the basis of three competing conceptions of emptiness. He also tried to show what impact these conceptions would have on the ethical and practical conclusions for a practitioner. Briefly, the first conception can be characterized as "presence," and it emphasizes the dependent origination of every phenomenon; as a result, we are tasked with recognizing the "suchness" of experience--but this does not provide any particular ethical imperatives. The second conception can be characterized as "difference," and it emphasizes "the emptiness of emptiness." While both the first and second views resist the rigid conceptualization of reality, the former takes the detachment from concepts to bring us into closer contact with reality so that we can be with it in its impermanent flux. The "difference" view acknowledges persistent gaps and deferments that prevent us from either avowing or disavowing any understanding. The ethical task then is to acknowledge otherness, to resist reducing it to immediacy-for-me. The third view is Glass' take on a distinction he finds in Dogen between "cutting the root of thinking" and dropping off body and mind," and it can be characterized as "subtraction." Though some scholars (per Glass) treat these as equivalent, he tries to show that Dogen saw these as complementary processes with different attitudes towards or respecting different aspects of emptiness. The former rejects the various "coverings" which obscure the pure "Buddha-soul" in all things, while the latter affirms this Buddha-soul. Thus, there is a negation and an affirmation that work in tandem. This means that "is empty" and "is not empty" do not apply to the same things in the same ways. Intriguingly, Glass suggests that Dogen's Buddhism is actually a type of essentialism, where the nonessential (impure, pleasure-seeking) aspects of reality are subtracted so that the essential (pure, compassion-provoking) aspects of reality can be embraced. I have certainly never thought of Buddhism as a type of essentialism, but the parallels that Glass draws between Heidegger, Derrida (via Taylor), and Deleuze were helpful for me in my own reflections.