Empty Mountains - The Two Truths of the Middle Way between Extremes
Welcome to Empty Mountains. This website was developed in order to respond to questions about Buddhist teachings on renunciation, selflessness, and emptiness. Buddhism is often misunderstood to be a pessimistic religion claiming that all desires are bad, that we have to lose our individuality in order to reach enlightenment, and that ultimate reality is a mere nothingness or void. How bleak! It is my hope that Empty Mountains will provide a much needed clarity.
The presentation of Buddhism on this website helps us to broadly understand all of Buddha’s teachings on the model of the middle way—the touchstone of the Buddhist faith. Although more complex than our usual dichotomist way of looking at things, it is the same conceptual framework Buddha famously used to explain the nature of the self, as well as all other Buddhist teachings. The sections on this website illustrate the middle way in terms of Buddhist practice, selflessness, and emptiness (i.e., the true nature of all things), respectively.
Read next Finding the Middle Way.