So what is emptiness? It is simply this unfindability. When we look for the flower among its parts, we are confronted with the absence of such a flower. That absence we are confronted with is the flower’s emptiness. But then, is there no flower? Of course there is. To seek for the core of any phenomenon is ultimately to arrive at a more subtle appreciation of its emptiness, its unfindability. However, we mustn’t think of the emptiness of a flower simply as the unfindability we encounter when searching among it’s parts. Rather, it is the dependent nature of the flower, or whatever object you care to name, that defines its emptiness. This is called dependent origination.

14th Dalai Lama

from the book An Open Heart: Practicing Compassion in Everyday Life

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