we drive, even the computer we use, dependent on our feelings about these things? Or, even if the absence of those feelings didn’t impede recognition per se, would it overhaul our view of what these things are and what they mean? Does the meaning of the word ocean—not the dictionary meaning but the actual meaning of the word to you—depend on a mélange of feelings that you’ve come to associate with oceans? If you were suddenly cut off from those associations, would the ocean seem, well, empty? I suspect so. And I suspect that this can help explain how the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness arose.
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