Thusness · John Tan

After Anatta · Explorations

Ethics and Compassion

Why emptiness makes care matter more.

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Last updated 31 Oct 2026

A harsh word at breakfast can sour a whole day. A kind one can carry someone through it. This page asks what happens to that when no self is found behind the words.

The question

Step 3 found no self standing behind the person. So who is harmed, and who is kind? And if nothing exists by itself, why not simply shrug? Many people fear that emptiness makes ethics a convention we might as well drop. Step 2 called that negating too much. This page shows why it does not follow.

The substance reading

Stated fairly, it says: for an act to matter, there must be a real doer who means it, a real victim who suffers it, and a real deed that stays until it bears fruit. Take away the fixed selves, and morality loses its footing.

Its mirror image sounds quite different but rests on the same idea: "If everything is empty, nothing really happens, so nothing really matters." Both assume that mattering needs a solid core. One keeps the core; the other mourns it.

What the tradition says

A mind that restrains itself, that helps others and that is kind: that is the dharma, the seed of fruit both after death and here.

Nāgārjuna, MMK 17.1

No one would ever do right or wrong. What could be done by what is not empty? An own-nature is not something that is made.

Nāgārjuna, MMK 24.33

Out of compassion he taught the true Dharma for the letting go of all views. To him, to Gautama, I bow.

Nāgārjuna, MMK 27.30

Nāgārjuna's work ends with compassion. The word he uses there, "taking up" (upādāya), is the same word he uses for designation in dependence (MMK 24.18). The teaching itself arose in dependence: on compassion, for those who suffer.

Applying the logic

1 · What would a substance view say?A real doer, a real victim, and a deed that lasts until it ripens. Without them, nothing matters.
2 · What does dependency say instead?Doer and deed are designated together (MMK 8.12). A kind act arises from conditions and bears fruit through them, as seed, sprout and fruit follow one another (MMK 17.7–10). A deed with its own nature could never be done, change or end (MMK 17.22–24).
3 · What is affirmed conventionally?Right and wrong, harm and kindness, responsibility, promises and the fruits of action. The person who acts and meets the results. Love, sorrow and care, exactly where they were.
4 · What is never found?A self behind the kindness that "really" means it, a victim fixed as a victim, a store that holds the deed.

This is Step 7 at work. Something that existed by itself could not change, combine or act. A cruel person fixed in their nature could never learn or regret. A kindness fixed in its nature could never be given. The person is designated on what they do, so a person who acts differently becomes, in a real sense, a different kind of person.

So the title's "more" has a precise sense, and only that sense. Emptiness does not produce care. It removes the excuses: "it isn't really happening", "they are only appearances", "there is no one there". A car with no essence still injures, and the grief of the family is not an illusion. Nothing waits outside the chain of conditions to absorb what we do.

What is not yet settled

I should be honest about the limit here. My books say that emptiness takes nothing from compassion, and that kindness works and is felt with no fixed self behind it. They do not say how compassion relates to awakening. Does care arise by itself when emptiness is seen? Is it a practice of its own, as in the awakened heart (bodhicitta) that joins wisdom and compassion? Dzogchen names compassion (thugs rje) as one aspect of the basis, and I have named it without yet taking it up. I leave the question open rather than answer it by claiming that emptiness causes compassion. It does not cause anything.

Two traps

Too much: eternalism

"Kindness needs a real self that means it." Then good and bad become verdicts on what someone is: a cruel person cruel for ever, and my own goodness something to defend.

Too little: nihilism

"It is all empty, so nothing matters." Emptiness used to excuse harm or to skip care. If a reading of emptiness makes cause and result matter less, it has aimed past the target.

In practice

  • When an insult lodges and repeats, notice that it seems to sit in the words themselves. It still hurts. Look for what it landed on, apart from the moment, the voice and the hearing.
  • When someone is cruel, the harm is real and should be met. The person is not fixed as cruel; conditions can change.
  • The view does not make the loss of someone we love painless. The pain can be met by care.
  • Notice a kindness you receive today. It is felt fully, and no fixed self is found behind it.

In the chain: this page goes with The Logic of Dependency (6 of 7); The Illusion of the Given (5 of 7). The chain starts at Seeing Comes First.

In the books

Words to know

Karma
Intentional action, and the way it bears fruit. Real and reliable, with nothing carried across.
Agent and action (kāraka, karma)
The doer and the deed. Each is designated in dependence on the other.
Mere I
The person, designated on body and mind. It acts, keeps promises and meets the results of what it has done.
Compassion (anukampā)
The wish to relieve suffering. It works without a fixed self behind it, and emptiness takes nothing from it.
Unobstructed compassion (thugs rje)
In Dzogchen, the third aspect of the basis. Named in my books, not yet taken up.
Conventional truth
How things work and are named. Where right and wrong are fully in force.