all names are abstractions. That's the whole Emptiness argument p44

The attempt to define anything, to find out what anything is once and for all, is itself based on a kind of “self ” idea: the fact itself must be so-and-so, a certain way and no other, unconditionally. For it to be simply true that, say, the apple is red, would require the “one cause–one effect” principle that is denied by the nonself doctrine of Buddhism: the idea that everything arises through a combination of causes and conditions.. The redness of the apple would have to be brought about by a single cause: the existence of the apple. The apple, acting alone, would have to have the power to make its redness appear. It would have to be a “self,” a sole cause....We cannot say that it is simply a “fact” that “the apple is red.” On the contrary, the redness of the apple is a result of a combination of factors—notably, the conjunction of the apple and a certain kind of visual apparatus, a nervous system, a habit of organizing impressions so as to divide the apple from what is not-apple, a system of names and associations and desires that condition this, and so on. Even if we fold all the conditions of the material object into one and call that the “apple,” any and every attribute of the apple will require additional conditions in order for the apple to come into being. (p47)

So every nameable entity is in the same boat as “the French Revolution.” It is an abstract, sometimes useful convention, taking account of some but not all of what is relevant, but that is always in danger of coming apart at the seams, being renamed in another way that seems more accurate, seems to account for more realities. (p49)

There is only the totality of interrelations, but these cannot be interrelations “between” predesignated “things.” That means even “interrelations” cannot really stand, since that presupposes “things” between which the relations exist. “Relations” means “relations between things.” If there are only relations, there are no things. But if there are no things, there are no relations either.

The problem with simply stating, “All things are inseparable; the universe is one inseparable whole,” is that we tend to then form a picture in our mind of “the whole universe.” But this picture is always misleading. Whatever way we may try to picture the whole, the whole of wholes, is also self-contradictory...The universe as a whole can have no particular characteristics. It can only be indeterminate. When we picture it, we are implicitly placing it within a frame, to which it is contrasted. So if we imagine infinite blackness, we are actually also putting some implicit non-blackness around it...Emptiness is this self-undermining of any claim about the whole.

what appears to be our selfish care for ourselves, for our own future, accoding to Buddhist nonself theory, is actually already a kind of compassion for someone "else". (p75)

We can see already that the dichotomy between selfishness and compassion cannot be absolute in a Buddhist context. Compassion is unavoidable; it is a necessary condition of all living beings, of all action, of all life. It’s just a question of the range and criteria of its application. (p77)

The Buddha sums up the situation in a phrase that is the heart of the whole Lotus Sūtra, and the key to all of Tiantai thought: “Without seeking it, we nonetheless effortlessly attained it.”

Enlightenment is not the renunciation of skillful means; rather is the mastery of all skillful means. (p97)

Second, note how this story illustrates the key idea of the Lotus Sūtra: “Without seeking it, we nonetheless effortlessly attained it.” The son did not seek to inherit the estate. He made no effort toward that end at all. He had no desire for it. But that does not mean he made no effort at all. Quite the contrary; he was working diligently the whole time. It wasn’t that he had no desire at all, just no desire for the goal he eventually attained. In fact, he needed his desire to get there—his desire for something else. He needed to want to make his meager minimum wage and not get fired. In fact, he was completely devoted to pursuing his own desire, which was the sole means to get beyond that desire, to get something he had never dreamed of. There is **a fundamental misrecognition and misdirection involved in the means/ends process here, in the structure of desire**, just as we saw in the story of the burning house. (p97 emph added)

We are not to discard our desires. On the other hand, we are not to take our desires seriously, as if they could actually be fulfilled. No, desire whatever you desire and pursue it wholeheartedly. But ...what you will end up attaining through this pursuit will definitely not—or at least will not only be, or not ultimately be—whatever it is you think you’re going to attain, what you want to attain, what is motivating you to work so hard at attaining it.

The fulfillment of the desire will not bring the expected satisfaction. It will turn out to be a stepping-stone to attaining something completely unexpected, something you presently cannot even dream of right now, which actually subsumes and nullifies in the process the thing you thought you were striving for. So go ahead and desire, strive with all your might to attain your desires, and at the same time know that your desires are futile, are deceptions, are systematic misdirections. This is neither desirelessness nor desire: the new Middle Way.

When we get to chapter 10 of the Lotus Sūtra, “Teachers of the Dharma,” this expansion of assurances takes a new turn; it now is directed at the reader of the text—at you. You, as a reader of the text, are also given the assurance of future Buddhahood. That is, “anyone who hears this Lotus Sūtra and experiences even one moment of pleasure in it,” will become a Buddha—in fact, the text seems to say in Chinese that they have already become a Buddha at this moment. (p100)

In other words, anyone who understands what it would mean if it were true (rather than having to actually accept it as true), who understands the wondrous implications of the idea set forth here, has activated those effects. This is a strange self-verifying structure that is characteristic of the Lotus Sūtra.

By delighting in the Lotus Sūtra right now, you make it the case that in the past you were a great bodhisattva who made a vow to be born here and now as this particular ordinary person. The past is a function of the present; it is the past of this present, never definitive, always changing. The same goes for the future: by delighting in the Lotus Sūtra teaching, the teaching that anything you are doing is bodhisattvahood, you live in a present with a future Buddhahood and a past bodhisattvahood. That isthe structure of the present; it is a present with bodhisattvahood behind it and Buddhahood in front of it. (p102)