How many pieces of paper are there? I read the following article about the fullness of emptiness and this statement stuck out to me:


  ...when we look at a sheet of paper, the sheet of paper is part of our
  perception. Your mind is in here and mine is also, so we can say that
  everything is in here in this sheet of paper.


Now, the question is: prior to my perception of the paper, was it the same sheet of paper?

Based on the article, my answer would be no. I would expound on that with the following thoughts:


prior to my perception of it, a paper exists that does not have my
perception of it as an aggregate, paper #1
after my perception of the paper, a new paper came to exist consisting of all of the aggregates of paper #1 plus my own perception, resulting in paper #2


Conclusion: there are two distinct, co-existing pieces of paper. Thoughts?
I guess according to your definition, the "two" are not "co-existing" -- because one is "before" and the other is "after", so they're not at the same time.

I think that, conventionally, people would say that there's one piece of paper -- no matter how many people are thinking about it, nor whether anyone is looking at it and when.

The article says something poetic, about the cloud existing in the paper. Perhaps that implies that the paper-on-the-table and the paper-in-the mind are the same piece of paper too ... or that they "inter-are".



The bit of the article that stands out for me, is ...


  If we ask, “Empty of what?” he has to answer. And this is what he said: “They are empty of a separate self.” That means none of these five rivers can exist by itself alone.


I think that the anatta doctrine is something like, "There isn't a 'myself' that's independent of other things, e.g. of the shandhas."

And Thich Nhat Hanh explains that the sunyata doctrine means that, for each skandha, "There isn't an 'itself' that's independent of other skandhas." (I assume that means that pereption depends on form and vice versa, and so on).

Also interesting to note that the paper is composed entirely of non-paper elements (e.g. minerals, human labour, sunlight).

Anyway, he's saying what the sutta means when it says that "form is empty".

Also, which is less clear, "because of emptiness, form exists" (I say "less clear" but perhaps that's a classic example of taoism -- also it quotes Nagarjuna's saying, "Thanks to emptiness, everything is possible", so I suppose Nagarjuna explains that too somehow).

The bit at he end of the article, about the leaf and the tree, is quite nice too: reassuring, tender.

He seems to be taking the opposite strategy towards self-identification than I'd expect -- not saying "I am not" but saying, "I am everything -- mother, cloud, leaf".

May he be well. :-)