What is "the good"?
Bailey Fragment 61) That which creates insuperable joy is the complete removal of a great evil. And this is the nature of good, if one can once grasp it rightly and then hold by it, rather than walking about tediously babbling about the good.**
But what about these questions:
A water bottle that has been emptied of water is still a bottle, and if we pick the bottle up and turn it upside down we can demonstrate that the bottle contains no water. We all know KD3 ("the high-point of pleasure reaches its limit in the removal of all pain. When pleasure is present, so long as it is uninterrupted, there is no pain either of body or of mind or of both together"). Being pain-free is a real and physical state of being, in order to be pain-free we have to exist and be alive. And a life that has been emptied of unnecessary desires is still a life, and when we take a moment away from our toys and unnecessary activities to look at such a life we can easily see its inherent calm and comfort.
Epicurus says "For the end of all our actions is to be free from pain and fear, *** and once we have attained this, the calm of the mind is achieved; seeing that the living creature has No Need to Go in Search of Something that is Lacking, Nor Any Need to look for Anything Else by which the good of the soul and of the body will be fulfilled.*** When we are pained because of the absence of pleasure, then, and then only, do we feel the need of pleasure. Wherefore we call pleasure the alpha and omega of a blessed life" (DL X 128), which as we know is only one of the several quotes we have of Epicurus where he equates the goal of our philosophy with the "pleasure" of painlessness, another is "by pleasure we mean the absence of pain in the body and of trouble in the soul" (X 131 fin.), which is as clear as it can be.