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Śūnyatā, शून्यता (Sanskrit noun from the adj. śūnya: "zero, nothing"), Suññatā (Pāli; adj. suñña), stong-pa nyid (Tibetan སྟོང་པོ་ཉིད་), Kòng/Kū, 空 (Chinese/Japanese), Gong-seong, 공성(空性) (Korean), qoγusun (Mongolian) is frequently translated into English as emptiness. Sunya comes from the root svi, meaning swollen, plus -ta -ness, therefore hollow ( - ness). A common alternative term is "voidness".
The theme of emptiness (śūnyatā) emerged from the Buddhist doctrines of the nonexistence of the self (Pāli: anatta, Sanskrit: anātman). The Suñña Sutta,[1] part of the Pāli canon, relates that the monk Ānanda, Buddha's attendant asked, "It is said that the world is empty, the world is empty, lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?" The Buddha replied, "Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said, Ānanda, that the world is empty." As emptiness correlates with Anatta, so it is often cited as one of the three marks of existence.
The exact definition and extent of emptiness varies from one Buddhist tradition to another; this can easily lead to confusion. These traditions all explain in slightly different ways what phenomena are empty of, which phenomena exactly are empty and what emptiness means.
The teaching on the emptiness of all phenomena is a core basis of Buddhist philosophy and has implications for epistemology and phenomenology. It also constitutes a metaphysical critique of Greek philosophical realism and the Hindu concept of self (ātman). Moreover, contrary to a common misconception equating emptiness with nihilism, grasping the doctrine of emptiness is a step towards Buddhist liberation. Unlike nihilism, emptiness maintains the Buddha's purpose.
This teaching does not connote nihilism. In the English language the word "emptiness" suggests the absence of spiritual meaning or a personal feeling of alienation, but in Buddhism the emptiness of phenomena, at a basic level, enables one to realize that the things which ultimately have no independent substance cannot be subject to any irreconcilable conflicts or antagonisms. Ultimately, true realisation of the doctrine can bring liberation from the limitations of the cycle of uncontrollably recurring rebirth.
Rawson states that: "[o]ne potent metaphor for the Void, often used in Tibetan art, is the sky. As the sky is the emptiness that offers clouds to our perception, so the Void is the 'space' in which objects appear to us in response to our attachments and longings."[2] The Japanese use the Chinese character signifying emptiness also for sky or air.
Over time, many different philosophical schools or tenet-systems (Sanskrit: siddhānta)[3] have developed within Buddhism in an effort to explain the exact philosophical meaning of emptiness. After the Buddha, emptiness was further developed by Nāgārjuna and the Mādhyamaka school, an early Mahāyāna school. Emptiness ("positively" interpreted) is also an important element of the Buddha nature literature, which played a formative role in the evolution of subsequent Mahāyāna doctrine and practice. (See: "Emptiness in the Buddha nature sutras" section below.) In order to train students in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, detailed dialogs are preserved between the perspectives of various schools that once flourished in India: Vaibhaṣika, Sautrāntika, Cittamātra, and several schools within Mādhyamaka such as Svātantrika-Mādhyamaka and Prasaṅgika-Mādhyamaka.
Some members of the Cittamātra school have held that the mind itself ultimately exists (the most prominent members of the school did not), but other schools like the Mādhyamaka deny that either this statement or its negation has any validity.
By contrast, in the Mahāyāna Tathāgatagarbha sutras, only impermanent, changeful things and states (the realm of samsara) are said to be empty in a negative sense, but not the Buddha or nirvana, which are stated to be real, eternal and filled with inconceivable, enduring virtues.
Further, the Lotus Sutra states that seeing all phenomena as empty (śūnya) is not the highest, final attainment: the bliss of total Buddha-wisdom supersedes even the vision of complete emptiness.
In S IV.295, it is explained that a bhikkhu can experience a deathlike contemplation in which perception and feeling cease. When he emerges from this state, he recounts three types of "contact" (phasso): "emptiness" (suññato), "signless" (animitto) and "undirected" (appaṇihito).[4] The meaning of emptiness as contemplated here is explained at M I.297 and S IV.296-97 as the "emancipation of the mind by emptiness" (suññatā cetovimutti) being consequent upon the realization that "this world is empty of self or anything pertaining to self" (suññam idaṃ attena vā attaniyena vā).[5]
The term "emptiness" (suññatā) is also used in two suttas in the Majjhima Nikāya, in the context of a progression of mental states. The texts refer to each state's emptiness of the one below.[6]
The stance that nothing contingent has any inherent essence forms the basis of the more sweeping emptiness doctrine. In the Mahāyāna, this doctrine, without denying their value, denies any essence to even the Buddha's appearance and to the promulgation of the Dhamma itself.
The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras suggest that all things, including oneself, appear as thoughtforms (conceptual constructs).[7][8]
In the Madhyamaka, to say that an object is "empty" is synonymous with saying that it is dependently originated.
For Nāgārjuna emptiness as the mark of all phenomena is a natural consequence of dependent origination; he is reported to identify the two in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. In his analysis, any enduring essential nature (i.e., fullness) would prevent the process of dependent origination, would prevent any kind of origination at all, for things would simply always have been and always continue to be. Accordingly to say an object is "empty" is synonymous with saying that thing is dependently originated.[9] Furthermore Madhyamaka suggests that bundles of causes and conditions are designated by mere conceptual labels, which of course also applies to the causes and conditions themselves and even the principle of causality itself since everything is dependently originated (i.e. empty).[10]
According to the Prasaṅgika, all phenomena are empty of "substance" or "essence" (Sanskrit: svabhāva), meaning that they have no intrinsic, independent reality. Buddhapālita states, while commenting on Nagārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā,
What is the reality of things just as it is? It is the absence of essence. Unskilled persons whose eye of intelligence is obscured by the darkness of delusion conceive of an essence of things and then generate attachment and hostility with regard to them.—Buddhapālita-mula-madhyamaka-vrtti P5242,73.5.6-74.1.2[11]
The Dalai Lama, who generally speaks from the point of view of the Mādhyamaka-Prasaṅgika, states:[12]
One of the most important philosophical insights in Buddhism comes from what is known as the theory of emptiness. At its heart is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own experience in it, and the way things actually are.
In our day-to-day experience, we tend to relate to the world and to ourselves as if these entities possessed self-enclosed, definable, discrete and enduring reality. For instance, if we examine our own conception of selfhood, we will find that we tend to believe in the presence of an essential core to our being, which characterises our individuality and identity as a discrete ego, independent of the physical and mental elements that constitute our existence.
The philosophy of emptiness reveals that this is not only a fundamental error but also the basis for attachment, clinging and the development of our numerous prejudices. According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is simply untenable. All things and events, whether ‘material’, mental or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective, independent existence.
To intrinsically possess such independent existence would imply that all things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely self-contained. This would mean that nothing has the capacity to interact with or exert influence on any other phenomena. But we know that there is cause and effect – turn a key in a car, the starter motor turns the engine over, spark plugs ignite and fuel begins to burn… Yet in a universe of self-contained, inherently existing things, these events could never occur!
So effectively, the notion of intrinsic existence is incompatible with causation; this is because causation implies contingency and dependence, while anything that inherently existed would be immutable and self-enclosed. In the theory of emptiness, everything is argued as merely being composed of dependently related events; of continuously interacting phenomena with no fixed, immutable essence, which are themselves in dynamic and constantly changing relations. Thus, things and events are 'empty' in that they can never possess any immutable essence, intrinsic reality or absolute ‘being’ that affords independence.
Besides being synonymous with Dependent Origination, emptiness in Mādhyamaka has a second aspect. Through logical analyses unique to Mādhyamaka it is shown that conceptual thought, by its very nature, is dichotomizing yet "reality" (or lack of it) is free from all extremes. Gorampa therefore makes his ultimate truth a gnosis that is primordially free from grasping the mind.[13]
In the Tibetan Jonang school, only the Buddha and the Buddha Nature are viewed as not intrinsically empty, but as truly real, unconditioned, and replete with eternal, changeless virtues.[14]
For the Svatantrika, conventional phenomena are understood to have a conventional essential existence, but without an ultimately existing essence. In this way they believe they are able to make positive or "autonomous" assertions using syllogistic logic because they are able to share a subject that is established as appearing in common - the proponent and opponent use the same kind of valid cognition to establish it; the name comes from this quality of being able to use autonomous arguments in debate. Bhavaviveka is the first person to whom this view is attributed, as they are laid out in his commentaries on Nāgārjuna and his critiques of Buddhapalita.
"Śūnyatā" (Sanskrit) is usually translated as "emptiness". It is the noun form of the adjective "śūnya" (Sanskrit) which means "empty" or "void",[15] hence "empti"-"ness" (-tā).
In the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā[16] attributed to Nāgārjuna, emptiness (śūnyatā) is qualified as "...void, unreal, and non-existent".[17] Eliot et al. (1993: p. 81) in commenting on the aforecited qualification of śūnyatā from De la Valée Poussin, furthers that:
None of these translations of śûnya is, however, quite satisfactory and there is much to be said for Stcherbatsky's [Stcherbatsky (1927). The Conception of Nirvana.] rendering – relative or contingent. Phenomena are śûnya or unreal because no phenomenon when taken by itself is thinkable: they are all interdependent and have no separate existence of their own.[18]
The class of Buddhist scriptures known as the "Buddha nature[19]" (tathāgatagarbha) sutras presents a seemingly variant understanding of emptiness. To counteract a possible nihilist view of someone who is disconcerted by the predominantly negative language of Mādhyamaka, these sutras portray emptiness of certain phenomena in a positive way. According to some scholars, the Buddha nature these sutras discuss, which is the indwelling, immortal Buddha-element in each being, does not represent a substantial self (ātman); rather, it is a positive expression of emptiness and represents the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. In this view, the intention of the teaching of Buddha nature is soteriological rather than theoretical.[20][21] According to others, the potential of salvation depends on the ontological reality of a salvific, abiding core reality — the Buddha-nature, empty of all mutability and error, fully present within all beings.[22]
According to Matsumoto Shiro and Hakamaya Noriaki, this is an un-Buddhist idea.[21] Their "Critical Buddhism" approach rejects what it calls "dhatu-vada" (substantialist Buddha nature doctrines). Dr. Jamie Hubbard writes:[23]
According to Matsumoto, Buddhism is based on the principles of no-self and causation, which deny any substance underlying the phenomenal world. The idea of tathagata-garbha, on the contrary, posits a substance (namely, tathagata-garbha) as the basis of the phenomenal world. He asserts that dhatu-vada is the object that the Buddha criticized in founding Buddhism, and that Buddhism is nothing but unceasing critical activity against any form of dhatu-vada.
The critical Buddhism approach has, in turn, recently been characterised as operating with a restricted definition of Buddhism. Professor Paul Williams comments:[24]
It seems to me that where someone wishes to argue (as in the case of the Critical Buddhism movement) that a development within Buddhism (in terms of its own self-understanding) is not really Buddhist at all, that person or group is working with an intentionally and rhetorically restricted definition of "Buddhism" ... One issue is how legislative the teachings of not-Self and dependent origination, or the Madhyamika idea of emptiness, are for Buddhist identity. Clearly, from the point of view of a description of Buddhist doctrinal history, as Buddhism has existed in history, these doctrines cannot be. At least some ways of understanding the tathagatagarbha contravene the teachings of not-Self, or the Madhyamika idea of emptiness. And these ways of understanding the tathagatagarbha were and are widespread in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Yet by their own self-definition they are Buddhist.
The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra contains a passage in which the Sutra states that meditatively cultivating non-Self and Emptiness in connection with the Buddha nature is a wrong approach and will lead to horrendous suffering:
By having cultivated non-self in connection with the Buddha nature and having continually cultivated emptiness, suffering will not be eradicated but one will become like a moth in the flame of a lamp.[25]
The attainment of nirvanic liberation (mokṣa), by contrast, is said to open up a realm of "utter bliss, joy, permanence, stability, [and] eternity",[25] in which the Buddha is "fully peaceful" (according Dharmakṣema's "Southern" version of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra) and "immovable" (acala) like a mountain (according to the Sanskrit version).[26]
In the period of the Buddha nature genre, Mahāyāna metaphysics had been dominated by teachings on emptiness in the form of Mādhyamaka philosophy. The language used by the Mādhyamaka approach is primarily negative, and the Buddha nature genre of sutras can be seen as an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings of dependent origination using positive language instead, to prevent people from being turned away from Buddhism by a false impression of nihilism. In these sutras the perfection of the wisdom of not-self is stated to be the true self; the ultimate goal of the path is then characterized using a range of positive language that had been used in Indian philosophy previously by essentialist philosophers, but which was now transmuted into a new Buddhist vocabulary to describe a being who has successfully completed the Buddhist path.[27]
Professor C.D. Sebastian writes[28] that the author of the Uttaratantra, a Buddha nature text, claims that the emptiness teachings of the prajñāpāramitā scriptures are true yet incomplete, and that emptiness needs the elucidation of Buddha nature doctrine, which is claimed by the author of the Uttaratantra to be a superior teaching:
The Uttaratantra is a Mahāyāna text with emphasis on Buddhist metaphysics and mysticism.
And:[29]
Tathagata-garbha thought is complementary to sunyata thought of the Madhyamika and the Yogacara, as it is seen in the Uttaratantra. The Uttaratantra first quotes the Srimala-devi-sutra to the effect that tathagata-garbha is not accessible to those outside of sunya realization and then proceeds to claim that sunyata realization is a necessary precondition to the realization of tathagata-garbha. There is something positive to be realized when one’s vision has been cleared by sunyata. The sunyata teachings of the prajna-paramita are true but incomplete. They require further elucidation, which is found in the Uttaratantra.
And:[30]
The Uttaratantra speaks of Buddhahood or Buddha-nature. Thus it signifies something special and different when we take into consideration the term tantra in the Uttaratantra. Further, as stated earlier, the sunyata teachings in the Prajnaparamita are true, but incomplete. They require still further elucidation, which the Uttaratantra provides. Thus it assumes the Prajna-paramita teachings as the purva or prior teachings, and the tathagata-garbha teachings as the uttara, in the sense of both subsequent and superior.
Professor Sebastian also indicates that the Śrīmālā Sūtra can be seen as very critical of negatively understood emptiness and that both the Śrīmālā Sūtra and the Uttaratantra enunciate the idea that the Buddha nature is possessed of four transcendental qualities - permanence, bliss, self, and purity - and is ultimately identifiable as the supramundane nature of the Buddha (dharmakāya). These elevated qualities make of the Buddha one to whom devotion and adoration could be given:[31]
This text is, in a way, highly critical of the negative understanding of sunyata. This text is one of the earliest Buddhist scriptures to be dedicated specifically to an exposition of the concept of the tathagata-garbha. The garbha possesses four guna-paramitas [qualities of perfection] of permanence, bliss, self, and purity, which can be seen in the Uttaratantra too. In the text, the garbha is ultimately identified with the dharmakaya of the tathagata. Here there is an elevation and adoration of Buddha and his attributes, which could be a significant basis for Mahayana devotionalism.
In the Tibetan Jonang school of Buddhism, the view of emptiness is twofold, as taught by that school's most prominent scholar, the monk Dolpopa: transient, worldly things are empty of an inherent existence, but the Buddha Nature (tathagatagarbha) is only empty of what is impermanent and conditioned, not of its own self. The Buddha Nature is truly real, primordially present in all beings, and filled with eternal powers and virtues. Professor Jeffrey Hopkins writes: 'The basis [of Reality] is the matirix-of-one-gone-thus [i.e. the Buddha Nature], which itself is the thoroughly established nature, the uncontaminated primordial wisdom empty of all compounded phenomena - permanent, stable, eternal, everlasting. Not compounded by causes and conditions, the matrix-of-one-gone-thus is intrinsically endowed with ultimate buddha qualities of body, speech, and mind such as the ten powers; it is not something that did not exist before and is newly produced; it is self-arisen.'[32]
Professor Hopkins further elucidates how the Buddha Nature is not empty, stating: 'Since the matrix-of-one-gone-thus, also called the immutable thoroughly established nature, is empty of all compounded phenomena but replete with the ultimate phenomena, or attributes, of enlightenment, it is not self-empty. If the matrix-of-one-gone-thus were self-empty, it would not exist at all. Rather, the matrix-of-one-gone-thus is empty in the sense of being empty of the other two natures, imputational and other-powered natures - respectively conceptually dependent factors and phenomena produced by causes and conditions.'.[33] Hopkins also translates passages in which the Tibetan monk, Dolpopa, quotes from the Angulimaliya Sutra, which makes a contrast between 'empty phenomena' and 'non-empty phenomena', wherein 'phenomena in the class of non-virtues, like hails-stones, quickly disintegrate. Buddha, like a vaidurya jewel, is permanent.'.[34] Thus the Buddha Nature is untouched by conditionality and temporality, and is truly free from self-emptiness. It is nothing less than 'the causeless original buddha'.[35]
Roger R. Jackson writes:[36]
A nihilistic interpretation of the concept of voidness (or of mind-only) is not, by any means, a merely hypothetical possibility; it consistently was adopted by Buddhism's opponents, wherever the religion spread, nor have Buddhists themselves been immune to it...
And later:[37]
In order to obviate nihilism... mainstream Mahayanists have explained their own negative rhetoric by appealing to the notion that there are, in fact, two types of truth (satyadvaya), conventional or "mundane superficial" (lokasamvriti) truths, and ultimate truths that are true in the "highest sense" (paramartha).
In the words of Robert F. Thurman:[38]
... voidness does not mean nothingness, but rather that all things lack intrinsic reality, intrinsic objectivity, intrinsic identity or intrinsic referentiality. Lacking such static essence or substance does not make them not exist —- it makes them thoroughly relative.
Conversely, emptiness as described by Nāgārjuna has been interpreted, notably by Murti in his influential 1955 work, as a Buddhist absolute. This is now regarded as incorrect by many modern scholars and not grounded on textual evidence.[39] The consensus is that Nāgārjuna defended the classical Buddhist emphasis on phenomena.[40] For him, emptiness is explicitly used as a middle way between eternalism and nihilism, and that is where its soteriological power lies. It does not specifically refer to an ultimate, universal, or absolute nature of reality.[41] Holding up emptiness as an absolute or ultimate truth without reference to that which is empty is the last thing either the Buddha or Nāgārjuna would advocate.[42] Nāgārjuna criticized those who conceptualized emptiness:[43]
The Victorious Ones have announced that emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible.
Likewise, a Zen admonishment against eternalism comes from Eihei Dogen:[44]
Still, don't just try to practice by thinking yourself into the idea that everything is Awake Awareness. There is a saying, "If you penetrate one thing, you penetrate all things." Penetrating something is not a matter of opposing or removing how something appears in its unique character. And don't try to cook up some state of non-opposition because this is just another form of grasping.
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