What the Buddhist term empty/emptiness (shunya/shunyata) means depends a lot on the context in which it is used. For example, in the Lankavatara Sutra there are seven different emptinesses.
“Replied Mahamati the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva, I will indeed, Blessed One. The Blessed One said: Emptiness, emptiness, indeed! Mahamati, it is a term whose self-nature is false imagination. Because of one's attachment to false imagination, Mahamati, we have to talk of emptiness, no-birth, non-duality, and absence of self-nature. In short, then, Mahamati, there are seven kinds of emptiness: (1) The emptiness of individual marks (lakshana), (2) the emptiness of self-nature (bhavasvabhava), (3) the emptiness of no-work (apracarita), (4) the emptiness of work (pracarita), (5) the emptiness of all things in the sense that they are unpredicable (nirabhilapya), (6) the emptiness in its highest sense of ultimate reality realisable only by noble wisdom, and (7) the emptiness of mutuality (itaretara) which is the seventh” (trans. D.T. Suzuki).
In the Pali canon, suñña (shunya) can mean lack, vacant, desolate, barren, lonely, absent, etc. The Buddha tells Ananda that the temporal world (loka) is empty (suññam) of what belongs to the self which denotes a lack. The message is, we should not look for our self in the temporal world—it ain’t there.
Also in the Pali canon we find supreme or pure ultimate emptiness, viz., parisuddha paramanuttara suññata described in the discourse, Cula-Suññatâ Sutta, of the Majjhima-Nikaya. This is a state which can only be described as mind that becomes utterly purified, or the same, pure Mind. Mind is able to distinguish its own pristine nature from its most subtle of phenomenalization, namely, animitta-ceto-samadhi ( the samadhi of the mind that is signless). According to this Sutta, animitta-ceto-samadhi is still “effected and thought out” which means it is impermanent and liable to stopping.
Often in Mahayana Buddhism we find emptiness (shunyata) equated with suchness or tathata. Suchness, we are to understand, is the instrinsic substance or nature (svabhava) of Mind which is the Mind that is Bodhi (bodhicitta). In this sense emptiness is ontological or reveals the ontological rather than being the negation of all knowledge claims.
In Zen there is a difference between nihilistic emptiness and pure Mind which is empty of bewitching defilements. From Zen master Tsung-mi we learn:
“Nihilistic emptiness [means] vacuity, openness, absence, or extinction. It does not refer to the Genuine Mind (zhen shi xin). [This kind of emptiness] is without wisdom, without function, and cannot be found within dharmas.”
Again he says,
“The Nirvana Sutra, which says that “when there is nothing in a jar, the jar is said to be empty—it does not mean that there is no jar.” In the same way, “when there are no discriminating thoughts such as desire or anger in the mind, the mind is said to be empty—it does not mean that there is no mind. ‘No mind’ (wu-hsin) only means that the defilements (fan-nao; klesha) have been eliminated from the mind.”
We can consider absolute Mind to be completely empty of any and all determinations—which, in itself, is a sheer, marvelous vacuity which is, nevertheless, real and dynamic. Truth be told, the Buddha taught the emptiness or barrenness of phenomena; that they have no true nature. He also taught the absolute or tathata to be empty of phenomena and determinations.
"And what, friend, is the deliverance of mind through voidness? Here a
bhikkhu, gone to the forest or to the root of a tree or to an empty hut, reflects thus: “This is void of a self or of what belongs to a self.” This is called the deliverance of mind
through voidness. (M 1.297-98)
Posted by: qbrick | February 21, 2012 at 07:48 AM
Sunnata. (Skt. Shunyata) "Emptiness" (sunnata) in Pali contexts is not the metaphysical Zero (Nonbeing as the principle of Being, Infinite Possibility as distinguished from Indefinite Actuality), but a characteristic of this world, as in S IV.295 96, where it has been explained that when the Almsman returns from a deathlike Contemplation in which consciousness and feeling have been arrested, "three touches touch him,” "emptiness (sunnato)," "formlessness (animito)" and "making no plans (appanihito phasso)," and he discriminates (viveka) accordingly; and the meaning of "emptiness" 'is explained at M 1.29, "emancipation of the mind by Emptiness (sunnata ceto vimutti) being consequent upon the realization that `this world is empty of spirit or anything spiritual' (sunnam idam attena va attaniyena) "; sunnata is synonymous with anatta; of which it really only paraphrases and isolates the privative AN. It is no doubt in the same sense that in A 1.72, "the texts are coupled with `emptiness' (suttanta . . . sunnata patisannuta) "; there is, in fact, nothing more characteristic of Buddhist teaching that its constant resort to negatives (above all in the sense of the word anatta), which even some contemporary hearers found perplexing. The denial of spirituality to contingent things in particular is a denial of any real essence to these things in themselves, and thus forms the basis of the more sweeping sunyavada doctrine which in the Mahayana denies not any "value" but any essence to even the Buddha's appearance and to the promulgation of the Dhamma itself. If such a doctrine disturbs us, it may be found more palatably expressed in the Vajracchedika Sutra thus, "Those who see me in the body (rupena) and think of me in sounds (ghosaih), their way of thinking is false, they do not see me at all . . . . The Buddha cannot be rightly understood (rjuboddhum) by any means (upayena). Not that "means" are not dispositive to a right understanding, but that if regarded as ends, even the most adequate means are a hindrance. In such a radical iconoclasm as this all traditional teachings are finally agreed. What is true of ethics is also true of the supports of contemplation: as in the well known Parable of the Raft, the means are of no more use when the goal has been reached.
Westerners have most heinously misapprehended common Upanishadic/Vedantic as well as Buddhistic neti-neti (not this not that), and come, erroneously, to a fallacious conclusion that Buddhism in any way whatsoever negated the Absolute, or foundation of absolute being which lies before becoming and antecedent to paticcasamuppada (contingent manifestation), for as Gotama advocated “(Udana 1.81) There is, an unborn, an unoriginated, an unmade, and an unformed. If there were not monks, this unborn, unoriginated, unmade and unformed, there would be no way out for the born, the originated, the made and the formed.” Tibetan stupidity and namely Madhyamika doctrine is notorious for misapprehension of highly esoteric Indian via-negativa philosophical dialectic.
Uparipanna’sa-Att. 4.151 “Having become the very Soul, this is deemed non-emptiness (asuñña)”
MN 1.297 What friend is emancipation of the mind by means of devoidness (sunnata)? Herein a follower has gone to a clearing in the forest and the root of a tree and investigates thusly: ‘This is devoid (sunnamidam) of the Soul and what the Soul subsists upon.” This is called emancipation of the mind by means of devoidness (sunnata cetovimmuti).
Posted by: Java Junkie Junebug Julius | February 20, 2012 at 07:33 PM
Much nicer without all the uncessary resentment and finger-pointing. At its best this blog is one of the most helpful sources for scriptural references. Thanks!
Posted by: John Le F | February 20, 2012 at 11:13 AM
Wonderful breakdown of all that--thanks!
Posted by: MStrinado | February 20, 2012 at 08:52 AM