SHUNYATA, THE EMPTINESS

Ven. zhenguan

The teaching of emptiness largely occurred in India during the emergence of Mahayana Buddhism. For some contemporary scholars, the teaching can serve well as a significant signal for the rise of Mahayana Buddhism in India, which at times was considerably different from the previous schools. For instance, in his Shifting Words, Changing Minds: Where the Sciences and Buddhism Meet, Jeremy W. Hayward argues: “A key doctrine that distinguishes the Mahayana from the earlier schools is the direct realization expressed in the Sanskrit term shunyata [which is usually translated as emptiness, voidness, nothingness, or openness].”1 In his October, 2010 lecture titled “Emptiness as the Middle Path,” Dr. William Chu also argues that the Perfection of Wisdom, which marks the great teaching of Mahayana Buddhism, “was composed at a time when the folkloric Jātakas and Avadānas were increasingly becoming part of mainstream Buddhist belief.”2 Below, I shall not discuss whether or not the teaching of emptiness originally taught by Mahayanists during a specific time in India, but rather discuss: what the teaching of emptiness is about and aims at.

Emptiness presented by Mahayanists is but a means used to discern that absolutely everything is illusionary, that all perceptions are empty in nature, having not primary existences. In the Prajñāpāramitā literature, even Nirvana, which a Buddhist would put his or her whole energy in to pursue, “is like a magical illusion, is like a dream.”3 Mahayana Buddhists, by understanding emptiness as a useful practical manner rather than that of a philosophical dimension, understand that emptiness is not a metaphysical issue, nor is it related to nihilism, which denies the meaningful aspects of life, or the cult of nothingness, or like some contemporary scholars (such as Conze) having argued “some sort of monistic Absolute.”4 This is for sure. So, if a person, after having learnt what the teaching of emptiness is about accessible in the Perfection of Wisdom, says that emptiness is of nothingness, is of a path of negations, then we may say that in this case the person is just half-right and has missed the main point of the teaching. By that we mean, in the Prajñāpāramitā literature, the teaching of emptiness only manifests that all things are conceptual constructs and thus have no own-existence. In other words, the teaching does not deny things’ functions, so to speak, in a mundane level, but rather it means that all things are lack of substantial Being. For that reason, it is not a nihilistic denial of all existence, “it is the denial of existence as svabhāva, literally, ‘own-being.’”5

Speaking of lack of substantial existence, of own-being, we mean the teaching of emptiness is also clarifying that even “emptiness is itself empty of intrinsic nature.”6 It cannot be grasped after as the refuge. This kind of understanding has been the principle teaching of emptiness presented by the Prajñāpāramitā literature. And the understanding alone is treated as the right path to avoid two possible extremes—“the affirmation of substantial Being on one hand (eternalism), and nihilistic denial of all existence on the other (annihilationism).”7 In Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-250 C.E., who is believed to be the founder of the Mādhyamaka School in India) argues that all conditioned co-arising things are categorized to the scope of “emptiness.” The emptiness itself is a conventional designation. And only when a person understands that the emptiness itself is a conventional designation will he or she comprehend the meaning of Middle Path.8 To some extent, the Mādhyamaka School employs emptiness as a powerful tool to avoid possible extremes, and it is a constructive experience that one can utilize to discern onward without clinging to any unwholesome views.

Of course, when we say “experience”, we simply and straightly mean human experience, or discerning experience. We are tending to attribute the teaching of emptiness to a skillful means that aims to analyze that all fabricated things (including concepts) have not inherent nature, thus being able to remove attachments that impede a person to become enlightened, to be free from defilements. Or as Thanissaro Bhikkhu points out, emptiness is “a model of perception, a way of looking at experience. It adds nothing to and takes nothing away from the raw data of physical and mental events.”9 If we agreed with Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s arguement, we then may have our attentions to analyze emptiness in a more comprehensible way, to further recognize it as a useful manner that requests proper training “in firm virtue, concentration, and discernment”; without which training, “the mind trends to stay in the mode that keeps creating stories and world views.”10 This sort of insight indeed makes a lot sense. And it raises specific aims to gaze inside to realize that not only all conceptualized things are empty of Self, “but they are also empty of irreducible primary existence.”11
So, all dharmas that can be named (or called) are “not-self.” Buddhism from the very beginning claims this to be the truth “discovered by the eye of understanding (prajñā), the eye of the Buddha.”12 The understanding of not-self, accordingly, is a way that leads to cease suffering. The Buddha Sakyamuni himself, as a matter of fact, did not use the notion of not-self merely as a philosophical theory to defeat those Outsiders, but rather he did mean to use it as a practical means to attain real happiness.13 Therefore, to some extent, Nirvana is tranquility because all dharmas have not self; and, what we call a “self”, according to Abhidharmas, is “the combination of the Five of Aggregates, a combination of physical and mental energies.”14 The notion of empty of Self fairly is a fundamental doctrine that goes through the entire Buddha’s teachings, as Buddha sees all doctrines of Self “leading to suffering.”15 Like a doctor cares for his patients’ health, giving medicines accordingly, we understand that even in Mahayana Buddhism the teaching of emptiness is actually based on such an assumption—all things have not-selfness, employing it as a healing means to cure those who cling to constituents and the concept of self, who consider all phenomena as real, thus deluded and subject to the series of births and rebirths.

The teaching has the function to deconstruct phenomena that one may comprehend via six senses, telling people that things are illusion. They have not real existences. Things seem to exist, as they are entailed by unskillful minds. This can be oftentimes found truthful if we treat emptiness as a manner used to get rid of different sorts of attachments and unwholesome views abided by unskillful minds. Generally speaking, the teaching of emptiness also has a plain aim to entail insight into change, understanding that change is the real fact that all things present themselves in this world, and that things that we can observe have no inherent nature. They are conditioned and co-dependent: “if this exists, then that exists, and if this arises, then that arises.”16 Finally, to some Mahayana fellows, the understanding of the teaching of Shunyata even conveys a significant massage to save all being from suffering!