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 constructi…

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