..续本文上一页commentators on Nagarjuna”s formulation of the Middle Way--between being and non-being, between realism and nihilism--have translated sunyata as "devoidness" rather than emptiness or nothingness. Nagarjuna”s thesis holds that despite the absence of all substance, qualities, or essential characteristics in all existing things in this changing world, there does remain the ineffable, final reality which can be seen only with the eye of intuitive wisdom (prajna). A quantum physicist may contend that this Final Reality can be intuited at the other end of an electronic microscope!

　　Thus our understanding of the word sunyata becomes a bit more clear. All forms are momentary in time and space; while the form lasts, it has validity (which is different from reality), but this appearance is transitory and illusory. Therefore, a more appropriate and accessible way to understand sunyata may be to apprehend it as "momentariness" or "transitoriness" rather than emptiness. Ancient Buddhism recognized that all objects are fundamentally devoid of independent lasting substance (Sanskrit: svabhava). Instead the interplay of form and energy creates a transitory phenomenon which appears in time and space. Nagarjuna cautions us against the temptation to posit sunyata as a category and reminds us again and again that sunyata itself is empty (sunyata-sunyata). The only way to apprehend the dynamic nature of sunyata is through the transitory/momentary appearance of forms. If no forms were to be manifested through it, sunyata would be a dead, static mass but sunyata”s function is to infuse the myriad forms. Thus, while sunyata itself is a process, the forms are a manifestation of that process and the process can be understood only through the momentary existence of the forms. It was in this sense of a dynamic, universal energy that ancient Mahayana Buddhism used the term sunyata.

　　In The Tao of Physics, Frithjof Capra makes a similar observation:

　　The phenomenal manifestations of the mystical

　　Void, like the subatomic particles, are not static

　　and permanent, but dynamic and transitory, coming

　　into being vanishing in one ceaseless dance of

　　movement and energy. Like the subatomic world of

　　the physicist, the phenomenal world of the Eastern

　　mystic is a world of samsara--of continuous birth

　　and death. Being transient manifestations of the

　　Void, the things in this world do not have any

　　fundamental identity. This is especially

　　emphasized in Buddhist philosophy which denies the

　　existence of any material substance and also holds

　　that the idea of a constant "self" undergoing

　　successive experiences is an illusion.[12]

　　In Sanskrit, sunya means cipher or zero. In the West, a circle or a zero means nothingness. In Native American usage, a circle means coming together, a sharing. In Indian usage, a circle means totality, wholeness. As Garma C.C. Chang, the noted Buddhist scholar, has remarked,

　　Zero itself contains nothing, yet it cannot be

　　held to be absolutely or nihilistically void. As a

　　mathematical concept and symbol, zero has a great

　　many functions and utilities, without which it

　　would be practically impossible to execute

　　business and scientific activities in this modern

　　age. If someone asked you, "Is zero nothingness

　　"

　　you would be hard pressed to give an appropriate

　　reply. Zero is both nothing and the possibility of

　　everything. It is definitely not something

　　nihilistically empty, rather it is dynamic and

　　vital to all manifestations. In the same way,

　　sunyata does not mean complete nothingness; being

　　"serenely vibrant," it has both negative and

　　positive facets.[13]

　　In the same vein, Masao Abe, another noted contemporary Buddhist thinker, has remarked that for Nagarjuna emptiness was not non-being but "wondrous …

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