..续本文上一页emptiness for its qualification. Thus form is emptiness, and emptiness is form. At its core level, form does not differ from emptiness nor does emptiness differ from form.

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　　"The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness."

　　In much as it does with form, the presence of emptiness does not negate the conventional appearance of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. All of these skandhas are constantly arising and dissolving as a result of certain conditions being present. These conditions are, in turn, empty and conditioned by another set of conditions which, too, are empty and so on, ad infinitum. All conditions qualifying other conditions qualifying the skandhas are momentary phenomena giving rise to momentary phenomena. None of these has any inherent self-nature.

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　　"Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness."

　　Dharma is a comprehensive term with a variety of meanings and applications at multiple levels for both Hindus and Buddhists. In the sutra here, the term is used in the sense of a fundamental unit of existence, the building blocks of the empirical personality and its world. In this sense, the dharmas are something like the atoms of Democritus or the monads of Leibniz. The term "point-instant" comes closest perhaps to capturing the insight behind the term dharma within the context of the Heart Sutra. These "point-instants" have miniscule extension in space and have practically no endurance. Again, the analogy of wave-particle unpredictability best captures the drama of "point-instants."

　　It is out of these dharmas, the fundamental units, that the skandhas are made. Since all existence is manifested through one or another of the skandhas, it seems inevitable that all existence is a conglomeration of dharmas. But the dharmas themselves are not any solid objects positioned in time and space, just as the waves and particles of quantum physics are not. The dharmas make a momentary appearance and then flicker out. They appear as a result of the interplay of underlying sunyata, the core energy; hence they are inherently empty. There is absolutely nothing one can hold on to.

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　　"They do not appear or disappear, are not tainted or pure, do not increase or decrease."

　　The quality of appearing or disappearing is usually attributed to (seemingly) solid objects. If the dharmas are seen as a series of momentary flickerings, they cannot be invested with having the quality of appearing or disappearing precisely because flickerings are not solid objects. A flickering, so swift in time and miniscule in space, is not, in itself, tainted or pure, nor does it increase or decrease. An appropriate analogy here is of the waves in the ocean. A large wave is not a solid entity by itself but is composed of a series of smaller waves which in turn are composed of still smaller waves and so on. Even while we get the illusion of a "wave," there is actually a remarkably swift movement of water in certain patterns. A wave does not exist out there in the ocean. Out of ignorance, we may attribute these qualities (of appearing/disappearing, taint/purity, increase/ decrease) to conventional appearances (skandhas) but, since at the core of conventional appearances, there are only unpredictable flickerings (dharmas), our acceptance of these qualities as real in themselves will be a deluded view. The only place where our deluded view will find resolution is in the reality of sunyata.

　　Also, the categories of arising and disappearing, pure and impure, increasing or decreasing, belong to the realm of affirmation and negation which are, in turn, produced by our conceptual thinking. In pure experience, there is no affirmation or negation. In the experience of sunyata there is only emptiness, not its affirmation o…

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