Emptiness

Emptiness (Sunyata in Sanskrit) being one of the most profound truth in Buddhism, is often misunderstood. Sunyata is at best, though not ideally translated in English, as Emptiness. Though this might seem vague it is a very practical truth helpful to us in everyday life.

Examples of Emptiness

An analogy to explain Sunyata is a river. A river does not truly exist on its own as it consists of many streams of water coming and going, that make up its substance. Each of these streams is just unsubstantial, each consisting of smaller and smaller streams within it as substance.

There is not substantial or real river - there is only the flowing. We say that the river is empty of a real fixed nature - exhibiting Emptiness. Everything in the Universe (all physical and mental phenomena) exhibits characteristics of Emptiness.

Another example is a waterfall. A waterfall seen from a distance appears like a shiny solid sheet in one complete piece. But upon closer inspection, we see clearly that the piece is only a continuous flowing stream of water.

There is essentially no fixed waterfall - there is only water falling.

The Two Sides of Emptiness

Here is a useful maxim to remember the core concept of Sunyata by:

Sunyata Affirms the Existence of Existence Sunyata Negates the Sel-nature of Existence

This means that Emptiness does not deny existence of each and every thing but it denies the existence of a fixed unchanging self behind each and every thing.

Using the river again as an example, we can say that river (made up of many small streams) exist dependently or conditionally on the streams - this illustrates the first aspect of the above maxim.

Because the river flows on and on (keeps changing), we say that the river does not exist independently or unconditionally (as it has no unchanging identity or self) - this illustrates the second aspect of the maxim.