Three Views of Emptiness : Buddhism and the Art of

As we have discussed in a number of posts on this blog, emptiness (Pāli: suññatā, Sanskrit: śūnyatā) is a fundamental Buddhist teaching that refers to the fact that phenomena do not intrinsically exist. This empty characteristic of phenomena relates as much to animate objects such as a flower, a car, or the human body, as it does to inanimate constructs such as the mind, space, or the present moment. In essence, emptiness means that nothing exists as a discrete entity and in separation from everything else. For example, a flower in the garden manifests in reliance upon numerous causes and conditions, without which, it would not exist. Amongst countless others, these causes and conditions include the water in the earth and atmosphere, nutrients in the soil, respiratory gases carried by the wind, heat of the sun, and so forth.

Faculty of Arts Papers, 2006

Architectural design presents a viable model for complex problem-solving beyond its disciplinary borders. Our contemporary condition, with its plethora of convoluted and inter-related aspects, demands systems thinking and holistic attention. The dualistic thinking so prevalent in the West can be seen as one root cause of suffering, or samsara. The arbitrary split of science and spirit has led us down a path of difficulty and dilemma. Buddhist philosophy teaches that this dualism or separation is problematic. Sunyata, or emptiness, holds that such polarized thinking is misguided and that appearances are illusory. Many of our contemporary problems surface because of dualistic thinking and our delusionary view that such thinking expresses truth and reality. This notion of sunyata contends that form is void -our conceptions are artificial constructs that are subject to change, much like waves that surface out of the vast ocean below.

Transmission: Journal of the Awareness Field - Vol. 4 Awareness as Existingness, 2012

The word Emptiness has many various meanings. The experience of awareness becoming aware of its own self opens the experience of emptiness in a most direct manner. Experientially emptiness has many faces. Sometimes the face of emptiness is a void or abyss like experience. This abyss can open the unhappy experience of falling and falling and falling. This void experience can at times open the experience of disappearing and dissolving into a terrifying nothingness. And sometimes emptiness is experienced as no thingness. Sometimes emptiness is experience like endless and infinite space. Sometimes emptiness is experienced as unbound openness. Sometimes emptiness is experienced as deep unmoving stillness, stillness of movement and stillness of sound. Sometimes emptiness is experienced as bliss, vast bliss. All these variations of experience unfold over time as one becomes aware of their own awareness. Sometimes emptiness is experienced as freedom of pure potentiality. Often the word sunyata implies the experience and nature of emptiness. The personal experience of emptiness is a vast range experience often beyond words and language. The human range of experiencing emptiness is vast and ineffable. The experience of emptiness can range from nihilistic experience that can not be thought to the positive experience that is unbound bliss as gnosis. This wide range of meaning of emptiness is not only personally experiential but there is vast range of the historical cultural unfolding of the appearance of emptiness and articulation of emptiness by the various spiritual traditions. Over time the phenomena of emptiness has been articulated in various ways, and at times in ways that are in opposition to each other.

Translation of an article by 葉少勇 Shaoyong Ye：佛教哲學‘空觀’的起源與沿革 uploaded 14.6.2023

Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 2016

In recent decades, there has been growing assimilation of ancient Buddhist practices and principles into Western research and applied psychological settings. One Buddhist principle that is currently receiving an increasing amount of scientific interest is emptiness. Emptiness asserts that all phenomena-including the "self"are empty of intrinsic existence. This paper examines how logical inquiry and evidence from diverse psychological and scientific disciplines appear to be gradually adding credence to the notion of emptiness. The paper explicates how, if emptiness theory continues to be validated and accepted by Western psychologists, it will become necessary to reexamine some established beliefs in relation to the workings of both the psychological and physical world. Examples of how emptiness might develop and/or complement psychological and wider scientific understanding in this respect include coming to the acceptance that: (i) what is currently understood to be waking reality is effectively a shared dream, (ii) the "self" does not inherently exist, (iii) the underlying cause of mental illness is an individual's belief that they inherently exist, and (iv) maladaptive psychosocial functioning and the absence of mental illness are not necessarily mutually exclusive occurrences. It is concluded that there is a clear need for greater research into the validity and applications of emptiness. However, if supportive empirical findings relating to emptiness continue to emerge, it is possible that some of the next important scientific "discoveries" concerning mind and matter will emerge at the intersection of ancient Eastern contemplative practice, empirically-grounded Western psychological insights, and quantum mechanics.

1987

Snow Lion Publications PO Box 6483 Ithaca, New York 14851 USA Copyright © 1987 David Ross Komito First Edition USA 1987 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission from the publisher. Printed in Canada ...