Theme

Emptiness

Sunyata — that no thing stands by itself. The ground of Mahayana philosophy and the recognition the Heart Sutra makes singing.

Knowledge6

Sites1

Teachings3

Products0

Knowledge

Gilt bronze image of Nāgārjuna, teacher and philosopher of emptiness

ConceptsMahayana

Sunyata

Emptiness is the absence in all phenomena of independent, intrinsic existence. It is not nothingness but the positive recognition that everything arises in dependence on other things — the deepest reading of the Buddha's teaching.

ConceptsMahayana

The Two Truths

Reality has two registers: the conventional truth of everyday appearances and the ultimate truth of emptiness. The Madhyamaka teaches that liberation requires understanding both — and the relation between them.

TextsMahayana

The Heart Sutra

The most chanted Mahayana scripture — 260 Chinese characters in Kumarajiva, fewer in the Tibetan, distilling the entire Perfection of Wisdom literature into the single declaration that form is emptiness, emptiness is form.

TextsMahayana

The Diamond Sutra

The Perfection of Wisdom that cuts like a diamond. The world's oldest dated printed book (868 CE, found at Dunhuang). The defining scripture of the Chan/Zen school.

FiguresMahayana

Nagarjuna

South Indian philosopher of the second century CE who articulated the doctrine of emptiness (sunyata) as the middle way between existence and non-existence. The Mulamadhyamakakarika is the founding text of the Madhyamaka school. The Mahayana traditions of East Asia and Tibet count him as the second Buddha; his analysis stands at the center of every later Mahayana school.

TraditionsMahayana

Mahayana

The Great Vehicle — the movement that reframed the Buddhist goal from individual liberation as an arahant to the universal awakening of all beings as a bodhisattva, and reframed the metaphysical ground from analysis of dharmas to the emptiness (sunyata) of all phenomena.