Emptiness misconceived

Posted By Mahabodhi on May 24, 2024 | 0 comments

Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book…

© Mahabodhi Burton

4 minute read

This excerpt is from Chapter 4: ‘Postmodernism and the academic mindset.’

Sunyata

Those casually or more deeply involved with Buddhism often bandy around the word Sunyata (pronounced shun-yata) or Emptiness, without necessarily comprehending—or even getting very close to—its true meaning: they assume it means something like ‘nothing is real.’

The truth is that the ‘mother of all (Buddhist) doctrines’—and the basis for sunyata—is praticca-samutpada or Dependent Arising: in short, Conditionality. This doctrine expresses the Buddha’s central insight that ‘all phenomena are dependently or conditionally arisen,’ thus they have no ‘own-nature / inherent-existence (svabhava).’ Nothing is self-supporting; nothing exists independent of (other) conditions.

Sagaramati:

‘Sunyata means that some “X” is “empty [sunya] of inherent existence,” that’s all. As we have said, sunyata and praticca-samutpada are the self-same doctrine seen in two ways. Therefore the doctrine of sunyata does not negate phenomena, but only negates that which has never existed, i.e. the illusion of “self-nature” that we attribute to phenomena. After insight into the emptiness of phenomena, the “same” phenomena are leftover: pots still carry on being pots; They don’t suddenly disappear into some fictitious emptiness. Fire still produces heat to keep us warm, etc. All that changes is our deep seated attitude to things: the way we are attached and dependent on them, the way we see and relate to them and cling to them for a sense of who we are, a sense of identity.’^[1]

In fact, according to Nagarjuna, sunyata, praticca-samutpada and the Middle Way are coterminous in meaning:

 

‘Whatever is dependently arisen (praticca-samutpada)

That is explained to be emptiness (sunyata,)

That, being a dependent designation (prajnapati,)

Is itself the Middle Way^[2]

Non-self

The Middle Way is the path between the two extreme views of ‘Eternalism’ and ‘Annihilationism,’ where Eternalism is the belief in fixed unchanging essences, such as an eternal creator God or an unchanging fixed self. Annihilationism is the belief that at death nothing of the person continues. These two views lead to the corresponding extreme religious outlooks of puritanical theistic religion in the former case and laissez faire hedonism in the latter. As with most things, the helpful option is somewhere in the middle: that is, acknowledging that there is some moral structure to the Universe, but approaching that humanely: in a way that is based in awareness and experience rather than dogma and religious doctrine. There is a self, an agent, but that self can be changed, for better or worse (ethically) moment-to-moment.

The reaction of Lauren from Octavia Butler’s unfinished Parable Trilogy is to the supernatural authority figure of the Eternalism viewpoint. This does not mean she need go to the other extreme, where no moral code is acknowledged and mankind has to navigate the world in a purely instrumental way, which seems to be where Postmodernism sits, with its moral relativism. The Buddha taught three kinds of craving (tanha🙂^[3] craving for sensory experience (kama-tanha😉 craving for existence (bhava-tanha) and craving for non-existence (vibhava-tanha,) each involving some kind of escape from or movement towards experience. Craving for sensory experience can be motivated by a desire to escape the challenge of being content within oneself; craving for existence can be motivated by a desire to maintain an existing pleasant experience; and craving for non-existence can be motivated by a desire to vanquish an existing painful experience: the self is thus bound up with grasping at the ideas of existence and non-existence. In the Katyayana Sutta^[4] the Buddha says:

‘… this world for the most part relies on a duality: it relies on the idea of existence (astita) and non-existence (nastita). … this world is bound up with attachment and appropriation, which relies, in fact, on ideas of existence and non-existence. When one does not fall into the fixations, inclinations and latent dispositions of the mind towards these mental attachments and appropriations, one does not attach to, does not fixate upon and does not incline towards thinking about “my self.”’^[5] (My emphasis)

In other words, it is only because of the fantasy that it is possible once and for all to fix one’s experience in pleasure (the blissful myth of Hinduism) or escape pain forever that one fixates about a self. Perhaps the common misunderstanding of sunyata, at root, a form of death wish rooted in aversion, and maybe in self-hatred.^[6]

In fact the Buddha advised against speculating about the self at all: in the Sabbasava Sutta^[7] he teaches a number of speculative ideas about the self as being ‘unfit for attention,’ including a person’s believing: 1) that they have a self; 2) that they don’t have a self; and 3) four further subtle ideas about the self.^[8] He invites each person, instead, to attend on how they might solve the root problem: which is to abandon three biases (asravas🙂^[9] 1) towards sensuality (kamasrava,) 2) towards becoming (bhavasrava) and towards ignorance (avidyasrava😉 as well as reflecting on the four Noble Truths.^[10] In other words, speculating about the nature of the self is a diversion from practicing the path to Nirvana, as in the end there are no permanent states. Even Nirvana, despite being irreversible, is dynamic in nature.

^[1] Dharmachari Sagaramati. Study paper.

^[2] Nagarjuna. ‘The Root Verses of the Middle Way.’ Mulamadhyamakakarika XXIV 18.

^[3] Tanha. Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta?h?

^[4] In the Sutta Central translation: Katyayanagotra Sutra: Discourse to Katyayana. Sutta Central. Accessed 18 March 2024.

https://suttacentral.net/sf168/en/jayarava?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false

^[5] Katyayana Sutra. Nidana Samyukta 19 (Tripathi 1962: 167-70)

^[6] Peter Harvey describes craving for non-existence as: ‘craving to not experience unpleasant things in the current or future life, such as unpleasant people or situations. This sort of craving may include attempts at suicide and self-annihilation, and this only results in further rebirth in a worse realm of existence.’ Harvey, Peter (2013). An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices. Cambridge University Press. p63.

^[7] Sabbasava Sutta. MN2. Access to Insight.

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.002.than.html

^[8] ‘This is how he attends inappropriately: “Was I in the past? Was I not in the past? What was I in the past? How was I in the past? Having been what; What was I in the past? Shall I be in the future? Shall I not be in the future? What shall I be in the future? How shall I be in the future? Having been what; what shall I be in the future?” Or else he is inwardly perplexed about the immediate present: “Am I? Am I not? What am I? How am I? Where has this being come from? Where is it bound?”’

‘As he attends inappropriately in this way, one of six kinds of view arises in him: The view I have a self arises in him as true & established, or the view I have no self… or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive self… or the view It is precisely by means of self that I perceive not-self… or the view It is precisely by means of not-self that I perceive self arises in him as true & established, or else he has a view like this: This very self of mine—the knower that is sensitive here & there to the ripening of good & bad actions—is the self of mine that is constant, everlasting, eternal, not subject to change, and will stay just as it is for eternity. This is called a thicket of views, a wilderness of views, a contortion of views, a writhing of views, a fetter of views. Bound by a fetter of views, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person is not freed from birth, aging and death, from sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress and despair. He is not freed, I tell you, from suffering and stress.’ Sabbasava Sutta.

^[9] ‘Knowledge of the destruction of the asravas’ is coterminous with Awakening.

^[10] ‘And what are the ideas fit for attention that he does attend to? Whatever ideas such that, when he attends to them, the unarisen fermentation of sensuality does not arise in him, and the arisen fermentation of sensuality is abandoned; the unarisen fermentation of becoming does not arise in him, and the arisen fermentation of becoming is abandoned; the unarisen fermentation of ignorance does not arise in him, and the arisen fermentation of ignorance is abandoned. These are the ideas fit for attention that he does attend to. Through his not attending to ideas unfit for attention and through his attending to ideas fit for attention, unarisen fermentations do not arise in him, and arisen fermentations are abandoned. … He attends appropriately, This is stress… This is the origination of stress… This is the cessation of stress… This is the way leading to the cessation of stress. As he attends appropriately in this way, three fetters are abandoned in him: identity-view, doubt, and grasping at precepts & practices. These are called the fermentations to be abandoned by seeing.’ Sabbasava Sutta.