Śūnyatā, शून्यता ("zero, nothing"), is frequently translated into English as emptiness. In Buddhism, emptiness is a characteristic of phenomena, arising from the Buddha's observation that nothing possesses an essential, enduring identity by virtue of dependent origination. Thus to say an object is "empty" is synonymous with saying that thing is dependently originated. Śūnyatā generally holds that all things, including oneself, appear as thoughtforms (conceptual constructs). This view is roughly shared by the historically related Perfection of Wisdom Sutras, Mādhyamaka and Yogācāra.
All of extant Buddhism, including Theravada, considers any person to be a mere conceptual construct designated upon a bundle of aggregates. However Theravada's Abhidharma makes the aggregates into 'primary existents'. Mahayana arose partly as a response to various "new" Abhidharmas, such as the one followed in Theravada, which put forth the notion that the aggregates are 'primary existents'.
The teaching on the emptiness of all phenomena is a core basis of Buddhist philosophy and has implications for epistemology and phenomenology. It also constitutes a metaphysical critique of Greek philosophical realism and the Hindu concept of self (ātman). Moreover, contrary to a common misconception equating emptiness with nihilism, grasping the doctrine of emptiness is a step towards Buddhist liberation. Unlike nihilism, emptiness maintains the Buddha's purpose.
Emptiness signifies that everything one encounters in life is empty of absolute identity, permanence, or an in-dwelling "self". This is because everything is inter-related and mutually dependent — never wholly self-sufficient or independent. All dynamic things are in a state of constant flux where energy and information are forever flowing throughout the natural world giving rise to and themselves undergoing major transformations with the passage of time.
This teaching does not connote nihilism. In the English language the word "emptiness" suggests the absence of spiritual meaning or a personal feeling of alienation, but in Buddhism the emptiness of phenomena, at a basic level, enables one to realize that the things which ultimately have no independent substance cannot be subject to any irreconcilable conflicts or antagonisms. Ultimately, true realisation of the doctrine can bring liberation from the limitations of the cycle of uncontrollably recurring rebirth.
Rawson states that: "[o]ne potent metaphor for the Void, often used in Tibetan art, is the sky. As the sky is the emptiness that offers clouds to our perception, so the Void is the 'space' in which objects appear to us in response to our attachments and longings." The Japanese use the Chinese character signifying emptiness also for sky or air.
Origin and development of the concept of emptiness
The theme of emptiness (śūnyatā) emerged from the Buddhist doctrines of the nonexistence of the self (Pāli: anatta, Sanskrit: anātman) and dependent arising (Pāli: paticcasamuppada, Sanskrit: pratītyasamutpāda). The Suñña Sutta,part of the Pāli canon, relates that the monk Ānanda, Buddha's attendant asked, "It is said that the world is empty, the world is empty, lord. In what respect is it said that the world is empty?" The Buddha replied, "Insofar as it is empty of a self or of anything pertaining to a self: Thus it is said, Ānanda, that the world is empty." He goes on to explain that what is meant by "the world" is the six sense media and their objects, and elsewhere says that to theorize about something beyond this realm of experience would put one to grief.
Over time, many different philosophical schools or tenet-systems (Sanskrit: siddhānta) have developed within Buddhism in an effort to explain the exact philosophical meaning of emptiness. After the Buddha, emptiness was further developed by Nāgārjuna and the Mādhyamaka school, an early Mahāyāna school. Emptiness ("positively" interpreted) is also an important element of the Buddha nature literature, which played a formative role in the evolution of subsequent Mahāyāna doctrine and practice. In order to train students in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, detailed dialogs are preserved between the perspectives of various schools that once flourished in India: Vaibhaṣika, Sautrāntika, Cittamātra, and several schools within Mādhyamaka such as Svātantrika-Mādhyamaka and Prasaṅgika-Mādhyamaka.
It should be noted that the exact definition and extent of emptiness varies within the different Buddhist schools of philosophy and this can easily lead to confusion. These tenet-systems all explain in slightly different ways what phenomena are empty of, which phenomena exactly are empty and what emptiness means. For example, some members of the Cittamātra school have held that the mind itself ultimately exists (the most prominent members of the school did not), but other schools like the Mādhyamaka deny that either this statement or its negation has any validity.
By contrast, in the Mahāyāna Tathāgatagarbha sutras, only impermanent, changeful things and states (the realm of samsara) are said to be empty in a negative sense, but not the Buddha or nirvana, which are stated to be real, eternal and filled with inconceivable, enduring virtues. Further, the Lotus Sutra states that seeing all phenomena as empty (śūnya) is not the highest, final attainment: the bliss of total Buddha-wisdom supersedes even the vision of complete emptiness. Emptiness in the Nikāyas of presectarian Buddhism
In S IV.295, it is explained that a bhikkhu can experience a deathlike contemplation in which perception and feeling cease. When he emerges from this state, he recounts three types of "contact" (phasso): "emptiness" (suññato), "signless" (animitto) and "undirected" (appaṇihito). The meaning of emptiness as contemplated here is explained at M I.297 and S IV.296-97 as the "emancipation of the mind by emptiness" (suññatā cetovimutti) being consequent upon the realization that "this world is empty of self or anything pertaining to self" (suññam idaṃ attena vā attaniyena vā).
The term "emptiness" (suññatā) is also used in two suttas in the Majjhima Nikāya, in the context of a progression of mental states. The texts refer to each state's emptiness of the one below. The stance that nothing contingent has any inherent essence forms the basis of the more sweeping emptiness doctrine. In the Mahāyāna, this doctrine, without denying their value, denies any essence to even the Buddha's appearance and to the promulgation of the Dhamma itself.
Mahāyāna. Emptiness in the Perfection of Wisdom Sutras
The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras suggest that all things, including oneself, appear as thoughtforms (conceptual constructs). For Nāgārjuna, who distilled the essence of the Buddhist texts extant at that time, emptiness as the mark of all phenomena is a natural consequence of dependent origination; he is reported to identify the two in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. In his analysis, any enduring essential nature (i.e., fullness) would prevent the process of dependent origination, would prevent any kind of origination at all, for things would simply always have been and always continue to be. Accordingly to say an object is "empty" is synonymous with saying that thing is dependently originated.[19] Furthermore Madhyamaka suggests that bundles of causes and conditions are designated by mere conceptual labels, which of course also applies to the causes and conditions themselves and even the principle of causality itself since everything is dependently originated (i.e. empty).
This enables Nāgārjuna to put forth a bold argument regarding the relation of nirvana to samsara i.e. nirvana is simply samsara rightly experienced in light of a proper understanding of the emptiness of all things.The Dalai Lama, who generally speaks from the point of view of the Mādhyamaka-Prasaṅgika, states:
One of the most important philosophical insights in Buddhism comes from what is known as the theory of emptiness. At its heart is the deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own experience in it, and the way things actually are.In our day-to-day experience, we tend to relate to the world and to ourselves as if these entities possessed self-enclosed, definable, discrete and enduring reality. For instance, if we examine our own conception of selfhood, we will find that we tend to believe in the presence of an essential core to our being, which characterises our individuality and identity as a discrete ego, independent of the physical and mental elements that constitute our existence.The philosophy of emptiness reveals that this is not only a fundamental error but also the basis for attachment, clinging and the development of our numerous prejudices. According to the theory of emptiness, any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is simply untenable. All things and events, whether ‘material’, mental or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective, independent existence.To intrinsically possess such independent existence would imply that all things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely self-contained. This would mean that nothing has the capacity to interact with or exert influence on any other phenomena. But we know that there is cause and effect – turn a key in a car, the starter motor turns the engine over, spark plugs ignite and fuel begins to burn… Yet in a universe of self-contained, inherently existing things, these events could never occur!So effectively, the notion of intrinsic existence is incompatible with causation; this is because causation implies contingency and dependence, while anything that inherently existed would be immutable and self-enclosed. In the theory of emptiness, everything is argued as merely being composed of dependently related events; of continuously interacting phenomena with no fixed, immutable essence, which are themselves in dynamic and constantly changing relations. Thus, things and events are 'empty' in that they can never possess any immutable essence, intrinsic reality or absolute ‘being’ that affords independence.
Besides being synonymous with Dependent Origination, emptiness in Mādhyamaka has a second aspect. Through logical analyses unique to Mādhyamaka it is shown that conceptual thought, by its very nature, is dichotomizing yet "reality" (or lack of it) is free from all extremes. Gorampa therefore makes his ultimate truth a gnosis that is primordially free from grasping the mind.
Emptiness in Yogacara Emptiness in the Tathāgatagarbha Sutras
According to Matsumoto Shiro and Hakamaya Noriaki, this is an un-Buddhist idea. Their "Critical Buddhism" approach rejects what it calls "dhatu-vada" (substantialist Buddha nature doctrines). Dr. Jamie Hubbard writes:
According to Matsumoto, Buddhism is based on the principles of no-self and causation, which deny any substance underlying the phenomenal world. The idea of tathagata-garbha, on the contrary, posits a substance (namely, tathagata-garbha) as the basis of the phenomenal world. He asserts that dhatu-vada is the object that the Buddha criticized in founding Buddhism, and that Buddhism is nothing but unceasing critical activity against any form of dhatu-vada.
The critical Buddhism approach has, in turn, recently been characterised as operating with a restricted definition of Buddhism. Professor Paul Williams comments:
It seems to me that where someone wishes to argue (as in the case of the Critical Buddhism movement) that a development within Buddhism (in terms of its own self-understanding) is not really Buddhist at all, that person or group is working with an intentionally and rhetorically restricted definition of "Buddhism" ... One issue is how legislative the teachings of not-Self and dependent origination, or the Madhyamika idea of emptiness, are for Buddhist identity. Clearly, from the point of view of a description of Buddhist doctrinal history, as Buddhism has existed in history, these doctrines cannot be. At least some ways of understanding the tathagatagarbha contravene the teachings of not-Self, or the Madhyamika idea of emptiness. And these ways of understanding the tathagatagarbha were and are widespread in Mahāyāna Buddhism. Yet by their own self-definition they are Buddhist.
The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra contains a passage in which the Sutra states that meditatively cultivating non-Self and Emptiness in connection with the Buddha nature is a wrong approach and will lead to horrendous suffering:
By having cultivated non-self in connection with the Buddha nature and having continually cultivated emptiness, suffering will not be eradicated but one will become like a moth in the flame of a lamp.
The attainment of nirvanic liberation (mokṣa), by contrast, is said to open up a realm of "utter bliss, joy, permanence, stability, [and] eternity", in which the Buddha is "fully peaceful" (according Dharmakṣema's "Southern" version of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra) and "immovable" (acala) like a mountain (according to the Sanskrit version).
In the period of the Buddha nature genre, Mahāyāna metaphysics had been dominated by teachings on emptiness in the form of Mādhyamaka philosophy. The language used by the Mādhyamaka approach is primarily negative, and the Buddha nature genre of sutras can be seen as an attempt to state orthodox Buddhist teachings of dependent origination using positive language instead, to prevent people from being turned away from Buddhism by a false impression of nihilism. In these sutras the perfection of the wisdom of not-self is stated to be the true self; the ultimate goal of the path is then characterized using a range of positive language that had been used in Indian philosophy previously by essentialist philosophers, but which was now transmuted into a new Buddhist vocabulary to describe a being who has successfully completed the Buddhist path.
Professor C.D. Sebastian writes that the author of the Uttaratantra, a Buddha nature text, claims that the emptiness teachings of the prajñāpāramitā scriptures are true yet incomplete, and that emptiness needs the elucidation of Buddha nature doctrine, which is claimed by the author of the Uttaratantra to be a superior teaching:
The Uttaratantra is a Mahāyāna text with emphasis on Buddhist metaphysics and mysticism.
And:
Tathagata-garbha thought is complementary to sunyata thought of the Madhyamika and the Yogacara, as it is seen in the Uttaratantra. The Uttaratantra first quotes the Srimala-devi-sutra to the effect that tathagata-garbha is not accessible to those outside of sunya realization and then proceeds to claim that sunyata realization is a necessary precondition to the realization of tathagata-garbha. There is something positive to be realized when one’s vision has been cleared by sunyata. The sunyata teachings of the prajna-paramita are true but incomplete. They require further elucidation, which is found in the Uttaratantra.
And:
The Uttaratantra speaks of Buddhahood or Buddha-nature. Thus it signifies something special and different when we take into consideration the term tantra in the Uttaratantra. Further, as stated earlier, the sunyata teachings in the Prajnaparamita are true, but incomplete. They require still further elucidation, which the Uttaratantra provides. Thus it assumes the Prajna-paramita teachings as the purva or prior teachings, and the tathagata-garbha teachings as the uttara, in the sense of both subsequent and superior.
Professor Sebastian also indicates that the Śrīmālā Sūtra can be seen as very critical of negatively understood emptiness and that both the Śrīmālā Sūtra and the Uttaratantra enunciate the idea that the Buddha nature is possessed of four transcendental qualities - permanence, bliss, self, and purity - and is ultimately identifiable as the supramundane nature of the Buddha (dharmakāya). These elevated qualities make of the Buddha one to whom devotion and adoration could be given:
This text is, in a way, highly critical of the negative understanding of sunyata. This text is one of the earliest Buddhist scriptures to be dedicated specifically to an exposition of the concept of the tathagata-garbha. The garbha possesses four guna-paramitas [qualities of perfection] of permanence, bliss, self, and purity, which can be seen in the Uttaratantra too. In the text, the garbha is ultimately identified with the dharmakaya of the tathagata. Here there is an elevation and adoration of Buddha and his attributes, which could be a significant basis for Mahayana devotionalism.
Emptiness, nihilism, and eternalism
Roger R. Jackson writes:
A nihilistic interpretation of the concept of voidness (or of mind-only) is not, by any means, a merely hypothetical possibility; it consistently was adopted by Buddhism's opponents, wherever the religion spread, nor have Buddhists themselves been immune to it...
And later:
In order to obviate nihilism... mainstream Mahayanists have explained their own negative rhetoric by appealing to the notion that there are, in fact, two types of truth (satyadvaya), conventional or "mundane superficial" (lokasamvriti) truths, and ultimate truths that are true in the "highest sense" (paramartha).
In the words of Robert F. Thurman:
... voidness does not mean nothingness, but rather that all things lack intrinsic reality, intrinsic objectivity, intrinsic identity or intrinsic referentiality. Lacking such static essence or substance does not make them not exist —- it makes them thoroughly relative.
Eternalism
Conversely, emptiness as described by Nāgārjuna has been interpreted, notably by Murti in his influential 1955 work, as a Buddhist absolute. This is now regarded as incorrect by many modern scholars and not grounded on textual evidence. The consensus is that Nāgārjuna defended the classical Buddhist emphasis on phenomena. For him, emptiness is explicitly used as a middle way between eternalism and nihilism, and that is where its soteriological power lies. It does not specifically refer to an ultimate, universal, or absolute nature of reality. Holding up emptiness as an absolute or ultimate truth without reference to that which is empty is the last thing either the Buddha or Nāgārjuna would advocate.Nāgārjuna criticized those who conceptualized emptiness:
The Victorious Ones have announced that emptiness is the relinquishing of all views. Those who are possessed of the view of emptiness are said to be incorrigible.
Likewise, a Zen admonishment against eternalism comes from Eihei Dogen:
Still, don't just try to practice by thinking yourself into the idea that everything is Awake Awareness. There is a saying, "If you penetrate one thing, you penetrate all things." Penetrating something is not a matter of opposing or removing how something appears in its unique character. And don't try to cook up some state of non-opposition because this is just another form of grasping.
The teachings on emptiness (Sanskrit sunyata or shunyata) find their most articulate development in the Kadampa branch of Mahayana Buddhism (Madhyamika Prasangika philosophy). To the Kadampas nothing exists 'inherently' or 'from its own side'. All phenomena exist in dependence on three things -(i) their causes,(ii) their parts or relations with other objects, and(iii) their imputation by the mind of a sentient being.And the sentient mind is NOT a physical construct or epiphenomenon of matter . The mind is clear and formless and has the power to know phenomena in a qualitative way [KELSANG GYATSO 1992], and hence give meaning to them.To Kadampa Buddhists all things are totally empty of any defining essence. Consequently all things have no fixed identity ('inherent existence') and are are in a state of impermanence - change and flux - constantly becoming and decaying. Not only are all things constantly changing, but if we analyse any phenomenon in enough detail we come to the conclusion that it is ultimately unfindable, and exists purely by definitions in terms of other things - and one of those other things is always the mind which generates those definitions.Buddhists regard the persistent delusion of 'inherent existence' as a major obstacle to spiritual development, and the root of many other damaging delusions. One of these delusions is the materialist belief in an objective reality existing independently of mind. By asserting that the universe exists inherently as a brute fact, materialism denies that subjective experience has any relevance to or influence on the universe, or indeed any existence at all.The delusion of inherent existence is deeply ingrained our our culture. It was embedded into western philosophy by the Greek philosopher Plato, who was born about sixty years after Buddha's death.Plato's view of reality is that for any class of objects there is a defining ideal form which is fixed, permanent and unchanging. All physical instances of objects tend to be imperfect. For example the wilting, mildewed roses in my garden are imperfect instances of an ideal rose which exists in a perfect realm of eternal forms. It is only by reference to this authoritative 'specification' that my mind is able to identify and name the transient physical phenomena, which 'participate' in the ideal form's attributes.Buddha died in 483 BC. Plato was born in 428 BC. Yet it is most unlikely that Plato was aware of his predecessor's teachings. In those days there was little contact between Greek and Indian philosophy. This had to await the eastward advance of Alexander the Great around 328 BC. The first recorded contact between Greek civilisation and Buddhism is the conversation between the Greek King Milinda of Bactria, and Nagasena, a Buddhist chariot dismantler [CONZE 1959].Empty vehiclesKing Milinda was a Greek and an experienced soldier who thought he knew a chariot when he saw one. But Nagasena demonstrated that if Milinda's chariot were gradually dismantled - knock a spoke out of a wheel here, a plank off there, then a bit of the frame and so on - there was no way for Milinda to decide at exactly what step in the procedure he should stop imputing 'vehicle' and start imputing 'heap of firewood'.Nagasena said this was because the chariot had no power to define itself from its own side. Nor was there any ideal chariot form 'in the sky' which engaged and disengaged with the timber at definite stages of assembly and disassembly.Milinda's mind was the only thing that could make the distinction between vehicle and firewood. And there were no logical rules, stepwise procedures or decision trees for Milinda to decide when to cease imputing one thing and impute another.As with chariots, so with cars. Everyone knows what a car is. A car is an assembly of parts. But what makes those parts into a car is surprisingly difficult to pin down. At what stage on the production line do the components finally become a car?Does it temporarily cease to be a car when it's in for repairs and the transmission is several yards away from the rest of the vehicle? Is my car still a car when I wake up one morning to find it supported on bricks with the wheels missing?Or, could I say that the essential feature of a car is that it performs the functions of a car? So does it cease to be a car when it won't start? And does it return to the state of being a car when I cure the problem by spraying the electrics with moisture repellent? Does the true 'essence' of a car therefore reside in an aerosol can?Emptiness of natural things.Maybe we can rescue Plato's ideas of the inherent existence of perfect forms if we assume there is a strict demarcation between man-made and natural objects, with the former existing in dependence upon the 'judgement' of the observer, but the latter existing 'from their own side'. For having come to accept that man-made things such as chariots and cars owe some of their existence to dependence on our mind, we may suspect that this is somehow because they are originally products of the human mind - as first conceived by the designer.We find it more difficult to accept the natural things in the world, such as flowers and trees are dependent upon our minds. A rose would smell as sweet by any other name. A rose bush is a rose bush is a rose bush, and is different in its inherent nature from a plum or a cherry tree. There is no continuum between these three species and thus no necessity for our mind to make a judgment of the borderline. But is this really the case?From a long term evolutionary perspective, there is (or was) a continuum of form between all living things. If we were to examine the fossil records of the ancestors of cherry trees and plum trees we would find that they diverged from one common ancestor. Looking back through the fossils we would seen a continuous gradation of characteristics from the ancestors of the cherry to to the ancestors of the plum, leading back to a time when they were indistinguishable. But the decision as to where ancestor ended and plum or cherry began would be totally arbitrary. And if we were to trace the common ancestor of the cherry and plum we would find convergence with the ancestors of the rose, strawberry, raspberry etc.What Darwin did for creationism he also did for biological Platonism - the biological species concept does not encapsulate any underlying truth [BROOKES 1999], and each individual species is unfindable. The 'species' being a snapshot of a population at a particular time in its evolution. (Gaps in the Mind by Richard Dawkins)The ultimate unfindability of the real nature of all phenomena - their lack inherent existence, is usually referred to by English-speaking Buddhists as 'emptiness', which is a translation of the Sanskrit word Sunyata (sometimes spelled Shunyata). According to David Loy the English word emptiness has a more nihilistic connotation than the original Sanskrit. The Sanskrit root su also conveys the concept of being swollen with possibility [LOY 1996]. It is therefore most important not to confuse emptiness with total nothingness. Emptiness implies the potential for existence and change. The mathematical analogy of emptiness is not zero, but the empty set.The conclusion that all things are empty of inherent existence and appear only in dependence on our minds is not an obvious truth. So deeply ingrained is the idea of inherent existence and authority in Western culture that even when we have analysed all things as dependent on causes, and dependent on parts, we still hold back from the most subtle truth of dependence on mind. We think there ought to be 'something out there', or someone 'authoritative' who prevents the real world from being so much dependent upon our judgement. On first meeting teachings on emptiness the western mind often suspects it is the victim logical trickery or mere playing with words. Fortunately it is possible to demonstrate the true and all-pervasive nature of emptiness by examining the mode of existence of fundamental particles, the building blocks of all things in the material universe.The participation of the observer.According to the Kadampa school of Buddhist philosophy all phenomena exist by dependence on other phenomena, which are themselves dependently related to other phenomena and so on. No matter how deeply or far back we search, no phenomenon can ever be found which is fundamental or a 'thing-in-itself'. Neither the observer nor any observed phenomenon exist independently, but are inextricably intertwined. This viewpoint is known as dependent relationship.Geshe Kelsang Gyatso [KELSANG GYATSO 1995] states that there are three levels of dependent relationship:(1) Gross dependent relationship - causality.(2) Subtle dependent relationship - structure and sparial interrelationships.(3) Very subtle dependent relationship - the dependence of phenomena on imputation by mind.All functioning things exist in these three ways. The very subtle dependent relationship - existence by the mind's imputation - is the most difficult one to understand, especially since for most ordinary phenomena this view of existence is masked by the two grosser levels of existence. This subtle mode of existence is always present, but only becomes apparent in those circumstances where the grosser levels do not dominate.If we have problems with the terminology of gross and subtle, we may think of this as the degree of apparent objectivity of dependent relationship . The most gross is the most objective and the very subtle is the most subjective (or participatory) type of dependent relationship.The existence of a thing in dependence of its causes (except in the special case where we were involved in making it ) appears totally objective and does not require our participation. The causes of a car are the geological processes which produced coal, iron and copper ores. Then the miners, metalworkers, designers, component manufacturers and assembly line workers who transformed the raw material into the finished product. Unless we happen to work in one of these industries, the causal mode of existence does not depend on our participation.Existence in dependence on structure is more subjective. We may view a car as composed of a chassis, an engine and four wheels. Or we may take a more detailed view with the engine being seen as pistons, cylinder-head, carburettor etc. These too can be analysed into subcomponents, all the way down through atoms of iron and carbon, to the fundamental particles such as protons, electrons and the photons which shine from the headlamps.Our perception of dependence upon structure is very much determined by how we choose to subdivide the whole. The mind has to participate by applying analytical effort to generate the view of existence in dependence upon parts and assemblies. A spark-plug is only a spark plug because we know what it does and where it fits. If you were to show a spark plug to Isaac Newton, he would not be able to give it a meaningful name.It's when we get to the final stage of perception of dependence in terms of the fundamental building blocks of matter that we come up against the very subtle (most participatory) level of dependent relationship of imputation by mind. Experiments in quantum physics seem to demonstrate the need for the participation of an observer to make potentialities become real.Quantum sunyataThe mathematical equations of quantum physics do not describe actual existence - they describe potential for existence. Working out the equations of quantum mechanics for a system composed of fundamental particles produces a range of potential locations, values and attributes of the particles which evolve and change with time. But for any system only one of these potential states can become real, and - this is the revolutionary finding of quantum physics - what forces the range of the potentials to assume one value is the act of observation. Matter and energy are not in themselves phenomena, and do not become phenomena until they interact with the mind. These experimental aspects of sunyata are described in quantum phenomena.MATHEMATICS
What is the origin of numbers? In what way do numbers exist? Have they always been present as 'Platonic' abstractions, or do they require a mind to bring them into existence? Can numbers exist in the absence of matter or things to count?Buddhist philosophy claims that all things arise out of emptiness (Sanskrit sunyata or shunyata)
According to David Loy, the English word emptiness has a more nihilistic connotation than the original Sanskrit. The Sanskrit root su conveys the concept of being swollen with possibility [LOY 1996].
The Kadampa school of Buddhist philosophy claims that all phenomena are ultimately empty of inherent existence and do not exist as things in themselves. All phenomena exist solely in dependence on other phenomena, which are themselves empty and dependently related to other phenomena and so on. No matter how deeply or far back we search, no phenomenon can ever be found which is fundamental or a 'thing-in-itself'. Neither the observer nor any observed phenomenon exist independently, but are inextricably intertwined. This viewpoint is known as dependent relationship.Geshe Kelsang Gyatso [KELSANG GYATSO 1995] states that there are three levels of dependent relationship:(1) Gross dependent relationship - causality - the dependence of phenomena on their causes.(2) Subtle dependent relationship - structure - the dependence of phenomena on their perceived parts (including aspects, divisions and directions).(3) Very subtle dependent relationship - the dependence of phenomena on imputation by mind.These ideas are remarkably similar to the theory of the origins of mathematics first proposed by the mathematician John von Neumann, who was one of the founders of computer science. The theory relies on simple maipulations of sets.
A set is a collection of things. An empty set is a collection of nothing at all. An empty set can be thought of as nothing with the potential to become something (that is to be become a set with at least one member).
Von Neumann [VON NEUMANN 1923] proposed that all numbers could be bootstrapped out of the empty set by the operations of the mind.
The mind observes the empty set. The mind's act of observation causes the appearance another set - the set of empty sets. The set of empty sets is not empty, because it contains one non-thing - the empty set. The mind has thus generated the number 1 by producing the set containing the empty set.
Now the mind perceives the empty set and the set containing the empty set, so there are two non-things. The mind has generated the number 2 out of emptiness. And so it goes on all the way up.
So, the three levels of dependent relationship postulated by Kadampa Buddhist philosophy are apparent even at the very deepest level of mathematics.
- Numbers have causes - the algorithms that perform the operations on the sets.
- Numbers have parts and aspects. The number 1 is defined as the set which contains the empty set and so on.
- And in the final analysis the entire number system has been generated by the play of mind on emptiness, in the complete absence of the need to refer to any material thing, or things, which are being counted.
Numbers are non-physical phenomena and need make no reference to physical systems for their existence. But neither are they inherently-existent entities from the 'Platonic realms'. Numbers are dependently-related manifestations of the working of the mind.
- Sean Robsville
'So we are left with something of a mystery. According to the physicalist worldview, the mind (including mathematicians' minds) is an epiphenomenon of matter which has evolved solely to ensure the survival of the selfish genes which code for it. Why should this 'top-level' phenomenon have such intimate access to the 'bottom level' phenomena such as quantum physics? After all, the two levels are supposedly separated by less well-understood (in some cases) explanatory layers such as evolutionary psychology, neurology, cell biology, genetics, molecular biology, and chemistry.''One interesting aspect of emergent phenomena is the different causal and organisational relationships which appear at different levels of investigation. For example, ecology emerges out of biology, which emerges out of chemistry, which emerges out of physics, which emerges out of mathematics, which emerges out of the mind contemplating the empty set. Each level of investigation has its own explanatory relationships, yet if we check carefully there is no 'added extra' coming from the side of the objects. (Everything is algorithmically compressible without remainder, there are no mysterious ingredients added as we progress from lower levels to higher levels).''....For a qualified meditator single-pointedly absorbed in emptiness, there is no difference between production and disintegration, impermanence and permanence, going and coming, singularity and plurality - everything is equal in emptiness and all problems of attachment, anger, and self-grasping ignorance are solved...'on the mind, personal relationships, meditation and the spiritual path.The scientific method is generally thought to require that scientific verification draw only from outer experience, thus excluding all inner experience as a valid basis for scientific verification. Consequently, the scientific study of consciousness today is largely limited to the physical sciences and the externally observable correlates of consciousness. Mathematics, however, provides an example of a rigorous science based on inner experience that is nonetheless verifiable. Contrary to widespread belief, it is possible, therefore, for an authentic science to be based upon inner experience.The best way to understand the strengths of a philosophy is to attempt to refute it. Three Poisons - Anger, Ignorance and AttachmentUNIVERSE
It has often been remarked by physicists and chemists that the universe is very sensitively tuned to allow life to exist. If certain physical and chemical constants were just a fraction out from their observed values, life could never have arisen. There is, for example, an extraordinary series of coincidental physical conditions which led to the high cosmic abundance of the element carbon, the basis of all life.[Hoyle 1983]
Life does not seem to be an accidental occurrence but somehow is actually required by the universe.
According to some cosmologists, the universe began as a quantum fluctuation in the limitless Void (Hartle Hawking cosmology). In the absence of an observer, the evolving universe remained as a 'multiverse' - a coherant quantum superposition of all logically possible states.
Throughout its early history the universe continued to develop as an immense superposition of probabilities. Not only was the structure of the universe superposed, but all logically possible states of matter, physical constants, properties and laws were simultaneously present and evolving into ever increasing diversity.
Collapse of the MultiverseQuantum theory states that any physical system remains in a superposed state of all possibilities until it interacts with the mind of an observer. Both quantum theory and Buddhist teachings on sunyata suggest that as soon as an observer's mind makes contact with a superposed system, all the numerous possibilities collapse into one actuality. At some instant one of these possible alternative universes produced an observing lifeform - an animal with a nervous system which was sufficiently evolved to form a symbiotic association with a primordial mind. The first act of observation by this mind caused the entire superposed multiverse to collapse immediately into one of its numerous alternatives.That one alternative version of the multiverse was not just the first configuration to be inhabitable by mind. The fact that it was the first configuration also guaranteed that it was the only configuration. All uninhabited alternative universes, ranging from the nearly-but-not-quite habitable few, to the anarchic and unstructured vast majority, were instantly excluded from potential existence. According to the participatory anthopic principle the evolving multiverse was thus always destined to resolve itself into a sufficiently ordered state to allow itself to be observed.The early multiverse can perhaps be thought of as a massively parallel quantum computer which explored all of possibility-space until it was able to generate a living body, which became the habitation of an observing, sentient being. At that moment the multiverse collapsed into the actuality of that one alternative environment. This theory is known as the Participatory Anthropic Principle and was first put forward by the physicist John A.Wheeler in 1983.
But where did the observing mind come from? Buddhist philosophers claim that minds are primordial and exist before entering their physical environment. In the early stages of its evolution the universe was, of course, uninhabitable for animals and humans.
But according to B. Alan Wallace [Wallace 1996], highly advanced Buddist and Hindu contemplatives speak of experiencing other realms, or dimensions of existence that transcend this gross sensual realm which they call kamadhatu. They report the existence of rupadhatu, a form realm that is unperturbed by many of the changes in the gross physical cosmos. And beyond this is the arupyadhatu, a formless realm that is completely unaffected by the stages of cosmic evolution. All three of these realms are said to be inhabited by sentient beings. When the gross physical dimension of a cosmos is uninhabitable, sentient beings reside in the rupadhatu and arupyadhatu or in other inhabitable cosmoses. Humans cannot dwell in the rupadhatu and arupyadhatu, though these realms are accessible to a human mind that has been highly refined through meditation.
The bottom line of the participatory anthropic principle is that minds can exist independently of matter, and they create their actual environments from the potentialities around them. But isn't this all just pure metaphysical speculation? Well maybe not. The participatory anthropic principle makes potentially verifiable statements about the early history of the universe, the speed of evolution and the occurrence of extremely unlikely evolutionary steps, including the first appearance of life itself.Two-speed evolutionThe series of events needed to make the universe habitable by sentient mind, up to and including the evolution of animals complex enough to support sentience, would have proceeded at the maximum possible rate and efficiency (almost by definition - because the myriad strands of the superposition were essentially racing against one another for 'winner takes all').Because a myriad parallel universes were simultaneously evolving, the most highly improbable combinations of chemical and cellular building blocks needed to bring about living organisms would inevitably appear, even if the probability of them doing so in an 'ordinary' universe were infinitesimally small. This could explain the appearance of such extremely unlikely structures as Yockey's cytochrome C.
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