Emptiness (shunyata, or tongpa in Tibetan) is an utterly core theme in Buddhist teaching. When we first hear about it, we usually don’t have much idea what it’s about at all. We may mistake it for some kind of void, or a teaching that nothing matters because “everything is empty”. Can we get a handle on it without years of study? Words or phrases you might want to look up: Perfection of Wisdom Shunyata (spellings in English vary) Prajnaparamita (spellings in English vary) Skandhas William Dalrymple - “From the Holy Mountain” Tetralemma Vajra slivers Prajñaparamita (sutras) Tathagata Edward Conze Manjushri I noticed that the language of Conze's translations that I quoted is gendered in a way we would probably not be comfortable with these days. Do remember that he was working on these materials in the middle of the last century. #Buddhism #Vajrayana #DoubleDorje #Emptiness #Shunyata #Prajnaparamita Prajnaparamita as the Mother of all the Buddhas And I forgot to mention in the podcast itself, none other than... Nagarjuna
Full Episode
Hello dear listeners, perhaps I should say hello wise listeners, in the light of the topic of this episode of the Double Doge podcast. I'm Alex Worling, and in this episode, we are going to try to grapple with the general shape of teaching surrounding that essential point of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, that is to say, emptiness. Firstly, as ever, one call to action and one possibly helpful tip.
For the call to action, it would be great if you would take a moment to like, subscribe, or whatever you can to support this podcast. And for the tip, if your listening platform doesn't show you the extra material, such as the list of words you might want to look up that I almost always provide for these episodes, you'll find that on Podbean.
Podbean is where this podcast is hosted when it's first published. Who knows what might happen in the future, but that's it at the moment. Boy, am I glad that I never claimed to be your Buddhist teacher, either in an academic sense or a spiritual sense. It would be a brave person indeed who claimed to be able to give a final explanation of what emptiness in Buddhism is about.
Thousands of litres of ink have been used in that project, and people are still arguing about it. But at least it might be good to get a general handle on it and avoid traps like saying, Oh, everything is empty so it doesn't matter. Once when I was at a series of teachings being given by my lama, Karma Lundrup Rinpoche, I had prepared an envelope with a cash donation in it.
With experience you do learn that having a few such envelopes available at that kind of event is just what the Boy Scout is taught to do to be prepared. When I got home, I was checking through my stuff and found an envelope with just the amount of the cash donation in it. Ah, I had given him an envelope with no actual donation in it. How inauspicious. The next day I asked him about it.
Rumpachy, I said, after yesterday's teaching, did you find an envelope that didn't actually contain any money? He nodded. I think it must have been mine, I said, because I found the money in another envelope when I got home. He laughed and said it didn't matter, and that it was very auspicious because, well, emptiness. Basically, he didn't want me to feel bad about it. But that was a joke.
Abandoning ethics and compassion because, well, emptiness, is a bit of a disaster when it's done intentionally, as I'm afraid it sometimes is. I think one helpful way to draw near to this is to cast a quick eye over the history of the idea. In the very earliest layers of the Buddhist teachings that we have, the absence of a self is one of the key points.
I've often seen it referred to by the Pali name of anatta. It goes along with two other points, impermanence and suffering, but it's the absence of a self that concerns us here. One of many philosophical views that were current in the India of the Buddha's day is the thinking that we each have an individual, eternal self, an Atman.
Yeah, I do know there are all sorts of Atman theories, but the simple idea of an unchanging self is the one that matters here. I suspect that versions of this Atman idea could be found throughout history, East and West, But when we look at ourselves with a clear and steady eye, this kind of self is very difficult to find. We seem rather to be an assemblage, a bundle of bits and pieces.
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