Key Terms/Śūnyatā
From Bodhicitta
शून्यता śūnyatā
emptiness
སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་
stong pa nyid
空,空門
kōng,\ kōng mén
Sanskrit - Noun
1·Discover
Basic Meaning
The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.
2·Explore
Has the sense of
Though emptiness is generally predicated on the dependent origination of relative phenomena, it is a dialectic method of explaining the ultimate truth through a negative assertion and thereby highlighting what true reality lacks, rather than making a positive assertion of what that reality actually is.
Read It in the Scriptures
Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.
Emptiness is not other than form; form is not other than emptiness.
Emptiness is not other than form; form is not other than emptiness.
— Heart Sūtra
In practice
Usage example
Sanskrit:
- rūpaṃ śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpaṃ
- rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śunyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ
- Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya
Tibetan:
- གཟུགས་སྟོང་པའོ། སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་གཟུགས་སོ།
- གཟུགས་ལས་སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་གཞན་མ་ཡིན། སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ལས་ཀྱང་གཟུགས་གཞན་མ་ཡིན་ནོ།།
- ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་
In other languages
Tibetan
སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་
stong pa nyid
tong pa nyi
Sanskrit
शून्यता
śūnyatā
shunyata
Chinese
空, 空門
kōng, kōng mén
Japanese
kū, kūmon
How translators render it
emptinessBuddha-nature Standard, Karl Brunnhölzl, Richard Barron, Jeffrey Hopkins, Gyurme Dorje, Ives Waldo
In the dictionaries
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism
See page 871: In Sanskrit, “emptiness”; the term has a number of denotations, but is most commonly associated with the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) sūtras and the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna philosophy.
Tshig mdzod chen mo
rang bzhin med pa'i gnas lugs sam de kho na nyid
