The Six Flavors of Emptiness
The following are six different "flavors" of emptiness that are taught by the different schools of classical Indian Buddhism. They are culled from different texts in the lineage of Tsongkapa the Great (1357-1419). Please note that not all of them would be called true "emptiness," but rather "selflessness" in different classical schools.
Flavor Number One:
༡༽རྟག་གཅིག་རང་དབང་ཅན་གྱི་བདག་མེད་པ།
“The lack of a self which is unchanging, whole and independent.”
This definition explains the gross lack of a self to a person. It is the conclusion at which one arrives after analyzing the self for a part or substance that is unchanging, whole and independent. These characteristics are what makes something real. If there was a part of the self that did not change, was not composed of parts and was somehow self-powered to the point that there was no relationship to
any system of causality, we would have found an aspect of ourselves that is worth such self-cherishing and neurotic self preservation behavior. Yet, if there was something of us that was unchanging,
neurosis would not ensue because unchanging properties could not have relationship. Relationship is change. There is no part of our analysis that has ever found such characteristics, in science or Buddhism.
All things are moving, flowing streams of data. Since we observe the movement of time, we also observe all things within the movement of time to also be moving. If something is moving, then it follows that it cannot be a static phenomenon. Science states that time is simply the measurement of objects in motion in relationship to one another. We are currently unable to recognize such subtle changes with our senses. Thus, we mistakenly believe objects that appear to have no motion to actually be static. Science has shown us that below the surface of solid matter is a flowing and constantly changing environment. The molecular and atomic movements are what cause solid objects to exist in the first place. We have seen here the lack of the first characteristic of a real thing, that of being unchanging.
Everything is composed of parts. When one looks at their hand, they can see an endless network of changing parts: skin, blood, hair, bone, and so on. If the hand was not a network of parts and other networks, it would completely disappear when you covered one of your fingers. Because the finger is a part of the hand, the remaining parts remain visible.
It is not possible for us to even have a mental image that is not composed of parts. Even our mind is composed of earlier moments of mind, which are parts of the stream of consciousness. Without earlier moments, the parts within those parts cannot be assembled into a whole image. We would not be able to see or engage with the world. The eye is only a part of an intricate system of visual identification. The
eye itself has no consciousness. And what visual consciousness can there be without a functional eyeball? The same applies to the other senses. Even the vibrational energies of each of these senses are simply parts to the whole mental experience of that sense organ’s relationship to functional phenomena. Here is the lack of the second characteristic (whole).
The hand is also not independent. It depends upon these parts to make up the whole. It is not a self-powered thing because it is being forced to be filled with blood from processes that come from somewhere else. In concert with the other two characteristics, there is seen a dependence upon these networks and the process of change. Here we have proven the third characteristic to be lacking, as well.
Flavor number one is not that difficult to comprehend. This is not really a working definition for emptiness, per se. It is simply a pseudo-emptiness that just addresses one’s belief that things can last. It is a useful step toward emptiness, but it alone cannot bring one to a point of final liberation by itself.
Meditation on Flavor Number One
Just Looking
As you sit on your cushion, call to mind all of the things about yourself; your body, your feelings, your past and present situations. See them just as they are to you.
Ignorance
Become aware of your feelings about them, your view that these things somehow will last. It is an innate feeling that most beings have. We believe that we are permanent, independent and whole.
Dependent Origination
Now shift your mind to a correct view of the object. This object is just an image you are projecting. It comes from you, it is a part of you - a child of your own mind. Analyze these feelings based on the information that we have gained from the above. Look at yourself and try to find something that is unchanging, permanent. Search this out deeply. Then, look to find what there is about you that is independent. Look to see if there is anything within you that is not dependent upon anyone or anything else, even prior moments of being. Finally, examine yourself to see if you are truly whole or if you are a network of transient objects, forming together and then disintegrating moment by moment. Afterward, ask yourself what a truly permanent, independent, and whole "you" would look like and how would it function.
Emptiness
The image that we are left with about ourselves is much closer to understanding what true emptiness is. This new awareness that we have discovered concerning these three characteristics is a means of remedying the thoughts that we have that things can last. Hold your mind here for as long as you can, fixed on the conclusion you have gained from this study.
Flavor Number Two:
༢༽ རང་རྐྱ་ཐུབ་པའི་རྫས་ཡོད་ཀྱིས་གྲུབ་པའི་བདག་མེད་པ།
“The lack of a self which is self-standing and substantial.”
The word substantial refers to the lack of a driver of the five major compositional factors, or parts of the person over these five parts. This flavor addresses one’s belief that one can own something, like your body. The body is always changing and so are objects and experiences. Therefore, the labeled self is also changing and the identification of any one moment is a technically different self from any other moment because it depends upon earlier moments of mind that manifest at later points in the mind-stream. If there was a driver to these parts, there would be some concrete and unchanging thing, which the first flavor of emptiness proved as not possible.
This flavor deals with the neurosis of ownership. When one discovers that there can be no real possessing of objects or a self, there arises a release of the neurotic behaviors associated with the false belief in a self or impossible soul. We can’t even own our bodies. These processes go on without our permission. If there was some part within us that has any agency, certainly death would not ensue nor would the experiences of pain and suffering. The process by which ignorance plants future experiences based on patterns of attraction is one that is done by default in ordinary beings, rather than deliberate
action in enlightened beings.
Vibrational energies of thought are not something concrete. Because they are vibrating, they are changing, moving things. If they were somehow unified static phenomena, they would always create the potentials that they inspire. This is not the case. No one is able to stay angry for a twenty-four-hour period. These vibrations are the result of networks of other sense data, intermingling with sense
objects and forming the vibrational potentials that start the whole process of experience. Ownership of something would imply that there is a tangibly real and sustainable phenomena with a tangibly real and
sustainable being experiencing it. This is impossible.
All humans have a certain degree of similitude within the scope of perception to be present in a human world. The consciousness that observes itself as human also observes the world from the
perspective of human perception. The point is not to continue being human, per se. The enlightened mind is a consciousness that perceives the ultimate truth simultaneously with the fake truth, or the truth of appearances. Ordinary minds see the appearance and take it as the final answer in a question of reductions (if one even attempts to reduce it).
When we work with a positive mental image, we can hold our mind still on just that object to a very clear and high mental state. However, we are still working with a positive. Again, this mental image that we are holding in our mind is imputed data, and part of a looping process of perception and replanting seeds in the mindstream that ripen into the situation and object of perception. Repeatedly studying and
understanding emptiness and dropping the object as stated in the meditation exercises above, plants a gap in the perceptual process. It is as if we have been placing things in front of a projector and as long as there is something in front of that projector we see the projected object. Emptiness meditation places a true negative object in front of that projector. Accumulatively, we are placing a gap that
will ripen in a meditation on emptiness while in the highest mental state necessary (the joining of calm abiding and special insight) for it in order to directly perceive emptiness and become an Arya.
Ultimate truth is the fact that things do not have any substance of their own from their own side inherently apart from a projection of consciousness. Reduce that object down to its smallest parts, to the atoms and then the subatomic…and keep going. You arrive at nothing, or no-thing, to be exact. However, things do not arise out of nothing, but under a great system of causes and conditions…but the causes are not unique and independent, they are a part of more networks. Consciousness is still present in that final awareness. Consciousness is the final remaining part of the equation, but it also can be reduced. Because things do not have any independent nature of their own apart from consciousness, consciousness is creating in a very real way the holographic experience that we observe ourselves to have.
Let us look at the Heart Sutra (Arya Bhagawati Prajnaparamita Hridaya Sutra) to see a deeper meaning of this text as well as validation for this position on the Two Truths:
[I prostrate to the Arya Triple Gem.]
Thus, did I hear at one time. The Bhagavan was dwelling on Mass of Vultures Mountain in Rajagriha together with a great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas. At that time, the
Bhagavan was absorbed in the concentration on the categories of phenomena called “Profound Perception.”
Also, at that time, the bodhisattva mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara looked upon the very practice of the profound perfection of wisdom and beheld those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature.
Then, through the power of Buddha, the venerable Shariputra said this to the bodhisattva mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara: “How should any son of the lineage train who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom?”
He said that and the bodhisattva mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara said this to the venerable Sharadvatiputra. “Shariputra, any son of the lineage or daughter of the lineage who wishes to practice the activity of the profound perfection of wisdom should look upon it like this, correctly and repeatedly beholding those five aggregates also as empty of inherent nature.
“Form is empty. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form; form is also not other than emptiness. In the same way, feeling, discrimination, compositional factors, and consciousness are empty.
“Shariputra, likewise, all phenomena are empty; without characteristic; un-produced, un-ceased; stainless, not without stain; not deficient, not fulfilled.
“Shariputra, therefore, in emptiness there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination, no compositional factors, no consciousness; no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind; no visual form, no sound, no odor, no taste, no object of touch, and no phenomenon. There is no eye element and so on up to and including no mind element and no mental consciousness element. There is no ignorance, no extinction of ignorance, and so on up to and including no aging and death and no extinction of aging and death. Similarly, there is no suffering, no origination, cessation and path; there is no exalted wisdom, no attainment, and also no non-attainment.
“Shariputra, therefore, because there is no attainment, bodhisattvas rely on and dwell in the perfection of wisdom, the mind without obscuration and without fear. Having completely passed beyond error, they reach the end-point of nirvana. All the buddhas who dwell in the three times also manifestly, completely awaken to unsurpassable, perfect, complete enlightenment in reliance on the perfection of wisdom.
“Therefore, the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of the great knowledge, the unsurpassed mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that thoroughly pacifies all suffering, should be known as truth since it is not false. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is declared:
TADYATHA [OM] GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA
“Shariputra, the bodhisattva mahasattva should train in the profound perfection of wisdom like that.”
Then the Bhagavan arose from the concentration and commended the bodhisattva mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara saying: “Excellent, excellent, son of the lineage. Excellent, it is like that. One should practice the profound perfection of wisdom just as you have indicated; even the tathagatas rejoice.”
The Bhagavan having thus spoken, the venerable Sharadvatiputra, the bodhisattva mahasattva Arya Avalokiteshvara, those surrounding in their entirety along with the world of gods, humans, asuras, and
gandharvas were overjoyed and highly praised that spoken by the Bhagavan.
The word Heart in the title has nothing to do with the heart of a being. Rather, it is means essence, or the core of developing the wisdom that it intends. The Heart Sutra is a very short, but very precise instruction on how to work on eroding this link in the Twelve Links. Shariputra is one of the Junior monks in the order, and he asks Avalokiteshvara how to practice this meditation that he sees the Buddha doing and what Avalokiteshvara started to do before Shariputra asked him his question.
Avalokiteshvara tells him that nothing has any independent nature of its own. From the meditation on emptiness above, we can see that even with just the first two of the six flavors of emptiness applied to any given thing, person, or situation lessens the independent qualities and puts us solely in the driver’s seat. Our consciousness has created the parts of the phenomenon we are investigating or experiencing and also attracts them to us.
Avalokiteshvara says that all five aggregates (skandhas) are empty of inherent nature. This means that all five of them are projections of consciousness. They do not inherently exist. He goes on to show that this adjective called “empty” is applicable to everything with which our minds can make contact. Even the composition of our body and all of its parts is empty. Avalokiteshvara says that none of these parts individually or together has inherent existence. If the eye had inherent existence, then the various sights with which we make contact could not influence the eye to create a sense image in the slightest.
Self-powered, inherently existent things are unmovable, unchangeable, and without relationship to anything else because that would inspire change. What flavors would one be able to feel if the tongue and taste faculties were inherently existent? There would be none. As Lama Yeshe said in a Heruka Tsok one time, “Empty food tastes better!”
The Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) is that practice which investigates the lack of inherent existence to phenomena. By studying dependent origination, the manner in which things arise dependent upon an earlier cause, emptiness can be better understood. Dependent origination is the positive qualities of a phenomena to which emptiness is the negative, meaning that it is a lacking of certain qualities.
The biggest mistake in understanding emptiness is in thinking that it means nothingness, or void in the sense of space/vacuity. If it meant nothingness, then it would mean that phenomena aren’t real, that they have no functionality. This is the mistake of the earlier schools, hence why their working definitions included that things that have a function are real. Nihilism is dead just by experience. If things do not exist, how are we experiencing nothings? Rather, things exist as streams of experience, networks of data seemingly solid, seemingly whole, and seemingly of their own power. As Avalokiteshvara shows in the Heart Sutra, nothing has any inherent existence whatsoever from its own side. It is all originated in perception and blossoms into future perceptions. By weakening our views now, we plant weaker perceptions that erode in our future. Then, the link will one day be weak enough to be broken by the most profound meditation that will directly perceive emptiness.
The direct perception of emptiness is also a projection of consciousness! Because it is a projection, that means that the parts must be put into it in order to coalesce with other parts just like it. We have to meditate on emptiness regularly so that those perceptions of a true ‘blank’ can amass to the experience of a gap in the perceptual process and allow the mind to peer into consciousness and this process. It is like removing the reflections in the mirror to see the mirror itself. You remove the reflection by making each one of the parts of the object invisible so it creates no reflection! Until then, any reflection prevents seeing the mirror itself and only seeing the reflection. Of course, this is simply a poetic allegory.
In summary: The ignorance that we are dealing with that keeps us trapped in this perpetual cycle of suffering is one that misidentifies the things, people, events and ourselves in our experiences. The knowledge we think we have of any given thing is actually a superimposition of our own past data being placed on top of or in conjunction with that thing. Gaining wisdom is going past that fake knowledge into deeper and more subtle understandings (which is more specific and more correct) of what that thing or things really is/are. The more we plant better information into the mindstream the more correct our views will be of it in future experiences. Though the process of replacing old incorrect data with better, more correct data is still a process of projection, it weakens the strength of the ignorance. When the mind is very pristine and clear about its object, the link can be broken. Here we are actually using Samsara and the accumulative wisdom gained within it to break it. This information is called “stained wisdom”. It is wisdom because it can bring one to higher and higher mental states and subtler understanding of these
states and phenomena, but it is “stained” because it is still on the side of Samsara. We use Samsara (the various languages and labels which are mental images), in this sense to break free of the mistaken views and enter Nirvana. It is like climbing a ladder. We must use the rungs below to get to the rungs above.
Flavor Number Three:
༣༽ གཟུགས་དང་གཟུགས་འཛིན་གྱི་ཚད་མ་རྫས་གཞན་གྱིས་སྟོང་བ།
“The fact that a visible object and the valid perception which grasps the visible object are devoid of any separate substance.”
During a sensory experience, the consciousness is intermixed with the sense object such that the two are never found independent of one another enough to assert them as distinct. When one looks at a pen, one is always using their consciousness to observe the pen. It is not possible to detect the pen without consciousness being a constant factor, more so than the changing characteristics and parts of the pen. In Buddhist language, it is not true that the [observer and the observed object] come from a separate karmic seed; rather, they arise from the same karmic seed. This proves that there are no accidents in life experience. When observing the pen, one’s own consciousness created the seeds for the pen to be in the room with them and their own consciousness created the seeds to be in the room at the same time, too. In the direct perception of emptiness, the mind cannot distinguish between subject and object. One cannot perceive any objects within the direct perception of emptiness, or ultimate reality.
This is another way of stating that two things are brought together by one pattern of attraction. Whenever we move a magnet over iron-filings, we see an attractor pattern. However, if the magnet is moved over wood chips, there is no interaction. Likewise, the iron-filings separate from the interaction of the magnet demonstrate no movement toward any other object. The attractor pattern is complete with both objects being present.
Everyone who interacts with someone else creates and is brought together by patterns of attraction. In the situation where someone enters the room and yells at you, the patterns of attraction that created that experience were planted long before the situation arose. Planting the correct patterns of attraction with others is the only way to ensure that all future experiences will be pleasant. These patterns only last as long as the intensity of the vibrational energies that created them sustain. Enduring these unwanted experiences beyond their vibrational charge is called forbearance, or patience. Any interaction with these substances (the person yelling at you, the discomfort of the situation) could create similar future attractor
patterns and put you right back in that situation again.
Flavor Number Four:
༤༽ རང་ཉིད་རང་ཉིད་ཅེས་པའི་ཐ་སྙད་འཇུག་པའི་འཇུག་གཞི་ཡིན་པ་རང་གི་མཚན་ཉིད་ཀྱིས་
གྲུབ་པས་སྟོང་བ།
“The fact that the fact that any particular thing is called what it is is something which is devoid of existing by definition.”
The above definition is not mistaken...you'll have to re-read it again and again. It's dealing with the word "fact". Put simply: the fact that things are called what they are is not something which is automatic. When we label a utensil for writing with ink a “pen”, it is not a definition or label that is automatically or intrinsically identified with that object. To a dog, it is a chew toy. To someone from another country, another term is used - different sound waves that correspond to the designation of that object for them. This is the point at which one’s favorite food may come into contrast with the favorite food of someone else. This is also the flavor of emptiness concerning the points of argument that create all the wars throughout history. This flavor proves that things do not exist based upon bias or judgments. What you call something is simply from your side and not from the side of the object or experience being labeled. They are simply our own creations.
This is a good antidote for believing that judgments are concrete. The way we see things are not other than our own karma, or apart from data placed in earlier moments of the mental continuum. This flavor will also help relieve arguments over favorites. It is important to remember that the thing or event being experienced did not come from its own side. You put it there and you labeled it! Mind Only School (Cittamatra) still makes the mistake of the object being out there.
Now, look at the things that happen in your interactions with others. How often do arguments ensue from one's chosen label of a situation, thing or person with your own label? Imagine the little child that is always correcting the way people speak or pronounce words - like if you said the word "to-mah-to", sounding a bit British, the child might sharply correct you by say, "Uh-uh! It's to-MAY-to!"
With all things that we know from living life in this body and collecting memories with this brain, all the words we have were given to us by someone else. How often do we examine to see where the words we use have come from for us and are we absolutely sure that the terms and definitions of things were correctly given to us? Words cannot convey experiences, but they can make it easier for us to identify phenomenon with which we will have experiences, provided that the words and definitions can lead us to that position.
Antidote: I am imposing judgements on things; they could be different.
Flavor Number Five:
༥༽ བློ་གནོད་མེད་ལ་སྣང་བའི་དབང་གིས་བཞག་ཙམ་མ་ཡིན་པར་ཡུལ་རང་གི་ཐུན་མོང་མ་ཡིན་པའི་
སྡོད་ལུགས་སུ་གྲུབ་པས་སྟོང་བ།
“The fact that objects are devoid of existing from their own side through any unique identity of their own, rather than simply existing by virtue of having appeared to an unaffected state of mind.”
This flavor is the assertion of the lower half of the Madhyamika (Middle-Way) School. It states that the object being perceived is half there from its own side and the other half is based upon the observer. It says that “how this event is going to be bad or good depends upon you, 50%.” The Svatantrikans state that you have to have the parts out there before you can produce a mental image of the whole within your mind. They say that in order to get a pen you must first have cylinder and so on. This is like looking at a bad situation and finding a more acceptable tolerance for it, like turning lemons into lemonade. This may be a good practice to avoid creating worse situations, but the point of highest spiritual practice is not having had to receive lemons in the first place!
There is no pen from its own side. There is nothing pen about it! There is no pen coming from the cylinder. The cylinder is your projection onto two things called cylinders (because the eye is breaking things down into parts - two cylinders making up this longer one, and those two are broken down into four and on an on down to the atoms). There are no things or situations that are self-existent. We are never angry for twenty-four hours straight. The emotional state is always shifting and new ones arise and replace old ones. There is no standard world that you are reinterpreting. However, the lower Middle- Way School (Svatantrika) says that there is.
To the Svatantrikans, an unaffected state of mind is one that is under the sway of emotions. When we look at a simple task, such as brushing one’s teeth the event can be seen as a normal function in the morning or a laborious chore when depressed. The context of the situation or event is dependent upon the emotional state. The neutrality of that object is best seen when the mind is unaffected. In the statement above, the assertion having appeared to an unaffected state of mind implies that somehow the object has some identity from its side.
Flavor Number Six:
༦༽ མིང་བརྡས་བཞག་ཙམ་མ་ཡིན་པར། ཡུལ་རང་གི་བསྡོད་ལུགས་ཀྱི་ངོས་ནས་གྲུབ་པས་སྟོང་བ།
“The fact that objects are void of existing from their own side through their own identity, rather than simply through names (words) and terms (thoughts).”
According to the Madhyamika-Prasangika, this and only this is emptiness, and there are no separate degrees of emptiness (although emptiness can be divided according to the object that has it: the person or “things”, meaning the person’s parts). This interpretation is the ultimate one accepted by Lord Buddha, Je Tsongkhapa (founder of the Geluk sect of Tibetan Buddhism, of which the Dalai Lama is the current head), Nagarjuna (founder of the Middle-Way School), and for all of tantric practice and all the Aryas who have ever perceived emptiness directly.
If anything had any part of it coming from its own side, then the manipulation of new causes and the removal of older, unwanted ones prior to their ripening into an unwanted resultant experience would be impossible. We would be victims of a dead and lifeless reality, and the Buddha’s path to liberation would also be impossible. We can try to manipulate our reality by using other self-existent things, but that doesn’t work primarily because these other things are not self-existent. We constantly demand results of our current actions in the present moment. We use all of our force to get the things and experiences we want now, completely ignorant of the actual mode of causality. There seems to be a relationship between a current action and its subsequent apparent result, but these are not necessarily the true causal relationship.
By planting good mental seeds now and maintaining good deeds such as patience, compassion, moral conduct and so on, we cultivate the proper energies for these causes to ripen into the desired effects we seek. Buddhist practice is simply good gardening of these multitudes of mental seeds. Karma is also not a self-existent thing. By keeping our vows and avoiding the Ten Non-Virtues (Tib. mi dge bcu), initiations into deeper mental practices such as Tantra can have a greater effect and ripen much more quickly. We cannot manipulate our minds in the present tense; we have to plant the correct mental seeds by our thoughts and actions now to develop the mind and experiences that we want in our future.
Looking at a pen in this new way, it is now rather easy to see that that phenomenon called “pen” is not what it is that we have been fooled by our perceptions into thinking it is. What about the self of the person? Apply these same flavors to yourself, apply this same knowledge to the ideologies we have of who we think we are, and we’ll soon discover a lot more about the ignorance that Siddhartha removed
under the Bodhi tree to achieve enlightenment!
Let’s look at the situation we stated earlier, the person that came into the room and yelled at you. By looking at these flavors of emptiness, we can see that the person yelling is not something changeless. He will have to leave the room at some point. He is dependent upon processes for his own existence, and in this situation something is the basis for his emotional reaction to seeing you. There isn’t something in him that is separate from him, inspiring or driving his emotional and physical behavior. And, since this situation is not something completely random, there are attractor patterns that have led both of you to this moment in time.
Somehow, an earlier experience had to have placed that attractor pattern into motion to unfold into this current situation. His anger is based upon his definitions of what is right for him, and you happen to contradict those internal assertions that he has. Because of the third flavor of emptiness, we know that he is not some random occurrence happening at you, and the fifth flavor shows us that he is not something separate from your own consciousness. Therefore, we merely label that sense data as a guy yelling at us, and the labeling is part of a delicate process of mental imaging that sends the vibration down to the core of consciousness and the type of vibrational energies from the contact in this moment can either ensure that it won’t happen again, or you’ll repeat this situation sometime
in the future. Planting the right seeds has to do with the reactions in this current moment and learning how to uproot unwanted seeds before they manifest, a process called purification.
