Differences in the Emptiness Realized by the Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna

The emptiness of the five aggregates realized by the Small Vehicle and the emptiness of the five aggregates realized by the Great Vehicle are fundamentally different. Precisely because there is this difference, the breadth of mind, the power of vows, and the practice of the Path differ between Small Vehicle and Great Vehicle practitioners. After attaining liberation, Small Vehicle practitioners enter Nirvāṇa without remainder, whereas Great Vehicle practitioners, after attaining liberation, never enter Nirvāṇa without remainder. The emptiness of the five aggregates realized by Small Vehicle practitioners is realized at the level of outward appearances and phenomena; it is an emptiness realized by observing the arising, abiding, alteration, and cessation of the phenomena of the five aggregates. Such emptiness is not ultimate, does not reach the very bottom, and is still partial and biased; therefore their wisdom is shallow, and their practice and vows are also shallow. The emptiness of the five aggregates realized by Great Vehicle practitioners is realized from the essence of the five aggregates; they have seen that the essence of the five aggregates is that they are produced by the tathāgatagarbha, and so they no longer concern themselves with the five aggregates, nor do they seek ways to extinguish the five aggregates; therefore their practice and vows are great. 

For example, some people, seeing a person born and then die, will know that a person is impermanent, subject to destruction, and cannot be held onto, and is therefore empty. But other people, going beyond this, also see that this person is actually conjured up by a magician, that birth and death are controlled by the magician, and that even after death, the magician can conjure him up again—both birth and death are false appearances. Such people no longer have grasping (upādāna) toward this illusory person, yet they also do not deliberately avoid or abandon him. In fact, the emptiness that Small Vehicle practitioners believe in is an emptiness opposed to existence, which is still another kind of existence. Precisely because the emptiness of Small Vehicle practitioners remains at the level of surface phenomena and is not a substantive emptiness, they think of ways to extinguish and discard it, think of ways to avoid it, and fear the world of the five aggregates—this is precisely another kind of existence. If one were truly empty, what would there be to avoid? What would there be to fear? One would not think of ways to extinguish it. For example, when the heavenly maiden scatters flowers, Small Vehicle practitioners fear the flowers touching their bodies, so they avoid the flowers and shake off the flowers from their bodies, believing that flowers touching the body is contrary to the Dharma. Great Vehicle practitioners pay no attention to these flowers; even covered in flowers from head to toe, it makes no difference to them—and so the flowers, in fact, do not stick to their bodies. 

Why do Great Vehicle bodhisattvas have such a state of mind? Because bodhisattvas know that flowers are illusory false appearances and cannot have any substantive effect; the material body is also like this. An illusory body and illusory flowers—what obstruction is there? What is contrary to the Dharma about it? These dharmas all need to be personally realized and experienced after one's own realization. Without realization, even if one understands them very well, one still cannot fully arrive there. Small Vehicle practitioners believe there truly is an emptiness; Great Vehicle practitioners believe that even emptiness is empty, and emptiness-emptiness is also empty. Only when emptiness is exhausted is one truly home.