Inferential Contemplation of the Twenty Kinds of Emptiness

The twenty kinds of emptiness in the Prajñā sūtras are extremely difficult to understand; now let us use an analogy to facilitate understanding. Imagine a container of infinite size with no visible edge, within which there are seven kinds of particles of different colors, each kind existing in countless numbers, freely combining and assembling to form innumerable objects.

For example, using five of these particles, according to a puzzle pattern within the container, one assembles a fresh flower. Observe this flower: if our gaze—or what may be called our attention—falls one-sidedly only upon the flower's image and outward appearance, we will see the flower's colors and features, and thereby know the flower's attributes and properties, while remaining ignorant of and blind to everything else. Such cognition has an enormous bias, and the attachments born from it are useless and futile. If we can set aside the flower's external appearance and observe its composition and texture in fine detail, we will know that this flower is in fact an assemblage of the five particles—its substance is just the five particles. The flower is an illusory phantom, a false image; in reality it is not even a phantom or false image—it is merely a combination formed by mixing the five particles together.

The particles are within the container, and the assembled flower does not go beyond the container. Whether the flower arises or ceases, the particles remain as they were, their number unchanged; the container neither moves nor changes, unaffected in any way. If viewed with bias, it seems there is such a thing as the flower arising and ceasing, but in reality there is no such thing—it does not even count as an illusion. The same applies to assembling a five-aggregates body from the seven particles according to a puzzle pattern: there is no substantial appearance of a five-aggregates body, not even a conjured image; there is no existence of phenomena such as the arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing of the five-aggregates body—arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing leave no trace whatsoever. Sentient beings, foolish and obstinately attached, cling to these notions—uselessly and in vain. Whether the five-aggregates body arises, abides, changes, or ceases, it does not go beyond the container; the container does not move and is unaffected in any way.

The container is an analogy for the tathāgatagarbha; the seven kinds of particles are an analogy for the seeds of the seven great elements within the tathāgatagarbha; the puzzle pattern is an analogy for the karmic seeds stored within the tathāgatagarbha—the pattern, once used up, disappears and becomes void; the flower and the five-aggregates body are an analogy for all the dharmas born from the tathāgatagarbha. Contemplating the twenty kinds of emptiness in the Prajñā sūtras against this analogy, we should have a point of entry: as long as our contemplation falls into any kind of worldly dharma-mark, that is wrong understanding and wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), which should be abandoned. Only by observing without falling into worldly dharma-marks can correct view and the wisdom of ultimate reality arise. In the end, emptying all that exists—even emptiness itself is emptied—emptied so thoroughly clean that nothing remains, one reaches complete and ultimate quiescence and nirvāṇa.

Following such inferential contemplation, when reading all the Mahāyāna sūtras again, one should find it easier to understand the ultimate meaning and true meaning of the Dharma taught by the Buddha, and there will be a point of entry for practice. In the end, even if the Dharma is understood and comprehended, to put it to use one must have realization; to have realization one must cultivate in earnest. All the dharmas the Buddha required to be cultivated—the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment, the bodhisattva's six pāramitās, the five precepts and ten wholesome deeds, and so on—must each be actually practiced, without skipping stages or bypassing any; otherwise realization is impossible, the Dharma one has understood and comprehended cannot be put to use, birth and death will proceed as birth and death, and suffering will remain suffering.

Take any dharma whatsoever, contemplate it against this analogy, and one will quickly enter into it. The Buddha's Dharma is the One Vehicle Dharma, without a second, without another. What the practitioners of the Two Vehicles cultivate and realize remains at the stage of clinging to worldly dharma-marks—some hold that dharma-marks exist, some hold that dharma-marks do not exist—but neither is ultimate. Dharma-marks are neither existent nor non-existent; both existence and non-existence are conceptual proliferation (prapañca). Therefore practitioners of the Two Vehicles fear the worldly five aggregates, fear birth and death, and so wish to hide in nirvāṇa without remainder—this is entirely clinging to marks. Thus the Four Noble Truths and the twelve links of dependent origination are all empty and unreal—calculations upon false appearances, clinging to the shadow of a bow reflected in a cup mistaken for a snake. Therefore the principle that the five aggregates are without self is empty, and even nirvāṇa without remainder is empty; both are expedient devices established to negate the worldly "existence." One should also empty the worldly "non-existence"—neither existence nor non-existence is right. The selflessness of persons and the selflessness of dharmas are also expedient devices: with self, there is emptiness; without self, there is also emptiness. Originally there is only the one true dharmadhātu; apart from it there are no dharmas. The nature and marks of all dharmas are empty and unattainable; even emptiness and unattainability are empty. When not a single dharma confronts the mind, the Buddha Way is finally and perfectly accomplished.