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 comprehension. Suppose there is an infinitely large container whose edges cannot be seen, within which there are seven kinds of particles of different colors, each kind existing in countless quantities, freely combinable to assemble 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 and blind to the rest. Such cognition has an enormous bias, and the attachments arising from it are useless and futile. If we can set aside the flower's external appearance and subtly observe the flower's composition and texture, we will know that this flower is in fact an assemblage of five kinds of particles—its substance is just the five kinds of particles. The flower belongs to illusory shadow and false image; in reality it is not even an illusion or a false image, but merely a combination of the five kinds of particles mixed together.

The particles reside within the container, and the assembled flower does not go outside the container. Whether the flower arises or perishes, the particles remain as they were, their quantity 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 perishing, but in reality no such thing exists—it does not even count as an illusory appearance. The same is true of assembling a five-aggregates body out of the seven kinds of particles according to a puzzle pattern: there is no substantial appearance of a five-aggregates body, not even a transformed illusory image; there is no existence of phenomena such as the arising, abiding, altering, and perishing of the five-aggregates body. Arising, abiding, altering, and perishing leave no trace whatsoever, yet sentient beings, in foolishness and biased attachment, cling to them—uselessly and futilely. Whether the five-aggregates body is arising, abiding, altering, or perishing, it does not go outside 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 seven intrinsically existing great seeds within the tathāgatagarbha; the puzzle pattern is an analogy for the karmic seeds stored in the tathāgatagarbha—the puzzle 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-characteristic, that is wrong understanding and wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), and it should be abandoned. Only by observing without falling into worldly dharma-characteristics can correct view and the wisdom of true reality arise. In the end, emptying all that exists—even emptiness itself is emptied—emptied clean and bare, utterly without a thread, then it is thorough and ultimate, the nirvāṇa of tranquility.

Following such inferential contemplation, when you then read all the Mahāyāna sūtras, you should be able to more easily understand the ultimate meaning and true meaning of the Dharma taught by the Buddha, and in practice there will be a point of entry. In the end, understanding the dharma is one thing, but to put it to use requires realization; to realize it requires actual cultivation. The thirty-seven aids to enlightenment that the Buddha required to be cultivated, along with the bodhisattva's six pāramitās, the five precepts and ten good deeds, and all such dharmas, must each be actually practiced one by one, without skipping stages or omitting any; otherwise realization is impossible, the dharma one has understood cannot be put to use, birth and death will still be birth and death, and suffering will still be suffering.

Take any dharma whatsoever, bring it forth for contemplation in this way, and you will swiftly penetrate it. The Buddha's Dharma is the One Vehicle Dharma, without a second, without another. What those of the two vehicles cultivate and realize remains at the stage of attachment to worldly dharma-characteristics: considering dharma-characteristics to exist, or considering dharma-characteristics to not exist—neither is ultimate. Dharma-characteristics are neither existent nor nonexistent; both existence and nonexistence are conceptual proliferation (prapañca). Therefore those of the two vehicles fear the worldly five aggregates, fear birth and death, and hide in nirvāṇa without remainder—entirely attachment to characteristics. Therefore the Four Noble Truths and the twelve links of dependent origination are all empty and unreal—they are calculations based on false appearances, attachment to the shadow of a bow mistaken for a snake in the cup. Therefore the non-self of the five aggregates and nirvāṇa without remainder are also empty; they are expedient devices established to eliminate the worldly "existence"—emptying the world's nonexistence; both existence and nonexistence are not it. The non-self of persons and the non-self of dharmas are also expedient devices: with self, it is empty; without self, it is also empty. Originally there is only the one true dharma-realm; apart from this there is no dharma. The entire nature and characteristics of all dharmas are empty and unattainable, and emptiness and unattainability are also empty. When everything has been emptied clean, with not a single dharma remaining to confront the mind, then it is ultimate tranquil nirvāṇa, and there is nothing more to be done.