Inferential Contemplation of the Twenty Kinds of Emptiness

The twenty kinds of emptiness in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra are extremely difficult to understand; now let us use an analogy to facilitate understanding. 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 numbers, which can be freely combined and assembled into innumerable objects.

For example, using five of these particles, according to a blueprint within the container, one assembles a fresh flower. Observing 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 unprofitable 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 a composite of the five particles; its substance is just the five particles. The flower is a phantom, a false image—in reality it is not even a phantom or a false image, but merely a combination of the five particles mixed together.

The particles reside within the container, and the flower assembled from them does not go outside the container. Whether the flower arises or ceases, the particles remain as they were, their number unchanged, the container unmoved and unaltered, unaffected in any way. If one looks 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. In the same way, assembling a five-aggregate body from the seven particles according to a blueprint is also like this: there is no substantial appearance of a five-aggregate body, not even a transformed image; there is no existence of phenomena such as the arising, abiding, altering, and ceasing of the five-aggregate body. Arising, abiding, altering, and ceasing leave no trace whatsoever, yet sentient beings, in their foolishness and biased clinging, fixate on them—unprofitable and futile. Whether the five-aggregate body is arising, abiding, altering, or ceasing, 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 great seeds within the tathāgatagarbha; the blueprint is an analogy for the karmic seeds stored within the tathāgatagarbha—the blueprint, once used up, disappears and is voided; the flower and the five-aggregate body are an analogy for all the dharmas born from the tathāgatagarbha. If we contemplate the twenty kinds of emptiness in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra in light of this analogy, we should have a point of entry. As long as our contemplation falls into any kind of worldly dharma-mark, that is a wrong understanding and a wrong view (mithyā-dṛṣṭi), which should be abandoned. Only by observing without falling into worldly dharma-marks can correct view and the wisdom of real appearance arise. In the end, when all is emptied—even emptiness itself is emptied, emptied clean and bare with nothing left—then it is thorough and ultimate, and one abides in tranquil nirvāṇa.

Following this kind of 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 there will be a point of entry for practice. In the end, even if you have understood the Dharma intellectually and comprehend it clearly, to put it into function you must realize it directly; to realize it directly you 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 forth—must all be actually practiced one by one, without skipping stages or bypassing any; otherwise there can be no direct realization, the Dharma you have understood and comprehended cannot be put to function, birth and death will remain birth and death just as before, and suffering will still be suffering just as before.

Take any dharma whatsoever, bring it forth and contemplate it in this way, and you will swiftly enter into it. The Buddha's Dharma is the One Vehicle dharma, without a second, without another. What the two-vehicle practitioners cultivate and realize remains at the stage of attachment to worldly dharma-marks: they hold that dharma-marks exist, or 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 the two-vehicle practitioners fear the worldly five aggregates, fear birth and death, and so wish to hide within nirvāṇa without remainder (anupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa)—this is entirely attachment to marks. Thus the Four Noble Truths and the twelve links of dependent arising are all empty and unreal; they are calculations based upon false appearances, like being deluded by the reflection of a bow in a cup, mistaking it for a snake. Therefore the principle that the five aggregates are without self is empty, and even nirvāṇa without remainder is empty; all are expedient devices established to negate the existence of the world. One should also empty the world's non-existence—neither existence nor non-existence is it. The selflessness of person and the selflessness of dharmas are also expedient devices: self is empty, and non-self is also empty; there is originally only the one true dharma realm, apart from which there are no dharmas. The entire nature and all marks of all dharmas are empty and unobtainable; emptiness and unobtainability are also empty. When not a single dharma remains to confront the mind, the Buddha-Way is at last perfectly accomplished.