Śūnyatā

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Key Term	śūnyatā
Topic Variation	emptiness
Hover Popup Choices	emptiness; śūnyatā; sunyata; tong pa nyi
In Tibetan Script	སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration	stong pa nyid
Devanagari Sanskrit Script	शून्यता
Romanized Sanskrit	śūnyatā
Tibetan Phonetic Rendering	tong pa nyi
Sanskrit Phonetic Rendering	shunyata
Chinese Script	空
Chinese Pinyin	kōng
Japanese Script	空
Japanese Transliteration	kū
English Standard	emptiness
Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term	emptiness
Richard Barron's English Term	emptiness
Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term	emptiness
Ives Waldo's English Term	emptiness
Term Type	Noun
Source Language	Sanskrit
Basic Meaning	The state of being empty of an innate nature, due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.
Has the Sense of	Though emptiness it is generally predicated on the dependent origination of relative phenomena, it is a dialectic method of explaining the ultimate truth through a negative assertion and thereby highlighting what true reality lacks, rather than making a positive assertion of what that reality actually is.
Related Terms	rangtong;zhentong
Definitions
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism	In Sanskrit, “emptiness”; the term has a number of denotations, but is most commonly associated with the perfection of wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) sūtras and the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna philosophy. See page 871.
Tshig mdzod Chen mo	rang bzhin med pa'i gnas lugs sam de kho na nyid
sutra/śastra quote:	Form is emptiness; emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form; form is not other than emptiness.
sutra/śastra quote source:	Heart Sūtra
Usage Example	Sanskrit: rūpaṃ śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpaṃ rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śunyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya Tibetan: གཟུགས་སྟོང་པའོ། སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་གཟུགས་སོ། གཟུགས་ལས་སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་གཞན་མ་ཡིན། སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ལས་ཀྱང་གཟུགས་གཞན་མ་ཡིན་ནོ།། ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་

The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.

The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.

The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.

The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics.

The notion that all phenomena arise in dependence on causes and conditions.

"Ultimate truth" or "absolute truth"; the reality of things as they truly are.

The state of being empty of self, which references the lack of inherent existence in relative phenomena.

The state of being devoid of that which is wholly different rather than being void of its own nature. The term is generally used to refer to the ultimate, or buddha-nature, being empty of other phenomena such as adventitious defiling emotions but not empty of its true nature.

Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

Mahāyāna, or the Great Vehicle, refers to the system of Buddhist thought and practice which developed around the beginning of Common Era, focusing on the pursuit of the state of full enlightenment of the Buddha through the realization of the wisdom of emptiness and the cultivation of compassion.

The reality or the objective state of things as they are. In the Buddhist context, it refers to the ultimate nature of things although what exactly suchness means would depend on the philosophical position of the specific schools. The Middle Way school, for instance, consider emptiness as the suchness of all things.