Śūnyatā

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Key Term	śūnyatā
In Tibetan Script	སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration	stong pa nyid
Devanagari Sanskrit Script	शून्यता
Romanized Sanskrit	śūnyatā
Tibetan Phonetic Rendering	shunyata; tong pa nyi
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
Related Terms	rangtong; zhentong
Definitions
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. Heart Sūtra
Usage Example	rūpaṃ śūnyatā śūnyataiva rūpaṃ rūpān na pṛthak śūnyatā śunyatāyā na pṛthag rūpaṃ Prajñāpāramitāhṛdaya 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 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.

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.