Entrance To The Middle Way: (Selected Verses)
Entrance To The Middle Way: (Selected Verses)
Entrance To The Middle Way: (Selected Verses)
(Selected Verses)
By Chandrakirti
4. EMPTINESS OF EMPTINESS
The true essence of composite and all other phenomena is pure being,
Therefore, neither the students, the solitary realizers,
The bodhisattvas, nor the buddhas
Created this essence anew. (198)
Therefore, this essence of the composite and so forth
Is said to be the very nature of phenomena.
It itself is empty of itself.
This is the emptiness of the true nature. (199)
***
The sixteen emptinesses are condensed into four emptinesses that follow.
These four emptinesses are a summary of the previous sixteen.
1. EMPTINESS OF ENTITIES
(i.e. Not realism.)
2. EMPTINESS OF NON-ENTITIES
(i.e. Not idealism / nihilism. The emptiness of non-composite dharmas)
Other names for this are the "genuine limit" and "suchness."
They are empty of themselves and this is the "emptiness of the entity that is other."
In the sutras of The Great Mother, The
Transcendent Perfection of Wisdom,
These twenty emptinesses are explained in great detail. (223)