Emptiness (Sunyata)
Understanding that all phenomena lack inherent existence and arise interdependently.
Emptiness is the insight that nothing exists independently. Everything arises in dependence on causes and conditions. This isn't nihilism but liberation from grasping at fixed essences. Modern physics confirms: matter is mostly space, particles exist in relationships. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.
Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. This reveals non-dual reality.
Heart Sutra
Written about in
- What Zen says about death
Nothing exists on its own; everything arises with conditions. If that holds for a person, a death is a change in conditions rather than the deletion of a thing.