Emptiness

Emptiness in Buddhism, or sunyata in Sanskrit (sunnata in Pali), is the Buddhist principle that everything—including ourselves—is empty of inherent existence and arises interdependently.  In the Pali canon, the earliest Buddhist scriptures, the Buddha uses the term to describe how we don't have a fixed, permanent self. In Mahayana Buddhism, the concept became central and extended to all phenomena. The Heart Sutra, an especially famous Mahayana teaching about emptiness, is chanted daily by many practitioners and is also popular among Western Buddhists.
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