Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Feature
Circling Emptiness
Recalling his friendships with Norman Mailer and Samuel Beckett, a Zen student and writer grapples with a central Buddhist teaching.
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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What Do Buddhists Mean When They Talk About Not-Self?
Tricycle is pleased to offer the Tricycle Talks podcast for free. If you would like to support this offering, please consider donating. Thank you! The foundational Buddhist concept of anatta—usually translated as “no-self,” “nonself,” or “not-self”—can be…
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