16 types of emptiness

ThailandTom

There is a passage in maitreya's Abhisamayalamkara which deals with the 3rd noble truth, it contains an extensive discussion of the 16 types of emptiness. I have never read the passage in question, or heard of the 16 types of emptiness, can anybody shed some light on this?

caz

I suggest you read it first before asking for a grand commentary, There are commentaries upon this commentary as well

ThailandTom

I shall look into it, thankyou caz. I have been jolted from a very lay buddhist mentally to a very determined one, I now realize the improtance of meditation, how it interacts with the intilectual aspects of the dharma. There are some things that cannot be taught or realized through reading, understood maybe, but a profound realization is something totally different.

I have had no internet for a while and have been wanting to express many things here in fact, however I think they may fall on silent ears for the most part.

caz

PS Some of these are hard to understand take your time Tom and please do so with a happy mind.

ThailandTom

mmm, i know of the commentaries, my mind is pretty complex even as a human mind goes. Go and look at my last CT scan. I am in no rush, but something inside me has changed if you will, something has realized lay life for me does not work

oceancaldera207

I thought there were 18 kinds of emptiness...? I have that somewhere..... i'll be back

federica

I've only just got used to the cloud analogy.....!

ThailandTom

lol, she is a character isn't she, I contemplated what it would be like to discuss buddhism with her in real life... maybe I would end up filled with wisdom or anger due to certain mannerisms.

@oceancaldera207 I got the 16 types of emptiness from a book written by the dalai lama, it is from a view point of a specific school so...

oceancaldera207

Ok, these are the 18 kinds of emptiness from the Prajnaparamita Sutra: Benevolent Kings (spoken by the Buddha) (translation Conze)
1 Emptiness of the true nature of dharmas
2 Emptiness of form, feeling, perception, impulses, and consciousness
3 Emptiness of the 12 sense fields and the 18 elements
4 Emptiness of the 6 great physical elements
5 Emptiness of the 4 truths and the 12 links

(there is some kind of division here where he talks about the arising of things and thought, seeming to indicate that this sequence may be some kind of progression. Which may be why it is mentioned as having fewer elsewhere:1, 2 and 6 I can see no real difference in. i don't know, it's a bit confusing, but I really like it.. i'm sure a deeper look into this would really be interesting and great. I think the basic idea is to really really emphasize the complete all pervasiveness of emptiness/perfect wisom. For me, It certainly gives off that prajna glow!)

6 Emptiness of all dharmas
7 Emptiness of the subject
8 Emptiness of the object
9 Emptiness of both subject and object
10 The conditioned emptiness
11 The unconditioned emptiness
12 The beginningless emptiness
13 The emptiness of essential nature
14 The emptiness of ultimate reality
15 The emptiness of perfect wisdom
16 The emptiness of the cause
17 The emptiness of the buddha fruit
18 The emptiness of emptiness

It is also mentioned in "The 108 names of the Holy Perfection Of Wisdom", where it seems to indicate that many of these terms are also complete synonyms for perfection of wisdom. You can find the corresponding texts in this book:
PERFECT WISDOM: The Short Prajnaparamita Texts
Translated by Edward Conze
http://lirs.ru/lib/conze/The_Short_Prajnaparamita_Texts,Conze,1973,1993.djvu
have a nice day!

ThailandTom

Thanks for finally clearening that one up for me You must have had to have done some digging around looking for it

oceancaldera207

no problem at all! actually had to type from a book, unfortunately cant copy and paste from the digital copy.. but I had been planning to have a look at this anyway! Actually I was just thinking about this today, so it was interesting when I happened to see this topic.
The notion of different kinds of emptiness certainly makes one very curious right?

ThailandTom

Yes, it does considering from a personal experience with the dharma, I have only ever heard of emptniess as, well emptniess. But then also, it is not an entity, it really does boggle my brains a bit, sometimes I feel I understand it and then it disipates

oceancaldera207

you know, this prajnaparamita stuff did exactly the same thing to me for a long time. But as time goes on I have more and more of an affinity for it.. now it's really very accessible to me. A lot of things that didn't make sense to me in the past, slowly came into clarity for me, and it becomes less and less fleeting.

ThailandTom

I can relate to how you say things, sloooowly come into clarity lol, but seriously I have noticed certain aspects to life through insights that I had not before.
In another thread, I was discussing the fact that there is not really one exact moment of awakening, in my opinion you awaken many times over to different concepts or phenomana in life. Dependent origination for example has recently become quite clear to me in all of it's 3 realms. I simply observe how it affects the world around me, the people around me, my emtoions and actions and their emotions and actions.

oceancaldera207

but if you are like me, you always had a sense of something special about buddhist scriptures and writings etc. There was always some kind of affinity there, in spite of any confusion and frustration.