Emp - ti - ness - Wisdom of Emptiness - a Buddhist lecture

The wisdom of emptiness is the ultimate teaching in Buddhism; its main tenet is that our suffering is caused by our inability to perceive the true nature of reality.

These teachings on emptiness are very subtle, profound and deeply transforming, Yet with correct understanding, we can shift our experience of the world.

In this course, we'll begin to explore these ideas through meditation, understanding the process of attaining the wisdom understanding emptiness and practice some of the purification techniques to clear the obstacles to realization of emptiness.


Emptiness

Emptiness is a key concept in Buddhist philosophy, or more precisely, in the ontology of Mahayana Buddhism. The phrase "form is emptiness; emptiness is form" is perhaps the most celebrated paradox associated with Buddhist philosophy. It is the supreme mantra. The expression originates from the Prajna Paramita Hridaya Sutra, commonly known as the Heart Sutra, which contains the philosophical essence of about six hundred scrolls making up the Maha Prajna Paramita. The Heart Sutra is the shortest text in this collection. It belongs to the oldest Mahayana texts and presumably originated in India around the time of Jesus Christ.



Emptiness of emptiness.

In The Art of Living (2001) the 14th Dalai Lama says, "As your insight into the ultimate nature of reality is deepened and enhanced, you will develop a perception of reality from which you will perceive phenomena and events as sort of illusory, illusion-like, and this mode of perceiving reality will permeate all your interactions with reality. [...] Even emptiness itself, which is seen as the ultimate nature of reality, is not absolute, nor does it exist independently. We cannot conceive of emptiness as independent of a basis of phenomena, because when we examine the nature of reality, we find that it is empty of inherent existence. Then if we are to take that emptiness itself is an object and look for its essence, again we will find that it is empty of inherent existence. Therefore the Buddha taught the emptiness of emptiness."


text source : http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/emptiness.html


audio source : Wisdom of Emptiness - Class 4 http://www.archive.org/details/LM_Wisdom_20080821

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