Mahayana Buddhism

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 (Walshe 486).

The Buddha's teaching of the Chain of Causation or Dependent Origination is the presupposition of the Mahayana concept of emptiness (sunyata). In the Pali canon, the Chain of Causation or Dependent Origination is applied in particular to the human beings to explain how they are what they are in the present and how they can escape from samsara in the future; the goal of this sort of anthropological analysis is to provide insight into the ultimate empty nature of any conception of the self, which is the presupposition of the cessation of craving. What is applied primarily to the individual in the Pali canon, however, is applied to all dharmas in the Mahayana sutras. Whatever dharmas that exist in the phenomenal world (or samsara) are what they are only by virtue of being conditioned by (or dependent on) other dharmas. (By dharma is meant any entity that is assumed to have individual, separate existence, including immaterial entities as thoughts and abstract concepts.) They have come into being as conditioned (or caused) and will in turn condition other things to come into being (Akira 246).

In Mahayana Buddhism there is a subtle back and forth movement between speaking of the ...