Flaming Emptiness
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  • If a fire was burning in front of you would you know that it was?
  • Yes of course.
  • And would you know why it was burning?
  • Yes, because it had a supply of fuel.
  • And would you know if the fire went out?
  • Yes of course.

  • And would you know where the fire went to from here – north, south, east or west?
  • The question does not apply. The fire burned because it had fuel. When the fuel was finished there was no more fire.
  • So it is with materials shapes, feelings, perceptions, impulses and consciousness – they are but flames in a fire. The fuel is the root cause. It can be ‘experienced’ but not ‘known’. ‘Knowledge’ is a property of the flames not the fuel.
  • Huh!
  • The life force is deep, immeasurable and unfathomable like a great ocean.
  • But surely it had a beginning and will have an end
  • ‘Arises’ does not apply, nor does ‘does not arise’, nor ‘both arises and does not arise’, nor ‘neither arises nor does not arise’.
  • Is this why it is said that, "The reality which can be described in not the real reality".
  • Possibly
  • And also why it is said that, "Those who know do not speak"?
  • No comment.

Tatha-gata (thus-come) is one of the ten names of the Buddha and can be used to refer to any fully enlightened person. The term is also used to refer to the cosmic principle, the essence of the universe, the unconditioned. In the absolute sense tathagata is often equated with prajna and shunyata.

Prajna refers to a type of immediately experienced intuitive wisdom that cannot be conveyed by concepts or in intellectual terms. The definitive moment in prajna is insight into emptiness (shunyata) which is the true nature of reality.

Shunyata (emptiness, void) is the central notion of Buddhism. ‘Things’ are reckoned to be without essence and as having no abiding reality. This is not to say that ‘things’ do not exist but rather they are known to us only through ‘appearances’. Some schools reckon ‘things’ to be empty vessels; other schools do not even recognise the vessels.

 Emptiness means that in relation to the true nature of the world, any manifoldness, ie any concept or verbal designation – including non-being – is inapplicable.
Enlightenment is the realisation of emptiness
Enlightenment is the realisation of emptiness. This cannot happen through philosophical speculation but direct experience is possible in a mind stilled (put out the fire) through the practice of meditation.

  • Conversation based on Majjhima-nikaya I (quoted in Conze E et al (1995) Buddhist Texts through the Ages; Oneworld, Oxford; ISBN 1 85168 107 8 )and the Tao te Ching
  • Definitions based on The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion (1994) Shambala; ISBN 0 87773 980 3

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