“Sunyata”: interpretation of emptiness from Buddhist philosophy

Western philosophies tended to form a unitary way of seeing the world. They achieved this through the search for an immutable essence in reality. For their part, Eastern doctrines say the opposite. In this article we will tell you the postulates of Buddhist philosophy about the concept of sunyata; addressing its origin, meaning and interpretations.

These are two opposite ways of conceiving reality. This is because Western philosophy prioritizes the systematic study of reality. For their part, in the East they were more focused on strengthening the human spirit. Let’s investigate this topic.

Origin and meaning of the term sunyata

The word sunyata It is of Buddhist origin and is written in Sanskrit. Translates as ’emptiness’, ’emptiness’ or ‘nothing’. Despite this root, Chinese philosophy, known as Taoism, took it up and reinterpreted it. In this sense, the term in Chinese is called k’ung.

Having said that, sunyata derives into a philosophical doctrine that aims to eliminate suffering. Likewise, it seeks the enlightenment of the human being, according to the doctoral thesis of Cristian Contreras Radovic.

The creator of this philosophy is the monk Nagarjuna, who is considered a revolutionary of Buddhism. This is because he created a new doctrine of thought within such a religion; it is known as mahyana or “great vehicle.”

Interpretation of emptiness in Buddhist philosophy

For this philosophy, emptiness or emptiness is interpreted as a total absence that envelops all reality, generating a source of discomfort in the human being. Because? Well people create projections of impossible forms of existence. That is, they believe or there is an erroneous perception about a reality that does not exist.

Since human beings do not realize this impossibility, they generate problems and suffering for themselves. These start from ignorance and ignorance about the reality of the world. What reality are we talking about? The one that understands that we live in a conditioned and constantly changing world.

In this regard, according to an article published in the magazine East and West, If we are able to understand this we will be able to access a truth of another order. Furthermore, it is possible to free ourselves from the ties that produce insecurity towards changes.

Likewise, the incessant search for the ultimate essence of things and impermanence will be eradicated. Then, true freedom occurs for human beings.

The void in eastern philosophy

As we mentioned, the concept of emptiness was popular in Buddhist philosophy. Later, it spread throughout China through Taoism.

In this sense, in Buddhism The concept of emptiness extends to all natural phenomena.. In other words, for this current of thought, the things we see and touch have emptiness as their fundamental characteristics. They even consider that the source of everything that exists is sunyata.

For its part, for Taoism, emptiness is related to language. This means that our linguistic abilities find a limit and that there is an impossibility of naming and giving meaning to all of reality. Thus, the void cannot be imprisoned under the limits of language.

Considering this, in Eastern wisdom emptiness is present in the reality that surrounds us and this term is attributed to the impermanent and transitory character of things.

The void and the conditioned origin

As we said, Nagarjuna is considered the creator of this philosophy of emptiness or emptiness. However, he holds conditional origin as the foundation of his doctrine. According to this, everything is empty and lacking its own substantialitysince things depend in their origin on each other.

According to the magazine Tlamatini, the term emptiness, as a philosophical category, means that everything that comes from conditions is empty; Its characteristics are the following:

no eternity, conditionality, no permanence, no fixed essentiality, interdependent events.

In this sense, Nagarjuna maintained that We can only free ourselves when we accept reality as it is. This includes taking into account and understanding existence with its conditions.

In this aspect, language plays a very important role, since we must get rid of some of its pretensions. We are faced with a conception that leads us to consider that words do not designate any essence of things.

About him sunyata and other Buddhist categories

We can consider the sunyata as a different way of understanding the reality we live. As noted in The Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, the term is almost always interpreted in Western countries as nihilism. Nonetheless, In the fundamental texts of Buddhism he is not referred to under these considerations..

What it is about is understanding other ways of seeing the world, beyond the canonical philosophical theories of the West. Assimilating ideas and concepts from Eastern currents is not an easy job, but it is something that must be attempted to avoid misrepresentations. This happens with several terms of Buddhism and other Asian systems and philosophies.

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