adosa wrote:Paññāsikhara wrote:Pretty much all the early Buddhist schools featured sunnata / sunyata as an important part of their teachings.
In particular, the Sarvastivadins (before they were actually known as such) referred to themselves as the "sunyavadins" when they argued against the Pudgalavadins' theory of the "pudgala". They feature sunyata as one of the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths (four each). Along with anatman, these two were the only aspects that were applicable to all four truths. (The others like anitya being not applicable to the truth of cessation for instance.) It also featured heavily in their three samadhis system. They also have a few sutras that use "sunyata" as synonymous with dependent origination, such as the "mahasunyata-paryaya" and "paramartha-sunyata-paryaya". Neither of these sutras are found in Pali. However, they played an important role for several others schools, it seems. (eg. Sautrantika, and the *Satyasiddhi.)
Whenever the Mahasamghika sutras use "sunyata", it is often part of a set like this: The four immeasurables, loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equanimity; then the three samadhis, emptiness, nothingness and the signless. (This latter form of the three samadhis may be older than the form emptiness, intentionless, signless.) There are suggestions that in fact the four immeasurables are used as the samatha basis for entrance into the three samadhis. ie. cultivate loving kindness up to deep dhyana, then turn to contemplation of not self. This pattern is similar to the sutra on Purification of Almsfood, and the Sunakkhata sutta. (From memory!)
The *Satyasiddhi Sastra also heavily features sunyata. However, it has more of a Mahasamghika turn to it. It is used not just as "empty of self", but a generic "empty of ..." So, they used it a lot as a synonym for nirodha / nirvana, the absence of (empty of) defilements, and / or absence of deluded conceptualization.
Whatever the case, I am not sure what you mean by "trappings" of Mahayana. If you like the idea, just use the idea. No need to take other parts like the bodhisattva-theory or whatever. They can work independently, so to speak.
In recent decades, scholars like Warder and Kalupahana have argued that Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamaka Karika is based on the Agamas, and not necessarily Mahayana at all. Actually, Yinshun already said this decades before that! It's entire content is consistent with readings of the Agamas, though not necessarily the Theravada interpretation. But after all, the Theravada was just one school. Other schools had their own take. In particular, Nagarjuna's association of sunyata with dependent origination and the middle way is perfectly in accord with those Sautrantika sutras mentioned above. Perhaps the Theravadins lost these texts at some point. Hard to say.
You'll just have to look beyond the usual stuff that is found in Pali sources, and possibly beyond Sanskrit sources, too.
Full disclosure: My PhD is on sunyata in the Prajnaparamita, following it's development through early and mainstream Nikayan Buddhism.
Thank you Bhante for taking the time to answer my questions. First by "trappings" I meant no slight to the Mahayana. I simply see some of the teachings, albeit from my limited knowledge of them, as later add-ons and I, personally, have a heard time understanding how they would work (i.e. the Bodhisattva vows, etc.). I do however find a great deal of benefit for my practice in seeing the empty and interconnected, dependent nature of all phenomenon whether that is outside the mind or inside it. I'm seeing all phenomenon functioning the same regardless and as such they almost appear to be one in the same, dependent on conditions and void of any inherent, independent nature. Maybe this is leading somewhere, maybe not but it is a recurring observation in my meditation. So that was the basis of my question.
Well, it has been said by many a greater practitioner than myself, that one could be a Madhyamaka in doctrine without Mahayana motivation, or a Theravadin in doctrine with Maha(bodhi)yana motivation. I prefer to make some distinction between "doctrine" (vada) side of things, and the "vehicle" (yana). So, don't have any problem with what you are stating here. No offense taken.
From what I can see you listed a number of other schools and thinkers by which I might pursue some more study. I've done some brief searching on the web to see if I could find any more information on these early suttas but I have found very little. What do you think about "The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika." ? From what you wrote it seems that this might be in line with what I am trying to put into words.
The non-Pali sutras I mention are in the Chinese Agamas. You can look for Choong Mun-Keat's book "The Notion of Emptiness in Early Buddhism" (it's the one Tilt has mentioned above). Or, you can email me, and I'll send you a big draft translation from Yinshun (better value!)
As far as Nagarjuna goes, well the question is this: If you read sources that come from the position that the Mulamadhyamaka Karika is a Mahayana work, then you often get a big chunk of Candrakirti in there as hermeneutic. eg. that book by Garfield - very Tibetan Gelug-pa if ever there was one, and also anything else that comes from the Tibetan traditions; If you read sources that come from the position that the MMK text is not Mahayana, then often the scholar in question is still just comparing it to the Pali texts, but not much stuff in the Agamas of other schools. eg. Kalupahana, Warder.
That's why I read Yinshun!
So, I wouldn't recommend Garfield's book from what you are trying to do. However, if you can get your hands on a (rather expensive) copy of Booking's translation of Kumarajiva's Chinese translation of the MMK (plus the earliest commentary we have, by several centuries), "Nagarjuna in China, A Translation of the Middle Treatise", then that is recommended by far. Kalupahana, granted, does appreciate this text as the oldest source and commentary, but in the end, he doesn't really use it. He then gets a bit tangled up in some very Pali Sutta based positions, as he tried to show all the Abhidhamma people to the target of Nagarjuna, but kind of get's confused a lot by what the Sarvastivada and Sautrantika are actually saying. Booking just translates the text, along with the old commentary. Kumarajiva, who was the translator for the Chinese, is probably one of the best of the old Madhyamakas, older than Candrakirti by a long shot. He was also formerly a Sarvastivadin type (in the broad sense, not orthodox Vaibhasika), and so he really knew what he was translating. Same too for the Upadesa commentary to the Prajnaparamita, but that is explicitly Mahayana, so I'll leave it out here.
I realize at this point I'm conceptualizing and much, much more work needs to be done. But at some point isn't a working understanding of these concepts required in order to realize phenomenon's true nature through meditation?
hearing, contemplation, cultivation. That's the order of the development of insight.
You need to use concepts to understand what you are actually going to do. But, whilst doing it, then leave out the excessive mentation and conceptualization. The early traditions mainly reject "conceptualization" in the form of conceptualizing "I", "mine" and "my soul". But, other forms of basic concept are less of a problem.
At any rate, thanks to everyone again for taking the time to answer my questions.
adosa
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