Saying "the chair is empty" is short-hand for "the chair is empty of independent existence" or "the chair doesn't exist from its own side" or "the chair lacks own-being" orCaodemarte wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2019 6:44 pmEmptiness is not a thing so it cannot contain anything. It is not a possession of form, it is exactly form as the translations state.A gold statue does not exist separately as gold (substance) and the form of the statue. Substance and form are one in a gold statue. Divide the two and you may have a mass of gold and a plan for a statue, but you no longer have a gold statue.chownah wrote: ↑Sun Jun 23, 2019 3:15 pmYeah! I am actually assuming that what is said is what is meant. To say that form is emptiness and emptiness is form in the engish language means that they are the same thing and strongly implies (if not actually saying) that they are equivalent.
If whoever translates the heart sutra into english is listening please know that you have made a mistake in your translation (I guess)....according to dinsdale (I guess) you are really trying to say that form is empty and empty is form.....this puts emptiness in the role of being one of the characteristics of form and does not elevate it to a position of equivalence with form.
Correct it......dinsdale's interpretation of what you say indicates that the way you have said it is wrong...correct it.
Personally, I don't know what they mean....perhaps dinsdale is wrong in his interpretation....I don't really know.
There is a sutta (I brought the link before) where the buddha talks about emptiness (as a noun...imagine that...they use a noun to mean a noun!) and maybe that is what the heart sutra is all about....I don't know so I won't even guess.
chownah
chownah
A chair over there does not have emptiness as a quality. The chair is empty. If you take it apart you will find only pieces. Take the pieces apart and you will still not find a chair existing independently. Everything is dependent on everything else, existing because of dependent or, as Nhat Trich Hahn calls it, interdependent origination. The chair is empty. The chair is emptiness and vice versa. All is empty. That is what we call emptiness as a concept. No atman, no eternal self, etc.
"the nature of the chair is emptiness".
Clearly sunyata isn't a thing, it's just the nature of things. In much the same way that anicca is just the nature of things.
As for the other thread, did you provide any sutta references to support citta and mano being the same thing?