Emptiness
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In the Eightfold Path, Wisdom (paññā) is not a single strand but two: Right View (sammā diṭṭhi) and Right Intention (sammā saṅkappa). Wisdom begins with clarity, and culminates in the willingness to let that clarity reshape one’s motivations. Wisdom is not an accumulation of knowledge, but simply seeing things as they are, without distortion, without…
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Emptiness (sūnyatā) explains the nature of everything. The explanation was already implicit in the earliest teaching of no-self (anattā) – that humans have no permanent, unchanging ‘self’ (or soul), but instead consist of five aggregates: the body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness. Another early teaching looks to the nature of experience, concluding that nothing…
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Buddhism’s ‘Two Truths’ doctrine sounds like a summation of its highest-level insights – a realisation reserved for the end of a life spent in practice, perhaps. Yet, the doctrine is introduced very early on, almost as a foundational teaching, not a final or ultimate one. There is a profound irony here: the doctrine teaches us…