Emptiness

Bodhisattva Vows For practicing the engaged state of bodhichitta and being best able to practice the six far-reaching attitudes, we need to take the bodhisattva vows. This involves refraining from committing the 18 root downfalls and the 46 faulty actions that transgress these...

Following his attainment of non-conceptual cognition of voidness (emptiness), Tsongkhapa wrote this eulogy giving poetical expression to his enormous appreciation of Buddha’s kindness in teaching the non-contraction between voidness and dependent arising.

Emptiness, or voidness, means a total absence of impossible ways of existing. Nothing exists in an impossible way.

Voidness, or emptiness, is the total absence of impossible ways of existing, such as self-established inherent existence, while mental labeling is how we account for the conventional existence of things as “this” or “that.”

When we correctly understand emptiness (voidness), we correctly understand dependent arising; and when we correctly understand dependent arising, we correctly understand emptiness.

Learn why Study Buddhism prefers the term “voidness” over “emptiness.”

While voidness is one of the most difficult topics in the Buddha’s teachings, we mustn’t be afraid of voidness. When understood correctly, it will get rid of the causes of our problems.

Tsongkhapa was a revolutionary reformer who reinterpreted and clarified many of the key Buddhist teachings, especially concerning the assertions of the Prasangika tenet system concerning voidness, the two truths, the two obscurations and cognition theory.

Kalachakra practice includes a special way of meditating on voidness in which we meditate not just on the actual meaning of voidness, but we also try to simulate doing this with a blissful clear light mind.