Concerning these,
When emptiness is taught elaborately
It is of sixteen types, and when condensed
It is of four types – this is the approach
Adopted in the Greater Vehicle. (6.180)
The sixteen emptinesses are taught in the statement:
Furthermore, Subhūti, the Greater Vehicle of the bodhisattva is the following: emptiness of the internal, emptiness of the external, emptiness of the external internal, emptiness of emptiness, emptiness of immensity, emptiness of the ultimate, emptiness of the compounded, emptiness of the uncompounded, emptiness of the boundless, emptiness of no beginning or end, emptiness of what should not be spurned, emptiness of true nature, emptiness of all phenomena, emptiness of defining characteristics, emptiness of the unobservable and emptiness of real non-things.1
And after that the four types of emptiness are taught:
Furthermore, Subhūti, things are empty of things. Non-things are empty of non-things. Self-nature is empty of self-nature. A nature beyond is empty of a nature beyond.2
These emptinesses are what we call the Greater Vehicle. Neither emptiness nor non-emptiness exist even in the slightest. These are nothing more than relative conventions, just like form and so forth, useful when instructing individuals. As the Treatise states:
If anything at all could be non-empty,
There could be something that is empty.
But as there is nothing at all that is not empty,
How could the empty then be?3
One should not declare ‘empty,’
‘Not empty,’ ‘both,’
Nor ‘neither’ – these are just
Nominal designations.4
Title
Chapter 1: Pramuditā
