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After opening with the iconic lion’s roar that the aggregates—form, affect, perception, choices, consciousness—are empty, the Heart Sūtra gives us the pith teaching:

iha śāriputra sarvadharmāḥ śūnyatālakṣaṇā

“In this teaching, Śariputra, all experiences are marked by emptiness, neither caused nor ended, impure nor pure, partial nor whole.”

“Experiences” is our translation of “dharmas,” uncapitalized because here it means “things, phenomena, entities” including but not limited to the Buddha’s teachings we call Dharma. And “marked” is lakṣaṇā, the same term we use for the 3 characteristics/marks: impermanence, suffering, and selflessness.

So śūnyatālakṣaṇā: “marked by emptiness.” Emptiness is a characteristic present in everything the same way the 3 characteristics are. What we can see is that emptiness as a characteristic is a natural development of the original 3—if they are true, emptiness is. The 3 characteristics even are a pretty good definition for emptiness: something is empty of permanence, empty of a consistent self-identity, and maybe most mysteriously, empty of suffering because nothing can be found to be an object of grasping, and nobody to do the grasping anyway.

We see this in the three sets of “neither” dyads that follow the claim, where each of the three characteristics is reinterpreted from a non-dual lens: “neither caused nor ended” for impermanence, “impure nor pure” for suffering, “partial nor whole” for selfless.

Tonight we’ll explore how the classical 3 marks imply and are coherent with what I want to call the “emptiness turn,” and how emptiness doctrine then both affirms and interrupts the earlier core teaching.

SEAN OAKES
Sean Feit Oakes, PhD (he/they, queer, Puerto Rican & English, living on Pomo ancestral land in Northern California), teaches Buddhism and somatic practice focusing on the integration of meditation, trauma resolution, and social justice. He received Insight Meditation teaching authorization from Jack Kornfield, and wrote his dissertation on extraordinary states in Buddhist meditation and experimental dance. Sean holds certifications in Somatic Experiencing (SEP, assistant), and Yoga (E-RYT 500, YACEP), and teaches at Spirit Rock Meditation Center, East Bay Meditation Center, Insight Timer, and elsewhere.

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Blessings on your path.