Buddhism advocates that everything in the world and the human body are made up of earth, water, fire and wind. "Four" refers to soil, water, fire and wind, and also refers to firmness, humidity, temperature and movement. It is called "big" because it is ubiquitous in any object, that is to say, the "big four" are the inherent physical properties of every object, not just the land, rivers, sunshine and wind in nature. As far as the human body is concerned, the flesh and blood are big, the sweat, blood and body fluid are big, the body temperature and fever are big, and the breathing movement is big. The concept that matter (called color in Buddhism) is composed of "four great things" reflects the basic understanding of the composition of the material world by ancient Indians and is the result of the initial exploration of the universe. It belongs to simple materialism, similar to China's ancient theory of "five elements" (gold, wood, water, fire and earth). After Buddhism came into being, it followed the inherent thought of ancient India and deepened it, and put forward the idea that "everything is empty".
"Emptiness" is a fundamental philosophical concept in Buddhism, which is profound and difficult to understand. Many people have misunderstood it in the past and now, and some regard "emptiness" and "being" as two opposing aspects, which are in common in front of the real world; Some people regard "emptiness" as emptiness and fall into nihilism. To understand the word "empty", we must first know the source of this word. Buddhist scriptures are translated from Sanskrit, from which the word "empty" comes. In Sanskrit, Sungata (sound: Shun Ruoduo) means "sexual emptiness", which Master Xuanzang simply translates as "emptiness". The following excerpt is from Mr. Lian Si's article "On Empty Is Color". He made the source and meaning of this empty word very clear:
"Empty is called Sunyata in Sanskrit. In fact, the word ethereal cannot be abbreviated as "empty", but should be called "empty". Ta is a suffix here, and Sunya is the root. Of course, we can call Sun Yakong, but the "empty" in the sentence "color empty" is not Sun Ya, but Sun Yata. The word ta at the end is very different from the word Sunya in Sanskrit. Ta means nature, truth and form. Empty and empty have different meanings. ……"
This passage clearly analyzes emptiness and emptiness. In fact, among the seven versions of the Heart Sutra found by the author, Prajna * * * is translated as "all five aggregates are empty", not all five aggregates are empty; Fayue, Wisdom Wheel, and Shi Hu all translated as "five aggregates are empty"; Fa Cheng's translation is "seeing five meanings, knowing all is empty". There is a saying in Sanskrit-Tibetan translation that "all laws are empty". It can be seen that the "emptiness" here should be understood according to the meaning of "sexual emptiness", which is an omission of "sexual emptiness". For more than a thousand years, Xuanzang's translation has gone deep into the people and spread widely. His translation is "all five meanings are empty". Of course, his translation must have his own opinions, and it would not cause misunderstanding at that time, and the explanation of the word "empty" was quite clear at that time. Only later, due to the changes of the times, the meaning of language has changed, so some people interpret the meaning according to the words and only understand the superficial meaning of the words, which has caused many misunderstandings for thousands of years.
The explanation of "emptiness of nature" in "Chen Buddhism Folk Words" is: "Everything that is synthesized by many factors has its emptiness of nature, and there is no true self to be obtained." The "sex" here is not a physical attribute in the sense of physics and biology, but an independent "self" that does not depend on conditions (fate). "Self-nature" means that it is self-owned, self-made, self-determined, as it is, and truly unchanged. As long as we infer calmly and think repeatedly, we will find that everything in the world is a phenomenon produced by the joint action of many factors under certain time and space conditions, and there is no unconditional absolute single and independent "self-nature". Everything in the universe is produced by various conditions (fatalism), and everything is "fatalism" and "born by fate", that is, if the conditions for producing it are met, it will be produced and exist, and if the conditions are not met, it will not be produced. Things born of karma can't exist without karma, which is called "no self", that is, "sexual emptiness". Indian scholar Long Shu said: "Origin is sexual emptiness, and sexual emptiness is origin. Nothing in the world is not sexual emptiness. " He also said, "If things are self-sufficient, why rely on all the factors? If all factors are in harmony, what else is self-contained? " Generally speaking, being is existence, being is not emptiness, emptiness is nonexistent and emptiness is not being, so emptiness and being are opposites. In fact, "emptiness" and "being" are not only not antagonistic, but also integrated. There is space in "you", and space will not exist outside of "you", and it is not necessary to wait for the destruction of "you" to talk about space. Buddhism says "emptiness" by "being", and "being" and "emptiness" are integrated and unique. It can be seen that the emptiness mentioned by Buddhism is the emptiness of "origin", the emptiness of "karma", the emptiness without self-nature, the emptiness without all emptiness, the negation of the role of things and the emptiness of continuous transformation of things.
The following sentences in the Heart Sutra are of great help to correctly explain "four are empty". "Color is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from color, color is empty, and emptiness is color" means that "color" (referring to all substances) is not another completely different thing from emptiness, and emptiness is not another completely different situation from color. "Color" and "emptiness" are two sides of the same thing. "Color" refers to the phenomenon of things themselves, and "emptiness" refers to the essence of things. Color (matter) itself is a kind of existence, but in terms of its fundamental nature, it is a phenomenon composed of many factors under certain time and space conditions, and there is no unconditional absolute single and independent "self-nature", so color itself is empty without self-nature. The substance with emptiness is color. The "emptiness" here refers to the "self-emptiness", not the emptiness that denies the existence of color. "Self-emptiness" is the eternal nature of all things that are caused and combined. So Zong Kaba said, "What depends on the conditions and what is empty." The sentence "emptiness is color" also shows that the concept of emptiness is based on existence, and it is meaningless to say that things like turtle horns are empty. "color is empty, color is empty" is a law born of karma (law refers to all things in the universe), which is "self-emptiness"; And "space is the same color" and "space is the color" are the laws of karma, which have shapes and functions and are "pseudonyms". From emptiness to pseudonym, it is to ask people not to have two sides of emptiness, but to conform to the mean.
The purpose of Buddhism saying "four universes are empty" is to make people understand the truth of life in the universe, so as to get rid of the bondage of body and mind and gain liberation and freedom. Being proactive, indifferent to fame and fortune, ready to help others, and expecting nothing in return are not only beneficial to society, but also reflect their own life value. Because some people don't understand the emptiness of "you", they are too obsessed with "you" and regard "you" as an eternal existence. This is a greedy life. If a person takes "you" too seriously and is insatiable, then he will be very upset and miserable. Buddhism uses "everything is empty" (that is, "everything is empty") to get rid of their common sense of false "existence" in the world. There are some people in the world. Although they can see the essence of "being", they don't understand that the function of the original thing is not empty, and the continuity is not empty (transformation is not empty). They don't understand the deeper truth that the whole universe and life are influenced, interrelated, interdependent and interactive. They think that everything in the world is "empty", so what's the point of survival? So some of them ignore family ethics and social morality, indulge themselves, do whatever they want, and harm others and society; Others are negative, world-weary and decadent. These two attitudes towards life are nihilism. Buddhism broke their persistent view of "emptiness" by saying that "emptiness is wonderful" and "continuity is not emptiness"
Buddhism breaks the old obsession of the mysterious world-blind greed and extremely selfish attitude towards life with "four emptiness", and establishes a new conscious world outlook with "continuous emptiness"-active dedication to benefit mankind.
Accordingly, the author thinks that the correct interpretation of "four emptiness" should be: Buddhist terminology, and the meaning of "emptiness" is "sexual emptiness". Buddhism holds that: 1. Everything in the world is "empty" and its existence must depend on many conditions. Things born of karma can't exist without karma, which is the so-called "no self", that is, "sexual emptiness". 2. The function of the origin of emptiness is not empty, and the continuity is not empty.
The following excerpt is the explanation of "four things are empty" in Buddhist dictionaries: "Buddhism advocates that everything in the world and the human body are composed of earth, water, fire and wind, which are all false. If we can realize that these four things are also empty and false, and they will eventually be empty, not' unchanged', then we can also realize that everything has no substantive truth. It is also generally described by the world as seeing through fame and fortune and seeing through the world, which is the so-called "four are empty." "It should be noted that this explanation uses a lot of Buddhist terms, and it is difficult for ordinary readers to understand this all-inclusive statement with thousands of meanings in every word. If we read it according to the text, there may be new misunderstandings.
Finally, an excerpt from a paper by Mr. Wu Limin, director of China Buddhist Culture Institute, on the relationship between preaching and practice can make readers understand the meaning of "sexual emptiness" more easily:
Buddhism believes that everything born of fate must have the following three characteristics: 1. Things born of karma cannot exist without karma, that is, they are not independent from their production conditions (karma). This is called no self, which Buddhism calls no self. 2. Everything that comes from fate moves and changes with fate. Without the change of its production conditions, it is impossible to remain unchanged. This is called non-eternity, and Buddhism is called impermanence. 3. Everything that comes from fate will inevitably return to the place it should return to according to the laws of its conditions, that is, live in a bad space and a different place according to its own laws, and die of illness. This is called silence, and Buddhism is called silence. Summarizing these three predestined characteristics is the three dharma seals of Buddhist Hinayana: 1, everything has no self; 2. The law is impermanent; 3. Nirvana is silent. ..... Buddhism has developed into Mahayana, which classifies non-ego, impermanence and silence as emptiness, that is, non-ego, non-eternity and silence, which are all manifestations of the emptiness of everything. Therefore, three French seals evolved into one French seal, that is, a real seal. This reality is sexual emptiness. With time, everything is achieved. The so-called "to be free and upright, all methods are available; If there is no empty meaning, nothing can be done. " However, if we can't grasp emptiness, we think that one emptiness is another ego emptiness. Therefore, "there should be a free method if there is a free method; If there is no empty method, how can there be an empty method? " "The Great Sage said that Buddhism is empty in order to see the past from others. If people are free, the buddhas will remain unchanged. " Therefore, the universality of "emptiness" is really the noumenon of all things, that is, the true face of all things. This is a universal reality. Only prajnaparamita, empty but not empty, empty but not empty, empty but not empty, empty but not empty. This is the dharma. ..... It is vain to say that it wins righteousness; It is convenient to say that it is empty after all. Without the first cause, it is the truth of Buddhism, the perfection of Buddhism and the sufficiency of Buddhism. This is the Prajna of emptiness, the Prajna's emptiness.