To link the artists' works, exhibition curator Linda Michael has focused on the Buddhist concept of 'Emptiness' or Sunyata. Unlike the negative connotations this concept often carries in Western contexts, 'Emptiness' in a Buddhist milieu connotes a space rich in possibility and spiritual liberation. As Michael explains, the concept emerges from an understanding that, ' ... all entities are part of an ever-changing causal chain of growth and decay. All things emerge as "dependent arisings" from a matrix of conditions, in turn becoming part of another momentary cluster of causes and effects and so on to infinity. All dharmas (every mental and physical entity, even the Buddha) are interconnected and therefore without essence .. . Emptiness is thus the unbroken ground of being that is egoless, conceptless and unobjectifiable ... Things exist, yet without endurance or inherent substance.'[1]

A growing number of psychologists now have their practices and theories informed by Buddhist meditation practices. These practices, however, are themselves deeply informed by the Buddhist notion of emptiness (śūnyatā). This Buddhist concept offers a rich vein of possibilities in informing psychology and psychotherapy. The present paper examines the development and potential of this concept for influencing these and other areas.

As we have discussed in a number of posts on this blog, emptiness (Pāli: suññatā, Sanskrit: śūnyatā) is a fundamental Buddhist teaching that refers to the fact that phenomena do not intrinsically exist. This empty characteristic of phenomena relates as much to animate objects such as a flower, a car, or the human body, as it does to inanimate constructs such as the mind, space, or the present moment. In essence, emptiness means that nothing exists as a discrete entity and in separation from everything else. For example, a flower in the garden manifests in reliance upon numerous causes and conditions, without which, it would not exist. Amongst countless others, these causes and conditions include the water in the earth and atmosphere, nutrients in the soil, respiratory gases carried by the wind, heat of the sun, and so forth.

Anattā (Pali) is the cornerstone of Buddhist philosophy, referring to both the doctrine of “non-self” and the doctrine of “emptiness” in Buddhism. However, anattā has always been a perplexing and controversial thesis after the Buddha. In a previous paper, we argue that, if we regard each aggregate as an “awareness” which is the state of being conscious of something, then contemplating the five aggregates would bring “awareness of awareness” to light and reveal that it arises a moment after each aggregate and they do not appear simultaneously. Therefore, no constant entity could be found to experience/observe the aggregates, leading to the insight of “non-self”. Furthermore, the illusion that there is a self underlying the five aggregates intrinsically means a two-tier and parallel relationship like that of Cartesian Theatre. However, the slowing down of “speed” in vipassana reveals that the reality is a one-tier and serial relationship. Inspired by this unique interpretation of “non-self”, we realize that “awareness” may bridge the doctrine of “non-self” and the doctrine of “emptiness”, and that the principle of “emptiness” may be interpreted in a similar way. Therefore, this paper develops a three-tiered analytical framework which consists of “awareness of awareness”, “awareness” and “the object of awareness” to illustrate both “non-self” and “emptiness” in an integrated way. There are two kinds of two-tier relationship in this framework: one results in the illusion of self, while the other one results in the illusion of entity. In reality, there is neither subject nor object of “awareness”. That's the essence and the complete logic of anattā in Buddhism.