Śūnyatā can't "arise", in a #Buddhist sense of being dependent on a condition, because śūnyatā occurs only when all conditions for sensory experience are absent (śūnya). It can't "cease" because there is no present (aśūnya) condition you can remove to make it stop.

This is why śūnyatā is an asaṃskṛta (unconditioned) dharma. A mental state that does not depend on the presence of conditions.

#buddhiststudies #buddhism

@jayarava
I have trouble sometimes in shifting gears between the later Mahayana notion of sunyata and the EBT one. It'll always just be a product and extension of anatta with a big dash of anicca at heart for me, which of course the suttas' version is too-- but I think of it as a direct insight rather than a practice to undertake.

@AndyLowry I doubt anyone really understand what was intended by anattā. Anicca is fine as far as it goes, but it's really quite a banal observation: http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2011/09/everything-changes-but-so-what.html

@jayarava
Banal, sure, but it's not something people are much aware of while going about their day.

When my most recent teacher did his intro-to-Buddhism courses, he'd say that "it's not that there's no self, it's just that if you look for it you can't find it," which I thought was not bad especially in that setting where someone may have never encountered such a radical concept before.

@AndyLowry The problem is explaining why this is a problem.

I don't have to "look for a self", I *am* a unique being *however you look at it*. Everytime I turn around, *there I am*. Same with enlightened people too, btw. All have distinct and recognisable personalities.

Just because some Iron Age Brahmins were obsessed with ātman, doesn't mean I am. I'm not. Never have been.

@jayarava
What he meant was that if you try to define it or pin it down in some way, you'll be out of luck. Is this 1957 photo of me really a photo of me? You know, ship-of-Theseus discussions where the problem is what you mean by "me" or "this." Most of us are several different people during the course of a day in subtle ways. One of the other teachers there calls that kind of thing un-pin-downable, which I like.

@AndyLowry Hmm. This approach, it seems to me, is predicated on the (weird) idea the idea that only permanent unchanging things are real.

A 1957 photo of you, is really a photo of you back in 1957. That was you then. This is you now. You have changed. So what?

I have no idea why this change is a problem unless you expect existence to be unchanging, which no one in their right mind does.

See also my discussion of that Ship (which IMHO is much better than others): http://jayarava.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-ship-of-theseus-ftfy.html

@jayarava
What I mean is that there is nearly nothing other than DNA patterns that would link me to the 1957 me. Would there even be a single cell still alive? Maybe a stray neuron here and there. So I'm unable to claim to be the 1957 person, since that person ceased to exist. That person died incrementally and had his cells scattered to the winds a long time ago. The information contained in that body DOES live on, though, physics-wise-speaking.

(I guess it boils down to what one thinks "identity" is. Which is a tricky one in itself.)

I have read your Theseus, though it's been long enough that I remember nothing of it other than being surprised to see it. Will add it to re-read list!