The void does not appear even as void

Buddhist meditation on śūnyatā has given rise to nihilistic interpretations: the world is empty, phenomena lack essence, nirvāṇa is total cessation. Vasiṣṭha corrects this residual understanding. If emptiness were an object — however subtle — of contemplation, it would still be prapañca, conceptual proliferation. The true śūnya is neither a state nor a non-state; it is not something experienced after the dissolution of forms. It is the very nature of experience itself, prior to all duality of fullness and emptiness. The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā (XVIII.42) says: śūnyaṃ śūnyasya vādinaḥ — the emptiness of those who speak of emptiness is still an object. When the mind ceases to constitute itself as a subject in relation to any object, even in relation to “emptiness,” what remains can be called neither existence nor non-existence. It is the mirror before any image is presented to it; the screen before the projection.

Buddhist meditation on śūnyatā has given rise to nihilistic interpretations: the world is empty, phenomena lack essence, nirvāṇa is total cessation. Vasiṣṭha corrects this residual understanding. If emptiness were an object—however subtle—of contemplation, it would still be prapañca, conceptual proliferation. The true śūnya is neither a state nor a non-state; it is not something experienced after the dissolution of forms. It is the very nature of experience itself, prior to all duality of fullness and emptiness. The Aṣṭāvakra Gītā (XVIII.42) states: śūnyaṃ śūnyasya vādinaḥ —the emptiness of those who speak of emptiness is still an object. When the mind ceases to constitute itself as a subject in relation to any object, even in relation to “emptiness,” what remains can be called neither existence nor non-existence. It is the mirror before any image is presented to it; the screen before the projection.