ABSTRACT
The notion of emptiness figures prominently in both Indian and Chinese philosophy. In India, Ngrjuna founder of Madhyamaka School of Mahayana Buddhism propounded a philosophy of emptiness. For a proponent of Madhyamaka, things arise, change, and cease, completely dependent on various causes and conditions. Sengzhao, a good Mdhyamika, contends that as things originate dependently and are endowed with various forms and features. Hence, emptiness as the way things truly are is ontologically indeterminate, in the sense that it lies beyond any conceptual identification and linguistic representation. It is clear that Sengzhao takes nirvana to be a state of quiescent emptiness in which external things and oneself, forms and the mind, become one. Sengzhao's ontological notion of emptiness implies quiescence of conceptual differentiation and structuring as well as formlessness and ineffability. In his philosophy, ontological notion of emptiness represents precisely the way things are before conceptualization, which is not a structured world of discrete objects, but a quiescent subject-object unity.
