[wooclosmercob]

In my new book mentioned above , I looked up 'sunyata' and found this:

" In the early centuries of the common era, there arose a trend or movement within the Buddhist community as a whole which gave rise to what was and still is called Mahayana Buddhism. 'Mahayana' means 'great way' and the name was used to indicate that the people who espoused this sort of Buddhism regarded themselves as having a better understanding or interpretation of the Buddhist teachings than did earlier Buddhists, who they collectively refered to by the derogatory (and no longer used) label Hinayana, indicating that theirs was a ' lesser way'.

One of the points on which Mahayana Buddhists claimed superiority was their understanding of what was meant by anatta. The way they refered to this was not as anatta -- not-self -- but as 'emptiness' or 'voidness' meaning that all things were empty or void (sunya) of independent existence, expressed as 'own being' (sva-bhava). Anatta was therefore referred to by Mahayana Buddhists as sunyata - emptiness. The impersonality of the term emptiness made, and still makes, it easier to understand that which is being indicated is the absence of independent existence of all things. As I have previously commented, one of the problems of understanding anatta is that the word 'self' is usually used so personally that it is perpetually difficult to understand that its reference is generic. "


My own understanding of these things is very limited. However my thoughts on the above passage were:

1. The term 'Hinayana' is still used in Tibetan Buddhism. (look around the internet for quotes which include it - there are many)

2. The term 'empty' and 'emptiness' can be found in the Pali Canon.