金光明最勝王經 重顯空性品

“Reaffirming Emptiness” does not answer with the sentence, “Because everything is empty, nothing exists.” It examines the world of body and mind layer by layer, and at the end records that the assembly vowed to leave saṃsāra and correctly cultivate release.

The Buddha first says that this body is like an empty aggregate. Eyes can see only forms, ears can hear only sounds, the nose smells odors, the tongue tastes flavors, the body receives contacts, and the mind cognizes dharmas. Each of the six faculties takes its own object as a condition, and they do not know one another. Though mind-consciousness races everywhere, it too must depend upon faculties and take objects as conditions before it can distinguish things.

All these functions occur, yet no master can be found hidden within and independently controlling everything. The body is jointly formed from earth, water, fire, and wind; the four great elements dwell together while conflicting with one another. Mind-consciousness depends upon the body to produce karma, and the body in turn takes form according to karma, yet it finally comes to illness, decay, and the corpse grove.

The sūtra then asks: since dharmas are like this, why still cling to the real existence of a self and sentient beings?

It next extends the contemplation to ignorance and saṃsāra. The self-nature of ignorance is originally absent, yet through many conditions it exists in conjunction. Formations, consciousness, name-and-form, the six bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, existence, birth, and aging-and-death also continue through causes and conditions. Emptiness does not erase dependent arising. It means no longer grasping dependently arisen dharmas as fixed substances.

But the chapter’s turn still lies ahead. After teaching that the dwelling of the five aggregates is empty, the sūtra immediately speaks of severing afflictions and seeking awakening; opening the gate of the city of nectar and giving nectar to sentient beings; sounding the Dharma-drum, blowing the Dharma-conch, lighting the bright lamp, sending down Dharma-rain, and rescuing the deluded in the ocean of birth and death.

It then speaks of honoring all buddhas, steadfastly maintaining the precepts, giving eyes, ears, hands, feet, and treasures, cultivating all the perfections, completing the ten grounds, and realizing right awakening. Emptiness does not make these actions disappear. What it loosens is grasping at a permanent ruler, a fixed body and mind, and substantially existent dharmas. What remains is conduct that arises through conditions and can turn in another direction.

At the end of the chapter, the assembly does not withdraw after hearing emptiness. Having understood the four great elements, five aggregates, six faculties, and six objects, they vow to leave saṃsāra, correctly cultivate release, rejoice deeply, and uphold the teaching as spoken.

So if everything is empty, why practice?

Because emptiness does not declare that suffering and conduct do not exist. It lets one see that binding has no unchangeable master and saṃsāra has no eternally immovable substance. In the very chapter that teaches that everything arises through conditions, the sūtra also directly records the severing of afflictions, compassion, giving, and release.

This chapter moves from “the body is like an empty aggregate” to “uphold the teaching as spoken.” When emptiness enters life, it does not mean doing one thing less, but grasping one self less. It does not mean leaving sentient beings, but no longer using a substantially existent self to seize beings, actions, and attainments. Without grasping a self, the assembly still vows to leave saṃsāra, correctly cultivate release, and uphold the teaching as spoken.

Base text: Yijing’s Tang translation of The Sūtra of Golden Light, the Supreme King, fascicle five, “Reaffirming Emptiness,” Chapter 9. This vernacular rendering follows the original passage by passage and stanza by stanza. All thirty-three stanzas are presented separately; it transmits without adding.

After Teaching the Golden-Victory Dhāraṇī, the Buddha Again Clarifies Emptiness for the Assembly

At that time, after the World-Honored One had spoken the dhāraṇī of the preceding chapter, he wished to benefit the great bodhisattvas and the human and divine assembly and enable them to understand the profound and true ultimate meaning. He therefore again clarified emptiness and spoke the following stanzas.

The First Three Stanzas: Why Emptiness Is Taught Briefly and Taught Again Here

One. “In other profound sūtras I have already explained extensively the subtle meaning of true emptiness. Now, within this king of sūtras, I again explain briefly the inconceivable Dharma of emptiness.”

Two. “When faced with Dharma that is vast and profound, sentient beings who lack wisdom cannot understand it. I therefore expound it again here so that they may awaken to the Dharma of emptiness.”

Three. “Out of great compassion and pity for all sentient beings, I use skillful means to establish superior causes and conditions. I now teach within this great assembly so that they may understand the meaning of emptiness.”

Twelve Stanzas: Body, Six Faculties, Six Objects, Mind-Consciousness, and the Four Great Elements

Four. “Know that this body is false and unreal like a mass of foam and is called an empty aggregate. The six faculties dwell within it like thieves, yet they do not know one another. The six objects are likewise thieves, each assigned to and dependent upon a faculty; they too do not know one another.”

Five. “The eye faculty constantly looks upon forms, and the ear faculty continually hears sounds. The nose faculty always smells odors, and the tongue faculty frequently tastes fine flavors.”

Six. “The body faculty receives light, soft, and delicate contacts, while the mind faculty cognizes dharmas without satiety. These six faculties each arise through the conditions of the great elements that constitute them, the consciousness that arises in dependence upon the faculty, and other supporting factors. Each produces discrimination within its own sphere.”

Seven. “Consciousness is like an illusion and is not real, yet it depends upon the faculties and delusively craves and seeks. Just as a person runs through an empty aggregate, so the six consciousnesses depend upon the six faculties.”

Eight. “Mind races everywhere in pursuit and turns wherever it finds itself. Entrusting itself to the faculties and taking objects as conditions, it distinguishes all kinds of things. It constantly clings to forms, sounds, odors, tastes, and contacts, and conceptualizes dharmas without a moment’s pause.”

Nine. “Mind-consciousness follows conditions and ranges throughout the six faculties like a bird flying unobstructed through the sky. Only by relying upon these faculties as its supports can it distinguish external objects.”

Ten. “This body itself has no awareness and no agent. Its substance is unstable and is formed in dependence upon many conditions. It arises from delusive discrimination like a mechanical wooden figure set in motion by karmic power.”

Eleven. “Earth, water, fire, and wind together constitute this body, bringing different results according to various conditions. Although the four great elements dwell together in one place, they harm and oppose one another like four venomous snakes sharing a single box.”

Twelve. “The natures of these four great snakes differ. Although they dwell together in one place, some rise and others sink. Moving upward and downward, they pervade the whole body, but all of them finally come to cessation.”

Thirteen. “Among these four venomous snakes, the earth-snake and water-snake mostly sink, while the wind-snake and fire-snake are light in nature and rise. Because the four great elements conflict with one another, all kinds of illness arise from them.”

Fourteen. “Mind-consciousness depends upon this body and produces all kinds of good and bad karma. It will be born among humans, devas, or the three evil destinies and receive a responsive body-form corresponding to its own karmic power.”

Fifteen. “After this body suffers illness and dies, excrement and urine all flow out. Pus, decay, worms, and maggots leave nothing delightful. At last it is discarded in a corpse grove like a piece of rotten wood.”

Five Stanzas: From Attachment to Self toward Contemplation of Impermanence, Ignorance, and the Twelve Links

Sixteen. “You should contemplate all dharmas in this way. Why still cling to the real existence of a self and sentient beings? All dharmas are entirely impermanent and arise through the conditioned power of ignorance.”

Seventeen. “The great elements that constitute the body are all false. They were not originally real and self-existent, nor do they arise spontaneously of themselves. The natures of the great elements are therefore said to be empty. Know them to be floating and insubstantial like bubbles, not truly existent.”

Eighteen. “The self-nature of ignorance is originally absent, yet through the power of many conditions it exists in conjunction. Because right wisdom is lost at all times, I call it ignorance.”

Nineteen. “Formations are the condition for consciousness, and consciousness is the condition for name-and-form. The six bases, contact, and feeling then arise in sequence. Craving is the condition for clinging, clinging the condition for existence, and existence the condition for birth. Aging and death follow birth, while sorrow, lamentation, suffering, and distress constantly accompany them.”

Twenty. “All kinds of suffering and bad karma constantly bind, press, and torment beings, and the cycle of birth and death has no moment of rest. Yet these were originally not truly existent: their substance is empty, and discrimination arises only through improper reasoning.”

Eight Stanzas: Severing Afflictions, Nectar, Dharma Activity, and the Perfections

Twenty-one. “I have severed all afflictions and constantly bring right wisdom into present operation. I know the dwelling made of the five aggregates to be entirely empty and quiescent and seek realization of the true place of awakening.”

Twenty-two. “I open the gate of the great city of nectar and reveal the subtle vessel that receives it. Having attained the true taste of nectar, I constantly give that nectar to all sentient beings.”

Twenty-three. “I sound the most excellent great Dharma-drum and blow the most excellent great Dharma-conch. I light the most excellent great bright lamp and send down the most excellent great Dharma-rain.”

Twenty-four. “I subdue every enemy and bond made of afflictions and establish the unsurpassed great Dharma-banner. I rescue beings lost in the great ocean of birth and death and close the roads to the three evil destinies.”

Twenty-five. “The blazing fire of afflictions burns sentient beings. No one rescues or protects them, and they have nowhere to depend. With cooling nectar I bring them satisfaction, removing all the feverish torment in body and mind.”

Twenty-six. “For this reason, throughout immeasurable eons I reverently honor all tathāgatas, steadfastly maintain the precepts, advance toward awakening, and seek realization of the blissful place of the dharma-body.”

Twenty-seven. “When someone comes to ask, I give my eyes, ears, hands, and feet, even wife, children, and servants, without stinginess in my heart. Treasures, the seven precious things, and objects of adornment are all supplied according to the petitioner’s need.”

Twenty-eight. “I cultivate throughout the various perfections, including patience. When the ten grounds are complete, I accomplish right awakening. I therefore possess all-knowing knowledge, which no sentient being can measure.”

The Final Five Stanzas: Measuring a Single Thought of the Buddha’s Wisdom against Particles throughout the Ten Directions

Twenty-nine. “Suppose one were to take all the vegetation growing from the earth in one trichiliocosm—all groves, every kind of tree, rice, hemp, bamboo, reeds, and branches.”

Thirty. “Suppose all this vegetation were cut down and each piece pulverized into minute particles. Those particles would accumulate everywhere in numbers difficult to know, filling even the whole realm of empty space.”

Thirty-one. “Then suppose all the earth in every trichiliocosm throughout all lands in the ten directions were likewise pulverized into minute particles. The number of these particles could not be counted.”

Thirty-two. “Suppose the wisdom of all sentient beings were gathered together and given to one person, and suppose that people possessing such boundless wisdom were themselves immeasurable in number. They might perhaps know the number of those particles.”

Thirty-three. “Yet even if these wise people together attempted to measure the wisdom in a single thought of the Muni, they could not calculate even its smallest part throughout many koṭis of eons.”

The Assembly Hears the Dharma, Vows to Cultivate, and Upholds It

At that time, after the assembly heard the Buddha teach this profound emptiness, immeasurable sentient beings understood that the natures of the four great elements and five aggregates are entirely empty and quiescent and that the six faculties and six objects delusively produce binding. They vowed to leave the cycle of rebirth, correctly cultivated the path of release, rejoiced deeply at heart, and received, upheld, and practiced what the Buddha had taught.

The preceding chapter has just finished teaching the Golden-Victory Dhāraṇī: reciting names, venerating, reciting and upholding, repenting, and making a vow, followed by constant, unforgetting upholding even after the wish has been fulfilled. In this chapter, the Buddha does not leave practice behind to discuss a separate abstract theory. The first sentence of the sūtra says, “after the World-Honored One had spoken this formula,” and immediately reaffirms emptiness for the bodhisattvas and the human and divine assembly so that they may understand the profound and true ultimate meaning.

This is precisely where the question arises. If body, faculties, objects, consciousness, the four great elements, five aggregates, and dependent arising are all said to be empty, what place remains for the recitation and repentance taught in the preceding chapter? If neither self nor sentient beings may be grasped, why does the latter half of this chapter still speak of severing afflictions, rescuing beings, cultivating the perfections, completing the ten grounds, and realizing right awakening?

The chapter does not answer with a single definition. It unfolds in thirty-three stanzas: first explaining why emptiness is taught again; then contemplating layer by layer how body and mind operate through conditions; next questioning attachment to self and sentient beings and unfolding ignorance and saṃsāra; and finally moving from contemplation of emptiness into severing afflictions, benefiting beings, giving, the perfections, and buddha-wisdom. The sequence of the stanzas does not stop at teaching emptiness. Its latter part still directly teaches the severing of afflictions, the benefiting of beings, the perfections, and buddha-wisdom.

The reading below first follows the sūtra’s own sequence. How ancient masters assign the meaning of emptiness to different categories is reserved for the final section, where the eye of consciousness-only provides collateral illumination. The mirror is not the sūtra: its classifications must not cover over the movement of the sūtra before that movement has even begun.

Why “Reaffirm” Emptiness? A Brief Teaching Is Not a Shallow Teaching

The first three stanzas explain the causes and conditions for the teaching. The Buddha says that he has extensively taught the subtle Dharma of true emptiness in other profound sūtras and now teaches it briefly again within this king of sūtras. “Brief” does not mean that the meaning of emptiness is made shallow. Relative to the extensive teaching in other sūtras, it gathers up anew a path by which one can enter here.

The second stanza states the difficulty directly: sentient beings who lack wisdom cannot understand vast and profound Dharma. It must therefore be expounded again so that they may awaken to the Dharma of emptiness. The third stanza places the starting point of this repetition in great compassion and skillful means. The Buddha teaches emptiness not to display an obscure concept, but because sentient beings cannot understand and are therefore compassionately regarded.

These three stanzas establish the tone of the whole chapter. Although the meaning of emptiness is profound, the act of teaching emptiness is directed toward sentient beings. It does not exclude those who cannot understand; it teaches them again. Every later dismantling of body and mind still remains within this compassionate point of departure.

The Body Is an Empty Aggregate: All Six Faculties Function, Yet No Single Ruler Can Be Found

The sūtra begins with the body: “this body is like an empty aggregate.” It does not then say that the body can do nothing. On the contrary, the stanzas list the functions of the faculties one by one: eyes see forms, ears hear sounds, the nose smells odors, the tongue tastes flavors, the body receives contact, and the mind cognizes dharmas. Each of the six faculties discriminates within its own sphere, while mind-consciousness in turn entrusts itself to the faculties, takes objects as conditions, and cognizes things.

This detailed enumeration matters. Emptiness does not erase seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, and knowing; all these functions occur. What the sūtra asks one to see is that the six faculties and six objects each occupy their own position and remain mutually unaware. No single faculty can take the place of another, and no single object independently becomes all the other objects.

The sūtra next brings the consciousness that discriminates into the contemplation. Consciousness is like an illusion and depends upon its faculty-locations in delusively craving and seeking. Mind races everywhere, clinging to forms, sounds, odors, tastes, and contacts while conceptualizing dharmas without pause. It follows conditions and ranges throughout the six faculties like a bird flying through the sky, yet it must still rely on the faculties as its supports before it can distinguish external objects.

Within this passage, faculties, objects, and consciousness are not a master hidden inside the body and issuing commands independently. Each faculty has its own object, consciousness must depend upon faculties and take objects as conditions, and objects are distinguished within the process of their being taken as conditions. Function is not abolished, but an independent ruler cannot be found. What the “empty aggregate” opens is not a dead stillness, but an array of bodily and mental activities that depend upon one another and each require conditions.

The sūtra further says that the body is not-knowing, has no agent, is unstable in substance, and is formed through conditions, like a mechanism turned by karma. This simile loosens the picture of “someone inside operating the entire body”: a mechanism can move, but it moves through an assembly of parts and a driving power. Body and mind can act, but they too turn through many conditions and karma.

Four Snakes in One Box: Sharing One Body Does Not Make an Eternal Substance

The body is then divided into earth, water, fire, and wind. The four great elements together constitute the body, yet each has a different nature. They dwell together while harming and opposing one another like four venomous snakes in a single box. Earth and water mostly sink, while wind and fire are light and rise. The conflict between sinking and lifting pervades the body; illnesses arise from it, and all four elements finally come to cessation.

The four great elements are not described as an eternally harmonious whole. “Together constitute the body” and “dwell together yet conflict” appear in the same group of stanzas. The body is indeed formed from them, but composition does not make their differences disappear or condense many conditions into an unchanging substance.

Mind-consciousness depends upon such a body, produces all kinds of good and bad karma, and then takes on bodily form among humans, devas, or the three evil destinies according to karmic power. The sūtra does not erase karma because the body is empty, nor does it establish a permanent agent because karmic results occur. It says at once that the body is formed through conditions and turned by karma, yet is unknowing and has no agent. Continuity in receiving results and the unfindability of a ruler are not forced into an either-or choice.

The account of the body after death is more uncompromising still: excrement and urine flow out, pus and rot appear with worms and maggots, and the body is discarded in a corpse grove like rotten wood. The faculties of eye, ear, nose, and tongue were active before, but the body here is shown as necessarily decaying, impure, and impossible to preserve. The sūtra does not conceal the transition with euphemism, because the perception of the body as delightful must also be seen through its concrete decomposition.

Where Does “Self” Come From? The Question Leads into Ignorance and Dependent Arising

After body, faculties, objects, consciousness, the four great elements, karma, and impurity after death have been unfolded layer by layer, the stanza suddenly asks: since dharmas are like this, why still cling to the real existence of a self and sentient beings? Rather than first proposing an abstract thesis of no-self and then using the body as an example, it first lays open the dependencies and decay of body and mind; the question follows from what has been shown.

After the question, the field of vision turns from the body toward dharmas and dependent arising. All dharmas are impermanent and arise through the conditioned power of ignorance. The great elements are false and originally not truly existent; their substance is unarisen. The sūtra further says that the self-nature of ignorance is originally absent, yet through the power of many conditions it exists in conjunction; because right wisdom has been lost, it is called ignorance.

Both sides of these statements must be heard together. If one grasps only “originally absent,” it is easy to read emptiness as utter nonexistence. If one grasps only “exists in conjunction,” one may mistake conditioned existence for inherent substantial existence. The sūtra places both in the same stanza: absent in self-nature, existent through many conditions. Emptiness does not drive dependently arisen appearances away; it prevents dependently arisen dharmas from being grasped as independent and unchanging entities.

Formations, consciousness, name-and-form, the six bases, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, existence, birth, and aging-and-death next unfold in sequence, while sorrow, lamentation, suffering, and distress follow without release. The cycle of birth and death seems to have no pause, yet the sūtra again says that it was originally not existent, that its substance is empty, and that it arises through discrimination based on improper reasoning.

The suffering of saṃsāra is not treated lightly. Sufferings and bad karma still bind and oppress; sorrow, lamentation, suffering, and distress still follow. What must be loosened is the grasping of this causal chain as a fixed, independent substance ruled by a permanent self. The sūtra says that it arises through improper discrimination, then directly records at the end of the chapter that the assembly vowed to leave saṃsāra and correctly cultivate release.

Contemplation of Emptiness Does Not Stop at Dismantling: It Turns toward Severance and Realization

At “I have severed all afflictions,” the voice of the stanzas changes clearly. Earlier passages principally contemplated how dharmas of body and mind are empty and arise through conditions. From this point, the Buddha speaks in the first person of severing afflictions, bringing right wisdom into the present, knowing the dwelling of the five aggregates to be empty, and seeking realization of the true place of awakening.

The sūtra does not stop at “the five aggregates are empty.” The very next stanza opens the gate of the great city of nectar and reveals a subtle vessel. After attaining the true taste of nectar, one must give the nectar to the multitude of beings. What is realized does not remain with oneself; the taste obtained becomes a gift.

The Dharma-drum, Dharma-conch, bright lamp, and Dharma-rain then appear one by one. The drum must be sounded, the conch blown, the lamp lit, and the rain sent down: every image is an action directed outward. The text next speaks of subduing enemies and bonds of affliction, establishing the Dharma-banner, rescuing the deluded in the ocean of birth and death, and closing the three evil destinies. Contemplation of emptiness does not cause the world to leave the stage. It presses action toward suffering beings.

When the image of nectar appears again, it faces beings burned by the fire of afflictions, without rescue or protection and with nowhere to depend. Cooling nectar fills them and removes the feverish torment of body and mind. Contemplation of the body’s impurity after death and compassionate action that protects suffering bodies both occur in this one chapter. Seeing the body as not delightful does not mean losing compassion for bodies in pain.

Emptiness Does Not Cancel Giving: Eyes, Ears, Hands, Feet, and the Ten Grounds Are All in the Sūtra

The stanzas then look back across cultivation throughout immeasurable eons: reverently honoring tathāgatas, steadfastly maintaining the precepts, advancing toward awakening, and seeking realization of the blissful place of the dharma-body. This is not an outcome accomplished all at once; its scale of time is immeasurable eons.

Nor is giving compressed into an abstract good intention. The sūtra lists eyes, ears, hands, and feet one by one, even wife, children, and servants; it also lists treasures, the seven precious things, and objects of adornment, supplying them according to those who come to ask. These phrases have their own context of giving within ancient Buddhist scriptures. This chapter first preserves the enumeration faithfully, neither adding a modern adjudication within the exposition of the sūtra’s meaning nor erasing the concrete items into the single word “letting go.”

After giving come the various perfections, including patience, followed by the completion of the ten grounds, the realization of right awakening, and all-knowing knowledge beyond measure. Looking back from this point, the sūtra has not set emptiness against cultivation. After contemplating the emptiness of body, mind, and dependent arising, its own text continues directly through severing afflictions, right wisdom, honoring buddhas, ethical discipline, giving, the perfections, and buddhahood.

This also answers the opening question: if there is no self, who practices? The sūtra does not answer by establishing another permanent practitioner. It continues to narrate the severing of afflictions through right wisdom, the benefiting of beings through nectar, and the cultivation of the perfections over many eons. The absence of a fixed ruler does not mean the absence of action; not grasping the practitioner as a substance does not make good and bad, suffering and ease, binding and release entirely indistinguishable.

Particles Might Be Counted, Yet the Wisdom of One Thought Remains Immeasurable

The final five stanzas extend the scale to worlds throughout the ten directions. They first take the groves, trees, rice, hemp, bamboo, reeds, and branches of one trichiliocosm, cut them all down, and reduce them to fine particles until empty space is filled. They then reduce to particles the earth of every trichiliocosm throughout the ten directions.

Next, suppose the wisdom of all sentient beings were gathered into one person and beings of such wisdom were themselves limitless and boundless. They might know the number of those particles. Yet even if they together measured a single thought of the wisdom of the Muni, they still could not calculate its smallest part throughout many koṭis of eons.

The point of the comparison is precise. It does not claim vaguely that everything is unknowable. It says that even if all wisdom were gathered into one and the wise calculated together throughout eons, they still would not know the smallest part of the Buddha’s wisdom in a single thought. The chapter has moved from examining faculties, objects, and consciousness through dependent arising and then from contemplation of emptiness through cultivation toward all-knowing knowledge. At its end, the number of particles reveals the immeasurability of the buddha-wisdom accomplished.

After Hearing Emptiness, the Assembly Does Not Withdraw but Upholds

The chapter does not stop when its stanzas end. After the assembly hears profound emptiness, immeasurable sentient beings understand that the natures of the four great elements and five aggregates are empty, and that the six faculties and six objects delusively produce binding. They then vow to leave saṃsāra, correctly cultivate release, rejoice deeply at heart, and uphold the teaching as spoken.

This ending fixes the direction of the whole chapter. The result of hearing emptiness is not, “Since everything is empty, nothing need be done.” The sūtra records understanding, vowing, correct cultivation, rejoicing, and upholding. When the meaning of emptiness enters life, it becomes the beginning of release from binding and of cultivation.

In the next chapter someone immediately asks about the method of cultivating according to profound principle. Thus, the present chapter comes from the upholding of the formula in the preceding chapter and sends the assembly forward into the next question of cultivation through emptiness. Between these two passages of practice, it reaffirms emptiness: the sūtra first asks why one grasps a self and sentient beings as existent, then continues to list right wisdom, giving, the perfections, and release, each in its place. Repentance belongs to the upholding sequence of the preceding chapter, not to the subsequent practices listed in this chapter.

Seeing Emptiness Again through the Eye of Consciousness-Only

Everything above has followed only the order of the stanzas in “Reaffirming Emptiness” itself. This line of translation and annotation also takes Huizhao’s Cien Commentary on the Sūtra of Golden Light, the Supreme King as a mirror for collateral illumination—the mirror is not the sūtra. The following names of the three natures, two attachments, and eight emptinesses are all classifications by an ancient master and are not passed off as items spoken one by one by the Buddha in this chapter.

Huizhao first explains emptiness through three meanings. First, 「一者空即是性，即遍計所執我法二種」—“emptiness itself is nature: namely, the two wholly-imagined attachments to person and dharmas” (T39n1788 0272c07). Second, 「二者空之性即真如，是空之真性，因空所顯，故云空性，非體性空」—“the nature of emptiness is suchness, the true nature of emptiness; because it is disclosed through emptiness, it is called emptiness-nature, not because its own essential nature is empty” (0272c07–c09). Third, 「三者依他亦名空性，名無生性故」—“the other-dependent is also called emptiness-nature, because it is called the nature of non-arising” (0272c09–c10). He then tightens the boundary in one sentence: 「此即依他，但空二執，不空依圓故。」—“This is precisely the other-dependent: it empties only the two attachments and does not empty the other-dependent or the perfectly-accomplished” (0272c10–c11). Through this mirror, emptiness does not erase the other-dependent and perfectly-accomplished along with the wholly-imagined. It empties the wholly-imagined attachments to person and dharmas; contemplation of emptiness is not attachment to a total nonexistence.

In his outline, Huizhao assigns the first twelve stanzas to inner emptiness, outer emptiness, and inner-and-outer emptiness: faculties are the bases, objects are what is taken as conditions, and consciousness in turn depends upon faculties and takes objects as conditions. He says, 「根藉識取境，識無根不有。境因心變，境離心無。」—“The faculties rely on consciousness to apprehend objects, and without faculties consciousness does not exist. Objects arise through transformation by mind, and apart from mind no object exists” (0274a14–a15). The empty aggregate therefore does not dismantle only the material body; it also examines how faculty, object, and consciousness stand in mutual dependence. The half stanza “you should contemplate” is assigned to ultimate emptiness while also preserving a reading that it concludes the preceding no-self; the passage on ignorance and the twelve links is assigned to beginningless emptiness. Neither reading nor layer is deleted.

At “I have severed all,” Huizhao assigns non-dispersal emptiness. “I open [the city of] nectar” is assigned to original-nature emptiness, although the general outline says intrinsic-nature emptiness. From the Dharma-drum onward he assigns the emptiness of all dharmas. His contemplation of emptiness therefore moves from the removal of the two attachments toward abandoning neither saṃsāra nor nirvāṇa, and onward to nectar, the four forms of Dharma activity, the perfections, and all-knowing knowledge. This is how the consciousness-only commentator joins the contemplation of emptiness with conduct that benefits beings; it is not written backward into the preceding exposition of the sūtra itself.

Other ancient masters preserve different outlines. Following Dharmakṣema’s recension, Zhiyi divides the direct teaching into the objects and contemplations of the two emptinesses of persons and dharmas, and says that the emptiness chapter guides repentance in destroying evil and praise in producing good. Jizang divides the chapter into the intent of the brief teaching, the direct teaching of the principle of emptiness, and the benefits of contemplating emptiness and exhortation to cultivate; he also unfolds the body passage through five approaches to impermanence. On the profound-meaning level, Zhili says, 「唯此經〈空品〉明於圓空，即先觀生空、次觀法空。」—“Only this sūtra’s ‘Emptiness’ chapter clarifies perfect emptiness: first contemplating person-emptiness, then contemplating dharma-emptiness” (T39n1784 0032c09–c10). Huizhao’s eight emptinesses, Zhiyi’s objects and contemplations, Jizang’s principle of emptiness and exhortation to cultivate, and Zhili’s perfect emptiness each retain their own place and are recorded without adjudicating.

Seen again through this mirror, the chapter’s tension becomes clear. Body, faculties, objects, and consciousness cannot be grasped as self-standing substances, while ignorance and saṃsāra also arise through conditions. Yet emptying the two attachments does not empty conditioned conduct or the reality of the perfectly-accomplished. In this light, the empty aggregate, giving nectar to beings, the perfections of giving, and right awakening do not erase one another. In its Carrying Forward, the chapter carries forward the upholding taught in the preceding chapter and hands contemplation of emptiness to the next chapter’s question about cultivation. The mirror makes the boundary between the two attachments and the three natures visible, while the sūtra remains at the center.