Sixteen kinds of emptiness
Sixteen kinds of emptiness, or shunyata (Skt. ṣoḍaśaśūnyatā; Tib. སྟོང་ཉིད་བཅུ་དྲུག་, tongnyi chudruk; Wyl. stong nyid bcu drug), which are mentioned in Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara:
- emptiness of the outer
- emptiness of the inner
- emptiness of the outer and inner
- great emptiness
- emptiness of the beginningless and endless
- emptiness of the conditioned
- emptiness of the unconditioned
- emptiness of emptiness
- emptiness beyond extremes
- natural emptiness
- emptiness of the unobserved
- ultimate emptiness
- emptiness of the indispensable
- emptiness of the essential nature of non-entities
- emptiness of all phenomena
- emptiness of specific characteristics
Twenty kinds of emptiness, (་Tib. སྟོང་ཉིད་ཉི་ཤུ་, tongnyi nyishu; Wyl. stong nyid nyi shu), according to Mipham Rinpoche, Gateway to Knowledge [22:61 to 22:65]:
the above sixteen plus:
- 17. emptiness of the concrete
- 18. emptiness of the inconcrete
- 19. emptiness of nature or of identity
- 20. emptiness of substance