old-path-white-clouds-thich-nhat-hanh

Chapter Sixty-Five: Neither Full nor Empty
The Buddha teaches concerning emptiness, birthlessness, and deathlessness.
S. XXXV, 85; Culasunnata Sutta (M. 121); Mahasunnata Sutta (M. 122); Tsa 232 (T. 99); Fo Chouo Wou Yun Kiai K’ong King (T.
102); Tao Hing Pan Jo King (T. 224); Pan Jo Po Lo Mi To Sin King (T. 251); Ta Fang Kouang Fo Houa Yen King (T. 278).
The section in which Ananda asks about the nature of the world and the Buddha’s response are taken from S. XXXV, 84. The section
in which Ananda asks what the Buddha means when he says that all the dharmas are empty, is taken from S. XXXV, 85. The example
given by the Buddha of the Dharma hall, the sangha of bhikkhus, the market, water buffaloes, and the village, is taken from M. 121, whose
contents are basically the same as Tsa 232 (T. 99). The following explanations are all based on the principle of interdependence and
emptiness of self. All the ideas in this chapter concerning birthlessness, deathlessness, interpenetration, and interbeing spoken of in the
Prajñaparamita Sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra are the natural and inevitable expansion of the Buddha’s original teaching on dependent
co-arising, selflessness, and emptiness.