Did the message of Buddhism get changed when it was translated from Indo-European languages into Chinese?
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Replying to @ericlinuskaplan
Excellent points made by
@bodhidave3 ,@NoaidiX@NeuroYogacara. I'd also like to observe that there is an important meeting that took place as the first Chinese practitioners of Buddhism interpreted the arrival w/ their background of indigenous Daoist understandings...2 replies 0 retweets 4 likes -
Replying to @Timber_22 @ericlinuskaplan and
(...in addition to the many other varied Chinese philosophical traditions).
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Replying to @Timber_22 @ericlinuskaplan and
There is an important doctrinal point: because Daoism is very interested in "natural philosophy", the Chinese translators working w/ the Indian concept of śunyatā used their word, "wu". Which is the correct word choice.
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Replying to @Timber_22 @ericlinuskaplan and
However, along with that, it took a while in Chinese Buddhism to place the correct emphasis on what śunyatā / wu / "emptiness" actually means in practice, and how it is to be understood. Nāgārjuna and his successors used "śunyatā" as an *epistemological* sense...
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Replying to @Timber_22 @ericlinuskaplan and
...not as a claim about metaphysic or physics. Chinese Daoism has a fascinating metaphysic and natural philosophy. The early Chinese Buddhist interpreters arguably *sometimes* placed too much emphasis on sunyata/wu in Buddhism as a claim about the nature of how reality "is"
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Replying to @Timber_22 @ericlinuskaplan and
Just a brief sidenote: the Chinese equivalent of śūnyatā is kong (空), not wu (無), e.g., the Heart Sūtra's 色不異空 空不異色 色即是空 空即是色 (roughly: form is no other than emptiness, emptiness no other than form; that which is form is emptiness, that which is emptiness form).
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Replying to @NoaidiX @ericlinuskaplan and
OK, I'm officially embarassed. Thank you for the correction. Wonderful to have your expertise and knowledge.
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No big deal! Wu (無) also features prominently in the Heart Sūtra, just not as the equivalent of śūnyatā. It functions instead in the same capacity as the Sanskrit "na," a general negator. 
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