{"id":9165,"date":"2013-04-14T17:04:50","date_gmt":"2013-04-14T17:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/?p=9165"},"modified":"2013-04-14T17:04:50","modified_gmt":"2013-04-14T17:04:50","slug":"form-is-emptiness-in-buddhism-garden-design-and-landscape-architecture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/form-is-emptiness-in-buddhism-garden-design-and-landscape-architecture\/","title":{"rendered":"'Form is emptiness' – in Buddhism, garden design and landscape architecture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> The enclosure on Vulture Peak<\/a> Rajgir, India is believed to the be the place where the Buddha delivered the teaching recorded in the Heart Sutra<\/a><\/em>. It contains the famous lines:
\nForm is emptiness, emptiness is form
\nEmptiness is not separate from form, form is not separate from emptiness
\nWhatever is form is emptiness, whatever is emptiness is form<\/em>
\nThe phrasaeology is meant to induce meditation. ‘Emptiness’ (\u015a\u016bnyat\u0101<\/a><\/em>) may be interpreted in relation to the Buddhist concept of non-self (Anatta<\/a><\/em>). Nothing we see has a separate ‘self’. Everything is inter-connected. The lines embody a paradox and this may be deliberate – because there is so much about the nature of the universe which cannot be understood. My own understanding of the lines is as follows:
\n– objects appear to have form but, because they are connected to everything else, this is an illusion
\n– the ‘everything else’ to which objects are connected can only be perceived through forms
\nThis gives the lines from the Heart Sutra a relationship with Plato’s Theory of Forms and with the modern distinction between particulars and universals. We might say that universials are known only from particulars and that particulars are understood only when they can belong to universal categories. The favourte example is cats (see Fig 1<\/a>). We only know the universal ‘cattiness’ through particular examples and we only know that particular cats ARE cats because of our acquiaintance with the universal form of cats.
\nAssuming I have interpreted the Buddha and Plato correctly, I am more attracted to the Buddhist version. Plato conceived the forms as eternal and unchanging. For a landscape architect or garden designer this is unappealing. It implies that all possible forms and designs already exist. The Buddhist version gives important positions both to the form which a designer ‘assembles’ and to the inter-connected cosmos (I almost wrote ‘compost’) from which the elements are drawn – and to which they will return. Forms have no ‘self’; they change every instant; they are impermanent (annica<\/a>). Modern science confirms that everything is in flux. We notice it more in outdoor than indoor environments. With time the fourth dimension, landscape design appears to be a four-dimensional art.
\nThe photo is from Wikipedia, with thanks. The design uses one of the primary Platonic forms: the square. Compare it with the photo of St Francis, below. Monasticism was a Buddhist idea and the monks seem to belong to the Axial Age<\/a>, of the Buddha, Plato, Confucius and the author(s) of the Old Testament. Or do they belong to an even earlier age when India rishis meditated in forests, caves and mountain retreats? And why was it such a great period in the history of philosophy and religion? Should philosophers and religious leaders – and landscape designers – work in the great outdoors, instead of in fusty musty offices? Yes. Form is emptiness and emptiness is form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The enclosure on Vulture Peak Rajgir, India is believed to the be the place where the Buddha delivered the teaching recorded in the Heart Sutra. It contains the famous lines: Form is emptiness, emptiness is form Emptiness is not separate from form, form is not separate from emptiness Whatever is form is emptiness, whatever is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9165"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}