Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c22.s1.3

c22.s1.3

It follows from the fact that we are not concerned with relative knowledge that any definition of suchness is utterly impossible; to apply to it empirical determinations is wholly misleading; to say that it is void is to ascribe to it the character which belongs to the phenomena of this world; to say that it exists is to suggest something individual like ourselves which, however, leads an eternal existence. It is necessary, then, to content ourselves either with silence or to choose the simple term suchness or suchness of being, an idea which in a simple form is known to the Hīnayāna. Suchness is above existence or non-existence or both or neither; similarly also it is neither unity nor plurality nor again both or neither.² It can, therefore, most easily be expressed by negations like the ‘Not so, not so’ of the Upaniṣads, and hence it is natural to treat it as the void. But we must not make the error of thinking this a real definition; the void is as void as anything positive.