We are told that
“in Christian theology, kenosis (Greek kénōsis, lit. ‘emptiness’) is
the ‘self-emptying’ of one’s own will and becoming entirely receptive
to God’s divine will” (Wikipedia, s.v.). The term
seems to be employed in various sub-areas of Christology in varying senses. But
my concern here is whether we can use the term also in the context of Buddhism
and specifically in the context of Buddhist soteriology. Although perhaps
tempting, it does not seem to be suitable to use the term kenosis in the
context of Buddhist ontology and axiology (e.g. in Buddhist ethics and
morality). According to the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness (śūnyatā:
stong pa nyid), phenomena are essentially and from the very outset empty of
real or hypostatic existence and one does not somehow make them empty.
Similarly Buddhist theory of the absence of a metaphysical Self (ātman: bdag)
or Person (pudgala: gang zag) does not imply emptying of an existent
Self or Person. If we consider particularly kenōsis in the
sense ‘an emptying’ (from kenoun ‘to empty’), I think we can
use it to characterize a model of Buddhist soteriology, which may be
presupposed by more than one strand of Buddhism. We are told (Schmithausen
1969) that the absolute, according to the Yogācāra School of Dharmapāla, is
conceived of as static (as opposed to the dynamic absolute
of the Tathāgatagarbha School), and that the positive qualities of a buddha do
not belong to the Wesen of the absolute and that thus they
have to be generated additionally. It would thus seem that the Yogācāra School
of Dharmapāla proposed or presupposed what one might call an Aufräumungsmodel/Ausräumungsmodel (i.e. clearance-model or riddance-model) of Buddhist soteriology.
That is, to become an arhant or a buddha, one must
clear or clean all the intellectual-emotional defilements (kleśa: nyon mongs
pa) or all obscurations (āvaraṇa: sgrib pa). An important
distinction between the soteriological model of a regular arhant and
that of a buddha would be, however, that a regular arhant would
not have additionally generated infinite positive qualities and what remains of
an arhant in the end is mere tathatā, whereas
a buddha would have additionally generated infinite positive
qualities. The analogy of the Aufräumung bzw. Ausräumung einer Wohnung is actually apt here. What an arhant in the end
gets is a cleaned and emptied flat (i.e. tathatā), whereas a buddha gets
a fully and newly furnished flat. In either of the two cases, however,
everything that was there in the flat of tathatā before have
been totally emptied. Such an “emptying” model of Buddhist soteriology may be
called “Kenotic Model of Buddhist Soteriology.” In my view, the soteriological
model followed by the Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka or Sarvadharmāpratiṣṭḥānavāda
school cannot be said to be kenotic, reasons I cannot afford to give here.
