What does "all four elements are empty" mean?
A Buddhist term that means everything in the world is empty. (In ancient India, earth, water, fire, and wind were the four elements that made up the universe, and Buddhism called them the four elements.)
The "four elements" in Buddhism mainly refer to Buddhist terms. Refers to the four basic elements that constitute matter: earth, water, fire, and wind. It is said that the four objects of earth, water, fire and wind can maintain their respective shapes without being disordered.
Buddhism teaches that the four elements are all empty. It follows the inherent Indian thought and then deepens it and makes it Buddhist. This is because the four elements of earth, water, fire and wind are cosmic physics. For example, mountains and land belong to the earth. Big, the oceans and rivers belong to the water element, the hot sun belongs to the fire element, and the air flow in space belongs to the wind element.
If they are transformed into human physiology, hair, bones and flesh belong to the earth element, blood secretion belongs to the water element, body temperature belongs to the fire element, and breathing belongs to the wind element. From the physical properties of the four elements, hardness belongs to the earth element. Big, moisture belongs to the water element, warmth belongs to the fire element, and flow belongs to the wind element. However, no matter how you analyze the four elements, they ultimately belong to the material world and cannot summarize the spiritual world.
Extended information:
The purpose of Hinayana Buddhism's observation of the four major types is to make people look down upon our body, which is composed of the four major falsehoods, and not to regard the body as The real me does not create all kinds of karma of life and death by clinging to the physical body. Once I see myself as empty, I will enter the Nirvana realm of Hinayana and no longer reincarnate in life and death.
The "four elements" mentioned in Mahayana Buddhism refer to physical phenomena, not fundamental elements. What is true and false is not real, what is illusion is not real. For the formation of objects, they only add to the conditions rather than the fundamental method. Although the "four elements" are recognized as the seeds of objects, they do not think that the "four elements" are the true appearance of objects.
And "the four elements are empty" also refers to the four ways of destroying the world: earth, fire, wind, and water. To make it empty means to tell the world very intuitively that the existing matter will also be emptied by the "four elements", which also refers to the truth that everything in the universe has no substance.
Baidu Encyclopedia - All four are empty