Change, Development, and Negation in Heraclitus, Hegel, Marx, and the Sutra
It is said in the famous Heart-mind Sutra
“Form is emptiness,
Emptiness is form....
Emptiness does not exist apart from form”
Whatever appears will disappear. Whatever is, is bound in it’s nature to vanish. Being includes it’s opposite. That is basic Heraclitean dialectics, and a readily observable phenomenon.
By contrast, Hegelian and Marxian dialectics recognise a developmental aspect; what appears disappears, while what then appears is a new and changed version of the old which is discernible as a progressive change. In this sense, the phenomenal reality is a continuum of development. This too is a readily observable phenomenon.
However, either aspect on it’s own is rather one-sided. In the latter Hegel/Marx version, it should still be recognised that negation is inseparable from whatever appears; the old does indeed disappear in changing into the new. The continuum of development is also a continuum of discontinuity.
That we focus on the developments in the changing of appearances is understandable given that the recognition of development is a recognition of practicality (practicality for a living being in the process of living). This does not however preclude recognising negation itself, non-being itself as inseparable from being. Being is to change, and change involves both being and non-being.
Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form.