Subhūti replied, “Nothing has been spoken by the Tathagata.” What do you say about that?! The Buddha spoke dharma and at the same time asked Subhūti if he had spoken any dharma. How should he be answered? Subhūti told him that he had not spoken dharma. Subhūti probably took one look and understood the principle of emptiness. He was called Empty Born because he was foremost in understanding emptiness, so he understood that with true, real prajña. It is not the case that anything is spoken. So he said, “There is nothing spoken. The Tathagata has not spoken anything.”

Most people are unable to comprehend this passage of text. Clearly the Buddha spoke dharma, and yet he asked if he had spoken dharma. Subhūti, moreover, replied that he had not spoken dharma. What is the meaning of that?

Sakyamuni Buddha and Subhūti were discoursing on true, real prajña. Since true, real prajña does not reside in a framework of language, what can be spoken? The emptiness of the dharma is beyond words and speech. The Buddha spoke dharma for forty-nine years and when the time of his nirvāṇa arrived, he said that he had not spoken one word. He said, “If anyone says the Tathagata has spoken dharma, he slanders the Buddha because he has been unable to understand what I have said.”

“Since the Buddha did not speak dharma, why are there so many sutras spoken by the Buddha?” one may rightly ask. The answer to that lies in the method of using conditioned phenomena for people bound to conditions and speaking unconditioned dharma for people who dwell in the unconditioned.

The Vajra Sūtra says, “Even the dharma should be relinquished, how much the more so what is not dharma.” The Buddha said he had not spoken dharma because he was concerned that people would become attached to the mark of dharma. Being attached to dharma is the same as being attached to self. People’s attachment to emptiness must also be broken. When the dharma door of prajña is spoken, even emptiness must not become an attachment.