Madhyamaka

File:Nagarjuna with 84 mahasiddha cropped.jpg

Nagarjuna.

Madhyamaka (T. dbu ma pa དབུ་མ་པ་; C. san lun zong/zhongguan; J. sanronshū/chūgan 中觀) is one of the two main philosophical schools of the Sanskrit Mahayana tradition; the other school is Yogacara. Both of these schools developed in India beginning around 200 CE, and both had a significant impact on the development of Buddhism in China and Tibet.

The Madhyamaka school is based on the writings of the Indian scholar Nagarjuna (150 CE to 250 CE), as well as commentaries on Nagarjuna's works that were written over the next several centuries. The Sanskrit term madhyamaka translates as "middle way." In the context of the Madhyamaka school, it refers to the middle way between the extremes of eternalism and nihilism.

Introduction

Overview

John Pettit states:

The Madhyamaka or Middle Way school of Indian Buddhist thought was first expounded by the philosopher Nāgārjuna (c. 1st–2nd centuries C.E.), who systematized the Buddhist philosophy of emptiness (śūnyatā, stong pa nyid) of the Prajñāpāramitā (Perfection of Wisdom) scriptures and applied it as a rigorous critique of the metaphysical categories of Buddhist and non-Buddhist schools. Essentially, the Mādhyamika teaching of emptiness is that all phenomena (dharmāḥ) ultimately (paramārtheṇa, don dam par) have no intrinsic reality, no status as things-in-themselves. Conventionally (vyavahāreṇa, tha snyad du) they are dependently originated (pratītyasamutpanna, rten cing ’brel bar ’byung ba) and conceptually designated (prajñapta, rten nas gdags pa). Because Mādhyamika logic negates any philosophical position that assumes an independent, self-existent entity through rigorous exhaustion of logical alternatives, Madhyamaka may be said to be the Buddhist dialectical philosophy par excellence. Madhyamaka employs exhaustive critical analysis to induce rational certainty ([vi]niścaya, nges pa or nges shes), which, combined with meditation, leads to enlightenment.

Madhyamaka and pramana

The Pramana tradition of Buddhist logic was developed by the Indian scholars Dignāga and Dharmakīrti beginning about four hundred years after the introduction of the Madhyamaka system. Later Indian and Tibetan philosophers incorporated pramana analysis into their explanations of the Madhyamaka view.

John Pettit states:

While Madhyamaka is concerned primarily with establishing the nature of reality, the tradition of Buddhist logic, pramāṇa, is concerned with how we know reality, in both its ultimate and relative senses. To that end the Buddhist logicians Dignāga (5th–6th centuries) and Dharmakīrti (6th–7th centuries) elaborated what would become the most elegant and influential system of valid cognitions (pramāṇāḥ) to appear in India. Unlike their Buddhist and non-Buddhist predecessors, they taught that sources of knowledge (pramāṇā) could be assimilated to two types: direct perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna). In addition they established the various subtypes of these valid cognitions, as well as the complex relationships between them, in the contexts of ordinary life, the Buddhist path, and forensic debate. Later Indian and Tibetan philosophers incorporated the Pramāṇa system of Dignāga and Dharmakīrti into their Madhyamaka exegeses.

The Madhyamaka and Pramāṇa systems of Indian Buddhist philosophy are the most important sources for Mipham Rinpoche’s discussion of critical philosophy in the Beacon of Certainty.

Madhyamaka view of emptiness (śūnyatā) and dependent origination

Emptiness (śūnyatā) in Madhyamaka

Further information: Middle Way

The term "middle way" was used in multiple contexts in early Buddhism. One of these contexts was expressed in the Kaccayanagotta Sutta, in which the Buddha used the term middle way to describe a view that is free from the extremes of eternalism (or existence) and nihilism (or non-existence).

The Madhyamaka school refined the meaning of the middle way within this context. While earlier Buddhist schools of thought accepted the middle way view that the self (atman) is neither existent nor non-existent, some schools still believed that there were truly existent small particles (called dharmas) that were the building blocks of the self. This theory was very similar to the early theories of the atom in Western science (the belief that material objects were composed of small indivisible particles).

Nagarjuna's great contribution to Buddhist thought was that he rejected the existence of any type of permanently indivisible objects. He asserted that all phenomena were empty (śūnya) of inherent existence (svabhāva).

Nagarjuna based his assertions on the early teachings of the Buddha. For example, his influential Verses on the Middle Way includes a reference to the Kaccayanagotta Sutta:

'Everything exists': That is one extreme.
'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme.
Avoiding these two extremes,
The Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle...."

Nagarjuna clarified the above statement to a more subtle degree than previous Buddhist philosophers. According to Damien Keown, "He used the traditional concept of the ‘middle way’ in a sophisticated dialectical manner, and in so doing pushed the implications of certain of the early teachings to their logical conclusion."

Dependent arising

The Madhyamaka system also asserts that the doctrine of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) is a corollary to the view of emptiness (śūnyatā). In this view, because all phenomena are dependently co-arisen, they are empty of "inherent existence" (svabhāva). A classic expression of this view was provided by Nagarjuna in the twenty-fourth chapter of his Verses on the Middle Way. Nagarjuna stated:

Whatever arises dependently
Is explained as empty.
Thus dependent attribution
Is the middle way.

Since there is nothing whatever
That is not dependently existent,
For that reason there is nothing
Whatsoever that is not empty.

Geshe Sonam Rinchen explains the above quote as follows: "Here Nagarjuna states the Madhyamika or middle way position. Everything that exists does so dependently and everything that is dependently existent necessarily lacks independent objective existence."

This view is also often expressed within the Mahayana tradition as the 'freedom from extremes'. For example, it is said in the Samadhiraja Sutra:

‘Existing,’ ‘not existing,’ and both are extremes.
‘Pure’ and ‘impure’ are also extremes.
Therefore, rejecting both extremes,
The wise do not even remain in the middle.

Transmission to East Asia

Main article: San lun zong

Encyclopedia Britannica states:

The basic Mādhyamika texts were translated into Chinese by Kumārajīva in the 5th century, and the teachings were further systematized (as the San-lun, or "Three Treatises", school) in the 6th–7th century by Jizang. The school spread to Korea and was first transmitted to Japan, as Sanron, in 625 by the Korean monk Ekwan.

Sources

• Geshe Sonam Rinchen (2006), How Karma Works: The Twelve Links of Dependent Arising, Snow Lion 
• Keown, Damien (2000), Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press 
• Roberts, Peter Alan (2024), The King of Samādhis Sūtra, 84000 Collection 
• Pettit, John Whitney (1999), Mipham's Beacon of Certainty: Illuminating the View of Dzogchen, the Great Perfection, Wisdom Publications 

External links

• Madhyamaka, Rigpa Shedra Wiki
• Madhyamaka, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Madhyamika