A Profound Mind: Cultivating Wisdom in Everyday Life by H. H. The Dalai Lama

Author:H. H. The Dalai Lama
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Buddhist, Religion, Buddhism, Philosophy, General
ISBN: 9780307952448
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2011-09-27T02:12:55+00:00

CHAPTER 9

THE MIDDLE WAY

THE MIDDLE WAY referred to in the name of this philosophical school is a position that avoids the two extremes of nihilism and absolutism. Nihilism is a denial of the existence of all reality, even conventional existence. Absolutism is a belief in any true, substantial, or independent existence. Rejection of these two extremes assumes a position that holds all that exists to be dependently originated.

Things are understood to depend upon their causes in the way a clay pot depends on the clay of which it is formed. Similarly, phenomena depend upon their constituents as an orange depends on its sections and peel, and as the great expanse of space depends on the space in each direction.

Nagarjuna and his Madhyamika followers reject the notion of any substantial reality or true existence of things and events. They deny that things exist independently of our apprehending them. A chair, they hold, does not exist as a chair in any manner beyond its being identified as a chair.

Some of Nagarjuna’s interpreters hold that though phenomena may ultimately be empty of inherent existence, on the conventional level they must exist inherently. These Middle Way Autonomists are named for the type of logical sign they consider essential to a yogi generating an initial realization of emptiness. They contend that for a chair to be established as a chair, it must exist as such from its own side: it must possess some inherent quality of chair-ness. Middle Way Autonomists also accept that, on the whole, our sensory perceptions are not mistaken with respect to the objects they experience, since to them the appearance of chair-ness—that independently established quality of the chair—is not incorrect.

Another group of Madhyamika thinkers are the Middle Way Consequentialists, so labeled for their assertion that a logical consequence is sufficient for a yogi to realize emptiness. They reject any notion of inherent reality, even on the conventional level. The chair, they say, possesses no inherent existence—no quality of chair-ness—even though such a quality appears to exist. Hence, the Middle Way Consequentialists maintain that there is not a single instance of our conventional awareness that is not mistaken or distorted by the appearance of inherent reality. It is only the mental state of meditative equipoise of a yogi realizing emptiness directly that is undistorted, as in such a state all that appears to the yogi is the emptiness or lack of inherent existence.

All followers of Nagarjuna agree that in our normal way of seeing a chair, it seems to exist inherently; a quality of chair-ness appears to us. We clearly identify the object before us as a chair. What Nagarjuna’s followers argue over is whether or not this chair-ness does indeed exist from the side of the object, established by way of its own character. In other words, whether there is indeed a chair to be found if we were to search among the parts of that which we’ve identified as a chair before us. The Autonomists claim that if the chair didn’t exist inherently there would be no chair at all.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.