School

Madhyamaka

Overview

Madhyamaka (Sanskrit: माध्यमक, romanized: Mādhyamaka, lit. 'middle way; centrism'; Chinese: 中觀見; pinyin: Zhōngguān jiàn; Vietnamese: Trung quán tông, chữ Nôm: 中觀宗; Tibetan: དབུ་མ་པ་, Wylie: dbu ma pa) also known as Madhyamika (Sanskrit: माध्यमिक, romanized: Mādhyamika) refers to a tradition of Buddhist philosophy and practice founded by the Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Nāgārjuna (c. 150 – c. 250 CE). The foundational text of the Mādhyamaka tradition is Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā ("Root Verses on the Middle Way"). More broadly, Madhyamaka also refers to the ultimate nature of phenomena as well as the non-conceptual realization of ultimate reality that is experienced in meditation.

Since the 4th century CE onwards, Madhyamaka philosophy had a major influence on the subsequent development of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, especially following the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia. It is the dominant interpretation of Buddhist philosophy in Tibetan Buddhism and has also been influential in East Asian Buddhist thought.

According to the classical Indian Madhyamika thinkers, all phenomena (dharmas) are empty (śūnya) of "nature", of any "substance" or "essence" (svabhāva) which could give them "solid and independent existence", because they are dependently co-arisen. But this "emptiness" itself is also "empty": it does not have an existence on its own, nor does it refer to a transcendental reality beyond or above phenomenal reality.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

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This is the conception, or, if the term is preferred, the judgement, “I think.” But it is readily perceived that this thought is as it were the vehicle of all conceptions in general, and consequently of transcendental conceptions also, and that it is therefore regarded as a transcendental conception, although it can have no peculiar claim to be so ranked, inasmuch as its only use is to indicate that all thought is…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
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Now such a whole would be an effect (_product_) the _representation_ of which is regarded as the _cause_ of its possibility; but the product of a cause whose determining ground is merely the representation of its effect is called a purpose. Hence it is merely a consequence of the particular constitution of our Understanding, that it represents products of nature as possible, according to a different kind of…
Immanuel Kant, Kant's Critique of Judgement
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When a little bit of it gets into this network of time, space and causation, it apparently takes forms; remove the network and it is all One. This whole universe is all one, and is called in the Advaitist philosophy _Brahman_. _Brahman_ appearing behind the universe is called God; appearing behind the little universe--the microcosm, is the soul. This very “Self” or Âtman therefore is God in man. There is only one…
Swami Vivekananda, Jnâna Yoga, Part II
States what Madhyamaka is.
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Madhyamaka

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