Sengzhao (Seng-Chao) (c.378—413 CE)

Sengzhao (Seng-Chao) was a Buddhist monk who lived during China’s “Period of Disunity” between the stability of the Han and Tang dynasties. His Zhaolun (Treatises of [Seng]zhao) is perhaps the most significant text for the study of early Mādhyamika (“middle-ist”) or Sanlun (“Three-Treatise”) Buddhism in China.

His work may be the only extensive compilation of early Chinese Mādhyamika treatises available, although no Mādhyamika “school” is likely to have existed in China until Jizang (549-623 CE) projected such a lineage back to the time of Sengzhao.

Mādhyamika, a philosophical development that arose within Mahāyāna Buddhism in India during the first few centuries CE, concentrates on distinguishing between concepts and ideas as necessary but insubstantial tools for functioning within the world of conventional reality and the false sense of duality between subject and object that they often engender.

As Sengzhao puts it in his Commentary to the Vimalakīrtinirdesha Sūtra: “Those things which are find their genesis in the mind; [those things] which originate in the mind arise from things. That region of affirmation and negation is a place of illusion.” 

Considered to have been a brilliant young monk who was the principal person responsible for the transmission of  Mādhyamika teaching in China, Sengzhao has received a great deal of attention from scholars interested in resolving the question of the extent to which the Chinese fully understood the Indian religio-philosophical system and its relationship to the indigenous Daoist and Confucian traditions.

NOTE: Whether or not the Chinese fully understood the Indian philosophical position or not is far less important than the utility of the theory as a guide to Chan and Dao practices.

Table of Contents

• 1. Life

     1. 1. Traditional Biography

        2. Other Accounts

  2. Works

  3. Background

• • • 1. Indian Madhyamika

      2. Chinese Madhyamika

• 4. The Treatises

• • • 1. Overview

      2. Things Do Not Shift

      3. Non Absolute Emptiness

      4. Prajna Is Without Dichotomizing Knowledge

      5. Correspondence with Liu Yimin

      6. Nirvna Is Without Conceptualization

      7. The Treatises as a Whole

• 5. References and Further Reading

1. Life

a. Traditional Biography

The Gaoseng Zhuan (Biographies of Eminent Monks), contains the following traditional account of Sengzhao’s life: The monk Sengzhao was a man from Jingzhao. His family being impoverished, Zhao hired himself out as a copyist in order to make a living. As such, he successively went through the Classics and History, in the process becoming proficient in writing. Zhao’s interests inclined towards the subtle and profound, having always considered Lao[zi] and Zhuang[zi] as particularly important in terms of the mind. After studying Laozi’s Daodejing, Zhao declared, “It is indeed beautiful, but I have not yet discovered the region where my spirit can settle down and my worldly ties be completely severed.” After a time, Zhao read the old [version] of the Vimalakrtinirdesha Stra and was overcome with happiness and pleasure. Opening it repeatedly, he relished its flavor and exclaimed, “At last I know where I should be!” Because of this, Zhao became a learned monk, studying both the Vaipulya Stra and the Tripitaka.

Having reached the age for capping [coming of age], Zhao’s reputation had become widespread through the Passes and in the administrative capital. In time, however, quarrelsome people doubted the fame that had come to him primarily because of his youth. Coming from as far away as one thousand li, they entered the Passes and engaged Zhao in debate. However, since Zhao had a talent for profound thinking and was also an expert in pure conversation, he seized whatever openings he had and pointedly crushed his opponents, who could not obstruct him. In time, respected scholars from Jingzhao and from outside the Passes wondered at his discriminating arguments and considered trying to challenge him.

At the time when Kumrajva [a famous Central Asian Buddhist missionary to China, c. 344-413 CE] arrived in Gecang, Zhao followed him in order to become a disciple. Kumrajva highly praised him without limit. When Kumrajva moved to Chang’an, Zhao also followed him there. Yao Xing placed Zhao, Sengrui and other monks in the Xiaoyao pavilion, where they assisted in the examination and editing of the Buddhist treatises.

Zhao, being aware that the Sage [the Buddha] had passed on long ago, that the literature had come to take on numerous mixed interpretations, and that earlier translations of the texts had certain mistakes in them, regularly consulted with Kumrajva and greatly increased his comprehension. Therefore, following the translation of the Pancavimshatisahsrik prajnpramit Stra (Twenty-Five Thousand Stanza Perfection of Wisdom Stra), Zhao wrote the treatise entitled Prajn Is Without Dichotomizing Knowledge in over two thousand words. Upon its completion, Zhao presented it to Kumrajva. After reading it, the master declared it to be beautiful and said to Zhao, “My explanations are on par with yours, but your wording and expression is far better!”

In time, the retired Lushan scholar Liu Yimin saw a copy of Zhao’s Prajn Is Without Dichotomizing Knowledge. He also praised it, saying, “I did not think that among your monks there would be another Bingshu.” In turn, Liu Yimin presented it to his superior, Huiyuan, who also cherished it. Huiyuan exclaimed that he had never seen another like it. Accordingly, the entire community opened and savored the treatise, passing it from one to another repeatedly.

Liu Yimin also composed a letter to Zhao.  Following this, Zhao wrote treatises on Non Absolute Emptiness, Things Do Not Shift and others. In addition, he commented on the Vimalakrtinirdesha Stra and composed numerous prefaces, all of which remain extant. Following the death of Kumrajva, Zhao reflected on his teacher’s untimely death and eternal departure, feeling his longing desires and hopes vanquished. At this time, Zhao wrote the treatise Nirvna Is Without Conceptualization.  This essay consists of ten explanations and nine arguments in approximately one thousand words. When the treatise was completed, Zhao presented it to his superior, Yao Xing….

Yao Xing’s response to Zhao’s work was very attentive to various details about the meaning and included praise for its completeness. He then ordered by decree that it be copied and distributed to all the members of his family. This action demonstrates how highly Zhao was regarded at this time. In the tenth year of the yixi period [c. 413-414 CE], Zhao died in Chang’an, having reached the autumn of his thirty first year. (Taishô shinsh daizokyô L; No. 2509; 365a-366b.1)

b. Other Accounts

A number of other accounts exist concerning the life of Sengzhao, though they rarely shed any new light on his work or activities. The Weishou [a collection of canonical texts] accords Sengzhao preeminence among the eight hundred or so scholars gathered at Chang’an: “Daorong and his fellows were of knowledge and learning all-pervasive, and Sengzhao was the greatest of them. When Kumrajva made a translation, Sengzhao would always take pen in hand and define the meanings of words. He annotated the Vimalakrtinirdesha Stra and also published several treatises. They all have subtle meaning, and scholars venerate them.” (Hurvitz 54)

While adding nothing substantively new, this version highlights Sengzhao’s importance as a liaison between the Indian Kumrajva and the Chinese language. All indications point to the foreign master’s reliance on Sengzhao’s ability to “translate” the Indian terminology into stylistically acceptable Chinese. The gong’an (meditation puzzle) collection known as the Biyen lu (Blue Cliff Records) contains a tale concerning Sengzhao’s death which by all accounts is apocryphal. Despite its spurious legend regarding Zhao’s demise, within the gongan commentary supplied by the Chan (“meditation”; Japanese Zen) master Yunmen, we find another reference to his life that provides some insight into his correspondence with Liu Yimin. According to the Biyen lu, Sengzhao not only took Kumrajva as his teacher, but “he also called upon the bodhisattva Buddhabhadra at the Temple of the Tile Coffin, who had come from India to transmit the mind-seal of the twenty-seventh Patriarch. Sengzhao then entered deeply into the inner sanctum.” (Cleary and Cleary 1977:401)

2. Works

In terms of literary output, Sengzhao’s major extant work is the Zhaolun. This text is a product of the formative years of the Chinese Mdhyamika tradition, and consists of a preface, introduction, four treatises and a set of correspondence between Sengzhao and Liu Yimin, a lay monk from the nearby Lushan monastery. The Zhaolun represents one of the earliest and most comprehensive examples of the embryonic thought of the Chinese Mdhyamika school.

In fact, it may be the only extensive compilation of early Chinese Mdhyamika treatises available. Not only do we possess most of the works ascribed to Sengzhao, but the extant texts are full-length, internally logical discourses. By comparing the preface, internal evidence and Sengzhao’s biography, the following order of composition emerges:

c. 405: Prajn Is Without Dichotomizing Knowledge

c. 409: Non-Absolute Emptiness

c. 410: Correspondence with Liu Yimin

c. 410-411: Things Do Not Shift

c. 412-413: Nirvna Is Without Conceptualization

c. 412-413: Introduction (if genuinely composed by Sengzhao, as tradition asserts)

In its completed form, as found in the Taishô shinsh daizokyô (Taishô XLV, No. 1858), the text is rearranged into the following order:

Things Do Not Shift

Non-Absolute Emptiness

Prajn Is Without Dichotomizing Knowledge

Correspondence with Liu Yimin

Nirvna Is Without Conceptualization

In addition, Sengzhao is credited with a commentary on the Vimalakrtinirdesha Stra, an obituary of Kumrajva, an afterword to the Saddharmapundrika Stra, and prefaces to four Mahyna texts: the Drghgama, the Shata Shstra, the Brahmajla Stra, and the Vimalakrtinirdesha Stra.

The Chan tradition also attributes another treatise to the hand of Sengzhao, the Baozang lun (Treasure Store Treatise) (Taishô XLV, No. 1857: 143b-150a), though most scholars regard the work as spurious. Another work, entitled On the Identity of the Buddha’s Two Bodies, has been attributed to Sengzhao; this essay, however, is lost and no corroborating evidence of its existence can be found, either in Sengzhao’s other work or that of later commentators.

In his writing, Sengzhao routinely employs the standard tools of Mdhyamika discourse (see Ngrjuna). Thus, we find Sengzhao engaging in dialectical arguments in which he resorts to the tetralemma (four-cornered negation) as a “solution.” According to this formula, any proposition x entails four logical possibilities:

• 1. X is

  2. X is not

  3. X both is and is not

  4. X neither is nor is not

Two of his treatises (Prajn Is Without Dichotomizing Knowledge and Nirvna Is Without Conceptualization) follow the debate-like format of Ngrjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakrik (Verses on the Fundamentals of the Middle Way) [MMK]. In addition, Sengzhao became famous for his artful use of paradox, often reminiscent of the Daoist classic, Zhuangzi. This stylistic trait would make him a favorite of the later Chan school, which regarded Sengzhao as one of its unofficial patriarchs.

3. Background

a. Indian Madhyamika

Mdhyamika, a philosophical development that arose within Mahyna Buddhism during the first few centuries CE, concentrates on breaking down the reliance on ordinary means of apprehending the world around us. While concepts and ideas are a necessary part of functioning within the world of conventional reality, our tendency to substantialize those concepts into metaphysical realities leads to behavior generating the basic problems of dis-ease (duhkha) and therefore becoming.

Indian Mdhyamika targets the mind’s natural disposition toward conceptualization, a tendency that both creates and fosters a false sense of duality ensuing between the perceiving subject and observed objects. By assigning distinctive names and characteristics to things, we unwittingly create a false dichotomy, particularly in terms of linguistic conventions. Ngrjuna (c. 150-250 CE) referred to this process as the proliferation of conceptual and verbal hair-splitting, or prapanca. He articulated the concept of “emptiness” (shnyat) – the view that neither subject nor object exist independently — as a soteriological device, a deconstructive tool to rid the mind of delusional prapanca. Defined in varying ways by Western scholars, prapanca refers to the mind’s natural tendency to both create elaborate networks of interrelated mental constructions and to cling to those constructs as real.

One who grasps the view that the Tathgata exists,

Having seized the Buddha,

Constructs conceptual fabrications [prapanca]

About one who has achieved nirvna.

Those who develop mental fabrications with regard to the Buddha,

Who has gone beyond all fabrications,

As a consequence of those cognitive fabrications,

Fail to see the Tathgata. (Garfield 1995:62)

These mental fabrications inevitably arise from the mind’s predilection for naming things. In trying to distinguish between things and their respective functions, we assign names as a means of identification. The process of naming itself involves the picking out of abstracted characteristics unique to an entity and declaring it to be the “essence” of the thing.

What human beings perceive as reality is nothing more than artificially manufactured distinctions between things which in turn re-combine into a sense of “I” and “it/them.” From the practical standpoint of everyday living and functioning within the confines of the mundane, these constructs are absolutely necessary. As conventional designations, however, their provisional descriptions have no bearing whatsoever on Ultimate Reality. When taken for the real, they become objects of clinging and therefore fuel for rebirth. Clinging to these fabrications both fuels the cycle of becoming and gives rise to quarrels and disputations.

Common people take their stand on their own points of view . . . and hence there arise all the contentions. Prapanca is the root of all contentions and prapanca arises from the mind. (Dazhi Dulun; Taishô XXV, No. 1509; 61a)

Dissensions abound as a result of the mind’s constant pursuit of what it mistakes for the real. Clinging to the ephemeral, the mind generates ignorance, following its own fantasies in contempt for the way things truly are.

As Ngrjuna goes to great pains to point out, his opponents and the common person continually misinterpret emptiness. One takes it to mean complete annihilationism while another understands it in a newly reified manner. In addressing his opponents’ contention that his emptiness leads to the utter destruction of the Buddhist doctrines of co-dependent origination, karma, the four noble truths and all conventional activity, Ngrjuna retorts:

You understand neither emptiness nor the reasons behind emptiness nor the meaning of emptiness. Therefore you create these problems for yourself. (MMK 24.7)

In his later commentary, Candrakrti (c. 600s CE) elaborates on this verse by connecting the opponents’ position to a misapprehension of the entire Mdhyamika program. Mdhyamika does not advocate a nihilistic position as alleged, nor does it take on ontological status within Ngrjuna’s philosophy. Rather, the purport of emptiness lies in its capacity as a soteriological device intended to calm the excesses of prapanca.

Emptiness is taught in order to calm conceptual diffusion completely; therefore, its purpose is the calming of all conceptual diffusion [prapanca]. (Huntington 1989:205)

Having pacified conceptualization and destroyed the proliferation of mental constructs, a state of equanimity is reached. No longer drawing artificial distinctions between things, no longer reifying the conventional, the one who grasps the real meaning of emptiness ceases apprehending mistaken perceptions of the self, and thereby realizes the ultimate soteriological goal of release.

When views of “I”and “mine” are extinguished, whether with respect to the inner or outer, the appropriator ceases. This having ceased, arising comes to an end.Activity and dis-ease having come to an end, there is nirvna. Activity and dis-ease arise out of conceptualization. Conceptualization arises out of conceptual hair-splitting [prapanca]. Conceptual hair-splitting ceases through emptiness. (MMK XVIII. 4-5)

b. Chinese Madhyamika

Although Mdhyamika is known in Chinese as the Sanlun Zong (Three Treatise School), most scholars acknowledge that no such “school” existed until Jizang (549-623), who projected such a lineage back to the time of Sengzhao and the disciples of Kumrajva. The Sanlun Zong derives its name from its identification of three major texts as the focal point of study: the Zhonglun (Verses on the Fundamentals of the Middle Way) and Shi’er Menlun (Twelve Topic Treatise) by Ngrjuna (c. 150-250), and the Bailun (Hundred Treatises) by Aryadeva. In addition to these primary texts, the Chinese Mdhyamika concentrated on a number of secondary texts, as evidenced by the commentaries and prefaces to other Mahayanist texts, including the Vimalakrtinirdesha Stra, Bodhisattva dhyna and the Brahmajla Stra.

Chinese Mdhyamika emphasizes the ontological, epistemological and soteriological qualities of emptiness. From this perspective, the main problem facing the unenlightened revolves around their reliance on conceptualization or naming for their understanding and apprehension of the world. In discussing false views concerning the nature of nirvna, Sengzhao points out that “the way of nirvna cannot be understood by grasping at either existence or nonexistence…. These seemingly objective mental projections of existence and nonexistence are merely regions of vain hope.”

Sengzhao elaborates on this point using the concept of “the emptiness of emptiness” (shnyatshnyat) in his Commentary to the Vimalakrtinirdesha Stra:

Those things which are find their genesis in the mind; [those things] which originate in the mind arise from things. That region of affirmation and negation is a place of illusion. (Taishô XXXVIII, NO. 1775; 372c.17-26)

Thus, neither object nor subject exist independently. Mind depends upon the conventionally real and the conventionally real in turn depends upon the mind.

4. The Treatises

a. Overview

Each treatise begins with a basic statement of the problem as understood by Sengzhao. In every instance, the fallacious interpretation of either an object or doctrinal position is immediately linked to the discriminatory activity of prapanca. Understood both in the sense of verbal argumentation and conceptual hair-splitting, prapanca plays a critical role in Sengzhao’s philosophy of religion. While rarely addressing the issue of prapanca directly, he alludes to the question throughout the treatises. Bringing these activities to an end represents the heart of not only the individual treatises but also the text taken as a whole.

Sengzhao traces the genesis of mistaken apprehensions to the interplay and co-dependency of words, concepts and existent things. One without the others proves untenable. Built upon the matrix of observing the phenomenal world (whose mundane existence is never questioned by Sengzhao), ordinary perception functions by assigning a name to individual manifestations and then conceptualizing the conjunction of that name and phenomenon into a self-existent entity with distinctive own-marks. Once the concept has been created and an appropriate name assigned, knowledge of that object is generated. With the presumed knowledge of the thing in hand, the unenlightened believe that they have grasped reality and therefore attained soteriological release.

Sengzhao relentlessly undermines the conventional practice of naming and conceptualizing, believing that the process lead to the delusions and contentions plaguing his day. While never concerned with language as such, he at the same time recognizes the fact that the continuous inter-generational usage of words establishes a common perception that the things so named and discussed possess discrete own-being. Sengzhao certainly does not believe that from the standpoint of the ordinary person this is a well-thought-out “philosophical” system. On the contrary, he continually bemoans the fact that most people simply do not take the time to reflect upon their everyday assumptions.

By opposing the worldly [perception], our words appear insipid and flavorless, which then prevents the common person from deciding between either accepting or rejecting [the correct perspective]. The inferior person simply washes their hands of it and forgets about these matters. . . . It is indeed grievous to me that people’s affections have been led astray for so long, that the truth lies in front of them and yet they remain unaware of its existence. (Things Do Not Shift)

Truth is under our feet, in front of our eyes and yet we lack either the ability or will to apprehend reality. While displaying a sense of compassion for the ordinary person, Sengzhao at the same time roundly criticizes those who argue and dispute over the nature of reality. Those philosophers and religious practitioners who embark on the spiritual journey but get waylaid by mind games and conceptual elaboration are held accountable for their misapprehensions. Sengzhao immediately takes the contentious, the quarrelsome and the polemical to task in the introductory remarks of each treatise. This practice serves as one indication of his primary objective in dismantling the propagation of conceptual and verbal hair-splitting.

b. Things Do Not Shift

Accordingly, the first treatise begins with Sengzhao’s characterization of the commonplace perception of reality. Life, death, the seasons and all things seemingly rotate and change position in a continuous round of movement. In actual fact, however, no motion exists because the concept of motion presupposes a separation and distinction between things which does not ultimately obtain. Motion and its presumed opposite, rest, are nothing more than one and the same thing from the perspective of absolute truth (paramrthasatya).

Those who remain deceived, however, cannot comprehend their concurrence, giving rise to “quarrels and the drawing of distinctions. [Thus], the ancient pathways are overrun by lovers of difference.” The multiplication of conceptual distinctions and the resulting attachments to those differences generate a multitude of arguments among the unenlightened, hopelessly complicating the apprehension of the truth. If we neglect presenting the correct perspective, we merely “allow deceptive views about the nature of things to arise and then are unable to recover [the truth].” Sengzhao clearly has prapanca in mind when he criticized the lovers of difference, even though he never explicitly mentions it by name.

c. Non Absolute Emptiness

Similarly, Non-Absolute Emptiness begins with an eloquent description of the relationship between the enlightened sage’s wisdom and emptiness Apprehending the truth concerning the nature of emptiness, the sage engages the world while at the same time remaining unattached to its snares. Through his enlightened mind, he comprehends the absolute unity of all things in their suchness and deals with them accordingly. By way of contrast, the masses cannot possibly penetrate to the truth due to their reliance on ordinary understanding. As a result, numerous arguments arose concerning the nature of emptiness.

Conversations today all end up disagreeing when they arrive at the fundamentals of emptiness. Because they insist on disagreeing in order to come to some type of agreement, how will they ever settle anything? Hence, in their public quarrels they are unable to arrive at an understanding.

After describing three such misinterpretations of emptiness, Sengzhao underscores his contention that delusion arises through the compounding of things and names. Talk has done nothing but lead the masses to misapprehension and confusion, diverting them from the truth concerning the actual nature of things. Sengzhao therefore alludes to the co-dependent relationship between phenomenal things, naming, thought and reification.

A thing is a thing with reference to things, and so you might call it a thing; however, a thing which is a thing with reference to things is not [truly] a thing, even though we call it [a thing]. Hence, things are not identical with their names, which [do not] complete the thing’s actuality; names are not identical with the thing and are therefore incapable of leading one to the Ultimate.

The correct apprehension of the true nature of things lies completely outside of the morass of words and conceptualizations. Again, Sengzhao is not taking an anti-linguistic stance as such; he does not argue that language constitutes the root of all evil. However, he recognizes that we form our perceptions of the world based on the mind’s tendency to discriminate, distinguish and assign names to things presumed to possess own-being. His acknowledgement of language’s relative importance is reflected in the fact that despite its problems, he “cannot remain silent . . . [and f]or the time being . . . will utilize words . . . [in an attempt] to elucidate” the meaning of emptiness.

In the end, false conceptualizations are done away with and the arbitrariness of names established. Similes and metaphors function only to dislodge the mind from its discriminatory activity. For this reason, the sage engages the world of the phenomenal while remaining detached and identifies with the essential unity of the ultimate and mundane.

d. Prajna Is Without Dichotomizing Knowledge

Prajn (wisdom) is likewise undifferentiated from the One True Ultimate. With correct perception, the emptiness and subtlety of enlightened wisdom represents the culmination of all three vehicles. In ultimacy, neither distinction nor contradiction exists between the paths. Once again, however, “contentious arguments have recently led to confusion and differentiated theories” over the nature of prajn. The proliferation of prapanca has generated speculation that wisdom operates through discriminatory and dichotomizing knowledge. Therefore, Sengzhao feels compelled to dispel the falsehoods and illuminate the correct viewpoint.

After an introductory survey chronicling prajn’s arrival in China, the third treatise opens its substantive argument by depicting sagely wisdom as “subtle, its mysteries profound and [infinite depths] difficult to plumb. Markless and without conceptualization, it cannot be apprehended through either words or symbols.” In attempting to define it or use words to illustrate its nature, we inevitably dissect and create differentiations in regard to the sage’s mind and its functioning. Nevertheless, Sengzhao once again feels that he has no choice but to use words in discussing the matter.

e. Correspondence with Liu Yimin

Unfortunately, having committed description to the inadequacies of language, difficulties and new contentions arise when Sengzhao’s treatise arrives at Lushan. In his correspondence with Sengzhao, Liu Yimin, following his salutary remarks, acknowledges that while erudite, Sengzhao’s consignment of insight to the vagaries of language has produced disagreement and contention within the assembly.

To resign such a subtle principle to mere words is indeed dangerous; those who sing out in this manner find few who can comprehend. Those who cannot cut themselves off from clinging to manifested words and symbols will not grasp the meaning . . . [therefore] I wish to tell you of the doubts which your lofty treatise has raised in those seeking out differences in the mind of the sage.

Sengzhao responds by chastising Liu Yimin and his fellows for fixating on the mere form of words. Looking to the finger as though it were the moon, the scholar-monks at Lushan have equated the discriminative nature of concepts and words with the non-dual functioning of the sage’s mind:

Those participating in the discussions have become fixated on mere words. “In your investigation of the great space you search out the corners.” True understanding again lies outside the parameters of speech and conceptualization. You true gentlemen trained in the profound should know this teaching and understand.

One should abandon the search for the mere traces of truth and embrace the meaning behind the words. “Once one sets his mind to think about it, he begins to err; even more so if one attempts to use words.” Sengzhao advises the learned monks to desist from their reliance on the mundane perspective in favor of the non-dual apprehension of the enlightened.

f. Nirvana Is Without Conceptualization

Finally, in the case of Nirvna is Without Conceptualization, Sengzhao again defends orthodox teachings against those who would constrain the goal of final release to words and concepts. Misunderstanding the basic import of nirvna, the deluded believe it to be a substantive state, one to which they can attain while escaping the phenomenal world. Subtle and mysterious, the expansive, infinite void is unapproachable by the ordinary modes of sight and hearing, and therefore incomprehensible for the banal multitudes.

While the masses lack the capability to apprehend the nuances of nirvna, the philosophically minded have engaged in fruitless disputations which in the end have turned them against the very truth they sought. Inasmuch as they “care only for the words” describing the indescribable, they are “unable to comprehend superior thinking.” Hence, the purpose behind this treatise was to “silence the heretical discussions concerning that vast space.”

For those tied to words, the “one who does not name/conceptualize” [wu ming] proceeds to disabuse them of their views. As Sengzhao insists at the outset, while nirvna is unnameable and non-conceptual,

it is [nevertheless] spoken of as either having or lacking a remainder. These words surely only refer to the different signs of its emergence and remaining. They are simply false thought constructions applied to their corresponding manifestations.

Unattainable through either words or conceptualizations, nirvna consistently eludes reification. Seeking it by means of the worldly reduces the philosopher to stupidity, the rhetorician to silence and the materialists to despair. Accordingly,

the Buddha practiced silence while at Magadha; Vimalakrti refused to speak at Vaishli; Subhti taught the doctrine of no speech and Sakra, King of the Devas, heard nothing and yet it rained flowers.

Only when understood through the non-conceptualizing, non-grasping and non-discriminatory faculty of perfected wisdom does the soteriological take on its true character.

g. The Treatises as a Whole

Another important key to understanding Sengzhao’s thought lies in recognizing the pattern established between the Treatises and the logic inherent in their arrangement, a logic which ties the separate treatises together into a coherent demonstration of the path toward enlightenment. While never explicitly identified within the text itself, this design effectively discloses the logic of religious illumination and soteriological awakening. In following the development of the text itself, we can approximate Sengzhao’s vision concerning the path to enlightenment.

Through the emptying of emptiness, the text progressively moves the reader along a systematic presentation of the mutual relationships which ensue between the objects of cognition [Things Do Not Shift and Non-Absolute Emptiness], their subject [Prajn Is Without Dichotomous Knowing and The Correspondence with LiuYimin] and the ultimate result of correct perception into the nature of that relationship [Nirvna Is Without Conceptualization].

In following the text’s design, the reader is successively led through four interrelated steps:

• 1. The realization that things are devoid of an intrinsic self and therefore empty;

  2. That the emptiness of things is not in itself an absolute to be grasped by the conceptualizing mind, in spite of the fact that it represents the ultimate perspective concerning the nature of all things;

  3. Although without graspable, and therefore obtainable, characteristics, emptiness can nevertheless be realized through the medium of perfect wisdom, representing the subject of a knowledge that goes beyond conceptualization and the subject/object duality;

  4. Inasmuch as wisdom illuminates emptiness, its knowing through non-knowing serves as the effective cause for the illumination of the non-conceptual, unnameable effect of the beginningless and endless nirvna.

As reflected within the text and already noted, Sengzhao and the early Chinese Buddhists recognize that conceptualization represents the principal obstacle facing the unenlightened. Fundamentally tied to the conception of an independently existing self, human beings consistently engage the world from the perspective of the ego, viewing the inner self as subject and all other things as objects. Granting existence to both self and others, we naturally create a disjuncture that results in clinging to some things while simultaneously rejecting others, unavoidably fueling the continued round of becoming. Breaking the cycle, for the Mdhyamika, begins with dislodging the mind’s attachment to logically absurd distinctions and its creation of erroneous oppositional categories such as existent/nonexistent, subject/object, nirvna/samsra.

In the final analysis, Mdhyamika sets out to demonstrate the logical absurdity of the cognitive process’ internal structure and the way it expresses itself verbally. In terms of the twelve links in the chain of becoming:

The root of cyclic existence is action.

Therefore the wise one does not act….

With the cessation of ignorance Action will not arise.

The cessation of ignorance occurs through Meditation and wisdom. (MMK XXVI.10-11)

To bring the proliferation of mental fabrications to an end is to put a stop to self-centered action and the refueling of samsra (the cycle of rebirth and suffering). Therefore, the mind represents the principal obstacle to full enlightenment while simultaneously possessing the greatest potential for attaining final release. Ngrjuna cites the Buddha in defense of his assertion that “the power of mind is greatest. By practicing the perfection of wisdom, [an aspirant] can shatter the great mound into tiny particles. . . . Insofar as the mind possesses none of the four qualities [form, scent, taste and density], its power is the greatest.” (Dazhi dulun 299c.5) Kumrajva likewise points to the mind as the root of human troubles and advocates a transcendence of all discursive thought.

[The Dazhi dulun] says that dissociation from all verbalism and quenching all workings of thought is termed the real-mark of all the dharmas. The real-mark of the dharmas is conventionally termed suchness, dharma-nature, and reality-limit. In this [suchness] even the not-existent-and-not-inexistent cannot be found, much less the existent and the inexistent. It is only because of fantasy-conceptions that each one has difficulties about existence and inexistence. If you will conform to the cessation-mark of the Buddha’s Dharma, then you will have no discursive fictions [prapanca]. If you figment fictions about existence and inexistence, then you depart from the Buddha’s Dharma. (Robinson 1978:184-185)

Sengzhao’s primary concern as a Mdhyamikan, therefore, revolves around the mind’s proclivity for naming and absolutizing. A natural operation of the “knowing” faculty, conceptualization functions through the cause and effect relationship of “knowing” arising as an effect generated by the “known” acting as cause. The known therefore function as the objects of knowledge’s knowing and so long as the objects are considered real or substantive, “knowing” represents the proper avenue for realizing the real. Activity and suffering arise as a result of conceptualization, which itself arises from mental fabrications located within the discriminative mind. Bringing to cessation the activity of the knowing mind represents the starting point for the self-realization of reality.

As Nishitani Keiji describes it, religion itself constitutes the “real self-awareness of reality,” by which he means that

our ability to perceive reality means that reality realizes (actualizes) itself in us; that this in turn is the only way that we can realize (appropriate through understanding) the fact that reality is so realizing itself in us; and that in so doing the self-realization of reality itself takes place. (Nishitani 1982:5)

In the end, Sengzhao and the Zhaolun take the reader full circle. Just as the mundane object of knowledge (things) is inherently empty, so too is the ultimate goal toward which things are striving. Unified in their emptiness, each is completely fulfilled and established in their home-ground. The sage has awakened to the wondrous mystery of self-realization, locating reality right where he stands. By following the design of the unified text, the reader can also attain to the attainable as Sengzhao gradually guides us through a thorough-going analysis of the factors of existence and core teachings of the Mdhyamika school.

Beginning with the establishment of the provisional nature of the myriad things and their inherent emptiness, Sengzhao systematically dismantles delusional conceptions concerning emptiness, wisdom and nirvna. In each case, the reliance on mental fabrications and reification of the inherently empty are shown to be logically inconsistent and therefore wrong-headed views about the nature of things as they truly are. Realizing through the power of wisdom and employment of skillful means that emptiness constitutes the true nature of all things, created as well as uncreated, the aspirant attains to the knowledge that ultimate reality is not an absolute lying outside the bounds of the phenomenal, but rather the absolute within the phenomenal. Immanent and yet inaccessible to the ordinary mind, only prajnpramit can bridge the chasm separating the common person from nirvna. Its use, however, within the context of and following the pattern established by the Zhaolun, will eventually end with the realization that

the one who follows after the Genuine becomes the same as the Genuine, while those who go after illusion become the same as illusion . . . [and] liberation exists in the midst of non-liberation.

5. References and Further Reading

• • Chang, Chung-yuan. “Nirvna is Nameless.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 1 (1974): 247-274.

  • Cheng, Hsueh-li. “Zen and San-lun Mdhyamika Thought: Exploring the Theoretical Foundation of Zen Teachings and Practices.” Religious Studies 15 (1979): 343-363.

  • Cheng, Hsueh-li. “Motion and Rest in the Middle Treatises.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 7 (1980): 229-244.

  • Cheng, Hsueh-li. “Truth and Logic in San-lun Mdhyamika Buddhism.” International Philosophical Quarterly 21 (1981): 261-276.

  • Cheng, Hsueh-li. Empty Logic: Mdhyamika Buddhism from Chinese Sources. New York: Philosophical Library, 1984; reprint ed., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991.

  • Cleary, Thomas, and J.C. Cleary, trans. The Blue Cliff Records. Boulder, CO: Shambala, 1978.

  • Garfield, Jay L., trans. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Ngrjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakrik. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

  • Huntington, C. W. The Emptiness of Emptiness: An Introduction to Early Indian Mdhyamika. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1989.

  • Hurvitz, Leon, trans. “Wei Shou, Treatise on Buddhism and Taoism.” In Yun-kang: The Buddhist Cave Temples of the Fifth Centruy A.D. in North China, Vol. 16 (supplement), 25-103. Kyoto: Kyoto University, Institute of Humanistic Studies, 1956.

  • Ichimura, Shohei. “A Study on the Mdhyamika Method of Refutation and its Influence on Buddhist Logic.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4.1 (1981): 87-95.

  • Ichimura, Shohei. “A Determining Factor that Differentiated Indian and Chinese Mdhyamika Methods of Dialectic as Reductio-ad-absurdum and Paradoxical Argument Respectively.” Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 33 (March, 1985): 841-834.

  • Ichimura, Shohei. “On the Dialectical Meaning of Instantiation in terms of Maya-Drstanta in the Indian and Chinese Mdhyamikas.” Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 36.2 (March, 1988): 977-971.

  • Ichimura, Shohei. “On the Paradoxical Method of the Chinese Mdhyamika: Seng-chao and the Chao-lun Treatise.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 19 (1992): 51-71.

  • Liebenthal, Walter. The Chao Lun: The Treatises of Seng-Chao. 2nd rev. ed. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1968.

  • Liu, Ming-wood. “Seng-chao and the Mdhyamika Way of Refutation.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 14 (1987): 97-110.

  • Liu, Ming-wood. Mdhyamaka Thought in China. Sinica Leidensia, Vol. XXX. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994.

  • Nishitani, Keiji. Religion and Nothingness. Trans. Jan Van Bragt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.

  • Robinson, Richard H. “Mysticism and Logic in Seng-chao’s Thought.” Philosophy East and West 8.3-4 (1958-1959): 99-120.

  • Robinson, Richard H. Early Mdhyamika in India and China. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1965; reprint ed., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1978.

  • Sharf, Robert. Coming to Terms with Chinese Buddhism: A Reading of the Treasure Store Treatise. Honolulu: University of Hawaii, 2001.

  • Tsukamoto Zenry. A History of Early Chinese Buddhism: From Its Introduction to the Death of Hui-yüan. 2 vols. Trans. Leon Hurvitz. Tokyo, New York, San Francisco: Kodansha International, 1985.

Author Information

Jeffrey Dippmann

Email: Jeffrey.Dippmann@cwu.edu

Central Washington University

IN CONSTRUCTION

Nâgârjuna begins his treatise Fundamentals of the Middle Way with the following stanzas:

Never are any existing things found to originate from themselves, from something else, from both, or from no cause.

There are four conditioning causes: a cause, objective support of sensation, "immediately preceding condition" and, of course, the predominant influence -- there is no fifth.

Certainly there is no self-existence of existing things in these conditioning causes; and if no self-existence exists, neither does "other-existence."

The efficient cause does not exist possessing a conditioning cause. Nor does the efficient cause exist without possessing a conditioning cause. Conditioning causes are not without efficient causes. Nor are there conditioning causes which possess efficient causes.

Certainly those things are called "conditioning causes" whereby something originates after having come upon them. As long as something has not originated, why are they not so long "non-conditioning-causes"?

There can be a conditioning cause neither of a non-real thing nor of a real thing. Of what non-real thing is there a conditioning cause? And if it is already real, what use is a cause?

If a basic phenomenon (dharma) occurs which is neither real nor non-real nor both real-and-non-real, how can there be a cause which is effective in this situation?

This work by Nâgârjuna continues on and on with such detailed analysis of many standard Buddhist key terms. In order to see the religious significance of that analysis, we must ask ourselves why he goes to all this bother? The answer is simply that the Buddha's path, which Nâgârjuna also claimed to follow, rests on knowing the nature of existence, its arising and dissolution. This means that one should know the true facts of how earthly life, including one's own self -awareness, are formed. It also means becoming sensitive to how one produces the images and concepts by which we know anything. At the same time, the perception of the truth about life requires the development of an attitude which is calm but not slothful, which is vigorous but not agitated, which is insightful but is not attached to mental fabrications such as theories and doctrine. The detailed analysis of causal conditions as we find in the first chapter of Nâgârjuna's Fundamentals of the Middle Way is an expression of the concern to overcome ignorance, to avoid the illusory judgments that seem so habitual and prominent in daily life.

The role of cognition, of perception, and of emotional responses to sensation is seen early in the Buddhist tradition and continues into the Mâdhyamika school. You will recall the first verses of the famous text, the Dhammapada, where the Buddha is recorded as saying:

We are what we think,

Having become what we thought.

Like the wheel that follows the cart-pulling ox

Sorrow follows an evil thought.

And joy follows a pure thought,

Like a shadow faithfully tailing a man.

We are what we think,

Having become what we thought.

The Buddha's path was meant to be an elimination of suffering. This is a suffering caused by often unrecognized impulses arising from social, psychological and physical experiences. The living process of common everyday existence is seen as a burning fire fed by the fuel of actions that are based on involuntary desires and anxieties. These desires and anxieties themselves are conditioned by the way people think, perceive, and experience life in terms of their own selfhood. The enlightened person, the one who is truly awake to the nature of one's process of becoming-in-existence, knows that without getting behind the apparent form a person will just create more chaos. Without avoiding the habits of thinking and feeling that bring about fear and anger, there will be only continued suffering. As long as there is a concern only to improve an illusory self or to seek after illusory happiness a person will continue to be disappointed. Part of the problem is that there are deeply ingrained patterns of guilt, restlessness, self-hatred and apathy which lead a person to reinforce patterns of experience that lead to suffering.

The helplessness that so many people feel from the driving forces which compel them have to be recognized -- according to the Buddhist view -- as being produced by one's own ignorance and desire. Desire to attain short-term, illusory goals, which is the same thing as compulsive behavior, is dependent on ignorance (avija or avidya) in which one fails to view the impermanence and substancelessness of existence.

In the Buddhist view human beings are driven by unconscious motives; but unlike many contemporary psychologists, Nâgârjuna regarded these motives as controllable. These unconscious motives which cause suffering are prominent not only among psychotics but among all unenlightened human beings -- which means most of us. If we want to be free from suffering we have to see how we are constructing the bondage which we feel we are in. This bondage includes our wants, interests, strivings, and desires; and the Buddhist path requires insight into their conditioning causes. As you know, however, if you have read about Nâgârjuna's claim that all things are empty, these conditioning causes also are regarded as empty.

Our purpose in this lecture and the next chapter is to explore why a perception of the emptiness of causes and actions is an important religious concern. Briefly, we can say that the basic religious problem is to come to terms with the mental and emotional attachments that lead to more pain in the flow of existence. By bringing the nature of this pain before the mind, the attachments which arise in relation to the illusory awareness of our existence can be eliminated. The person who knows the source of his or her anger, the source of his or her fear, the source of his or her ambiguities can correct the problem. As the energies that we use in craving after certain desires are dissipated, our minds discriminate less and less between things as if they had self-sufficient importance or value. By recognizing that all conditioned phenomena are empty of self-nature, we empty the binding energies through which we lose the power to become enriched. When insight dissipates false images of expectations and desires, the heat of greed and hate are cooled.

The attachments that cause suffering arise from ignorance. This ignorance is something more than a lack of information or an inaccurate description of something. It is systemic; that is, it is inherent in the very system or procedure that one uses to know life. It involves not being aware of the power that images, words and concepts have to bind a person to them. The insight that frees one from this process is also a releasing energy whereby one is no longer caught -- or one no longer catches oneself -- in the conceptual net and the expectations of one-to-one correlations between a word and some non-verbal referent.

We can begin to see the problem that Nâgârjuna was dealing with when we recognize a fairly simple thing: our words and language can generate the expectation of entities that are totally nonexistent. Human beings can use language in such a way that the words can be meaningful while at the same time they are mere fabrications of the mind. We can, for example, refer to a square circle, or to the son of a barren woman, or to the horn of a rabbit. We can extend a notion of a particular thing to a generalized notion. For example, we can extend the awareness of a single, concrete human being to "humanity." Or we can extend the notion of a "good" act to "perfect goodness." Or we can create new notions that do not refer to direct experiences by negating a general principle such as "limitation" or "finitude" and thereby derive the notions of "unlimited reality" or "infinity."

These words that indicate immaterial verbal entities are meaningful expressions since they share with other expressions certain grammatical properties and leave us with an impression of some possibility. This turns out to be a very curious thing when we recognize that many other terms or words function by pointing out objects or calling objects to our attention. Words seem to carve out remembered experience by defining and manifesting general forms or characteristics of the world to us. A name is said to indicate something or a term specifies something. Thus, if I say the word "egg" you can immediately have an image of an egg in mind. My guess is, however, that if we would go around a room to see what the image of the egg is which you have in mind by drawing it on a piece of paper, we would have almost as many images drawn as we have people in the room.

The fact that words refer to general classes of things and to specific phenomena leaves us with the fascinating question of whether the term, e.g. "egg" as a general classification, has a meaning because it refers to some essence that pertains to each of the images that we have or whether the term is meaningful simply because we have learned to use the term in a certain way. As in Western schools of philosophy, there were in India some schools, e.g. the Nyâyâ school, that held that universals, like "egg-ness," which referred to a common element in all eggs, had as their universal reality some kind of objective basis or characteristic. The Buddhists, on the other hand, held that "universals" or general class terms are fictions, but they can be objects of propositions and can serve as subjects in order to function in popular, conventional communication.

For the Buddhists, the fact that the general term "egg" could be used knowledgeably by a variety of people whose specific experiences could be quite different indicated that they fabricated certain ideas and notions in order to communicate key easily identified aspects of specific experiences. They did not agree that the general property that can be specified as "egg-ness" is some timeless objective reality which is present in all individual eggs. For the Buddhists a general term simply distinguishes a particular class of items from another class of items. It does not indicate that there is some kind of universal reality that is found in multiple forms. By focusing on exactly these problems of the formation of ideas and human expectations that words identify and give form to certain perceptions and aspects of our experience, the Buddhists were pointing out how many people, unaware, were being pushed in a particular direction by the very language and assumptions of language that they thought were helping them understand their existence.

The issue of identifying objects in our common experience, however, is not simply a matter of the use of language. It also is related to the question of what we really perceive when we see something. There is a common view that human beings directly perceive physical objects -- that is, material things -- which are external to themselves. For example, we talk about seeing a tree, a chair, a building, or another person, and then act and talk as if these things existed as such. Thus, visually and in other ways we act as if properties such as color or form or weight belong to, or reside in, things that are external to us.

Similarly, most of us act and feel most of the time as if we were centered "selves." We experience life as "belonging" to a "person." For example, I can remember things that happened to "me", but I cannot remember things that happened to other people even though they may have entered my sphere of experience by talking to me or by responding to me when I saw them or touched them. This experience tends to separate the identity that we feel as an ego, an "I" or "me," from other people; we distinguish between ourselves as if we were entities separate from our environmental experience, both physical and social.

Already the earliest Buddhist suttas contain the recognition that this naive-real sensitivity to things must be questioned. By "naive reality" I mean regarding things as if they existed as material entities, or ourselves as independent entities. The assumption about naively real physical things was called into question with the doctrine of the anatta, that is, non-individual soul. The individual person was seen to be not a single thing or an essence that had a variety of changing forms throughout life, but was an interaction of various factors -- factors that belonged to what we would call internal and external phenomena.

While in our daily conversations, we may say things like, "I see that chair," or, "I see that tree," the Buddhists from the beginning suggested that it was not the case that a material body or entity saw or perceived another material body or entity. Rather, perception is actually a construction, or mental-emotional-physical synthesis that includes memory, inference, sensation, and synthetic apprehension through consciousness. Any perception was seen as a combination of various factors; for example, one classification included the following three factors: the object of sight, e.g., a tree, the sensitivity of the eye (that is, the power of sight which in physical terms we correlate with the eye and the optic nerve), and an act of sight-consciousness.

The tree or chair as a datum of experience should not be mistaken for some kind of external entity as such, or as a "whole." What we actually perceive are instantaneous energy-moments which we integrate into our experience that is also based on memory and inference; when we have sensation of dark brown length and green splashes on top, we interpret this as a tree. With a bit of reflection, we can see that when we perceive an object, we actually perceive only a part of it, only one side of it, and then we have to extend from our imagination, memory, or inference the other sides and interior as well as the function and purpose of what we perceive.

The recognition that human experience is a complex of interacting factors that are both internal and external to what we normally call "a person" led later Buddhists -- the Abhidharma masters -- to analyze the sutta material in light of their own meditation experiences by formulating and classifying various factors that we would now call psychological and physical factors of experience. Since they did not affirm a permanent essence within the person or a real general thing which we call the object of perception, they recognized only a changing conglomerate of material, mental, and psychic factors of experience called dharmas. These factors, they claimed, interact to form the experienced world as we are aware of it in everyday living. All objects of perception or ideas are seen to be without independent bases of existence. Rather they are seen to arise in an interdependent or co-dependent way. The "arising of existence" which generally is also the arising of turmoil -- because it is influenced by illusion -- comes through these interdependent and reciprocal forces (dharmas) which find their roots in a person's ignorant clinging to the objects that "he" or "she" unwittingly is fabricating!

In order to discuss and specify how each of these factors, or dharmas, arise in experience, there were elaborate classifications proposed in that section of the literature called the Abhidharma Pitaka. This was not a speculative concern: the intention was to eliminate the false assumptions that most people have when they deal with their feelings, anxieties, and frustrations. Originally the Abhidharma literature systematized the tenets found scattered in different sermons by the Buddha as an aid for instruction. In time it developed a technique of its own for analysis in which the nature of reality and the cause of suffering were organized and classified topically.[13]

By way of example, we can look at the classification of names and phenomena found in the Dharmasamganî, according to the headings of the five groups or "heaps" (skandhas) of phenomena. Under matter we find such dharmas as earth, water, heat, and air; sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch; visible object, sound, scent; taste object, lightness of matter, malleability, accumulation, extension, impermanence. Under sensation are such factors of experience as happiness, unhappiness, depression, equanimity. Under perception, there is only one member of this group which is perception itself. Then, under the group of samskaras, which are impulses or forces, we would find concentration, energy, confidence, self-possession, understanding, right livelihood, wrong theory, wrong intention, self-respect, fear of blame, desire, non-desire, non-aversion, aversion or non-delusion. Under the group called consciousness we find thought, mind, consciousness of sight, consciousness of hearing, consciousness of smell, consciousness of taste, consciousness of touch, and consciousness of mind. There is also an unproduced dharma which is a special form, namely nirodha, which means extinction or elimination (it is equal to nirvâna).

If we look at the Sarvastivada Abhidharma text called Jñâna Prasthana, we find a discussion of six causes of the arising of phenomena. These are, for example, a cause being conjoined with something else, or simultaneously existing, or the continuing unchangeable character of some element between two phenomena, or a universal cause which is an innate, morally significant tendency, or the result and instrumental cause. The concern of this discussion was to explain how a combination of various conditions and forces could combine in any given instantaneous moment to produce the sensations of experience which we call life. By penetrating into the process of becoming, every monk, as the Buddha before him, could reverse the process of pain and construction and then be released from this continuing process. To do this it was important to know the marks, or signs, characteristics, and inherent character, the "own-being" (svabhava), of the factors that made up existence and then to contemplate these various characteristics.

In light of this great concern by the Abhidharma masters for classifying the factors of existence and then contemplating the particular self-existent characteristics, Nâgârjuna's claim that all dharmas are empty of essential characteristics of self-sufficient reality is a dramatic shift in spiritual effort.[14] Nâgârjuna's first verses, with which we began this lecture, indicate that even the techniques and skills that were used to overcome a naive-realistic sense of the arising of existence could themselves become part of the pattern of thinking in which words functioned as if they referred to self-existent things. Nâgârjuna analyzed the teaching of the Abhidharma from the perspective that all ideas and all perceptions are constructs that depend on other constructed things. By formulating his stanzas in direct opposition to the assumption of inherent characteristics and the own-being of particular instantaneous phenomena, he tried to overcome what he felt was the attachment to those factors which were themselves intended to break down naive thinking.

Thus, when he says in verse 3 of chapter two in The Fundamentals of the Middle Way, "Certainly there is no self-existence of existing things..., and if no self-existence exists, neither does 'other-existence,'" he is then declaring that we can fall into a bifurcating way of conceiving the world of "self" and "other" even in the most intense religious practices. In chapter three Nâgârjuna analyzes the dharma of "seeing" or "vision" as one of the six sense faculties and says:

There is no "seer" with vision or without vision;

Therefore, if there is no "seer" how can there be vision and the object seen?

As the birth of a son is said to occur presupposing a father and mother,

Knowledge is said to occur presupposing the eye being dependent on the visible forms.

Since the "object seen" and the vision do not exist there is no fourfold consequence: knowledge, cognitive sensation, affective sensation, and desire.

Also, then, how will the acquisition of karma and its consequences [existence, birth, aging, and death] be produced?

Similarly, in chapter four of The Fundamentals of the Middle Way, Nâgârjuna denies the assumptions of the self-existence of the groups of factors (skandhas) when he says:

Visible form is not perceived without the basic cause of visible form;

Likewise, the basic cause of visible form does not appear without a visible form.

If the visible form existed apart from its basic cause, it would logically follow that visible form is without cause;

But there is nothing anywhere arising without cause.

On the other hand, if there would be a basic cause apart from visible form,

The basic cause would be without any product;

But there is no basic cause without a product.

Just as when there is a visible form, no basic cause of form obtains,

So, when there is no visible form, no basic cause of form obtains.

Nâgârjuna then goes on, chapter by chapter, analyzing key notions -- such as the irreducible elements (dhatus), desire and the one who desires, and constructed existence (sanskrta) -- until he also says that even nirvâna, which was classified under the unconditioned factor according to the Abhidharma, is not regarded as having a self-existence or an own-being. Nâgârjuna says in chapter twenty-five:

There is nothing whatever which differentiates the existence-in-flux (samsara) from nirvâna;

And there is nothing whatever which differentiates nirvâna from existence-in-flux.

Subsequent verses reinforce this denial of every absolute identification:

Since all dharmas are empty, what is finite? What is infinite?

What is both finite and infinite? What is neither finite nor infinite?

Is there anything which is this or something else, which is permanent or impermanent,

Which is both permanent and impermanent, or which is neither?

In summary, then, we can see that from Nâgârjuna's perspective, language and naive experience are themselves possible vehicles for erroneous understanding of ourselves and our experience. This does not mean that Nâgârjuna himself discarded language or even logic. It did mean that insight into the nature of things required taking seriously the very processes by which human beings can know anything. It means that one should always be aware that even the most profound attempts to interpret the meaning of life may lead to an inappropriate fixation on their meaning. In the next lecture we will look at the process whereby Nâgârjuna hoped to avoid having his hearers focus on the word "emptiness" as if it were a thing-in-itself.

Part III: Truth and Emptiness

So far we have focused on the need for deep awareness of how people themselves contribute to the immediate experience of their existence. How easy it is to have false assumptions! We have gotten some glimpse of how the Buddhists of ancient India dealt with the issues of the use of language in apprehending the truth. In the last lecture we dealt with two problems: (1) assumptions in using language that create false expectations and partial images, and (2) naive realism in the perception of material things. In this lecture we want to focus on Nâgârjuna's use of the term "emptiness" to indicate the reality of existing things, and then discuss his claim that there are two modes, or two kinds, of truth. The purpose of looking at the notions of emptiness and two kinds of truth is to learn how they function in Nâgârjuna's purpose to release human beings from false perceptions about themselves and their world.

When many people hear the claim made in The Fundamentals of the Middle Way that all things are empty, they interpret this as a pessimistic expression. After all, he claimed that the basic factors of existence (dharmas) -- basic patterns and structures of inter-relations between forces or energies, the constituents of the "objective world" -- are empty. So it is natural to conclude that there must be nothing good or valuable in life, and that it doesn't make any difference what we think, say, or do. From Nâgârjuna's point of view, this understanding of emptiness is a total misconception. He himself was confronted by people who interpreted emptiness as a nihilistic expression, but he tried to make clear that this was inappropriate.

Emptiness, if dimly perceived, utterly destroys the slow-witted.

It is like a snake badly grasped or a magical incantation incorrectly done. (MMK 24:11)

At various places in both this treatise and the shorter work Averting the Arguments, Nâgârjuna has to defend himself against the charge of a nihilistic view of life or of an illogical claim which does not stand the rigors of clear analysis. Let us look at some of the key statements that he makes about emptiness.

The "originating dependently" we call "emptiness".

This is the designation, "dependence on"; it is indeed the Middle Way. (MMK 24:18)

Here we see that emptiness is equated with dependent co-origination. It is also equated with the designation or idea that existence arises while being dependent on other things; and all of this is then equated with the Middle Way. Already here we see what we will elaborate further on in this lecture: that emptiness is not seen as a thing, but as a process of release; it is a procedure which is the "middle way." Nâgârjuna is also very clear, however, that emptiness is not just another theory, not just another viewpoint. the designation "empty" itself cannot be taken as a thing in itself. This we see in the following two stanzas:

If something would be non-empty, something would [logically also] be empty,

But nothing is non-empty, so how will it become empty?

Emptiness is proclaimed by the victorious one as the refutation of all viewpoints,

But those who hold "emptiness" as a viewpoint -- [the true perceivers] have called them "incurable." (MMK 13:7-8)

Here we see that emptiness is not a thing, nor is it an idea. Thus, anyone who takes the notion of emptiness as something that is marked off from what is not empty is not understanding it in its most profound meaning.

Whoever argues against "emptiness" in order to refute an argument,

For him, everything, including the point of contention, is known to be unrefuted.

Whoever argues by means of "emptiness" in order to explain an understanding,

For him, everything, including the point to be proved, is known to be misunderstood. (MMK 4:8-9)

This leads to the conclusion that nothing can be absolutely of the nature of emptiness or non-emptiness if these terms are assumed to refer to non-relative entities.

One should not say "empty," nor "non-empty,"

Nor both, nor neither;

The purpose for the designation is [only] for communication. (MMK 22:11)

The communication then is not seen so much as a description of the way things really are, but as a catalyst to reorganize the thinking and feeling processes of those who are confronted with the inadequacy of any word to describe or designate the co-dependent reality of things coming in and going out of existence.

From the above quotation we can see how the claim that all things are empty intends to be a spiritual insight that cannot be reduced to a viewpoint.[15] One of the most dramatic ways of expressing this insight was through the negative dialectic that pervades The Fundamentals of the Middle Way and the shorter work Averting the Arguments. The insight, as we will analyze in the next two lectures, is more a process of viewing the world than a particular proposition about the world. Here we want to focus on the dialectic as the way of articulating, or communicating, the claim that all things are empty. We see that Nâgârjuna makes full use of logic in his negative dialectic. This does not mean that the negative dialectic is simply a destructive force which cleared the ground for a positive formulation of reality; nor is it simply a dissipation of the error surrounding some presupposed essence that then eternally remains.

The dialectic itself is a means of knowing the truth. It is a movement, a process, which moves from notion to notion. By negating a presumed meaning of a term or by avoiding a conclusion, by requiring the acceptance of the opposite of a certain claim as well as the claim, the negative dialectic moves the experiencer to a more comprehensive perception, which is at an ever more removed level from the naive realistic view of existence. Any concept, for example -- "conditioned existence" -- is pressed by the negation until it becomes indistinguishable from its opposite -- in this case, non-conditioned existence. From this it is clear that concepts are useful very often for naive realistic experience, but for analysis of the relationships between things and for experiencing the things of the world as a process, concepts are seen to be only relatively significant. At the same time, as we have said before, Nâgârjuna uses language and logic, which means that despite the limited usefulness of language it is still a means whereby life, together with an awareness and sensitivity to the depth dimensions of experience, can become richer in content and more comprehensive in scope.

In denying the counter-thesis as well as the thesis in this negative dialectic, Nâgârjuna seeks to establish a way of apprehending oneself and the world that is less and less prone to positing a self-existing essence in anything. Thus, the dialectic continually leads from concept to concept without finding the reality of life capsulized in an absolute concept. The process of the negative dialectic is a way of avoiding the superimposition of an absolute onto the flow of experience. This flow -- that is, the emptiness, the inter-relatedness of everything to each other -- is known by the self-negating character of logical inference. This self-negating character avoids grasping after a supposed essence of changing existence. Thus, the dynamics of the dialectic is itself an effective force for realizing the emptiness of things. We might still ask, "Can the dialectic, then, be regarded as a principle of relativity, thereby becoming a dynamic absolute corresponding to some kind of eternal essence?" No, the dialectic is never an independent force or first cause. It operates only in relation to phenomenal, or ideal, entities. It is a spiritual answer, a medicine, to the problem of grasping after self-existent entities. It is a means of quelling the pain found in existential becoming that results from longing after an eternal reality.

A negative dialectic which avoids asserting that something is, or is not, or is both, or is neither, is sometimes used in some religious traditions as a way of destroying logic and language in order to perceive in an entirely different way. Sometimes interpreters of Mâdhyamika have seen the negative dialectic to function in this way. I think that this is not the entire story for Mâdhyamika. The power of the dialectic is not simply the removal of illusion -- especially if one presumes that by removing an illusion, some kind of self-existent reality will emerge. Rather, the negative dialectic both continues and destroys the activity of discriminating, of defining, and inferring. In this way Nâgârjuna will say that the highest truth exists because it is dependent on everyday activities while yet transcending and purifying them. Rather than simply rejecting all use of reason and logic because it often binds human beings when they perceive their experience, Nâgârjuna uses them to reform people's thinking. There is no unchanging, inherent quality that requires all logical use to be illusory. Rather it can be used to free people from pain and greed when it is not misused. Logic becomes a tool to break open the linguistic fetters with which logicians and common everyday people have bound themselves. When this happens, as Nâgârjuna intends with the negative dialectic in these texts, then its effect is to dissipate the illusory self-existence of entities rather than to multiply attachment to more concepts for logical relationships.

We might also ask the opposite questions about Nâgârjuna's use of logic. If we are affirming that he does not simply destroy logic, we should also ask whether his use of logic has the same limitations as other claims about the nature of existence. Since every viewpoint is empty of self-existence according to Nâgârjuna, is not his own denial of self-existence an empty proposition? His opponents argued that indeed it was; and he readily agreed. However, Nâgârjuna maintained that the supposed victory of such an argument results from faulty reasoning. In his short work Averting the Arguments, he takes up the problem directly. In verses twenty through twenty-nine, he rejects the opponent's claim that his own denial constitutes a use of words as if the words had self-existent power. He argues that in his denial of self-existence he does not have to assume what his opponents assume, namely that the words themselves have meaning because of self-existence. Rather, he claims, both his opponents' claims and his own denials do not have self-existence. They both exist on a level of conventional truth -- they are empty. His own denial is equated with a phantom who destroys another phantom. He ends his argument with a verse:

If I would make any proposition whatever, then by that I would have a logical error; But I do not make a proposition; therefore I am not in error.

In the same work, Nâgârjuna insists that since his denial does not presuppose an opposite absolute claim, he is not making a proposition. This is despite the fact that any casual rethinking of the previous verse indicates at least the proposition that "I am not in error" or "I do not make a proposition." When the opponent further argues that Nâgârjuna unwittingly presupposes an entity in order to deny it, Nâgârjuna answers:

Since anything being denied does not exist, I do not deny anything;

Therefore [the statement] "You deny" -- which was made by you -- is a false accusation.

In the next verse he affirms that his expression is simply a means of conveying information, and that the mechanics of speech which do appear to be like other forms of speech should not be construed to imply a power which negates some metaphysical entity:

Regarding what was said concerning what does not exist:

"The statement of denial is proved without a word."

In that case the statement expresses: "[That object] does not exist";

[The words] do not destroy [the object].

The goal of complete unattachment through realizing the highest truth of emptiness, claims Nâgârjuna, is not "a view" and certainly is not the negation of something that exists. It is rather a catalyst or a process whereby one can become unattached to the very forms that one must use. In order to be a means of release from mundane experience, this process, this designation of things being related to each other, must be expressed.

As a verbal expression, this assertion participates in the limitations of mundane speech -- in fact, it capitalizes on the very nature of mundane speech, in the sense that speech operates through the projection of opposites (discrimination) and distinguishes one thing from another by the use of names and words of relationship (especially propositions). The negative dialectic that is so prominent in The Fundamentals of the Middle Way carries the principle of opposition and discriminating analysis to its limits. Thereby it indicates that the notions used are simply verbal constructs of empty "becoming." By criticizing every assertion which intends to bring the "reality of becoming" into the confines of a dogmatic perspective, Nâgârjuna expressed the traditional Buddhist affirmation of the Middle Way which avoids extremes of either nihilism or absolute eternalism.

The negative dialectic as a way of communicating the emptiness of both words and things is related to another notion which we want to focus on in this lecture. This is the notion that there are two kinds of truth, or two modes of true perception.

The dharma-explanation by the Buddhas has recourse to two truths:

The world-ensconced truth (samvriti) and the ultimate truth (paramârtha).

Those who do not know the distribution of the two kinds of truth

Do not know the profound reality (tattva) of the Buddha's teaching.

The ultimate truth is not taught apart from conventional practice,

And without having obtained ultimate truth one cannot achieve nirvâna. (MMK 24:8-10)

The affirmation that there are two kinds of truth that are useful in spiritual life is a recognition, I think, that there are two important functions of religious expression. The first of these functions is to present a correct understanding of human existence. This means that some formulations, some verbal images, and some uses of language are better than others in guiding people's thinking and experiencing in the most free and unattached manner. The second function of religious speech is to transform a person's attitudes about him- or herself and the world whereby that person will become free from an illusory self-image.

The first function -- that of analyzing the way that the world comes into existence and the way people apprehend this continually changing existence -- is what Nâgârjuna calls the realm of conventional truth or world-ensconced truth. That there are certain things or ideas that one should know that help clarify the understanding of one's role in existence is made clear when Nâgârjuna writes:

He who perceives dependent co-origination (pratîtya-samutpâda)

Also understands sorrow, origination, and destruction as well as the path. (MMK 24:40)

Likewise, Nâgârjuna argues for a correct understanding of the Buddha's teaching by appealing to the statement in the Pali suttas (Samyutta-Nikâya 22.90), where the Buddha explains to the disciple Kaccana that the right view is a "middle doctrine" between a belief in a self-substantiated being (eternalism) and a belief in non-being (nihilism). Nâgârjuna says:

Those who perceive self-existence and other-existence, and an existent thing and a non-existent thing,

Do not perceive the true nature of the Buddha's teaching.

In the Instruction of Kâtyâyana both "it is" and "it is not" are opposed

By the Glorious One, who has ascertained the meaning of "existence" and "non-existence." (MMK 15:6-7)

Here we see Nâgârjuna's clear concern to interpret the Buddha's teaching correctly if a follower of the Buddha is to have a correct conceptual apprehension of existence. In this way Nâgârjuna does not hold that all conceptual formulations are equally good or bad. One must understand the notion of dependent co-origination -- which as we have seen before is equal to the emptiness of all things.

The recognition that all things are empty, then, does not mean that the advocate of the Middle Way wants to avoid dealing with everyday conditioned existence. In fact, Nâgârjuna says that unless a person perceives existence as empty, he or she will not be able to account for conditioned and mundane life. He argues that if a person holds to the notion of self-existence or an inherent character of any particular form, that person will not be able to account for the arising and dissipation of existence. Therefore, he claims:

You reject all mundane and customary activities

When you deny emptiness [in the sense of] dependent co-origination. (MMK 24:36)

He confronts his opponents with misunderstanding the notion of emptiness when he says:

Time and again you have made a condemnation of emptiness,

But that refutation does not apply to our emptiness.

When emptiness "works," then everything in existence "works."

If emptiness does not "work," then all existence does not "work." (MMK 24:13-14)

Here we see that the term "emptiness," when it is a term for dependent co-origination, applies as much to conditioned existence as to the freedom from grasping after existence as an ultimate reality. Everyday experience is not a reality different from emptiness.

"Emptiness" is the basic term for Nâgârjuna through which one can understand both the arising and cessation of pain; it is a situation that is in itself neutral, allowing for both the production of illusion and its cessation. To perceive the emptiness of everything is the highest insight into the nature of life. Thus, this perception is not a rejection of conditioned existence per se, as if it were a kind of reality qualitatively different from unconditioned reality. Rather, a different kind of distinction must be made to account for the difference between pain and the release from pain: the difference between grasping after assumed ultimate entities and the use of particular existing forms for attaining insight and serenity. When applying this distinction to the use of language, we see that conceptual formulations which are assumed to describe self-substantiated reality end in delusion; these formulations are different from those which in a practical and relative sense express the nature of the world or an understanding of the nature of the world but are themselves recognized to be empty of any inherent quality.

Whether human beings live in everyday painful consciousness or in the highest insight, the situation that makes either possible is the reality labeled "emptiness," or "dependent co-origination." The only situation there is, is that of empty interdependent conditions; but most people exist inappropriately in this situation by acting as if one's "self," or some existing "thing," or an idea were self-existent. The emotional impact of this -- which we will be discussing more in subsequent lectures -- is that when people think that some form of existence, even an ideal or a special quality of life, is self-existent, that form will be seized as if it were absolute. Actually, many conditions present for the arising of illusion and pain are also present for the release from pain and the realization of truth. The formation of conditioned existence does not automatically carry with it a unique quality or self-inherent quality of evil by comparison to some supposed unconditioned reality.

If one of the functions of the negative dialectic and the use of such terms as dependent co-origination and emptiness are to bring about a clearer mental understanding of the arising and dissipation of changing existence, the other function which we want to talk about here is just as important. This is that the articulation of truth must go beyond the formulation of a proposition. It must transform the very character, the very mechanism, or process, of awareness in an individual. The highest truth, a correct formulation of the arising and dissipation of existence, would not be of spiritual benefit unless it helped to avoid the personal attachment to an illusory self-existing reality in the phenomenal world or in a mental world. The highest truth, however, is not a total rejection of conventional truth. The realization of nirvâna is not attaining a self-existent opposite to some sorrow -- as was the highest reality conceived in some other forms of Indian spirituality. Rather, the highest truth is the realization that all distinctions are "empty." This realization requires a transformation of self-awareness much more drastic than eliminating all constructed entities -- including ideas and interpersonal relations -- in favor of an undifferentiated transcendent reality.

To realize emptiness as the basis for both samsara, or conditioned existence, and nirvâna is to recognize also that the terms "world-ensconced truth" and "ultimate truth" are themselves empty of self-existence. The highest wisdom is not a rejection of all mental formulation in the expectation that there is a self-existent absolute reality, even though both the Abhidharma analysis and the perfection of wisdom path stress the importance of avoiding the formation of thought forms in the process of freeing the mind from attachment to them. Rather, the highest wisdom includes the attitude or mental-psychic condition which permits the spiritual advocate to function without pain and with great joy. This condition can be compared to health as a condition of the body which permits it to function properly. The world-ensconced truth has the capacity to point beyond the limitations inherent in the distinctions which it must use; thus, it is useful for pointing to a condition of freedom from the tendency of concepts to break up the flux of existence into apparently self-established entities and to crystallize them into false expectations.

Likewise, the ultimate truth is the situation of being illumined about the dependent co-origination of all things which devoids a person of anger, greed and fear in regard to any conditioned entity. The deepest illusions are thereby dissipated through the highest insight, and these illusions are not simply faulty identification of existing entities, but attachment to the notion that identification of entities can ensure absolute truth. Absolute truth is not only a definition of the way things are; it is a situation of freedom, health, and joy.

One way of showing the distinction between the ultimate truth and the conventional truth is to remember that designations and specifications in conventional truth depend upon the attribution of some kind of sign or condition (nimatta). This attribution applies to any object of consciousness. The attribution of some quality or sign by which it is known has a tendency to crystallize the object of knowledge as an external reality. This moves towards a process of thinking according to convention, habits, or naive realism. From the perspective of the ultimate truth, by contrast, all phenomena are composite; they are complex, and in that regard any definition of them will only be a partial definition. From the highest perspective it is important to recognize that every phenomenon in life is only partially describable. This is why it no "thing" can be said simply to exist, nor not to exist, nor both, nor neither. When these four logical alternatives of being are thus denied, the phenomenon is said to be empty: it is empty of any being-in-itself or of any complete designation. In this light, it is understandable that words such as "empty" are used to describe and communicate ultimacy. A similar dialectic applies to the term "nirvâna":

It is not expressed if the Glorious One [the Buddha] exists after his death,

Or does not exist, or both, or neither.

Also, it is not expressed if the Glorious One exists while remaining [in this world],

Or does not exist, or both, or neither.

There is nothing whatsoever which differentiates the existence-in-flux (samsâra) from nirvâna;

And there is nothing whatsoever which differentiates nirvâna from existence-in-flux.

The extreme limit of nirvâna is also the extreme limit of existence-in-flux;

There is not the slightest bit of difference between these two.

The views regarding whether that which is beyond death is limited by a beginning or an end or some other alternative

Depend on a nirvâna limted by a begining and an end.

Since all dharmas are empty, what is finite? What is infinite?

What is both finite and infinite? What is neither finite nor infinite?

Is there anything which is this or something else, which is permanent or impermanent, or which is neither?

The quieting of acquisition is a salutary quieting of image-production;

No dharma of anything anywhere has been taught by the Buddha. (MMK 25:17-24)

Here we see that while the conventions of religious speech in the Buddha's teaching have distinguished nirvâna from existence-in-flux or samsâra, from the highest perspective these two are not totally separate nor different. When seen from the non-attached perspective, the world as we know it is not outside the highest reality. When we are using understandings that focus on distinctions and try to specify causal relations and specify differences, then this emptiness is known as "arising" and "dissipating." It is seen as moving continually. But when it is understood without reference to partial formulations or any perspective or viewpoint, then it is called nirvâna.

That state which is the rushing in and out [of existence] when dependent and conditioned --

This, when not dependent or not conditioned, is seen to be nirvâna. (MMK 25:9)

As both nirvâna and samsara are different expressions of emptiness, so both world-ensconced truth and the highest truth participate in dependent co-origination. There is no way to eliminate dependent co-origination in its most important sense. The highest awareness, which is needed for release from attachment to imposed self-identities, is not the result of moving from the finite to the infinite as if these were two separate things; it is the spontaneous recognition in every moment that all things, ideas and feelings are dependently co-originated. The highest truth, then, is living in full awareness of dependent co-origination rather than in a limited, "tunneled," awareness about the conditions of existence. It is a living without fear of the interdependent nature of things and without the desire for an unconditioned self-existent reality -- both of which are just fantasies, a mirage. Indeed, the reality of dependent co-origination is a relative existence; but according to the highest truth, the relative character, the recognition that there is a dependence of everything on everything else, is not seen as an imperfection. It is not to be negated for some opposite; for the realm of opposites is a function of the crystallization of fanciful eternal entities. From the perspective of the highest truth, therefore, both the highest truth and conventional truth are empty.

In sum, we can say that, whereas the communication of emptiness is not unique to any specific proposition (even that "all things are empty"), the formulation of words and thoughts may themselves be a process for the experience of emptiness. Speaking, thinking, or image-ing can be a way of incarnating the wisdom of emptiness by means of the conscious mind. The quality or attitude of emptiness can be seen as a kind of "energy" that takes form in words, emotions, or actions which may appear very much like other words, emotions, and actions, but which expose the emptiness -- the total relatedness -- of existence. There is a flavor or intimation of emptiness which we may sense that is very vague and sometimes weak until we establish it or give it a ground in our words, images, or actions. These very words and actions are conventional reinforcing mechanisms for much more profound awareness. The more emptiness (relatedness) that emerges in form, the more room there is to emerge, since when people are self-consciously informed about their existence there is a deeper concern with both wisdom and compassion. The continual opening up of oneself by cutting back on self-limitations applies not only to propositions and ideas, but also to images of selfhood and interpersonal relations.