The Madhyamika Mahayana School (Emptiness, the Second Turning and the Prajnaparamita Sutra)

This school in fact regarded itself as the most middle way.

Nagarjuna, who probably lived in the 1^st Century CE, is known as the founder and pre-eminent philosopher of Madhyamika. His idea was that Buddhism required ‘unpacking’ and especially favoured the Prajnaparamita Sutras as useful tools for this. He added his own thoughts in writing where he deemed clarification necessary, of course.

The school’s main theme is that what had been thought to be effable was, in fact, ineffable, and this is thus a critique of earlier Buddhism. Attempting to 'eff' what wasn’t effable (reality) was clearly an effing waste of energy. Zen/Chan Buddhists also favour the Prajnaparamita scriptures (among others) and meditation over scholastic effing efforts. Their well-known koens (for example, “what is the sound of one hand clapping” and “if a tree falls in the forest, and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound”) attempt to illustrate this recognition of the ineffability of reality when the iconic Zen master answers “neti, neti (no, no)” to any and all efforts to answer such a koen (in terms of final truth). Incidentally, the Upanishad scriptures had the same idea of ineffability. Two truths are thus again delineated (if both are not effed): paramartha (final) and samvrti (relative).

Again, this may be compared to the philosophical concerns of Western philosophers. Kant especially, possibly the greatest philosopher of the past 500 years, had a go at ineffability in his Critique of Pure Reason. The basic idea that he used against all arguments for God’s existence of the time was that one can’t apply human reason or language in fully explaining God, for example as a uniquely uncaused cause. God for him must surely be beyond cause, not uncaused (could we even prove that we were truly in a caused reality, after all?) While he was a Christian, his philosophy contributed to a new Western agnostic movement. The difference in the use of ineffability in Buddhist philosophy is that Madhyamika Buddhists still believe that while the infinite may not be explained it may certainly be understood or it may be better to say realised (eventually) by a properly trained human mind.

This concern to notice an ineffability reminds us in effect of Siddhartha’s concern to not answer his famous 14 questions of the two earliest canons (by not answering, was he in effect answering them “neti, neti”? On the Madhyamika view, the answer to that is yes - he knew the answer but didn’t answer because there were no words for the answer – that is, it’s ineffable. He allowed his non-answer to be noted, though, for the same reason the Zen school broadcasts koens – so that we may see that there may well be an answer but one that isn’t effable). The subtlety of all this is seen (especially by this school) to be part of the reason Siddhartha was at first so reluctant to teach. Nagarjuna philosophised that Madhyamika Buddhism was engaged in a dialectic debate that was certainly necessary but definitely not sufficient for a complete understanding of ultimate truths. The reality loomed beyond and over the debate that brought it near to view, clarified sensitivity to it and partly illuminated it.

So the specific characteristics (svalaksana) of the dharmas and other things listed in the abhidharma gave merely a version of relative truth that Siddhartha left to Madhyamika to complete when monks were ready to reject nihilism (and, in the way monks of the first turning still believe they are true, at least, they aren’t really true). Even the duality of samsara and nirvana is now seen to be illusory. Importantly, there can be no right concept. Some are certainly regarded as more right (or at least more complete) than others but dualities are thus not replaced by nihilistic nullities and eternalities but by mere relativities (and the purest idea of non-self); dependent arising is as real as it’s ever been and then some. Even dharmas had no self, Nagarjuna needed to make plain. The abhidharma critiques come from both Nagarjuna and the Prajnaparamita discourses themselves.

So the Arahants have unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, who can say) missed out (so far). This went some way to democratising Buddhism, though, because it went some way towards cutting down the tallest of tall poppies in the world of Buddhism.

The concise Heart Sutra is perhaps the best known and most important Buddhist scripture today and for all time and is a Prajnaparamita Sutra. A 9^th Century copy of it in Chinese is also in the oldest known extant printed book. Its focus, too, is on the emptiness emphasised by this school. It is also favoured by Thich Nhat Hanh, who I’ll discuss in a later post. The emptiness emphasised in the Heart Sutra is the emptiness of independence from other things. Nhat Hanh treats this subject in an article in which he wonders aloud how a piece of paper is different from the sun that shone on the tree that was the source of the paper to grow it or the labour of the logger that chopped the tree down to begin the paper production process or the logger her/himself or the food the logger eats and so on.

So the emptiness that follows from this is not solipsist but rather emptiness of self-existence (svabhava). This, then, is the paramartha truth: both and neither nothingness and the eternal – the true and ultimate Middle Way. This idea of emptiness is needed to reduce attachment to the ultimate extent (even to the teachings of the school itself – anything that may be expressed in words may be likened to Siddhartha’s famous ‘raft’ of the raft parable – one day they may all be discarded). What’s more, the awe of truly realising the ultimate cannot but produce the purest compassion.