Simple Buddhism. C. Alexander Simpkins, Ph.D.
founded the Madhyamika school of Buddhism. Nagarjuna’s school taught philosophy as an alternative to meditation, for breaking the chains of becoming. Correct philosophical understanding is the approach to freedom from attachment, to find the Middle Way. Nagaljuna’s writings led away from idealist separation from the world, and away from classical disputes in philosophy. Nagaljuna offered an alternative to the two mainstream beliefs of his time, which were the oneness of the universe and the denial of the universe.
The Fourfold Negation Leads to Emptiness
Nagarjuna proposed a dialectic method of questioning called the Fourfold Negation. It consisted of four possible positions: (1) no position is tenable; (2) absolute versus relative existence accounts for the phenomena of existence; (3) the foundation for phenomena is emptiness; (4) codependent origination of phenomena accounts for the existence of phenomena. The Fourfold Negation can be restated as a logical paradigm, best shown in this chart:
| Is | Is Not | |
| Is | is, is | is, is not |
| Is Not | is not, is | is not, is not |
Nagarjuna believed that concepts were inadequate to convey the essence of enlightenment, yet concepts were still essential—that is, concepts were both inadequate and essential. Paradoxically, all four combinations of is and is not are equally possible and impossible at the same time. Recognizing that all phenomena are interconnected, no philosophical position can be taken without being refutable. Nagarjuna showed how no philosophical position can be supported without question, without bias. No ultimate certainty exists. This leaves us with only one option: emptiness, which we cannot even call emptiness without error! Emptiness is the unifying basis for all philosophies, an ultimate ground that all philosophies share.
Nagarjuna’s critique of theories was neither conceptual nor cognitive because words and thoughts inevitably deceive us. Nagarjuna’s approach leads to giving up thought, letting go of conceptual boundaries and definitions, indeed, of existence or nonexistence itself. By the use of thought and logic, he leads the mind of his student to recognize the futility of thought and logic. If no basis for taking a philosophical position can be conclusively demonstrated, then why take one? Madhyamika is critical of all positions, including Hinayana. This opened the way for later developments in Mahayana.
VASUBANDU, ASANGA, AND THE YOGACARIN SCHOOL
The founders of the Yogacarin movement were two brothers, Vasubandu and Asanga. They lived in A.D. 400 in northwestern India. Asanga believed in Mahayana from the start. But his brother Vasubandu began as a Hinayanan. It was while translating some Hinayana texts that Vasubandu began to find fault. He then found new inspiration in Mahayana and became a spokesman with his brother for Yogacarin.
Both brothers believed that mind is the basis for enlightenment. The Yogacarin view of the world of phenomena is that it is all in our minds. Our thoughts make the world seem real. Yogacarins used meditation to reach a state of no-thought to escape the illusion.
Vasubandu also worked out an interesting new logic. He defined an existent thing by a specific example of what it is, what it does, and then he gave an illustration of what it is like and what it is not like. He always used specifics, never general or abstract categories. For example: (1) This fireplace has a fire in it (what it is); (2) because there is smoke, there is fire (what it does); (3) so it is a woodburning furnace (what it is like) and not a pond (what it is unlike).
This example reflects a Buddhist perspective of understanding each thing as it is in its particularity, not as a member of a class or category, as is done in Aristotelian logic. Lists of attributes are only temporary and relative. In Buddhism, abstraction is an illusion. Thus when we read Buddhist descriptions, it is puzzling from the Western perspective, where the class of something can help clarify a single individual case. From the Buddhist point of view, the class is empty, and the individual case is an example, an expression of the universal Buddha nature, which is empty of distinction. A form of logic known as Buddhist logic evolved the implications of Yogacarin further into a system.
PARAMARTHA: FINDING TRUE MIND
Paramartha (499-569) is one of the more renowned later Yogacarins who came from eastern India. He brought the school to China (A.D. 546) and translated seventy-five sutras and works of Yogacarins into Chinese. He was very outgoing and traveled around the country lecturing and teaching. As a result, he gathered many devoted students who carried forth the tradition.
One hundred years later, Hiuen-tsiang (650), who was taught by one of Paramartha’s students, taught Chi-k’uei (632-685), who brought Yogacara to Japan and called it the Hosso sect.
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