Wikipedia page is excellent
I first studied Madhyamaka at Naropa University in the spring of 1992. I remember it specifically because it provoked one of my first direct experiences of emptiness. I was talking on the phone with a friend in the class, a monk named Sherap, and the world dissolved completely. The sun was coming in the window of the dining room. I was sitting on the floor, holding the phone, talking through these Madhyamaka exercises, and the solidity, the separateness, of each of the objects in my experience disappeared. It was a beautiful day.
So I know that this classic Buddhist approach to cutting concepts can be extremely effective. See also: Meditation on Wisdom for a related exploration of emptiness and transcendent knowledge. This page is a big rough sketch of Madhyamaka logic. My hope is that one day I can communicate this view to modern American meditators in a clear and coherent way. So that they too can experience emptiness directly.
Summary of Madhyamaka Philosophy
According to the classical Indian Mādhyamika thinkers, all phenomena (dharmas) are empty (śūnya) of "nature",[8] of any "substance" or "essence" (svabhāva) which could give them "solid and independent existence", because they are dependently co-arisen [9]
Nagarjuna's critique of the notion of own-nature[note 5] (Mk. ch. 15) argues that anything which arises according to conditions, as all phenomena do, can have no inherent nature, for what is depends on what conditions it. Moreover, if there is nothing with own-nature, there can be nothing with 'other-nature' (para-bhava), i.e. something which is dependent for its existence and nature on something else which has own-nature. Furthermore, if there is neither own-nature nor other-nature, there cannot be anything with a true, substantial existent nature (bhava). If there is no true existent, then there can be no non-existent (abhava).[30]
The central idea is that dharmas are empty of svabhāva.[15] This term has been translated variously as essence, intrinsic nature, inherent existence, own being and substance.[16][17][15] Furthermore, according to Richard P. Hayes, svabhāva can be interpreted as either "identity" or as "causal independence".
This idea of svabhāva that Madhyamaka denies is then not just a conceptual philosophical theory, but it is a cognitive distortion that beings automatically impose on the world, such as when we regard the five aggregates as constituting a single self.
But this "emptiness" itself is also "empty": it does not have an existence on its own, nor does it refer to a transcendental reality beyond or above phenomenal reality.
Tetralemma
It is substance-svabhāva, the objective and independent existence of any object or concept, which Madhyamaka arguments mostly focus on refuting.[19] A common structure which Madhyamaka uses to negate svabhāva is the catuṣkoṭi ("four corners" or tetralemma), which roughly consists of four alternatives: a proposition is true; a proposition is false; a proposition is both true and false; a proposition is neither true nor false.
An Example: Finding Svabhāva in a Steak
As we take stuff apart - as we look for a kernel of identity, or the core thing that makes something what it is, we realize that any single thing is made up of smaller components down to infinity.
Take a steak, cooked medium rare. The whole steak, off the grill after resting for 10 minutes, is a steak. It is. Now take a sharp knife and cut into it. Juice comes out, you can see the inside of the meat. Is it still a steak without all that juice? Yes it is.
Cut it in half. Now you have two steaks, correct?
Cut off a slice of meat from one. Is that steak? Yes, it’s a smaller piece of steak, small enough to put in your mouth.
Now trim the bone from the steak. Is it still steak without the bone? Yes. The bone and the juice were part of the steak before, but now, without them, we still have steak. They were not the essence of the steak, even though they were part of the steak.
Now trim the fat from your slice of steak. The fat is not the essence of the steak. But it was part of the steak before. It’s clear that what we called steak actually had lots of component parts that when isolated are not steak. So our labels, our definitions of steak are actually pretty loose. They are not exact.
You can do the same exercise with a chair, a poem, or your body, your personality, your identity. Without your arm, are you still you? Yes. Is someone with brain damage still themselves? Yes, they are themselves with brain damage.
[Anne Webb Alzheimer’s story. Where is Anne Webb now that she has died? Where is my father? Where is my childhood friend Alex, who died when I was six? Where is Sarah, Andy Grey, all the people I’ve known who have died? ]
Back to the steak. You have drained some juice, removed the bone and the nub of fat. The piece on your fork just has cooked red meat. Is it still steak? Yes it is. Have we found the essence of steak? The svabhāva?
Let’s keep cutting. Cut your piece in half, then again, again, again, again. It’s not steak anymore is it. It’s ground beef.
There was something about the completeness, the collection of the pieces of meat that made it steak. Without removing anything else, or eating any pieces, just by slicing, we have lost the essence of the steak.
Where did it go? At which point did it disappear?
This is an example of why we say that everything that we perceive is actually a projection of our own mind. The steak was outside of us, but the essence of the steak, the steak-ness, was our personal definition of it.
Everything is like that. Every external and internal object is empty of an inherent kernel of existence.
A Brief History of Madhyamaka
- Founded by Nāgārjuna (c. 150 – c. 250 CE)
- The foundational text of the Mādhyamaka tradition is Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā ("Root Verses on the Middle Way")
- Thread on English translations
- Jay Garfield’s The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Oxford, 1995
- Ornament Of Reason: The Great Commentary To Nagarjuna's Root Of The Middle Way by Mabja Jangchub Tsondru
- The Siderits and Katsura one won the Khyentse Foundation prize 2014
- Critique of Siderits and Katsura translation and Links to other academic papers on the topic
- Jan Westerhoff's 'Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction
- Ocean of Reasoning contains a marginally updated translation by Garfield
- Sun of Wisdom or The Middle Way if you want good explanations rather than the complete text.
- Ian Coghlan
Current Madhyamaka Teachers
- Elizabeth Matis Namgyel