2.1. The Buddha-nature and Mādhyamaka

[Full title: The Buddha-nature in Mahāyāna Buddhism (Introduction), (1): The Buddha-nature and Mādhyamaka]

Mahāyāna (literally, Great Vehicle) is a term for classification of developed Buddhist philosophies and practices. The Mahāyāna is one of the three major traditions of Buddhism existing today, i.e. the Theravāda (Early Buddhism), Tantrayāna (Esoteric Buddhism) and Mahāyāna. The Mahāyāna holds the idea of seeking complete enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, so it is also called Bodhisattvayāna.^[1] During the course of its history, Mahāyāna developed into three main groups: Mādhyamaka, Yogācāra and the Buddha Nature (Tathāgatagarbha); however, the two main philosophical schools of the Mahāyāna in India are the Mādhyamaka and Yogācāra.^[3] The following analysis will present the accordance of the Buddha-nature with doctrines of these two Mahāyāna schools.

Mādhyamaka (zhongguanzong), also known as Mādhyamaka (zhonglunzong), is a major school of Mahāyāna Buddhism established by the Nāgārjuna (longshu) and Āryadeva (shengtian) in the second century CE. This school has a great influence in India, China, Tibet, Japan and Vietnam. In China, the “Three Treatise” school (sanlunzong) is regarded as a faithful representative of Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyamaka thought; while the Tiantai and Huayan schools are considered as Neo-Mādhyamaka because the original Mādhyamaka philosophy was mixed with indigenous Chinese ideas in these schools.^[2]

The name of this school is based on the concepts of Middle Path (madhyamā), Dependent Arising (partītyasamutpāda) and Emptiness (śūnyata), which are condensed in the famous verses of Nāgārjuna in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

Yaḥ partītyasamutpādaḥ śūnyataṃ tāṃ pracakṣmahe,
Sā prajñaptir upādāya pratipat saiva madhyamā^[4]

We state that whatever is dependent arising, that is emptiness.
That is dependent upon convention. That itself is the middle path.^[5]

The verses contain all three main doctrines of the Mādhyamaka, i.e. the Dependent arising, Emptiness, and Middle path. The first line presents an equation: Dependent arising is Emptiness. Hajime Nakamura assumes that both the concept of Dependent arising and Emptiness in the first verse refer to the phenomena rather than the principle because the second verse explains that it is dependent upon convention, i.e., Dependent arising and Emptiness are the abstract concepts derived from concrete empirical phenomena.^[6] However, this understanding cannot explain the concept of Middle path (madhyamā-pratipad) in the second line, because the Dependent arising and Emptiness, which are synonymous, cannot represent the Middle path, which is something between two different things. Moreover, the second verse states that Dependent arising itself is the Middle path. Thus, Emptiness is also Middle path. This indicates that in the absolute truth, all three concepts are identical, they avoid any extremism. But in the conventional truth, each concept of Dependent arising, Emptiness, or Middle path implies both views of nihilism of phenomena and absolutism of reality. It is the universality of emptiness and unreality of phenomena is real.

Pratītyasamutpāda or the Dependent Arising is a cardinal doctrine of Buddhism. In general meaning, it states that all phenomena are arising together in a mutually interdependent system of cause and effect. As mentioned above, the Buddha discovered this universal law in the seventh day after his enlightenment; he also formulated the law into a twelve part chain presenting the causal relations between the human psychophysiology and phenomena; and then he applied this universal truth to the problem of human suffering.^[7] Thus, pratītyasamutpāda does not affirm or deny the entity or reality; it is rather a statement of the Buddha arrived at through his examination and analysis of the world of phenomena after his enlightenment. So, in its early form, pratītyasamutpāda presents the interdependent and mutual condition of phenomena. In Mādhyamaka, the concept of pratītyasamutpāda is equated synonymously with Emptiness and is related with Middle Path. In other words, the pratītyasamutpāda is presented by the Mādhyamakas as the background of Śūnyatā -the empty ego of phenomena, and in relation with madhyamā-pratipad -the Middle path of non-duality. In this way, three basic doctrines of Mādhyamaka, i.e. pratītyasamutpāda, Śūnyatā and Middle path are contained in the doctrinet of Buddha-nature.

Śūnyatā (Pāli: suññatā; Chinese: kong) or Emptiness, Voidness, etc., emerges from the Buddhist doctrines of the nonexistence or no-self (anātman). The concept of Emptiness is defined varyingly by the Buddhist traditions and scholars. There are two main tendencies of interpretation of Emptiness, i.e. nihilism and absolutism. Harsh Narayan attempts to prove that Emptiness is completely pure nihilism and negativism because it empties the existence up to the last consequences of negation. He says “In the face of such an almost unanimous verdict of tradition, it is difficult to see how the Nihilistic interpretation of śūnyavāda can be rejected as totally false”^[8] Conversely, other scholars hold that Emptiness is an absolute concept, absolute wisdom or absolute truth like Suchness (tathatā), the Buddha-nature, etc., which can create enlightenment.

T.R.V. Murti says,

“The Absolute is very often termed śūnya, as it is devoid of all predicates”.^[9]

Stcherbatsky goes further when he says that Nāgārjuna’s Śūnyatā is identical with Śankara’s Brahman.^[10] Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan thinks that an intellectual account of Nāgārjuna’s Śūnyatā will lead us to the theory of Ālayavijñāna.^[11] However, according to the above verses of Nāgārjuna in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Emptiness or Śūnyatā is itself middle path, and avoids all extremes of nihilism and absolutism.

The Middle path (majjhimā-paṭipadā) was originally recommended by the Buddha to avoid extremism as the way to enlightenment lying neither in exaggerated asceticism nor in selfindulgence.

This view of Middle path continued to develop in the Pāli literature itself into a general teaching of avoiding of any “two extremes” as in this quotation from the Saṃyutta Nikāya’s Kaccāyanagotta Sutta:^[12]

Everything exists:—This is one extreme. Nothing exists:-This is other extreme. Not approaching either extreme the Tathāgata teaches you a doctrine by the middle [way].^[13]

In Mādhyamaka, the Middle path is not only an avoiding of extremes, but also implies a non-dualistic principle of all extremes. This principle is presented in the following quotation from the Heart Sūtra (Prajñāpāramitā Hṛdaya):

O, Sariputra, form does not differ from voidness, and voidness does not differ from form. Form is voidness and voidness is form; the same is true for feeling, conception, volition and consciousness.^[14]

This message of Heart Sutra expounds the doctrine of Middle path which contains both phenomena (form) and principle (voidness). Voidness or Emptiness is not simply the nihilism of phenomena but the essence of all phenomena. Because phenomenal form is no-self, it is not different from voidness. They are themselves non-dualistic Middle path. So, Middle path should be conceived in a sense of non-duality, no-ego avoiding two extremes of empty nihilism and substantial absolutism.

In this way, the Mādhyamaka’s doctrines of Dependent arising, Emptiness and Middle path are included in the meanings of the Buddha-nature:

The Blessed One replied: No, Mahāmati, my Tathāgatagarbha is not the same as the ego taught by the philosophers; for what the Tathāgatas teach is the Tathāgatagarbha in the sense, Mahāmati, that it is emptiness, reality-limit, Nirvāṇa, being unborn, unqualified, and devoid of will-effort; the reason why the Tathagatas who are Arhats and Fully Enlightened Ones, teach the doctrine pointing to the Tathāgatagarbha is to make the ignorant cast aside their fear when they listen to the teaching of egolessness and to have them realize the state of non-discrimination and imagelessness. I also wish, Mahāmati, that the BodhisattvaMahasattvas of the present and future would not attach themselves to the idea of an ego [imagining it to be a soul].^[15]

It is because of the ultimate of no-self is real and essential, so the Buddha-nature is sometimes called “true self”, which is non-dualistic and avoids all concepts of an ego or a self within the five skandhas. In the phenomenal approach of Śūnyatā, because the phenomenal world is running in the law of Dependent arising, it is unreal and empty. However, the doctrine of the empty nature of phenomena can cause the ignorant people a panic and a losing faith on the fruit of enlightenment; so the Buddha-nature doctrine is a perfect complement to Śūnyatā. Thus, the Buddha-nature thought not only does not conflict with the doctrines of Mādhyamaka, but also completes them with positive significances.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Aṅguttaranikāya.K. Warder, Indian Buddhism, p. 338.

[2]:

Kewal Krishan Mittal (ed.), Śūnyavāda–The Mādhyamika Thought, p. 150.

[3]:

Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices, p. 95.

[4]:

David J. Kalupahana, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nāgārjuna, p. 339.

[5]:

Ibid.

[6]:

Hajime Nakamura, “The Middle Way and the Emptiness View,” Journal of Buddhist Philosophy, ed. Richard Saṃyuttanikāya. Y. Chinese, (Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University, 1984) 1:81.

[7]:

“The Mahāvagga,” Vinaya Texts, tr. Taisho Tripiṭaka (CBETA 2011).W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, p. 74.

[8]:

Harsh Narayan, “Śūnyavāda: Aṅguttaranikāya Reinterpretation,” Philosophy: East and West, NovemberJanuary, 1964, p. 313.

[9]:

Taisho Tripiṭaka (CBETA 2011).R.V. Murti, Central Philosophy of Buddhism: Aṅguttaranikāya Study of Mādhyamika System, p. 228.

[10]:

Ibid., p. 229.

[11]:

Saṃyuttanikāya. Radhakrishnan, Indian Philosophy, Vol. I, p. 665.

[12]:

Sabbamatthī “ti kho..., ayameko anto. Sabbaṃ natthī “ti ayaṃ dutiyo anto....[U]bho ante anupagamma. Majjhena tathāgato dhammaṃ deseti. (Saṃyuttanikāya ii, 16)

[13]:

The Book of the Kindred Sayings (Saṃyutta Nikāya), tr. C.Aṅguttaranikāya.F. Rhys Davids, Vol. II, p. 13.

[14]:

The Prajna Paramita Heart Sutra, tr. Lok To, p. 71.

[15]:

Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, p. 69 (Laṅkāvatāra-Sūtra, p. 78).