Madhyamika and Dependent Origination

"Madhyamika" is a Sanskrit word meaning "one who holds to the middle". The notion of "The Middle Way" starts with the Buddha's portrayal of his Way to enlightenment as one that avoids the extremes of self-indulging in sensual pleasures, on the one hand, and absorbing one’s self in severe practices of self-mortification. This is the specific application. There is also a general meaning to the term “Middle Way”. This meaning comes from his teaching of dependent origination, also called dependent co-arising.

Dependent Origination (Pratītyasamutpāda) describes the existence of objects and phenomena as the result of causes. When one cause changes or disappears, the resulting object or phenomena will also change or disappear, as will the objects or phenomena depending on the changing object or phenomena. Thus, there is nothing with an eternal self or atman, only mutually dependent origination and existence.

But the absence of an eternal atman does not mean there is no-thing at all. Early Buddhism adheres to a realistic approach that does not deny existence as such, but denies the existence of eternal and independent substances. This has to do with the Third Noble Truth.

In the Samyutta Nikaya, the Buddha says,

With ignorance as condition, the kamma formations; with kamma formations as condition consciousness; with consciousness as condition, mentality-materiality; with mentality-materiality as condition the six-fold sense base; with the six-fold sense base as condition, contact; with contact as condition, feeling; with feeling as condition, craving; with craving as condition, clinging; with clinging as condition, existence; with existence as condition, birth; with birth as condition, aging-and-death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, grief, and despair arise. Such is the origination of this entire mass of suffering.

SN 12, passim

The standard formula of causality is put more succinctly

               When this, that is,

               From the arising of this, that arises.

               When this is not, that is not.

               From the ceasing of this, that ceases.

               Imasmim sati idam hoti

               Imass uppådå idam uppajjati

               Imasmim asati, idam na hoti. 

               Imassa nirodhå, idam nirujjhati.”

SN 12, 21.

When the Mahayana (Great Vehicle)  School refers to the Middle Way they are talking about the teachings of Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna is an interesting figure. He is said to have lived 800 years. Critical analysis of the writings attributed to him show that there were at least three individuals writing under that name during that period, but we love our myths and created the unusual longevity story to pacify that need.

Nagarjuna’s works appear at a time when the Mahayana teachings and school were falling into decline and facing total extinction. He is said to have written Six Treatises and four of them directly expound the doctrine of šuññata, or emptiness.

Emptiness refers to the “ultimate” nature of all things. If a person understands emptiness correctly that person is identified as being free from the extremes of existence and annihilation. Falling into the extreme of existence a person maintains the view that phenomena absolutely exists the way we experience it. Fall into the extreme of annihilation a person maintains the view that phenomena have no actual existence at all.

The emptiness hypothesis views phenomena existing only in a state of relativity. The term "dependent arising" describes how it is that something that is devoid of true existence can have any sort of existence at all. Existence is maintained only through causes and conditions, that is, only in relation to, or dependent on, something else that exists in exactly the same way. Phenomena are regarded as dependent, ephemeral events, and are devoid of their own innate nature. This realization avoids the extreme of permanence is avoided as well as the extreme of annihilation. These doctrines of emptiness and dependent arising are essential to all schools of Mahayana as well as the Theravada School.

In a nutshell, the teaching can be stated very simply as this:

No thing exists the way you think of it, but at the same time, no thing exists outside of the way you think of it.
  
The endgame of the Buddha’s teachings is to reject the basic human ignorance that traps us in Samsara, the cycle of birth, death and re-birth. Samsara literally means “the flowing through” or “the (perpetual) wandering”. Our fundamental ignorance is our own misunderstanding of emptiness. Definitions of emptiness are subject to which scriptures are held to be the word of the Buddha, either historical or cosmic. Within that perimeter it has to be determined which scriptures are definitive and which are interpretive.

The major split of Orthodoxy, Theravada, and Mahayana arises from the first distinction. Since all Madhyamika schools are within the domain of the Mahayana tradition they accept the same body of literature that includes the Pali Canon. Within such a enormous body of information, it is unavoidable there will be many declarations that seem to contradict other assertions.

The traditional explanation for this is that the Buddha taught to the level of understanding of his listeners. So it is said that at times he taught doctrines that were not “ultimately correct” but would eventually lead to a greater understanding by moving his audience along in the right direction. It is said that those not prepared to understand or accept emptiness should not be taught it, lest they develop adverse reactions and so more harm be done than good. Of course, the historical Buddha, as reported in the Pali Canon, completely debunks this idea. He said he taught nothing secret and always spoke openly in a way that his audience could understand. This is becoming more of a problem for many of the contemporary Mahayana schools whose literature is often seen as putting words into the Buddha’s mouth.

There is also a problem with calling the emptiness concept the “ultimate” reality. Ultimate compared to what?

A much more accurate way of thinking about the Madhyamika doctrine is that is a description of two experiences of reality; one is “transcendent” and the other “provisional”.  Our day-to- experience is based on provisional realities construction in our brain and interpreted through the mind. Madhyamika, Abhidhamma and the Buddha’s teaching of dependent origination, all describe a reality that transcends that provisional human experience. When we say provisional we mean things exists to us only when causes and conditions provide that experience. It is only through the “direct experience of emptiness” during meditation that the reality transcending causes and conditions may be experienced. In the final analysis, this is the goal of the Madhyamika teachings and the Buddha’s teachings on meditation.