Buddhism -Middle Doctrine School 中觀宗 also known later as the Three-Treatise School 三論宗

1. Buddhism -Middle Doctrine School 中觀宗also known later as the Three-Treatise School 三論宗

2. I. Background: The Buddha’s Life, basic teachings, and the Doctrine of the Middle 1. Three stages of the Buddha’s life — entirely worldly life, life of an ascetic, and middle way of no attachment. 2. The “Four Noble Truth” — the truth of suffering, of the cause of suffering, of the cessation of suffering—Nirvana, and of the eightfold path toward the cessation of suffering – no self and process metaphysics – the doctrine of karma 3. The doctrine of the middle of Nagarjuna 龍樹 (150-250) –śūnyatā, or "emptiness“ and dependent arising – Even "emptiness“ is empty – the use of reasoning to free from reasoning

3. II. Seng-Chao 僧肇 (384-414) 1. The immutability of things 《物不遷論》 • Motion is rest and rest is motion: “things in the past do not reach the present,” because “they exist at the time they exist (fixed)”. From this same observation, one can argue both that they have moved, and they do not move. (p. 346) • “Since [things] are not mutable, they are always at rest even though they have gone, and because they do not remain, they are always gone even though they are at rest.” 不遷故雖往而常静；不住故雖静而常往 (p. 348) • “What people call remaining, I call passing on, whereas what people call passing on, I call remaining” (p. 349) (a method of showing the opposite side) • “People who go against [the truth] will call [that situation] a barrier but those who follow [the truth] will call it a passage” 逆之所谓塞，顺之所谓通 (p. 346) Reflection: He seems to be proving motion is impossible (Parmenides and Zeno) and yet nothing is permanent (Heraclitus) at the same time. How is that possible?

4. Change (motion, mutation) entails: • Time/Permanence: duration, stability – X has to endure the duration of time in order to have motion and mutation, hence it is “permanent” during the duration. • Identity: Sameness. X has to have some identity that survives through the duration – the identity does not change. Change (coming into being and going out of existence 生滅) • Do these forms of change also entail time and identity?

5. 2. The Emptiness of the Unreal《不真空論》 • Things are neither absolutely existent nor absolutely non-existent, and they are both relatively existent and relatively non-existent. If the existence of things were absolute, it should not be contingent on causes to be existent. Because it is contingent, the existence [in this absolute or real sense] of things is not true. If the non-existence of things were absolute, it should not depend on causes to be non-existent. Because it is contingent (things do arise and disappear contingently), the non-existence [in the absolute or real sense] of things is not true. • The scripture (of Fang-kuang ching) and the “worldly truth” are both correct – the scripture tells the truth that in the absolute sense, things are not existent, whereas the worldly truth tells that in the relative sense things do exist. (p. 354) • The Chung Lun (Doctrine of the Middle) does not mean to wipe out all the myriad things, … but to be in accord with things as they are (p. 353) – To be “tong 通”. Reflection: Common conception of Buddhism – emptiness, nothingness. The theory offers a correction. (see p. 352) The sages “leaves the vacuous nature of things as it is and does not need to disintegrate it before he can penetrate [tong] it.” (p. 353)

6. Daily One-minute Paper 1. What is the big point you learned in class today? 2. What is the main, unanswered question you leave class with today? For the Chinese original of the texts by Seng-Chao, see http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=zh-TW&sl=zh-CN&u=http://zgwww.com/html/culture/philosophy/20070616/11521_2.html&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=6&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%25E5%2583%25A7%25E8%2582%2587%25E3%2580%258A%25E4%25B8%258D%25E7%259C%259F%25E7%25A9%25BA%25E8%25AE%25BA%25E3%2580%258B%26start%3D90%26complete%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DN