Transcript middleway

Agent
Qualification
Interaction
Figure 1

Mahayana Buddhism, of which
2nd century Indian philosopher
Nagarjuna is a chief actor,
offered a broader definition of
soullessness and declared that,
not only are persons devoid of ‘a
self’, but that all of the elements
comprising existence are also
without essence. They are
‘empty’, sunya, of the very
notion of ‘self-nature’.
Sign
Semiotic
Object
Interpretant
Figure 2
'John'
Noun
Sign
'Male, Young,
Athetic'
Adjective
Object
'Won the race'
Verb
Interpretant
Figure 3

An analogy from the history of Western physics
(Western) might help clarify the aparent
conflict between the ‘emptiness’ and
‘something’. Classical Newtonian physics saw
everything as comprised of irreducible atoms
with a determinable location and momentum.
Belief in the determinism made possible by
such a reified existence led French
mathematician Pierre de Laplace to declare
that, could he theoretically know the location
and momentum of every monad in the
universe, he could predict the exact future
history of the entire cosmos. Quantum physics
revolutionized this view by describing the
qualities of the monadic elements of existence
as being inherently unknowable (‘emptiness’,
or mere possible possibility as devoid of the
very idea of ‘self-nature’).

Further, the utter smallness of the
particles and the sheer distances
between them shows matter to be
little more than empty space and
existence ultimately nothing more
than interactions of abstract energy
fields. That the truest cosmological
quality of things is emptiness,
sunyata, came to be regarded as the
central notion of Buddhism.
'Fire'
'Hot'
'Burns'
Figure 4

Not only are things
‘empty’, the Mahayana
school declared, but the
very notion of
‘emptiness’ is itself
‘empty’ (sunyata).
Diatonic
Chromatic
(Range of
Qualifications)
Figure 5
Atonic

On the one hand, early Buddhism saw
‘emptiness’ as a lack of being but, on
the other, something remains which
cannot be negated. These statements
will not make sense in Buddhist terms
unless reconciled with the Buddha's
absolute rejection of an ultimate
ground of reality. The meaning of the
paradox, according to the Perfection
of Wisdom writings, is that
‘emptiness’ is both and neither being
and non-being, both and neither
negation and affirmation . ‘Emptiness’
is not really a thing any more than a
thing is really ‘empty’, for reality
cannot be pinned down in concepts.
'God'
'Shakespeare'
Universal Existent;
Universal Non-Existent
All Possible
Qualifieres;
No Possible
Qualifiers
Universal
Becoming;
Universal
Non-Becoming
Figure 6

This paradoxical, non-conceptual use of the
notion of ‘emptiness’ is reflected in the fact
that certain of the Perfection of Wisdom
writings used the notion without ever
mentioning the term. The Diamond Sutra,
for example, taught that the notion of
‘emptiness’ was to be used like a hard
diamond to ‘cut away all unnecessary
conceptualization’, including the idea of
‘emptines’s itself. The discourse
accomplished this by presenting a series of
paradoxes that demonstrated ‘emptiness’
without using the word.


For example, the Buddha is made to
say:
"As many beings as there are in the
universe of beings, ...all these I must
lead to nirvana, into that realm of
nirvana which leaves nothing behind.
And yet, although innumerable beings
have thus been led to nirvana, no
being at all has been led to nirvana."
'It'
Universal Noun
Universal
Qualifier
Becoming
Non-Existent;
Non-Permanence
Figure 7

The actual use of the term ‘emptiness’ (sunyata)
was likely avoided in the Diamond Sutra
because, even though the paradoxes were half
affirmative and half negatory,
• the potential for misunderstanding and seeing
only the negative side of the equation was
great.
• Equally dangerous was the possibility of
clinging to the notion of ‘emptiness’ as yet
another, albeit apophatic, theory.
• These were dangers the Buddha was quite
aware of. He said that, following his death,
‘the monks will no longer wish to hear and
learn [my teachings], deep, deep in meaning,
...dealing with the void (sunyata), but will
only lend their ear to profane [teachings],
made by poets, poetical, adorned with
beautiful words and syllables’.

Nagarjuna’s ‘Tetralemma’, the standard for
Mahayana Buddhism, is comprised of four
propositional formulations expressed
positively or negatively. Where x is any
proposition and –x is its negation, a positive
tetralemma takes the form of:

X!
-X!

Both X and –X!

Neither X nor –X!

 The self is real (conventionally true, i.e.,
it exists in a dependent reality along with
everything else we derive from
experience)
 The self is not real (ultimately true, i.e.,
it has no essence)
 The self is both real and not real
(conventionally real but ultimately unreal)
 The self is neither real nor not




Conventionally ‘real’ (= word, concept,
perspective  interpretation).
Nonconventionally ‘real’ (= neither a word
nor a concept nor a perspective nor an
interpretation).
Conventionally ‘real’ (= either what is or
what is not, in whichever case: a sense of
permanence).
Nonconventionally ‘real’ (= both what is
and what is not and neither what is nor
what is not, in whichever case:
impermanence).
+
0
O
-

Figure 8
+
0
O
-
Figure 9
 ( 0      ‘contemplation’,
‘musement’, ‘openness’)

It is like the difference
between ‘Game’ and ‘Play’

Game (either winners or losers).
• Winner (+), loser (-).

Play (neither winners nor losers).
•+
•–
• Both + and –
• Neither + nor –

‘IT’
• Is ‘this’ (+)
• Is ‘that’ (not-’this’) (–)
• Is possibly both ‘this’ and ‘that’ (both +
and –)
• Is neither ‘this’ nor ‘that’ but something
else (neither + nor –, but:  ( 0    ) )


But: ‘There is no inconsistency,
no cause for disagreement and
nothing to discuss’ (Nagarjuna)
And: ‘Openness wrongly
conceived destroys the dimlywitted. It is like a snake grasped
by the head or a garbled
incantation’ (Nagarjuna)

Hence it is possibly an
impossible task to
describe a changing
reality in words because
they inevitably make it
appear fixed and
unchanging.

To ask ‘What is it?’ or ‘How does
it change?’ To describe the
domain of becoming in
essentialist language leads to
contradiction and
incommensurability. To describe
becoming in nonessentialist
language leads to paradox.

Any description of
becoming taken literally is
incoherent, but can be
loosely described as an
open-ended process.

The open-ended process is
Nagarjuna’s ‘middle way’, or in a
manner of speaking, it is the
‘mediating third’ way in Peirce’s
triadicity, that is, if we take the ‘0’ in
+
0
into consideration.
O

-
