These essays are about Nagarjuna, the Madhyamika (Mulamadhyamakakarika) and the development of "the Middle Way" and "emptiness" in Zen Buddhism. Includes some relevant book reviews.Questions, broken links, suggestions, etc, please

The Zen Teachings of Nagarjuna My essay on the Madhyamika and Zen teachings. Nagarjuna is the 14th Patriarch of Zen but he is usually studied as a philosopher rather than a teacher. This may well be a mistake. Buddhist teaching can be just upaya and Nagarjuna clarified much that became the basis of Zen.

Neil Donner: Emptiness and the Institutional Suicide of Chinese Buddhism Donner argues that the Mahayana philosophy of emptiness (sunyata) was a self-destructing philosophy which led to the inevitable decline of Mahayana Buddhism in China. He presents an interesting case well-worth reading.



James L Fredericks: The Incomprehensibility of God: A Buddhist reading of Aquinas "I propose a rereading of the Thomistic doctrine of the incomprehensibility of God by means of a reading of Nagarjuna's The Stanzas on the Middle Path. This will entail a three-part structure. The first part is devoted to a analysis of selected texts from Thomas's Commentary on John, with the aim of clarifying some ambiguities attending his doctrine of divine incomprehensibility. The second part is given to an analysis of Nagarjuna's text. The aim here is to reach an understanding of this philosopher's approach to the seminal Buddhist notion of emptiness. The third part seeks to work a comparison of Thomas and Nagarjuna in which the familiar (Thomas) is reinterpreted with the unfamiliar (Nagarjuna)." from Theological Studies, Vol. 56, Iss. 3, Sept. 1995



Jay L Garfield Dependent Arising and the Emptiness of Emptiness: Why did Nagarjuna start with causation? Garfield argues that Nagarjuna's doctrine of the emptiness of causation is based on two possible views of dependent origination. He goes on to link emptiness and dependent origination and develops the emptiness of emptiness. Includes translation of Chapters 1, 2 and 24 of the Mulamadhyamikakarika. from Philosophy East & West; Apr94, Vol. 44 Issue 2, p219, 32p



Jay Garfield & Graham Priest Nagarjuna and the Limits of Thought In this lengthy essay Garfield and Priest explore the "paradox of Nagarjuna" in his critique of essence. Roaming through the tetralemma, two realities, ultimate truth, and no nature, the authors find "connections between ontological and semantic contradictions" and the "profound-limit contradiction" leads back to the conventional world. from Philosophy East & West, Vol 53, No.1, 2003



Richard P Hayes Nagarjuna: Master of Paradox, Mystic or Perpetrator of Fallacies? Is Nagarjuna really an important "masterful philosopher" or just a trickster? Hayes has "not ...developed a deep respect for his thought" nor does he regard him as a "masterful philosopher". A contrarian viewpoint on Nagarjuna. This paper was prepared to be read before the Philosophy Department at Smith College, 11 April 2003



Ming-Wood Liu :The Yogaacaaraa and Maadhyamika interpretation of the Buddha-nature concept in Chinese Buddhism Liu looks at the concept of Buddha-nature:“In examining and comparing the Buddha-nature teachings of Hui-yuan and Chi-tsang our present study attempts to show how the Buddha-nature concept has come to assume divergent significances when read in the context of the two main streams of thought in Mahaayaana Buddhism: Yogaacaara and Maadhyamika.” from: Philosophy East and West, Volume 35, no. 2, April 1985

A Chinese Madyamaka Theory of Truth: The case of Chi-tsang :"Chi-tsang was the key figure in the revival of Chinese Madhyamaka in the late sixth century, and his teaching is commonly acknowledged to be the apex of the development of Madhyamaka thought in China. This essay attempts to examine the conception of truth underlying a number of ideas generally considered as central to Chi-tsang's philosophy, including "refutation of falsehood", "revelation of truth", and "two truths". "from: Philosophy East and West, Volume 43, Number 4, October 1993



David R Loy: Language against its own mystifications: Deconstruction in Nagarjuna and Dogen Loy compares these two great thinkers because "Nagarjuna and Dogen ... point to many of the same Buddhist insights because they deconstruct the same type of dualities, most of which may be understood as versions of our commonsense but delusive distinction between substance and attribute, subject and predicate." He then goes on to look at the differences between the two. from Philosophy East and West 1999. Vol. 49, Iss. 3



Second Buddha : Nagarjuna—Buddhism's Greatest Philosopher David Loy provides a simple, clear explanation of the core of Nagarjuna's Buddhist philosophy. Recommended.



Ian Mabbett: The Problem of the Historical Nagarjuna Revisited Mabbett looks at the historical record to try to find the real Nagarjuna. Strictly for the academics. from The Journal of the American Oriental Society Vol.118 No.3 July 1998



