Non-duality and Buddhism

  • Fire Sermon
  • Heart Sutra

Dependent Origination

  • Pratītyasamutpāda

Madhyamaka

  • The name Madhyamaka is a nod to the middle way of Buddhism
  • Centered around the writings of Nagarjuna (Mula-madhyamaka-karika (MMK) and Vigrahavyavartani (VV))
  • Tetralemma
  • Refutation of dependent arising
  • Two levels of truth
    • Everyday commonsense reality.
    • Ultimate truth (emptiness)
  • Humans perceive objects empirically. This arises due to ignorance. The seeming world doesn’t ultimately really exist.
  • The distinction is epistemological/experiential. Not inherent.
  • Emptiness of emptiness
    • The emptiness isn’t itself something that exists. It’s inherently empty of attributes and existence.

 he argues that one cannot say that a pot is single, for it has many characteristics, such as color, shape, hardness, odor and so forth. It also cannot be said that the pot is many pots, because none of the individual characteristics is a pot. It cannot be said that the pot is a single whole with many characteristics, because some of its components are material and therefore capable of contact and location, while others, such as color and odor, are immaterial and have no location; it makes no sense to say that characteristics that have contrary natures form a coherent whole. And yet to deny that a pot is either one or many is to deny that it exists at all, for an existent thing must have either a property or the absence of that property. 

Zen

Tibetan Buddhism

Buddhism mixes with Tibetan traditions and becomes Tibetan buddhism.

Dzogchen

Vajrayana

Sources