Buddhist Teachings, B

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter Xiong continues to set out his views on the Emptiness (Madhyamaka) and Existence (Yogācāra) schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It opens with a discussion of the Existence school’s development of the doctrine of conditioned origination/arising and the role of seeds, followed by Xiong’s account of the five doctrinal deficiencies of the Existence school. He then discusses and critically assesses the Emptiness school’s three proofs for the doctrine of emptiness. This is followed by Xiong’s commentary on verse 18 of Nāgārjuna’s Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (Treatise on the Middle Way) and a discussion of a key passage from the same text. The focus on the Emptiness school continues with a discussion of three teachings of the doctrine of emptiness. The chapter concludes with a reiteration of Xiong’s non-duality of Reality and function thesis, followed by an evaluation of the Emptiness school’s and the Book of Change’s respective views on the myriad phenomena and human life.