Filsafat China.pdf

CHI-TSANG
while the Consciousness-Only School, for instance, affirms dependent
existence as real, this school insists that it is unreal. Actually this school
denies both existence and nonexistence, for both are results of causation
and as such are regarded as empty. The theory of being is looked upon
as one extreme and that of non-being is looked upon as another. This
opposition must be synthesized but the synthesis itself is a new extreme
which has its own antithesis. At the end only the highest synthesis, the
True Middle, or Emptiness, is true. Hence the school was originally
known as Madhyamika or the Middle Doctrine School.
This is the inevitable outcome of the logical methods developed by the
school, namely, those of refutation and negation. To this school, refutation
of erroneous views is essential for and indeed identical with the elucidation
of right views. But when a right view is held in place of a wrong one,
the right view itself becomes one-sided and has to be refuted. It is only
through this dialectic process that Emptiness can be arrived at, which
alone is free from names and character and is "inexplicable in speech and
unrealizable in thought." The specific method in this dialectic process is
Nagarjuna's Middle Path of Eightfold Negations, which denies that
dharmas come into existence or go out of existence, that they are permanent
or come to an end, that they are the same or different, and that they
come or go away. The basis of all arguments is the so-called Four Points
of Argumentation. By the use of this method of argument, a dharma as
being, as non-being, as both being and non-being, and as neither being
nor non-being are all refuted and proved to be untrue. Chi-tsang illustrates
this method fully in his refutation of causation.
It is obvious that this approach is as nihilistic as it is destructive. The
school had little new substance to offer and nothing constructive. It is
true that Emptiness as the Absolute is as pure and perfect as anything
conceivable, but being devoid of specific characters and divorced from
mundane reality, it becomes too abstract for the Chinese. It might be
hoped that its novel and radical method of reasoning at least aroused the
Chinese mind and led to a new approach to life and reality, but it did not.
That opportunity was left to the Zen (Meditation, Ch'an) School.
The writings of Chi-tsang are extremely schematic in presentation and
highly summary in content, without thorough discussion or sustained
argumentation. They do, however, represent the essence of the doctrines
of this school. The following are from two of his most important works,
a selection from his Erh-ti chang (Treatise on the Two Levels of Truth),
a short essay in three parts, and several selections from his San-lun
hsüan-i (Profound Meaning of the Three Treatises), a longer work in
two parts.
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