Nagarjuna's "middle way"

Dhr. Seven, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu (editors), Wisdom Quarterly Wikipedia edit

The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is Nāgārjuna's best known work.

It is "not only a grand commentary on the Buddha's discourse to Kaccayana,^[28] the only discourse cited by name, but also a detailed and careful analysis of most of the important discourses included in the Nikayas and the Agamas, especially those of the Atthakavagga of the Sutta Nipata.^[29]

Utilizing the Buddha's theory of dependent arising, Nagarjuna demonstrated the futility of...metaphysical speculations. His method of dealing with such metaphysics is referred to as "middle way" (madhyama pratipad). It is the middle way that avoided the substantialism of the Sarvastivadins as well as the nominalism of the Sautrantikas.^[30]

In the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, "all experienced phenomena are empty (sunya). This did not mean that they are not experienced and, therefore, non-existent, only that they are devoid of a permanent and eternal substance (svabhava) because, like a dream, they are mere projections of human consciousness. Since these imaginary fictions are experienced, they are not mere names (prajnapti)."^[30] More

• 28. See the Kaccayanagotta Sutta: "Discourse to Kaccayana Gotta" on Right View (SN 12.15) [at accesstoinsight.org], Archived 29 March 2013 at the Wayback Machine.
• 29. Kalupahana 1994, p. 161.
• 30. Kalupahana 1992, p. 120.