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178-840: Since the 4th century CE onwards, Mādhyamaka philosophy had a major influence on the subsequent development of the Mahāyāna Buddhist tradition, especially following the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia . It is the dominant interpretation of Buddhist philosophy in Tibetan Buddhism and has also been influential in East Asian Buddhist thought. According to the classical Indian Mādhyamika thinkers, all phenomena ( dharmas ) are empty ( śūnya ) of "nature", of any "substance" or "essence" ( svabhāva ) which could give them "solid and independent existence", because they are dependently co-arisen . But this "emptiness" itself

356-428: A self causes suffering. Nonetheless, his critics called him a nihilist who teaches the annihilation and extermination of an existing being. The Buddha's response was that he only teaches the cessation of suffering. When an individual has given up craving and the conceit of 'I am' their mind is liberated, they no longer come into any state of ' being ' and are no longer born again. The Aggi-Vacchagotta Sutta records

534-497: A 'decentralization' of authorship, the accumulation of positive knowledge, historical progress, and certain ideals and practices of humanism and the Enlightenment . Jacques Derrida , whose deconstruction is perhaps most commonly labeled nihilistic, did not himself make the nihilistic move that others have claimed. Derridean deconstructionists argue that this approach rather frees texts, individuals or organizations from

712-514: A Buddha's pure land or buddha field ( buddhakṣetra ), where they can strive towards Buddhahood in the best possible conditions. Depending on the sect, liberation into a buddha-field can be obtained by faith , meditation, or sometimes even by the repetition of Buddha's name . Faith-based devotional practices focused on rebirth in pure lands are common in East Asia Pure Land Buddhism . The influential Mahāyāna concept of

890-544: A Buddha. This wish to help others by entering the Mahāyāna path is called bodhicitta and someone who engages in this path to complete buddhahood is a bodhisattva . High level bodhisattvas (with eons of practice) are seen as extremely powerful supramundane beings. They are objects of devotion and prayer throughout the Mahāyāna world. Popular bodhisattvas which are revered across Mahāyāna include Avalokiteshvara , Manjushri , Tara and Maitreya . Bodhisattvas could reach

1068-464: A Buddhist transcendental absolute , other scholars (such as David Kalupahana ) consider this claim a mistake, since then emptiness teachings could not be characterized as a middle way. Madhyamaka thinkers also argue that since things have the nature of lacking true existence or own being ( niḥsvabhāva ), all things are mere conceptual constructs ( prajñaptimatra ) because they are just impermanent collections of causes and conditions. This also applies to

1246-433: A Mahāyāna bodhisattva is best defined as: that being who has taken the vow to be reborn, no matter how many times this may be necessary, in order to attain the highest possible goal, that of Complete and Perfect Buddhahood. This is for the benefit of all sentient beings. Nihilism In philosophy , nihilism ( / ˈ n aɪ ( h ) ɪ l ɪ z əm , ˈ n iː -/ ; from Latin nihil  'nothing')

1424-456: A broad group of Buddhist traditions, texts , philosophies , and practices developed in ancient India ( c.  1st century BCE onwards). It is considered one of the three main existing branches of Buddhism, the others being Theravāda and Vajrayāna . Mahāyāna accepts the main scriptures and teachings of early Buddhism but also recognizes various doctrines and texts that are not accepted by Theravada Buddhism as original. These include

1602-718: A chronology for the Shaiva tantric literature and argues that both traditions developed side by side, drawing on each other as well as on local Indian tribal religion. Whatever the case, this new tantric form of Mahāyāna Buddhism became extremely influential in India, especially in Kashmir and in the lands of the Pala Empire . It eventually also spread north into Central Asia , the Tibetan plateau and to East Asia. Vajrayāna remains

1780-546: A conventional everyday sense, madhyamaka does accept that one can speak of "things", and yet ultimately these things are empty of inherent existence. Furthermore, "emptiness" itself is also "empty": it does not have an existence on its own, nor does it refer to a transcendental reality beyond or above phenomenal reality. Svabhāva' s cognitive aspect is merely a superimposition ( samāropa ) that beings make when they perceive and conceive of things. In this sense then, emptiness does not exist as some kind of primordial reality, but it

1958-511: A conversation between the Buddha and an individual named Vaccha that further elaborates on this. In the sutta, Vaccha asks the Buddha to confirm one of the following, with respect to the existence of the Buddha after death: To all four questions, the Buddha answers that the terms "reappears somewhere else," "does not reappear," "both does and does not reappear," and "neither does nor does not reappear," do not apply. When Vaccha expresses puzzlement,

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2136-407: A conversation with his teacher Ajahn Chah , comments that he is "Determined above all things to fully realize Nirvana in this lifetime...deeply weary of the human condition and...[is] determined not to be born again." To this, Ajahn Chah replies: "What about the rest of us, Sumedho? Don't you care about those who'll be left behind?" Ajahn Amaro comments that Ajahn Chah could detect that his student had

2314-485: A denial of truth, but as a denial of our ability to know truth. That is to say, it makes an epistemological claim, compared to nihilism's ontological claim. Lyotard argues that, rather than relying on an objective truth or method to prove their claims, philosophers legitimize their truths by reference to a story about the world that can not be separated from the age and system the stories belong to—referred to by Lyotard as meta-narratives . He then goes on to define

2492-412: A disproportion between what we want to value (or need) and how the world appears to operate." When we find out that the world does not possess the objective value or meaning that we want it to have or have long since believed it to have, we find ourselves in a crisis. Nietzsche asserts that with the decline of Christianity and the rise of physiological decadence , nihilism is in fact characteristic of

2670-457: A foundation: Therefore we assert that mundane objects are known through the four kinds of authoritative cognition. They are mutually dependent: when there is authoritative cognition, there are objects of knowledge; when there are objects of knowledge, there is authoritative cognition. But neither authoritative cognition nor objects of knowledge exist inherently. To the charge that if Nāgārjuna's arguments and words are also empty they therefore lack

2848-520: A minority among Buddhist communities in Nepal , Malaysia , Indonesia and regions with Asian diaspora communities. As of 2010, the Mahāyāna tradition was the largest major tradition of Buddhism , with 53% of Buddhists belonging to East Asian Mahāyāna and 6% to Vajrayāna , compared to 36% to Theravada . According to Jan Nattier , the term Mahāyāna ("Great Vehicle") was originally an honorary synonym for Bodhisattvayāna (" Bodhisattva Vehicle"),

3026-401: A minority in India, Indian Mahāyāna was an intellectually vibrant movement, which developed various schools of thought during what Jan Westerhoff has been called "The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy" (from the beginning of the first millennium CE up to the 7th century). Some major Mahāyāna traditions are Prajñāpāramitā , Mādhyamaka , Yogācāra , Buddha-nature ( Tathāgatagarbha ), and

3204-404: A morality that is strong or healthy, meaning that the person in question is aware that he constructs it himself, from weak morality, where the interpretation is projected on to something external. Nietzsche discusses Christianity, one of the major topics in his work, at length in the context of the problem of nihilism in his notebooks, in a chapter entitled "European Nihilism." Here he states that

3382-415: A negation of religious principles. Nihilism has, however, been widely ascribed to both religious and irreligious viewpoints. In popular use, the term commonly refers to forms of existential nihilism , according to which life is without intrinsic value , meaning , or purpose. Other prominent positions within nihilism include the rejection of all normative and ethical views ( § Moral nihilism ),

3560-485: A new sect or order. A few of these texts often emphasize ascetic practices, forest dwelling, and deep states of meditative concentration ( samadhi ). Indian Mahāyāna never had nor ever attempted to have a separate Vinaya or ordination lineage from the early schools of Buddhism, and therefore each bhikṣu or bhikṣuṇī adhering to the Mahāyāna formally belonged to one of the early Buddhist schools. Membership in these nikāyas , or monastic orders, continues today, with

3738-509: A nihilistic aversion to life rather than true detachment. The term nihilism was first introduced to philosophy by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819), who used the term to characterize rationalism , and in particular Spinoza's determinism and the Aufklärung , in order to carry out a reductio ad absurdum according to which all rationalism (philosophy as criticism) reduces to nihilism—and thus it should be avoided and replaced with

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3916-429: A number of loosely connected book worshiping groups of monastics, who studied, memorized, copied and revered particular Mahāyāna sūtras. Schopen thinks they were inspired by cult shrines where Mahāyāna sutras were kept. Schopen also argued that these groups mostly rejected stupa worship, or worshiping holy relics. David Drewes has recently argued against all of the major theories outlined above. He points out that there

4094-532: A particularly important place for the study of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Mahāyāna spread from China to Korea , Vietnam , and Taiwan , which (along with Korea) would later spread it to Japan . Mahāyāna also spread from India to Myanmar , and then Sumatra and Malaysia . Mahāyāna spread from Sumatra to other Indonesian islands , including Java and Borneo , the Philippines , Cambodia , and eventually, Indonesian Mahāyāna traditions made it to China. By

4272-491: A practical tool used to teach others, but do not exist within the actual meditative equipoise that realizes the ultimate. As Candrakirti says: "the noble ones who have accomplished what is to be accomplished do not see anything that is delusive or not delusive". From within the experience of the enlightened ones there is only one reality which appears non-conceptually, as Nāgārjuna says in the Sixty stanzas on reasoning: "that nirvana

4450-405: A pure land, and enthusiastically recommends the cult of the book, yet seems to know nothing of emptiness theory, the ten bhumis , or the trikaya , while another (the P'u-sa pen-yeh ching ) propounds the ten bhumis and focuses exclusively on the path of the bodhisattva, but never discusses the paramitas . A Madhyamika treatise ( Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamika-karikas ) may enthusiastically deploy

4628-422: A restrictive truth, and that deconstruction opens up the possibility of other ways of being. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak , for example, uses deconstruction to create an ethics of opening up Western scholarship to the voice of the subaltern and to philosophies outside of the canon of western texts. Derrida himself built a philosophy based upon a 'responsibility to the other'. Deconstruction can thus be seen not as

4806-529: A result of royal courts sponsoring both Buddhism and Saivism . Sanderson argues that Vajrayāna works like the Samvara and Guhyasamaja texts show direct borrowing from Shaiva tantric literature . However, other scholars such as Ronald M. Davidson question the idea that Indian tantrism developed in Shaivism first and that it was then adopted into Buddhism. Davidson points to the difficulties of establishing

4984-415: A return to some type of faith and revelation . Bret W. Davis writes, for example: The first philosophical development of the idea of nihilism is generally ascribed to Friedrich Jacobi, who in a famous letter criticized Fichte 's idealism as falling into nihilism. According to Jacobi, Fichte's absolutization of the ego (the 'absolute I' that posits the 'not-I') is an inflation of subjectivity that denies

5162-470: A significant turning point in the development of a Mahāyāna tradition. The earliest Mahāyāna texts, such as the Lotus Sūtra , often use the term Mahāyāna as a synonym for Bodhisattvayāna , but the term Hīnayāna is comparatively rare in the earliest sources. The presumed dichotomy between Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna can be deceptive, as the two terms were not actually formed in relation to one another in

5340-462: A single unified movement, but scattered groups based on different practices and sutras. One reason for this view is that Mahāyāna sources are extremely diverse, advocating many different, often conflicting doctrines and positions, as Jan Nattier writes: Thus we find one scripture (the Aksobhya -vyuha ) that advocates both srávaka and bodhisattva practices, propounds the possibility of rebirth in

5518-484: A sort of tension in madhyamaka literature, since it has use some concepts to convey its teachings. For madhyamaka, the realization of emptiness is not just a satisfactory theory about the world, but a key understanding which allows one to reach liberation or nirvana . As Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā ("Root Verses on the Middle Way") puts it: With the cessation of ignorance, formations will not arise. Moreover,

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5696-474: A specific school or sect, Mahāyāna is a "family term" or a religious tendency, which is united by "a vision of the ultimate goal of attaining full Buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings (the 'bodhisattva ideal') and also (or eventually) a belief that Buddhas are still around and can be contacted (hence the possibility of an ongoing revelation)." Buddhas and bodhisattvas (beings on their way to Buddhahood) are central elements of Mahāyāna. Mahāyāna has

5874-584: A vastly expanded cosmology and theology , with various Buddhas and powerful bodhisattvas residing in different worlds and buddha-fields ( buddha kshetra ). Buddhas unique to Mahāyāna include the Buddhas Amitābha ("Infinite Light"), Akṣobhya ("the Imperturbable"), Bhaiṣajyaguru ("Medicine guru") and Vairocana ("the Illuminator"). In Mahāyāna, a Buddha is seen as a being that has achieved

6052-424: Is nihilism or annihilationism (ucchedavada) – encompassing views that could lead one to believe that there is no need to be responsible for one's actions – such as the idea that one is annihilated at death or that nothing has causal effects – but also the view that absolutely nothing exists. In madhyamaka, reason and debate are understood as a means to an end (liberation), and therefore they must be founded on

6230-445: Is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation upon which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure. He states that there is at least the possibility of another type of nihilist in the wake of Christianity's self-dissolution, one that does not stop after the destruction of all value and meaning and succumb to the following nothingness. This alternate, 'active' nihilism on

6408-591: Is a calque of maha (great 大 ) yana (vehicle 乘 ). There is also the transliteration 摩诃衍那 . The term appeared in some of the earliest Mahāyāna texts, including Emperor Ling of Han 's translation of the Lotus Sutra. It also appears in the Chinese Āgamas , though scholars like Yin Shun argue that this is a later addition. Some Chinese scholars also argue that the meaning of the term in these earlier texts

6586-529: Is a complex concept that has ontological and cognitive aspects. The ontological aspects include svabhāva as essence , as a property which makes an object what it is, as well as svabhāva as substance , meaning, as the madhyamaka thinker Candrakīrti defines it, something that does "not depend on anything else". It is substance- svabhāva , the objective and independent existence of any object or concept, which madhyamaka arguments mostly focus on refuting. A common structure which madhyamaka uses to negate svabhāva

6764-450: Is abstraction conquering individuality. Kierkegaard, an advocate of a philosophy of life , generally argued against levelling and its nihilistic consequences, although he believed it would be "genuinely educative to live in the age of levelling [because] people will be forced to face the judgement of [levelling] alone." George Cotkin asserts Kierkegaard was against "the standardization and levelling of belief, both spiritual and political, in

6942-434: Is also "empty": it does not have an existence on its own, nor does it refer to a transcendental reality beyond or above phenomenal reality. Madhya is a Sanskrit word meaning "middle". It is cognate with Latin med-iu-s and English mid . The -ma suffix is a superlative, giving madhyama the meaning of "mid-most" or "medium". The -ka suffix is used to form adjectives, thus madhyamaka means "middling". The -ika suffix

7120-472: Is also nothing to be negated." Therefore, it is only from the perspective of those who cling to the existence of things that it seems as if something is being negated. In truth, madhyamaka is not annihilating something, merely elucidating that this so-called existence never existed in the first place. Thus, madhyamaka uses language to make clear the limits of our concepts. Ultimately, reality cannot be depicted by concepts. According to Jay Garfield , this creates

7298-487: Is always by someone of some thing: it is always bound by perspective, and it is never mere fact. Rather, there are interpretations through which we understand the world and give it meaning. Interpreting is something we can not go without; in fact, it is a condition of subjectivity. One way of interpreting the world is through morality, as one of the fundamental ways that people make sense of the world, especially in regard to their own thoughts and actions. Nietzsche distinguishes

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7476-468: Is an infinite regress . Then, the first one is not established, nor are the middle ones, nor the last. If these [valid cognitions] are established even without valid cognition, what you say is ruined. In that case, there is an inconsistency, And you ought to provide an argument for this distinction. Candrakirti comments on this statement by stating that madhyamaka does not completely deny the use of pramanas conventionally, and yet ultimately they do not have

7654-403: Is any viewpoint, or a family of views, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, namely knowledge , morality , or meaning . There have been different nihilist positions, including that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some other highly regarded concepts are in fact meaningless or pointless. The term

7832-439: Is dependent for its existence and nature on something else which has own-nature. Furthermore, if there is neither own-nature nor other-nature, there cannot be anything with a true, substantial existent nature ( bhava ). If there is no true existent, then there can be no non-existent ( abhava ). An important element of madhyamaka refutation is that the classical Buddhist doctrine of dependent arising (the idea that every phenomena

8010-508: Is dependent on other phenomena) cannot be reconciled with "a conception of self-nature or substance" and that therefore essence theories are contrary not only to the Buddhist scriptures but to the very ideas of causality and change. Any enduring essential nature would prevent any causal interaction, or any kind of origination. For things would simply always have been, and will always continue to be, without any change. As Nāgārjuna writes in

8188-404: Is different from later ideas of Mahāyāna Buddhism. The origins of Mahāyāna are still not completely understood and there are numerous competing theories. The earliest Western views of Mahāyāna assumed that it existed as a separate school in competition with the so-called " Hīnayāna " schools. Some of the major theories about the origins of Mahāyāna include the following: The lay origins theory

8366-404: Is different—in some sense diametrically opposed—to the usual definition (as outlined in the rest of this article). Nihilism is one of the main topics of Deleuze's early book Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962). There, Deleuze repeatedly interprets Nietzsche's nihilism as "the enterprise of denying life and depreciating existence". Nihilism thus defined is therefore not the denial of higher values, or

8544-420: Is disagreement among scholars regarding this issue as well on the general relationship between Buddhism and Theism. The idea that Buddhas remain accessible is extremely influential in Mahāyāna and also allows for the possibility of having a reciprocal relationship with a Buddha through prayer, visions, devotion and revelations. Through the use of various practices, a Mahāyāna devotee can aspire to be reborn in

8722-416: Is finished, today it is the precession of the neutral, of forms of the neutral and of indifference ... all that remains, is the fascination for desertlike and indifferent forms, for the very operation of the system that annihilates us. Now, fascination (in contrast to seduction, which was attached to appearances, and to dialectical reason, which was attached to meaning) is a nihilistic passion par excellence, it

8900-464: Is indeed the correct term for this stance, and some question whether Nietzsche takes the problems nihilism poses seriously enough. Martin Heidegger 's interpretation of Nietzsche influenced many postmodern thinkers who investigated the problem of nihilism as put forward by Nietzsche. Only recently has Heidegger's influence on Nietzschean nihilism research faded. As early as the 1930s, Heidegger

9078-438: Is its undoing: in its drive towards truth, Christianity eventually finds itself to be a construct, which leads to its own dissolution. It is therefore that Nietzsche states that we have outgrown Christianity "not because we lived too far from it, rather because we lived too close." As such, the self-dissolution of Christianity constitutes yet another form of nihilism. Because Christianity was an interpretation that posited itself as

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9256-436: Is like the stillness of death, where one can hear one's own heartbeat, a stillness like death, into which nothing can penetrate, in which everything sinks, powerless. One person can head a rebellion, but one person cannot head this levelling process, for that would make him a leader and he would avoid being levelled. Each individual can in his little circle participate in this levelling, but it is an abstract process, and levelling

9434-673: Is mostly dominated by various branches of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Paul Williams has noted that in this tradition in the Far East, primacy has always been given to the study of the Mahāyāna sūtras. Beginning during the Gupta (c. 3rd century CE–575 CE) period a new movement began to develop which drew on previous Mahāyāna doctrine as well as new Pan-Indian tantric ideas. This came to be known by various names such as Vajrayāna (Tibetan: rdo rje theg pa ), Mantrayāna, and Esoteric Buddhism or "Secret Mantra" ( Guhyamantra ). This new movement continued into

9612-477: Is no God, everything is permitted' , or ' après moi, le déluge ' , provides a principle whose sincerity they try to live out to the end. They search for and experiment with ways for the self to justify itself after God has disappeared." Nihilism is often associated with the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , who provided a detailed diagnosis of nihilism as a widespread phenomenon of Western culture. Though

9790-507: Is no actual evidence for the existence of book shrines, that the practice of sutra veneration was pan-Buddhist and not distinctly Mahāyāna. Furthermore, Drewes argues that "Mahāyāna sutras advocate mnemic/oral/aural practices more frequently than they do written ones." Regarding the forest hypothesis, he points out that only a few Mahāyāna sutras directly advocate forest dwelling, while the others either do not mention it or see it as unhelpful, promoting easier practices such as "merely listening to

9968-511: Is not a thing you can find, but rather a state where you experience the reality of non-grasping. In the Alagaddupama Sutta , the Buddha describes how some individuals feared his teaching because they believe that their self would be destroyed if they followed it. He describes this as an anxiety caused by the false belief in an unchanging, everlasting self . All things are subject to change and taking any impermanent phenomena to be

10146-480: Is not an ontological reality with substantial or independent existence. Hence, the two truths are not two metaphysical realities; instead, according to Karl Brunnholzl, "the two realities refer to just what is experienced by two different types of beings with different types and scopes of perception". As Candrakirti says: It is through the perfect and the false seeing of all entities That the entities that are thus found bear two natures. The object of perfect seeing

10324-443: Is obscured by the darkness of delusion conceive of an essence of things and then generate attachment and hostility with regard to them". According to Hayes, the two truths may also refer to two different goals in life: the highest goal of nirvana, and the lower goal of "commercial good". The highest goal is the liberation from attachment, both material and intellectual. According to Paul Williams, Nāgārjuna associates emptiness with

10502-528: Is privileged over the other to speak to ultimate truth. Postmodern theorist Jean Baudrillard wrote briefly of nihilism from the postmodern viewpoint in Simulacra and Simulation . He stuck mainly to topics of interpretations of the real world over the simulations of which the real world is composed. The uses of meaning were an important subject in Baudrillard's discussion of nihilism: The apocalypse

10680-461: Is said to be empty, empty even of "emptiness" itself, both the concept of "emptiness" and the very framework of the two truths are also mere conventional realities, not part of the ultimate. This is often called "the emptiness of emptiness" and refers to the fact that even though madhyamikas speak of emptiness as the ultimate unconditioned nature of things, this emptiness is itself empty of any real existence. The two truths themselves are therefore just

10858-501: Is seen as being the superior spiritual path by Mahāyānists, over and above the paths of those who seek arhatship or "solitary buddhahood" for their own sake ( Śrāvakayāna and Pratyekabuddhayāna ). Mahāyāna Buddhists generally hold that pursuing only the personal release from suffering i.e. nirvāṇa is a smaller or inferior aspiration (called " hinayana "), because it lacks the wish and resolve to liberate all other sentient beings from saṃsāra (the round of rebirth ) by becoming

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11036-412: Is simply a corrective to a mistaken conception of how things exist. This idea of svabhāva that madhyamaka denies is then not just a conceptual philosophical theory, but it is a cognitive distortion that beings automatically impose on the world, such as when we regard the five aggregates as constituting a single self . Candrakirti compares it to someone who suffers from vitreous floaters that cause

11214-560: Is sometimes used in association with anomie to explain the general mood of despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence or arbitrariness of human principles and social institutions . Nihilism has also been described as conspicuous in or constitutive of certain historical periods . For example, Jean Baudrillard and others have characterized postmodernity as a nihilistic epoch or mode of thought. Likewise, some theologians and religious figures have stated that postmodernity and many aspects of modernity represent nihilism by

11392-412: Is that philosophy, and more specifically metaphysics , has forgotten to discriminate between investigating the notion of a being ( seiende ) and Being ( Sein ). According to Heidegger, the history of Western thought can be seen as the history of metaphysics. Moreover, because metaphysics has forgotten to ask about the notion of Being (what Heidegger calls Seinsvergessenheit ), it is a history about

11570-432: Is the catuṣkoṭi ("four corners" or tetralemma ), which roughly consists of four alternatives: a proposition is true; a proposition is false; a proposition is both true and false; a proposition is neither true nor false. Some of the major topics discussed by classical madhyamaka include causality , change, and personal identity . Madhyamaka's denial of svabhāva does not mean a nihilistic denial of all things, for in

11748-782: Is the Latin root word nihil , meaning 'nothing', which is similarly found in the related terms annihilate , meaning 'to bring to nothing', and nihility , meaning ' nothingness '. The term nihilism emerged in several places in Europe during the 18th century, notably in the German form Nihilismus , though was also in use during the Middle Ages to denote certain forms of heresy . The concept itself first took shape within Russian and German philosophy , which respectively represented

11926-490: Is the limited truth – saṃvṛti satya, which means "to cover", "to conceal", or "obscure". (and thus it is a kind of ignorance) Saṃvṛti is also said to mean "conventional", as in a customary , norm based, agreed upon truth (like linguistic conventions) and it is also glossed as vyavahāra-satya (transactional truth). Finally, Chandrakirti also has a third explanation of saṃvṛti, which is "mutual dependence" ( parasparasaṃbhavana ). This seeming reality does not really exist as

12104-524: Is the passion proper to the mode of disappearance. We are fascinated by all forms of disappearance, of our disappearance. Melancholic and fascinated, such is our general situation in an era of involuntary transparency. From the 19th century, nihilism has encompassed a range of positions within various fields of philosophy. Each of these, as the Encyclopædia Britannica states, "denied the existence of genuine moral truths or values, rejected

12282-455: Is the sole reality, is what the Victors have declared." Bhāvaviveka's Madhyamakahrdayakārikā describes the ultimate truth through a negation of all four possibilities of the catuskoti : Its character is neither existent, nor nonexistent, / Nor both existent and nonexistent, nor neither. / Centrists should know true reality / That is free from these four possibilities. Atisha describes

12460-520: Is true reality, And false seeing is seeming reality. This means that the distinction between the two truths is primarily epistemological and dependent on the cognition of the observer, not ontological . As Shantideva writes, there are "two kinds of world", "the one of yogins and the one of common people". The seeming reality is the world of samsara because conceiving of concrete and unchanging objects leads to clinging and suffering. As Buddhapalita states: "unskilled persons whose eye of intelligence

12638-465: Is used to form possessives, with a collective sense, thus mādhyamika mean "belonging to the mid-most" (the -ika suffix regularly causes a lengthening of the first vowel and elision of the final -a ). In a Buddhist context, these terms refer to the "middle path" ( madhyama pratipada ), which refers to right view ( samyagdṛṣṭi ) which steers clear of the metaphysical extremes of annihilationism ( ucchedavāda ) and eternalism ( śasvatavāda ). For example,

12816-423: Is what Nietzsche calls passive nihilism , which he recognizes in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer . Schopenhauer's doctrine, which Nietzsche also refers to as Western Buddhism , advocates separating oneself from will and desires in order to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterizes this attitude as a "will to nothingness ", whereby life turns away from itself, as there is nothing of value to be found in

12994-557: The rabble or common masses. Later interpretations of nihilism were heavily influenced by works of anti-nihilistic literature , such as those of Fyodor Dostoevsky , which arose in response to Russian nihilism. "In contrast to the corrupted nihilists [of the real world], who tried to numb their nihilistic sensitivity and forget themselves through self-indulgence, Dostoevsky's figures voluntarily leap into nihilism and try to be themselves within its boundaries.", writes contemporary scholar Nishitani . "The nihility expressed in 'if there

13172-622: The Dharmaguptaka nikāya being used in East Asia, and the Mūlasarvāstivāda nikāya being used in Tibetan Buddhism . Therefore, Mahāyāna was never a separate monastic sect outside of the early schools. Paul Harrison clarifies that while monastic Mahāyānists belonged to a nikāya, not all members of a nikāya were Mahāyānists. From Chinese monks visiting India, we now know that both Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna monks in India often lived in

13350-483: The Dharmaguptaka ). Because of such evidence, scholars like Paul Harrison and Paul Williams argue that the movement was not sectarian and was possibly pan-buddhist. There is no evidence that Mahāyāna ever referred to a separate formal school or sect of Buddhism, but rather that it existed as a certain set of ideals, and later doctrines, for aspiring bodhisattvas. The "forest hypothesis" meanwhile states that Mahāyāna arose mainly among "hard-core ascetics , members of

13528-664: The East Asian Madhymaka (by Kumārajīva ) and East Asian Yogacara (especially by Xuanzang ). Later, new developments in Chinese Mahāyāna led to new Chinese Buddhist traditions like Tiantai , Huayen , Pure Land and Chan Buddhism ( Zen ). These traditions would then spread to Korea , Vietnam and Japan . Forms of Mahāyāna Buddhism which are mainly based on the doctrines of Indian Mahāyāna sutras are still popular in East Asian Buddhism , which

13706-660: The Madhyamaka theory of emptiness ( śūnyatā ), the Vijñānavāda ("the doctrine of consciousness" also called "mind-only"), and the Buddha-nature teaching. While initially a small movement in India, Mahāyāna eventually grew to become an influential force in Indian Buddhism . Large scholastic centers associated with Mahāyāna such as Nalanda and Vikramashila thrived between the 7th and 12th centuries. In

13884-509: The Mahāsāṃghika tradition. This is defended by scholars such as Hendrik Kern , A.K. Warder and Paul Williams who argue that at least some Mahāyāna elements developed among Mahāsāṃghika communities (from the 1st century BCE onwards), possibly in the area along the Kṛṣṇa River in the Āndhra region of southern India. The Mahāsāṃghika doctrine of the supramundane ( lokottara ) nature of

14062-459: The Mahāyāna sūtras and their emphasis on the bodhisattva path and Prajñāpāramitā . Vajrayāna or Mantra traditions are a subset of Mahāyāna which makes use of numerous tantric methods Vajrayānists consider to help achieve Buddhahood . Mahāyāna also refers to the path of the bodhisattva striving to become a fully awakened Buddha for the benefit of all sentient beings, and is thus also called

14240-702: The Pala era (8th century–12th century CE), during which it grew to dominate Indian Buddhism. Possibly led by groups of wandering tantric yogis named mahasiddhas , this movement developed new tantric spiritual practices and also promoted new texts called the Buddhist Tantras . Philosophically, Vajrayāna Buddhist thought remained grounded in the Mahāyāna Buddhist ideas of Madhyamaka, Yogacara and Buddha-nature. Tantric Buddhism generally deals with new forms of meditation and ritual which often makes use of

14418-771: The earlier Buddhist texts . Broadly speaking, Mahāyāna Buddhists accept the classic Buddhist doctrines found in early Buddhism (i.e. the Nikāya and Āgamas ), such as the Middle Way , Dependent origination , the Four Noble Truths , the Noble Eightfold Path , the Three Jewels , the Three marks of existence and the bodhipakṣadharmas (aids to awakening). Mahāyāna Buddhism further accepts some of

14596-405: The interpretation, Nietzsche states that this dissolution leads beyond skepticism to a distrust of all meaning. Stanley Rosen identifies Nietzsche's concept of nihilism with a situation of meaninglessness, in which "everything is permitted." According to him, the loss of higher metaphysical values that exist in contrast to the base reality of the world, or merely human ideas, gives rise to

14774-458: The postmodern condition as characterized by a rejection both of these meta-narratives and of the process of legitimation by meta-narratives. This concept of the instability of truth and meaning leads in the direction of nihilism, though Lyotard stops short of embracing the latter. In lieu of meta-narratives we have created new language-games in order to legitimize our claims which rely on changing relationships and mutable truths, none of which

14952-569: The progressives and traditionalists that came before them, as well as its manifestation in the view that negation and value-destruction were most necessary to the present conditions. The movement very soon adopted the name, despite the novel's initial harsh reception among both the conservatives and younger generation. Though philosophically both nihilistic and skeptical, Russian nihilism did not unilaterally negate ethics and knowledge as may be assumed, nor did it espouse meaninglessness unequivocally. Even so, contemporary scholarship has challenged

15130-547: The school of Dignaga and Dharmakirti as the last and most recent. Major early figures include Nagarjuna , Āryadeva , Aśvaghoṣa , Asanga , Vasubandhu , and Dignaga . Mahāyāna Buddhists seem to have been active in the Kushan Empire (30–375 CE), a period that saw great missionary and literary activities by Buddhists. This is supported by the works of the historian Taranatha . The Mahāyāna movement (or movements) remained quite small until it experienced much growth in

15308-430: The two extremes that madhyamaka steers clear from. The first is essentialism or eternalism (sastavadava) – a belief that things inherently or substantially exist and are therefore efficacious objects of craving and clinging ; Nagarjuna argues that we naively and innately perceive things as substantial, and it is this predisposition which is the root delusion that lies at the basis of all suffering. The second extreme

15486-428: The ultimate truth but his conception of emptiness is not some kind of Absolute , but rather it is the very absence of true existence with regards to the conventional reality of things and events in the world. Because the ultimate is itself empty, it is also explained as a "transcendence of deception" and hence is a kind of apophatic truth which experiences the lack of substance. Because the nature of ultimate reality

15664-469: The "Bodhisattva Vehicle" ( Bodhisattvayāna ). Mahāyāna Buddhism generally sees the goal of becoming a Buddha through the bodhisattva path as being available to all and sees the state of the arhat as incomplete. Mahāyāna also includes numerous Buddhas and bodhisattvas that are not found in Theravada (such as Amitābha and Vairocana ). Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy also promotes unique theories, such as

15842-559: The 1960s, a Nietzschean 'renaissance' began, culminating in the work of Mazzino Montinari and Giorgio Colli . They began work on a new and complete edition of Nietzsche's collected works, making Nietzsche more accessible for scholarly research. Vattimo explains that with this new edition of Colli and Montinari, a critical reception of Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche began to take shape. Like other contemporary French and Italian philosophers, Vattimo does not want, or only partially wants, to rely on Heidegger for understanding Nietzsche. On

16020-424: The Buddha and Nirvana by stating that a "Person who has attained the goal [nirvana] is thus indescribable because [they have] abandoned all things by which [they] could be described." The Suttas themselves describe the liberated mind as 'untraceable' or as 'consciousness without feature', making no distinction between the mind of a liberated being that is alive and the mind of one that is no longer alive. Despite

16198-409: The Buddha asks Vaccha a counter question to the effect of: if a fire were to go out and someone were to ask you whether the fire went north, south, east or west, how would you reply? Vaccha replies that the question does not apply and that an extinguished fire can only be classified as 'out'. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu elaborates on the classification problem around the words 'reappear,' etc. with respect to

16376-649: The Buddha is sometimes seen as a precursor to Mahāyāna views of the Buddha. Some scholars also see Mahāyāna figures like Nāgārjuna , Dignaga , Candrakīrti , Āryadeva , and Bhavaviveka as having ties to the Mahāsāṃghika tradition of Āndhra. However, other scholars have also pointed to different regions as being important, such as Gandhara and northwest India. The Mahāsāṃghika origins theory has also slowly been shown to be problematic by scholarship that revealed how certain Mahāyāna sutras show traces of having developed among other nikāyas or monastic orders (such as

16554-476: The Buddha was alive, some of which were viewed by him to be morally nihilistic. In the "Doctrine of Nihilism" in the Apannaka Sutta , the Buddha describes moral nihilists as holding the following views: The Buddha further states that those who hold these views will fail to see the virtue in good mental, verbal, and bodily conduct and the corresponding dangers in misconduct, and will therefore tend towards

16732-467: The Buddha's explanations to the contrary, Buddhist practitioners may, at times, still approach Buddhism in a nihilistic manner. Ajahn Amaro illustrates this by retelling the story of a Buddhist monk, Ajahn Sumedho , who in his early years took a nihilistic approach to Nirvana. A distinct feature of Nirvana in Buddhism is that an individual attaining it is no longer subject to rebirth. Ajahn Sumedho, during

16910-498: The Buddhism practiced in China , Indonesia , Vietnam , Korea , Tibet , Mongolia and Japan is Mahāyāna Buddhism. Mahāyāna can be described as a loosely bound collection of many teachings and practices (some of which are seemingly contradictory). Mahāyāna constitutes an inclusive and broad set of traditions characterized by plurality and the adoption of a vast number of new sutras , ideas and philosophical treatises in addition to

17088-732: The Buddhist teachings, the name madhyamaka refers to a school of Mahayana philosophy associated with Nāgārjuna and his commentators. The term mādhyamika refers to adherents of the madhyamaka school. Note that in both words the stress is on the first syllable. [REDACTED] Religion portal Central to madhyamaka philosophy is śūnyatā , "emptiness", and this refers to the central idea that dharmas are empty of svabhāva . This term has been translated variously as essence, intrinsic nature, inherent existence, own being and substance. Furthermore, according to Richard P. Hayes, svabhāva can be interpreted as either "identity" or as "causal independence". Likewise, Westerhoff notes that svabhāva

17266-528: The Christian moral doctrine provides people with intrinsic value , belief in God (which justifies the evil in the world) and a basis for objective knowledge . In this sense, in constructing a world where objective knowledge is possible, Christianity is an antidote against a primal form of nihilism, against the despair of meaninglessness. However, it is exactly the element of truthfulness in Christian doctrine that

17444-502: The History of Being (1944–46), Heidegger tries to understand Nietzsche's nihilism as trying to achieve a victory through the devaluation of the, until then, highest values. The principle of this devaluation is, according to Heidegger, the will to power . The will to power is also the principle of every earlier valuation of values. How does this devaluation occur and why is this nihilistic? One of Heidegger's main critiques on philosophy

17622-749: The MMK: We state that conditioned origination is emptiness. It is mere designation depending on something, and it is the middle path. (24.18) Since nothing has arisen without depending on something, there is nothing that is not empty. (24.19) Beginning with Nāgārjuna , madhyamaka discerns two levels of truth , conventional truth (everyday commonsense reality) and ultimate truth ( emptiness ). Ultimately, madhyamaka argues that all phenomena are empty of svabhava and only exist in dependence on other causes, conditions and concepts. Conventionally, madhyamaka holds that beings do perceive concrete objects which they are aware of empirically. In madhyamaka this phenomenal world

17800-618: The Mahāyāna." Evidence of the name "Mahāyāna" in Indian inscriptions in the period before the 5th century is very limited in comparison to the multiplicity of Mahāyāna writings transmitted from Central Asia to China at that time. Based on archeological evidence, Gregory Schopen argues that Indian Mahāyāna remained "an extremely limited minority movement – if it remained at all – that attracted absolutely no documented public or popular support for at least two more centuries." Likewise, Joseph Walser speaks of Mahāyāna's "virtual invisibility in

17978-455: The Russian nihilist movement can be traced back to 1855 and perhaps earlier, where it was principally a philosophy of extreme moral and epistemological skepticism . However, it was not until 1862 that the name nihilism was first popularized, when Ivan Turgenev used the term in his celebrated novel Fathers and Sons to describe the disillusionment of the younger generation towards both

18156-484: The Sanskrit Kātyāyanaḥsūtra states that though the world "relies on a duality of existence and non-existence", the Buddha teaches a correct view which understands that: Arising in the world, Kātyayana, seen and correctly understood just as it is, shows there is no non-existence in the world. Cessation in the world, Kātyayana, seen and correctly understood just as it is, shows there is no permanent existence in

18334-458: The absolute transcendence of God. A related but oppositional concept is fideism , which sees reason as hostile and inferior to faith. Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) posited an early form of nihilism, which he referred to as leveling . He saw leveling as the process of suppressing individuality to a point where an individual's uniqueness becomes non-existent and nothing meaningful in one's existence can be affirmed: Levelling at its maximum

18512-404: The archaeological record until the fifth century". Schopen also sees this movement as being in tension with other Buddhists, "struggling for recognition and acceptance". Their "embattled mentality" may have led to certain elements found in Mahāyāna texts like Lotus sutra , such as a concern with preserving texts. Schopen, Harrison and Nattier also argue that these communities were probably not

18690-524: The beginning of the common era . Jan Nattier has noted that some of the earliest Mahāyāna texts, such as the Ugraparipṛccha Sūtra use the term "Mahāyāna", yet there is no doctrinal difference between Mahāyāna in this context and the early schools . Instead, Nattier writes that in the earliest sources, "Mahāyāna" referred to the rigorous emulation of Gautama Buddha 's path to Buddhahood. Some important evidence for early Mahāyāna Buddhism comes from

18868-407: The cessation of ignorance occurs through right understanding. Through the cessation of this and that, this and that will not come about. The entire mass of suffering thereby completely ceases. Mahayana Mahāyāna ( / ˌ m ɑː h ə ˈ j ɑː n ə / MAH -hə- YAH -nə ; Sanskrit : महायान , pronounced [mɐɦaːˈjaːnɐ] , lit.   ' Great Vehicle ' ) is a term for

19046-475: The charge of nihilism in his Lucid Words : Therefore, emptiness is taught in order to completely pacify all discursiveness without exception. So if the purpose of emptiness is the complete peace of all discursiveness and you just increase the web of discursiveness by thinking that the meaning of emptiness is nonexistence, you do not realize the purpose of emptiness [at all]. This although some scholars (e.g., Murti) interpret emptiness as described by Nāgārjuna as

19224-666: The course of its history, Mahāyāna Buddhism spread from South Asia to East Asia , Southeast Asia and the Himalayan regions . Various Mahāyāna traditions are the predominant forms of Buddhism found in China , Korea , Japan , Taiwan , Singapore , Vietnam , Philippines , and Malaysia . Since Vajrayāna is a tantric form of Mahāyāna, Mahāyāna Buddhism is also dominant in Tibet , Mongolia , Bhutan , and other Himalayan regions. It has also been traditionally present elsewhere in Asia as

19402-425: The denial of meaning, but rather the depreciation of life in the name of such higher values or meaning. Deleuze therefore (with, he claims, Nietzsche) says that Christianity and Platonism , and with them the whole of metaphysics, are intrinsically Nihilist. Postmodern and poststructuralist thought has questioned the very grounds on which Western cultures have based their 'truths': absolute knowledge and meaning,

19580-461: The destruction of Being. That is why Heidegger calls metaphysics nihilistic. This makes Nietzsche's metaphysics not a victory over nihilism, but a perfection of it. Heidegger, in his interpretation of Nietzsche, has been inspired by Ernst Jünger . Many references to Jünger can be found in Heidegger's lectures on Nietzsche. For example, in a letter to the rector of Freiburg University of November 4, 1945, Heidegger, inspired by Jünger, tries to explain

19758-746: The dominant form of Buddhism in Tibet , in surrounding regions like Bhutan and in Mongolia . Esoteric elements are also an important part of East Asian Buddhism where it is referred to by various terms. These include: Zhēnyán ( Chinese : 真言, literally "true word", referring to mantra), Mìjiao (Chinese: 密教; Esoteric Teaching), Mìzōng (密宗; "Esoteric Tradition") or Tángmì (唐密; "Tang (Dynasty) Esoterica") in Chinese and Shingon , Tomitsu, Mikkyo , and Taimitsu in Japanese. Few things can be said with certainty about Mahāyāna Buddhism in general other than that

19936-546: The equating of Russian nihilism with mere skepticism, instead identifying it as a fundamentally Promethean movement. As passionate advocates of negation, the nihilists sought to liberate the Promethean might of the Russian people which they saw embodied in a class of prototypal individuals, or new types in their own words. These individuals, according to Pisarev, in freeing themselves from all authority become exempt from moral authority as well, and are distinguished above

20114-479: The era, for which it was often wrongly characterized as a form of political terrorism . Russian nihilism centered on the dissolution of existing values and ideals, incorporating theories of hard determinism , atheism , materialism , positivism , and rational egoism , while rejecting metaphysics , sentimentalism , and aestheticism . Leading philosophers of this school of thought included Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Dmitry Pisarev . The intellectual origins of

20292-415: The fifth century . Very few manuscripts have been found before the fifth century (the exceptions are from Bamiyan ). According to Walser, "the fifth and sixth centuries appear to have been a watershed for the production of Mahāyāna manuscripts." Likewise it is only in the 4th and 5th centuries CE that epigraphic evidence shows some kind of popular support for Mahāyāna, including some possible royal support at

20470-447: The fifth century, Mahāyāna Buddhism and its institutions slowly grew in influence. Some of the most influential institutions became massive monastic university complexes such as Nalanda (established by the 5th-century CE Gupta emperor, Kumaragupta I ) and Vikramashila (established under Dharmapala c. 783 to 820) which were centers of various branches of scholarship, including Mahāyāna philosophy. The Nalanda complex eventually became

20648-647: The forest dwelling ( aranyavasin ) wing of the Buddhist Order", who were attempting to imitate the Buddha's forest living. This has been defended by Paul Harrison, Jan Nattier and Reginald Ray . This theory is based on certain sutras like the Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra and the Mahāyāna Rāṣṭrapālapaṛiprcchā which promote ascetic practice in the wilderness as a superior and elite path. These texts criticize monks who live in cities and denigrate

20826-599: The forest life. Jan Nattier's study of the Ugraparipṛcchā Sūtra, A few good men (2003) argues that this sutra represents the earliest form of Mahāyāna, which presents the bodhisattva path as a 'supremely difficult enterprise' of elite monastic forest asceticism. Boucher's study on the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā-sūtra (2008) is another recent work on this subject. The cult of the book theory , defended by Gregory Schopen , states that Mahāyāna arose among

21004-459: The fourth century, Chinese monks like Faxian (c. 337–422 CE) had also begun to travel to India (now dominated by the Guptas ) to bring back Buddhist teachings, especially Mahāyāna works. These figures also wrote about their experiences in India and their work remains invaluable for understanding Indian Buddhism. In some cases Indian Mahāyāna traditions were directly transplanted, as with the case of

21182-454: The highest kind of awakening due to his superior compassion and wish to help all beings. An important feature of Mahāyāna is the way that it understands the nature of a Buddha, which differs from non-Mahāyāna understandings. Mahāyāna texts not only often depict numerous Buddhas besides Sakyamuni , but see them as transcendental or supramundane ( lokuttara ) beings with great powers and huge lifetimes. The White Lotus Sutra famously describes

21360-498: The highest truth realized by wisdom which is paramartha satya ( parama is literally "supreme or ultimate", and artha means "object, purpose, or actuality"), and yet it has a kind of conventional reality which has its uses for reaching liberation. This limited truth includes everything, including the Buddha himself, the teachings ( dharma ), liberation and even Nāgārjuna's own arguments. This two truth schema which did not deny

21538-555: The idea stems largely from the Nietzschean 'crisis of nihilism', from which derive the two central concepts: the destruction of higher values and the opposition to the affirmation of life . Definitions by philosophers such as Crosby (1998) and Deleuze (1962) focus on extreme critiques of nihilism like those asserted by Nietzsche. Earlier forms of nihilism, however, may be more selective in negating specific hegemonies of social, moral, political and aesthetic thought. The term

21716-531: The idea that all human ideas are therefore valueless. Rejecting idealism thus results in nihilism, because only similarly transcendent ideals live up to the previous standards that the nihilist still implicitly holds. The inability for Christianity to serve as a source of valuating the world is reflected in Nietzsche's famous aphorism of the madman in The Gay Science . The death of God, in particular

21894-487: The ideas found in Buddhist Abhidharma thought. However, Mahāyāna also adds numerous Mahāyāna texts and doctrines, which are seen as definitive and in some cases superior teachings. D.T. Suzuki described the broad range and doctrinal liberality of Mahāyāna as "a vast ocean where all kinds of living beings are allowed to thrive in a most generous manner, almost verging on a chaos". Paul Williams refers to

22072-403: The illusion of hairs appearing in their visual field. This cognitive dimension of svabhāva means that just understanding and assenting to madhyamaka reasoning is not enough to end the suffering caused by our reification of the world, just like understanding how an optical illusion works does not make it stop functioning. What is required is a kind of cognitive shift (termed realization ) in

22250-517: The importance of dharmabhanakas (preachers, reciters of these sutras) in the early Mahāyāna sutras. This figure is widely praised as someone who should be respected, obeyed ('as a slave serves his lord'), and donated to, and it is thus possible these people were the primary agents of the Mahāyāna movement. Early Mahayana came directly from " early Buddhist schools " and was a successor to them. The earliest textual evidence of "Mahāyāna" comes from sūtras ("discourses", scriptures) originating around

22428-417: The importance of convention allowed Nāgārjuna to defend himself against charges of nihilism ; understanding both correctly meant seeing the middle way : "Without relying upon convention, the ultimate fruit is not taught. Without understanding the ultimate, nirvana is not attained." The limited, perceived reality is an experiential reality or a nominal reality which beings impute on the ultimate reality. It

22606-573: The kingdom of Shan shan as well as in Bamiyan and Mathura . Still, even after the 5th century, the epigraphic evidence which uses the term Mahāyāna is still quite small and is notably mainly monastic, not lay. By this time, Chinese pilgrims, such as Faxian (337–422 CE), Xuanzang (602–664), Yijing (635–713 CE) were traveling to India, and their writings do describe monasteries which they label 'Mahāyāna' as well as monasteries where both Mahāyāna monks and non-Mahāyāna monks lived together. After

22784-565: The largest and most influential Buddhist center in India for centuries. Even so, as noted by Paul Williams, "it seems that fewer than 50 percent of the monks encountered by Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang; c. 600–664) on his visit to India actually were Mahāyānists." Over time Indian Mahāyāna texts and philosophy reached Central Asia and China through trade routes like the Silk Road , later spreading throughout East Asia . Over time, Central Asian Buddhism became heavily influenced by Mahāyāna and it

22962-500: The latter. The culmination of the path that the Buddha taught was nirvana , "a place of nothingness ... nonpossession and... non-attachment ...[which is] the total end of death and decay." Ajahn Amaro , an ordained Buddhist monk of more than 40 years, observes that in English nothingness can sound like nihilism. However, the word could be emphasized in a different way, so that it becomes no-thingness , indicating that nirvana

23140-517: The levelling process are stronger for it, and that it represents a step in the right direction towards "becoming a true self." As we must overcome levelling, Hubert Dreyfus and Jane Rubin argue that Kierkegaard's interest, "in an increasingly nihilistic age, is in how we can recover the sense that our lives are meaningful." From the period 1860–1917, Russian nihilism was both a nascent form of nihilist philosophy and broad cultural movement which overlapped with certain revolutionary tendencies of

23318-502: The lifespan of the Buddha as immeasurable and states that he actually achieved Buddhahood countless of eons ( kalpas ) ago and has been teaching the Dharma through his numerous avatars for an unimaginable period of time. Furthermore, Buddhas are active in the world, constantly devising ways to teach and help all sentient beings. According to Paul Williams, in Mahāyāna, a Buddha is often seen as "a spiritual king, relating to and caring for

23496-417: The madhyamaka philosophy is nihilistic . This claim has been challenged by others who argue that it is a Middle Way ( madhyamāpratipad ) between nihilism and eternalism. Madhyamaka philosophers themselves explicitly rejected the nihilist interpretation from the outset: Nāgārjuna writes: "through explaining true reality as it is, the seeming samvrti does not become disrupted." Candrakirti also responds to

23674-475: The main impulse behind Mahāyāna as the vision which sees the motivation to achieve Buddhahood for sake of other beings as being the supreme religious motivation. This is the way that Atisha defines Mahāyāna in his Bodhipathapradipa . As such, according to Williams, "Mahāyāna is not as such an institutional identity. Rather, it is inner motivation and vision, and this inner vision can be found in anyone regardless of their institutional position." Thus, instead of

23852-529: The middle of 1880 ( KSA 9.127-128). This was the time of a then popular scientific work that reconstructed the so-called "Russian nihilism" on the basis of Russian newspaper reports on nihilistic incidents (N. Karlowitsch: Die Entwicklung des Nihilismus. Berlin 1880). This collection of material, published in three editions, was not only known to a broad German readership, but its influence on Nietzsche can also be proven. Karen L. Carr describes Nietzsche's characterization of nihilism as "a condition of tension, as

24030-594: The modern age, though he implies that the rise of nihilism is still incomplete and that it has yet to be overcome. Though the problem of nihilism becomes especially explicit in Nietzsche's notebooks (published posthumously), it is mentioned repeatedly in his published works and is closely connected to many of the problems mentioned there. Nietzsche characterized nihilism as emptying the world and especially human existence of meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. This observation stems in part from Nietzsche's perspectivism , or his notion that "knowledge"

24208-665: The modern trends of value-destruction expressed in the ' death of God ', as well as what he saw as the life-denying morality of Christianity . Under Nietzsche's profound influence, the term was then further treated within French philosophy and continental philosophy more broadly, while the influence of nihilism in Russia arguably continued well into the Soviet era . Religious scholars such as Altizer have stated that nihilism must necessarily be understood in relation to religion, and that

24386-481: The nineteenth century," and that Kierkegaard "opposed tendencies in mass culture to reduce the individual to a cipher of conformity and deference to the dominant opinion." In his day, tabloids (like the Danish magazine Corsaren ) and apostate Christianity were instruments of levelling and contributed to the "reflective apathetic age" of 19th-century Europe. Kierkegaard argues that individuals who can overcome

24564-434: The notion appears frequently throughout Nietzsche's work, he uses the term in a variety of ways, with different meanings and connotations. With regard to Nietzsche's development of thought, it has been noted in research that although he dealt with "nihilistic" themes from 1869 onwards ("pessimism, with nirvana and with nothingness and non-being" ), a conceptual use of nihilism occurred for the first time in handwritten notes in

24742-568: The notion of " God is dead " as the "reality of the Will to Power." Heidegger also praises Jünger for defending Nietzsche against a too biological or anthropological reading during the Nazi era . Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche influenced a number of important postmodernist thinkers. Gianni Vattimo points at a back-and-forth movement in European thought, between Nietzsche and Heidegger. During

24920-402: The other hand destroys to level the field for constructing something new. This form of nihilism is characterized by Nietzsche as "a sign of strength," a willful destruction of the old values to wipe the slate clean and lay down one's own beliefs and interpretations, contrary to the passive nihilism that resigns itself with the decomposition of the old values. This willful destruction of values and

25098-538: The other hand, Vattimo judges Heidegger's intentions authentic enough to keep pursuing them. Philosophers who Vattimo exemplifies as a part of this back and forth movement are French philosophers Deleuze , Foucault and Derrida . Italian philosophers of this same movement are Cacciari , Severino and himself. Jürgen Habermas , Jean-François Lyotard and Richard Rorty are also philosophers who are influenced by Heidegger's interpretation of Nietzsche. Gilles Deleuze 's interpretation of Nietzsche's concept of nihilism

25276-419: The overcoming of the condition of nihilism by the constructing of new meaning, this active nihilism, could be related to what Nietzsche elsewhere calls a free spirit or the Übermensch from Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Antichrist , the model of the strong individual who posits his own values and lives his life as if it were his own work of art. It may be questioned, though, whether "active nihilism"

25454-405: The pathos of 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos – at the same time, as pathos, an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists. Nietzsche's relation to the problem of nihilism is a complex one. He approaches the problem of nihilism as deeply personal, stating that this predicament of the modern world is a problem that has "become conscious" in him. According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism

25632-553: The period surrounding the French Revolution , the term was also a pejorative for certain value-destructive trends of modernity , namely the negation of Christianity and European tradition in general. Nihilism first entered philosophical study within a discourse surrounding Kantian and post-Kantian philosophies, notably appearing in the writings of Swiss esotericist Jacob Hermann Obereit in 1787 and German philosopher Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in 1799. As early as 1824,

25810-464: The personal nirvana of the arhats , but they reject this goal and remain in saṃsāra to help others out of compassion. According to eighth-century Mahāyāna philosopher Haribhadra , the term "bodhisattva" can technically refer to those who follow any of the three vehicles, since all are working towards bodhi (awakening) and hence the technical term for a Mahāyāna bodhisattva is a mahāsattva (great being) bodhisattva . According to Paul Williams,

25988-426: The possibility of knowledge or communication, and asserted the ultimate meaninglessness or purposelessness of life or of the universe". The term Dada was first used by Richard Huelsenbeck and Tristan Tzara in 1916. The movement, which lasted from approximately 1916 to 1923, arose during World War I, an event that influenced the artists. The Dada Movement began in the old town of Zürich, Switzerland —known as

26166-424: The power to refute anything, Nāgārjuna responds that: My words are without nature. Therefore, my thesis is not ruined. Since there is no inconsistency, I do not have to state an argument for a distinction. Nāgārjuna goes on: Just as one magical creation may be annihilated by another magical creation, and one illusory person by another person produced by an illusionist, this negation is the same. Shantideva makes

26344-488: The present time, negation is the most useful of all". Despite Turgenev's own anti-nihilistic leanings, many of his readers likewise took up the name of nihilist , thus ascribing the Russian nihilist movement its name. Nihilism was further discussed by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche , who used the term to describe the Western world 's disintegration of traditional morality. For Nietzsche, nihilism applied to both

26522-493: The principle of causality itself, since everything is dependently originated. Therefore, in madhyamaka, phenomena appear to arise and cease, but in an ultimate sense they do not arise or remain as inherently existent phenomena. This tenet is held to show that views of absolute or eternalist existence (such as the Hindu ideas of Brahman or sat-dravya ) and nihilism are both equally untenable. These two views are considered to be

26700-453: The rejection of all social and political institutions ( § Political nihilism ), the stance that no knowledge can or does exist ( § Epistemological nihilism ), and a number of metaphysical positions, which assert that non-abstract objects do not exist ( § Metaphysical nihilism ), that composite objects do not exist ( § Mereological nihilism ), or even that life itself does not exist. The etymological origin of nihilism

26878-429: The rhetoric of emptiness without ever mentioning the bodhisattva path, while a Yogacara treatise ( Vasubandhu's Madhyanta-vibhaga-bhasya ) may delve into the particulars of the trikaya doctrine while eschewing the doctrine of ekayana . We must be prepared, in other words, to encounter a multiplicity of Mahayanas flourishing even in India, not to mention those that developed in East Asia and Tibet. In spite of being

27056-509: The same era. Among the earliest and most important references to Mahāyāna are those that occur in the Lotus Sūtra (Skt. Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra ) dating between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE. Seishi Karashima has suggested that the term first used in an earlier Gandhāri Prakrit version of the Lotus Sūtra was not the term mahāyāna but the Prakrit word mahājāna in

27234-468: The same monasteries side by side. It is also possible that, formally, Mahāyāna would have been understood as a group of monks or nuns within a larger monastery taking a vow together (known as a " kriyākarma ") to memorize and study a Mahāyāna text or texts. The earliest stone inscription containing a recognizably Mahāyāna formulation and a mention of the Buddha Amitābha (an important Mahāyāna figure)

27412-583: The same point: "thus, when one's son dies in a dream, the conception "he does not exist" removes the thought that he does exist, but it is also delusive". In other words, madhyamaka thinkers accept that their arguments, just like all things, are not ultimately valid in some foundational sense. But one is still able to use the opponent's own reasoning apparatus in the conventional field to refute their theories and help them see their errors. This remedial deconstruction does not replace false theories of existence with other ones, but simply dissolves all views, including

27590-500: The sense of mahājñāna (great knowing). At a later stage when the early Prakrit word was converted into Sanskrit, this mahājāna , being phonetically ambivalent, may have been converted into mahāyāna , possibly because of what may have been a double meaning in the famous Parable of the Burning House , which talks of three vehicles or carts (Skt: yāna ). In Chinese , Mahāyāna is called 大乘 ( dàshèng, or dàchéng ), which

27768-406: The statement that "we killed him", is similar to the self -dissolution of Christian doctrine: due to the advances of the sciences, which for Nietzsche show that man is the product of evolution , that Earth has no special place among the stars and that history is not progressive , the Christian notion of God can no longer serve as a basis for a morality. One such reaction to the loss of meaning

27946-570: The study of core elements of its character requires fundamentally theological consideration. The concept of nihilism was discussed by the Buddha (563 BC to 483 BC), as recorded in the Theravada and Mahayana Tripiṭaka . The Tripiṭaka , originally written in Pali , refers to nihilism as natthikavāda and the nihilist view as micchādiṭṭhi . Various sutras within it describe a multiplicity of views held by different sects of ascetics while

28124-628: The sutra, or thinking of particular Buddhas, that they claim can enable one to be reborn in special, luxurious ' pure lands ' where one will be able to make easy and rapid progress on the bodhisattva path and attain Buddhahood after as little as one lifetime." Drewes states that the evidence merely shows that "Mahāyāna was primarily a textual movement, focused on the revelation, preaching, and dissemination of Mahāyāna sutras , that developed within, and never really departed from, traditional Buddhist social and institutional structures." Drewes points out

28302-420: The term began to take on a social connotation with German journalist Joseph von Görres attributing it to a negation of existing social and political institutions. The Russian form of the word, nigilizm ( Russian : нигилизм ), entered publication in 1829 when Nikolai Nadezhdin used it synonymously with skepticism . In Russian journalism the word continued to have significant social connotations. From

28480-459: The texts translated by the Indoscythian monk Lokakṣema in the 2nd century CE, who came to China from the kingdom of Gandhāra . These are some of the earliest known Mahāyāna texts. Study of these texts by Paul Harrison and others show that they strongly promote monasticism (contra the lay origin theory), acknowledge the legitimacy of arhatship , and do not show any attempt to establish

28658-514: The three bodies ( trikāya ) of a Buddha developed to make sense of the transcendental nature of the Buddha. This doctrine holds that the "bodies of magical transformation" ( nirmāṇakāyas ) and the "enjoyment bodies" ( saṃbhogakāya ) are emanations from the ultimate Buddha body, the Dharmakaya , which is none other than the ultimate reality itself, i.e. emptiness or Thusness . The Mahāyāna bodhisattva path ( mārga ) or vehicle ( yāna )

28836-477: The time of Jacobi, the term almost fell completely out of use throughout Europe until it was revived by Russian author Ivan Turgenev , who brought the word into popular use with his 1862 novel Fathers and Sons , leading many scholars to believe he coined the term. The nihilist characters of the novel define themselves as those who "deny everything ", who do "not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in", and who regard "at

29014-480: The two major currents of discourse on nihilism prior to the 20th century. The term likely entered English from either the German Nihilismus , Late Latin nihilismus , or French nihilisme . Early examples of the term's use are found in German publications. In 1733, German writer Friedrich Leberecht Goetz used it as a literary term in combination with noism ( German : Neinismus ). In

29192-484: The ultimate as "here, there is no seeing and no seer, no beginning and no end, just peace.... It is nonconceptual and nonreferential ... it is inexpressible, unobservable, unchanging, and unconditioned." Because of the non-conceptual nature of the ultimate, according to Brunnholzl, the two truths are ultimately inexpressible as either "one" or "different". As noted by Roger Jackson, some non-Buddhist writers, like some Buddhist writers both ancient and modern, have argued that

29370-438: The vehicle of a bodhisattva seeking buddhahood for the benefit of all sentient beings. The term Mahāyāna (which had earlier been used simply as an epithet for Buddhism itself) was therefore adopted at an early date as a synonym for the path and the teachings of the bodhisattvas. Since it was simply an honorary term for Bodhisattvayāna , the adoption of the term Mahāyāna and its application to Bodhisattvayāna did not represent

29548-417: The very fictional system of epistemic warrants ( pramanas ) used to establish them. The point of madhyamaka reasoning is not to establish any abstract validity or universal truth, it is simply a pragmatic project aimed at ending delusion and suffering. Nāgārjuna also argues that madhyamaka only negates things conventionally, since ultimately, there is nothing there to negate: "I do not negate anything and there

29726-475: The visualization of Buddhist deities (including Buddhas, bodhisattvas, dakinis , and fierce deities ) and the use of mantras. Most of these practices are esoteric and require ritual initiation or introduction by a tantric master ( vajracarya ) or guru . The source and early origins of Vajrayāna remain a subject of debate among scholars. Some scholars like Alexis Sanderson argue that Vajrayāna derives its tantric content from Shaivism and that it developed as

29904-684: The way the world appears and therefore some kind of practice to lead to this shift. As Candrakirti says: For one on the road of cyclic existence who pursues an inverted view due to ignorance , a mistaken object such as the superimposition ( samāropa ) on the aggregates appears as real, but it does not appear to one who is close to the view of the real nature of things. Much of madhyamaka philosophy centers on showing how various essentialist ideas have absurd conclusions through reductio ad absurdum arguments (known as prasanga in Sanskrit). Chapter 15 of Nāgārjuna 's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā centers on

30082-615: The wish to help oneself and others end suffering. Reason and logical arguments, however (such as those employed by classical Indian philosophers , i.e., pramana ), are also seen as being empty of any true validity or reality. They serve only as conventional remedies for our delusions. Nāgārjuna's Vigrahavyāvartanī famously attacked the notion that one could establish a valid cognition or epistemic proof ( pramana ): If your objects are well established through valid cognitions, tell us how you establish these valid cognitions. If you think they are established through other valid cognitions, there

30260-422: The words svabhava parabhava bhava and abhava . According to Peter Harvey: Nagarjuna's critique of the notion of own-nature ( Mk. ch. 15) argues that anything which arises according to conditions, as all phenomena do, can have no inherent nature, for what is depends on what conditions it. Moreover, if there is nothing with own-nature, there can be nothing with 'other-nature' ( para-bhava ), i.e. something which

30438-625: The world", rather than simply a teacher who after his death "has completely 'gone beyond' the world and its cares". Buddha Sakyamuni 's life and death on earth are then usually understood docetically as a "mere appearance", his death is a show, while in actuality he remains out of compassion to help all sentient beings. Similarly, Guang Xing describes the Buddha in Mahāyāna as an omnipotent and almighty divinity "endowed with numerous supernatural attributes and qualities". Mahayana Buddhologies have often been compared to various types of theism (including pantheism ) by different scholars, though there

30616-513: The world. This mowing away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although in this, the nihilist appears inconsistent: this "will to nothingness" is still a form of valuation or willing. He describes this as "an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists": A nihilist is a man who judges of the world as it is that it ought not to be, and of the world as it ought to be that it does not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning:

30794-462: The world. Thus avoiding both extremes the Tathāgata teaches a dharma by the middle path ( madhyamayā pratipadā ) . That is: this being, that becomes; with the arising of this, that arises. With ignorance as condition there is volition ... [to be expanded with the standard formula of the 12 links of dependent origination] Though all Buddhist schools saw themselves as defending a middle path in accord with

30972-561: Was a major source for Chinese Buddhism. Mahāyāna works have also been found in Gandhāra , indicating the importance of this region for the spread of Mahāyāna. Central Asian Mahāyāna scholars were very important in the Silk Road Transmission of Buddhism . They include translators like Lokakṣema (c. 167–186), Dharmarakṣa (c. 265–313), Kumārajīva (c. 401), and Dharmakṣema (385–433). The site of Dunhuang seems to have been

31150-565: Was first proposed by Jean Przyluski and then defended by Étienne Lamotte and Akira Hirakawa. This view states that laypersons were particularly important in the development of Mahāyāna and is partly based on some texts like the Vimalakirti Sūtra , which praise lay figures at the expense of monastics. This theory is no longer widely accepted since numerous early Mahāyāna works promote monasticism and asceticism. The Mahāsāṃghika origin theory , which argues that Mahāyāna developed within

31328-791: Was found in the Indian subcontinent in Mathura , and dated to around 180 CE. Remains of a statue of a Buddha bear the Brāhmī inscription: "Made in the year 28 of the reign of King Huviṣka , ... for the Blessed One, the Buddha Amitābha." There is also some evidence that the Kushan Emperor Huviṣka himself was a follower of Mahāyāna. A Sanskrit manuscript fragment in the Schøyen Collection describes Huviṣka as having "set forth in

31506-539: Was giving lectures on Nietzsche's thought. Given the importance of Nietzsche's contribution to the topic of nihilism, Heidegger's influential interpretation of Nietzsche is important for the historical development of the term nihilism . Heidegger's method of researching and teaching Nietzsche is explicitly his own. He does not specifically try to present Nietzsche as Nietzsche. He rather tries to incorporate Nietzsche's thoughts into his own philosophical system of Being, Time and Dasein . In his Nihilism as Determined by

31684-420: Was popularized by Ivan Turgenev and more specifically by his character Bazarov in the novel Fathers and Sons . Scholars of nihilism may regard it as merely a label that has been applied to various separate philosophies, or as a distinct historical concept arising out of nominalism , skepticism , and philosophical pessimism , as well as possibly out of Christianity itself. Contemporary understanding of

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