Through the

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Through the middle way
By virtue of Peirces triadicity,
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And, Nagarjuna
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Peirces triadicity, in a nutshell

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• Mahayana Buddhism, of which 2nd century Indian
  philosopher Nagarjuna is a chief actor, offered a
  broader definition of soullessness and declared
  that, not only are persons devoid of a self,
  but that all of the elements comprising existence
  are also without essence. They are empty,
  sunya, of the very notion of self-nature.

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From emptiness as nothing but the mere Possible
possibility of
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to
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• An analogy from the history of Western physics
  (Western) might help clarify the aparent conflict
  between the emptiness and something.
  Classical Newtonian physics saw everything as
  comprised of irreducible atoms with a
  determinable location and momentum. Belief in the
  determinism made possible by such a reified
  existence led French mathematician Pierre de
  Laplace to declare that, could he theoretically
  know the location and momentum of every monad in
  the universe, he could predict the exact future
  history of the entire cosmos. Quantum physics
  revolutionized this view by describing the
  qualities of the monadic elements of existence as
  being inherently unknowable (emptiness, or mere
  possible possibility as devoid of the very idea
  of self-nature).

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• Further, the utter smallness of the particles and
  the sheer distances between them shows matter to
  be little more than empty space and existence
  ultimately nothing more than interactions of
  abstract energy fields. That the truest
  cosmological quality of things is emptiness,
  sunyata, came to be regarded as the central
  notion of Buddhism.

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Fire burns, but it cannot burn itself. The
word fire is empty. Fire itself is
empty, since its very nature outside the nature
of everything else is empty. Everything Is
empty, even emptiness itself
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• Not only are things empty, the Mahayana school
  declared, but the very notion of emptiness is
  itself empty (sunyata).

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In this respect contemplate the sense of music As
self-contained Sound, rhythm
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• On the one hand, early Buddhism saw emptiness
  as a lack of being but, on the other, something
  remains which cannot be negated. These statements
  will not make sense in Buddhist terms unless
  reconciled with the Buddha's absolute rejection
  of an ultimate ground of reality. The meaning of
  the paradox, according to the Perfection of
  Wisdom writings, is that emptiness is both and
  neither being and non-being, both and neither
  negation and affirmation . Emptiness is not
  really a thing any more than a thing is really
  empty, for reality cannot be pinned down in
  concepts.

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Or, contemplate the notion of universals
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• This paradoxical, non-conceptual use of the
  notion of emptiness is reflected in the fact
  that certain of the Perfection of Wisdom writings
  used the notion without ever mentioning the term.
  The Diamond Sutra, for example, taught that the
  notion of emptiness was to be used like a hard
  diamond to cut away all unnecessary
  conceptualization, including the idea of
  emptiness itself. The discourse accomplished
  this by presenting a series of paradoxes that
  demonstrated emptiness without using the word.

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• For example, the Buddha is made to say
• "As many beings as there are in the universe of
  beings, ...all these I must lead to nirvana, into
  that realm of nirvana which leaves nothing
  behind. And yet, although innumerable beings have
  thus been led to nirvana, no being at all has
  been led to nirvana."

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Or, as an Alternative
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• The actual use of the term emptiness (sunyata)
  was likely avoided in the Diamond Sutra because,
  even though the paradoxes were half affirmative
  and half negatory,
• the potential for misunderstanding and seeing
  only the negative side of the equation was great.
  
• Equally dangerous was the possibility of clinging
  to the notion of emptiness as yet another,
  albeit apophatic, theory.
• These were dangers the Buddha was quite aware of.
  He said that, following his death, the monks
  will no longer wish to hear and learn my
  teachings, deep, deep in meaning, ...dealing
  with the void (sunyata), but will only lend their
  ear to profane teachings, made by poets,
  poetical, adorned with beautiful words and
  syllables.

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For a different Take on emptiness

• Nagarjunas Tetralemma, the standard for
  Mahayana Buddhism, is comprised of four
  propositional formulations expressed positively
  or negatively. Where x is any proposition and x
  is its negation, a positive tetralemma takes the
  form of
• X!
• -X!
• Both X and X!
• Neither X nor X!

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Regarding the self

• The self is real (conventionally true, i.e., it
  exists in a dependent reality along with
  everything else we derive from experience)
• The self is not real (ultimately true, i.e., it
  has no essence)
• The self is both real and not real
  (conventionally real but ultimately unreal)
• The self is neither real nor not

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• Conventionally real ( word, concept,
  perspective ? interpretation).
• Nonconventionally real ( neither a word nor a
  concept nor a perspective nor an interpretation).
• Conventionally real ( either what is or what
  is not, in whichever case a sense of
  permanence).
• Nonconventionally real ( both what is and what
  is not and neither what is nor what is not, in
  whichever case impermanence).

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In other words, we have the following as
the pure possible possibility of a sign, prior to
signness becoming, or
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(No Transcript)
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Or
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It is like the difference between Game and
Play

• Game (either winners or losers).
• Winner (), loser (-).
• Play (neither winners nor losers).
• Both and
• Neither nor

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• IT
• Is this ()
• Is that (not-this) ()
• Is possibly both this and that (both and )
• Is neither this nor that but something else
  (neither nor , but )
  

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• But There is no inconsistency, no cause for
  disagreement and nothing to discuss (Nagarjuna)
• And Openness wrongly conceived destroys the
  dimly-witted. It is like a snake grasped by the
  head or a garbled incantation (Nagarjuna)

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• Hence it is possibly an impossible task to
  describe a changing reality in words because they
  inevitably make it appear fixed and unchanging.

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• To ask What is it? or How does it change? To
  describe the domain of becoming in essentialist
  language leads to contradiction and
  incommensurability. To describe becoming in
  nonessentialist language leads to paradox.

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• Any description of becoming taken literally is
  incoherent, but can be loosely described as an
  open-ended process.

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• The open-ended process is Nagarjunas middle
  way, or in a manner of speaking, it is the
  mediating third way in Peirces triadicity,
  that is, if we take the 0 in
• into consideration.