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This chapter looks at the early Buddhist dialogues, the Nikāya. It explores the nature of the Buddha's teaching methods, the simile of the raft and the snake, and the Buddha's silences. It begins to investigate the distinction between the two truths, as well as the relation between these and the four noble truths.

The two truths (satyadvaya), conventional and ultimate, originated as a construct for reconciling scriptural statements; conventional truths were taken as a skillful method (upāyakauśalya) leading to the ultimate. Yet the two truths are also taken as standpoints and often as the two classes of things that those two standpoints present to view. For some, the conventional is the only actual basis for the ultimate, emptiness. When instead conventional truth (saṃvṛtisatya) is understood as merely “truth for the benighted,” then it will carry no normative force. Previewing the chapters, they are seen to address four questions: What is conventional truth? What sort of truth theory would best fit it? Can such truths be criticized and improved? How should one act in a world of conventional truth?

Mādhyamika philosophers in India and Tibet distinguish between two truths—the conventional and the ultimate. It is difficult, however, to say in what sense conventional truth is indeed a truth as opposed to a falsehood. Indeed, many passages in prominent texts suggest that it is entirely false. This chapter explains the sense in which, for Candrakīrti and Tsongkhapa, conventional truth is truth.

Madhyamaka-influenced schools of Buddhism are committed to the view that there are two realities (the doctrine of “two truths”). This chapter provides two ways in which the idea may be (and has been) understood. According to one of these, the two realities are two (subjective) perspectives on one and the same thing. According to the other, the relation between the two is that between something and its (objective) manifestation.

This chapter presents a framework that allows us to make sense of the Madhyamaka view that all objects are conventional truths, that is, merely conventionally existent objects. To do this the chapter first discusses a contemporary account of the conventional nature of linguistic signs (offered by David Lewis) and then suggests an expansion that accounts not just for conventionally existent names but also for conventionally existent objects.

Although a partial restriction of applicability of the law of non-contradiction (LNC), arguably the most central assumption of most Western philosophical traditions, has recently been proposed by Buddhist-influenced dialetheists such as Graham Priest and Jay Garfield, Tiantai Buddhist “trivialist” ontology is proposed in this chapter as a more thoroughgoing alternative, raising the possibility that the LNC as such might be a paper tiger, providing no actual information about the world and resting for its justification on a circular and discredited set of metaphysical assumptions.

This chapter contains a translation of chapter 5 (“Madhyamaka”) of Taktsang Lotsawa Sherab Rinchen’s doxographic work Freedom from Extremes Accomplished through Comprehensive Knowledge of Philosophy. It begins with a short biography, followed by an introduction to the philosophical issues at stake that situates the debate within the Buddhist history of ideas. It charts the fault lines in the debate and what is at stake for Buddhist thought and practice, particularly the problems raised by global error theory for any attempt to develop a coherent theory of knowledge. We discuss the Indian antecedents of the controversy, examining how disputes regarding the proper interpretation of Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti unfolded in India and then were transmitted and expanded in Tibet. Most of this chapter comprises the translation of Comprehensive Knowledge of Philosophy.

This chapter completes the exposition of the bodhisattva path as outlined in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, covering chapters eight through ten. This includes a review of the role of various meditative practices, particularly “exchanging self and others.” An exploration of chapter nine, the “wisdom chapter,” lays out some of the more sophisticated issues in intra-Buddhist discussion regarding the nature of nirvana and the role of the bodhisattva.

This chapter examines the first major Gelukpa response to Taktsang, Panchen Losang Chöki Gyaltsen’s Lion’s Roar of Scripture and Reasoning. We begin with a biographical sketch of his life and times and then discuss the main philosophical issues he raises. He adopts a debate-style format, critiquing Taktsang’s accusations of “sixteen great contradictions” point by point, and he accuses his opponent of being guilty of the same contradictions he attributes to Tsongkhapa, along with other errors that stem from his inability to grasp the Madhyamaka view properly. The Panchen Lama employs an aggressive, attacking style in his rebuttal, but often mischaracterizes Taktsang’s actual positions, and he sometimes accuses him of adopting stances that he either does not endorse or explicitly rejects. Nonetheless, Lion’s Roar is a nuanced and trenchant philosophical work that explores fundamental issues in Buddhist epistemology and soteriology, and it set up the main lines of attack for later Gelukpas.

This chapter examines the central Buddhist metaphysical concept of emptiness. The doctrine of the two truths is explained, and its interpretations by different Buddhist schools are distinguished. The implications of taking emptiness seriously for contemporary metaphysics are also discussed.

This chapter contains a translation of two texts by the ninth Karmapa, Wangchuk Dorjé, Concise Compendium of the Middle Way and Conferring the Definitive Meaning, which were written in tandem in defense of Taktsang. Wangchuk Dorjé outlines a radical approach to Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka: Mādhyamikas hold no positions and only engage in debate through the use of reductio ad absurdum arguments. Even this statement is not a position, but rather a description of the Prāsaṅgika approach. Any statement is only made “from the perspective of others” and implies no philosophical or doctrinal commitments on the part of Mādhyamikas. Madhyamaka denies everything, and then rejects denial. No positive statement or philosophical claim can legitimately be part of Madhyamaka qua Madhyamaka.

This chapter examines the main features of Arthur Schopenhauer’s thoughts about the reality-status of the empirical world and how they relate to the Mādhyamika teaching of Mahāyāna Buddhism. It first considers monk-scholar Nāgārjuna’s reinterpretation of the doctrine of dependent origination and compares his views with the Mādhyamika reinterpretation. It then explores Nāgārjuna’s throughts about emptiness (śūnyatā) and inherent being (svabhāva). It also discusses the importance of the teaching of the doctrine of Two Truths (satya-dvaya), together with the doctrines of dependent origination and emptiness, for the Mādhyamika school. Finally, it analyzes the concept of the everyday truth (samvrti-satya).

This chapter analyzes the two truths. Buddhists care deeply about getting at the truth and as a result have thought a lot about what truth is. One of the most important philosophical ideas to emerge from Buddhism is that of the two truths. Though it is more commonly known as the two truths, it could also be called the Two Realities. What is really true, not just within a set of conventions, is called ultimate truth. This does not entail that conventional truth is always bad or to be abandoned. Conventional truth can be useful as long as it does not blind one to what is really happening. This idea plays two different roles in Buddhism: One is as a philosophical idea about the nature of reality; the other is as an interpretive strategy to make sense of a variety of Buddhist texts.

The Madhayamaka or Middle Way School is the subject of chapter 12. As in the other chapters of Part II, Rogben is concerned with the views of the Madhyamaka school in general, as well as with the views of the particular subschools, but he begins by discussing the major works of Madhyamaka thought. After outlining the basic tenets of Madhayamaka—including a long discussion on the different types of Madhyamaka syllogisms—he refutes the school, chiefly from the viewpoint of tantra.

This chapter contains translations of portions of two texts by the eighth Karmapa, Mikyö Dorjé, One Hundred Thousand Discussions of Mahāmudrā and Chariot of the Dakpo Kagyü Adepts. He invokes Taktsang and claims to be expanding on key points from Comprehensive Knowledge of Philosophy. After sorting out a number of distinct erroneous views identified by Taktsang, Mikyö Dorjé takes Tsongkhapa as his own principal target. He argues that Tsongkhapa’s program fails because of its insistence on the merely conventional reality of relative phenomena despite their ultimate emptiness. That is incoherent, he argues, because it draws an artificial distinction between apparent phenomena and their true nature, thus undermining the identity of the two truths and entailing that no understanding of phenomena could lead to an understanding of emptiness. This chapter begins with a short biography of Mikyö Dorjé and the historical context in which he wrote, followed by a discussion of the main philosophical points he makes in describing how Madhyamaka should be properly understood and prosecuted.

This chapter examines the Indian affinities of Arthur Schopenhauer’s doctrine of representation. It first considers the teachings of Advaita Vedānta and Mādhyamika schools regarding the deceptive nature of the empirical world. In particular, it discusses the concept of māyā, and the likening of the empirical world to a dream; the world as a creation of mind, devoid of inherent reality; and the doctrine of dependent origination as it was reformulated by Nāgārjuna. It then explores the views of Schopenhauer, the Advaita philosophers and the Mādhyamikas about the reality-status of the world, along with the agreement between the Mādhyamika and Advaita teaching of the doctrine of Two Truths and Schopenhauer’s transcendental idealism. The chapter also highlights the link between the Western philosophical tradition and Indian thought in Schopenhauer’s doctrine of the world as representation.

The third chapter shares the paths of diversification and splintering as the Buddha’s teachings spread across Asia in the centuries following his death. The rise of Mahayana, central to modern Zen and Tibetan forms of Buddhism, is detailed along with the concept of bodhicitta (universal compassion) and the bodhisattva path motivated by it. The contributions of Nagarjuna, a second-century monk from India, to the Madhyamaka (Middle Way) Buddhist philosophy are highlighted, along with the Heart Sutra and the broader Perfection of Wisdom Sutras that underpin Mahayana thought. The Madhyamaka principle of sunyata (emptiness) is explained along with the Two Truths framework: conventional truth and ultimate truth. The chapter concludes with a personal narrative about the author’s family visit to his in-laws’ house in Colorado and an unexpected lesson about the Buddha’s teachings in aspen trees.

This essay develops the theory of action presupposed by Buddhist Reductionists. Their account uses the theory of two truths to reconcile the folk theory of human action with the Buddhist claim that there are no agents. The conventional truth has it that persons are substance-causes of actions, and the willings that trigger actions are exercises of a person’s powers in light of their reasons. According to the ultimate truth, there are no persons, only causal series of bundles of tropes. An action is a bodily or mental event in one such series that has the occurrence of a prior intention event as its cause. Facts about causally connected psychophysical elements explain the utility, and thus the conventional truth, of claims about persons as agents. This two-tier account of human agency makes possible a novel approach to making attributions of moral responsibility compatible with psychological determinism.

This essay concerns the problem of free will. The question how moral responsibility could be reconciled with the belief that all of our actions are determined in some way is not one that has been discussed in classical Indian philosophy. What the author tries in this essay is thus to find out whether the conceptual resources Indian Buddhist philosophy has to offer us contain anything that might be used to address this problem of Western philosophy. He argues that the notion of the two truths could be put to use in this context. The answer to the question of determinism, whether all events in the universe are fixed by their prior causes, is one that has to be answered at the level of ultimate truth. Questions about moral responsibility, on the other hand, can only be answered at the level of conventional truth, since persons are not ultimately real.