Reading guide
2 readings
Buddhist arguments about dependence and experience
Reading guide · 2 readings
Could anything have a nature entirely independent of conditions? Does an appearance establish the existence of an external object? The selections here take up these two questions through Madhyamaka and Yogācāra arguments. Interpreters disagree within each tradition and about how the two relate, and nothing here stands for all Buddhist thought.
Read together
A specific comparison
Read the challenge to intrinsic nature (a nature something would have independently of conditions), then the argument about an appearance and its object. Ask what each argument establishes before joining them under a single label.
Guided course · Module 3 · Lesson 12
Does emptiness mean that nothing exists?
Nāgārjuna replies to the objection that emptiness would make change impossible: intrinsic nature, he argues, is what would rule change out. Denying intrinsic nature leaves ordinary distinctions, actions and their consequences in place.
Guided course · Module 7 · Lesson 34
What does experience tell us about the world?
Vasubandhu uses dreams to ask what appearances establish, and store consciousness to explain continuity without a permanent owner. Rival interpretations of representation and external objects stay open.