Trace how a thing depends: on causes, on parts, on a name

See one thing you care about as held up by its causes, made of its parts and gathered by a label — which is what “empty” means in practice.

Pourquoi ça marche

The central verse of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, 24:18, says in Garfield’s translation that whatever arises dependently is what is called emptiness, and that this, being a dependent designation, is itself the middle way. Garfield reads it as a three-way identity between emptiness, dependent arising and verbal convention: to call something empty is to say that it depends on conditions, has no bearer apart from its parts, and has an identity set by convention. Tracing those three dependences in a real situation turns emptiness from an abstraction into something visible, and shows its positive face — relationship and changeability, not absence.

Comment faire

1. Choose something that matters to you right now — a job, a friendship, a project.
2. Causes: list what brought it about and what keeps it going — people, money, timing, effort, luck.
3. Parts: list what it is actually made of — tasks, conversations, hours, agreements.
4. Name: notice the label that gathers all of that into one thing — “my job” — and how much the label makes it feel single and solid.
5. Ask what would change if one cause or one part changed, and hold the answer as information about how the thing exists rather than as a threat.

Données probantes

The verse is MMK 24:18, with 24:19 adding that there is nothing that is not dependently arisen and so nothing that is not empty; both are translated in Garfield’s 1994 essay, which argues that the identity of emptiness, dependent arising and convention is the deepest claim of the text. See the dependent-origination page for the early twelve-link teaching this builds on. Support is textual and philosophical. (anecdotal)

The three-way grouping follows Garfield’s reading of 24:18; Garfield notes the verse is ambiguous and has been read in different ways, and the practice itself has not been studied.

Sources

• Garfield, J. L. (1994). Dependent arising and the emptiness of emptiness: Why did Nāgārjuna start with causation? Philosophy East and West, 44(2), 219–250 (includes a translation of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā chapters 1, 2 and 24).
• Garfield, J. L. (1995). The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (translation and commentary). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Williams, P. (2008). Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (2nd ed.), chapters “The Perfection of Wisdom (Prajñāpāramitā) Sūtras,” pp. 57–74, and “Mādhyamika,” pp. 75–95. London: Routledge.

Erreur fréquente

Stopping at causes. That is ordinary causal thinking; the Madhyamaka point is that the thing’s very identity also depends on its parts and its name, so even “the same job” is a convention you are helping to hold together.