Madhyamaka

Madhyamaka is a philosophical school within Mahayana Buddhism, usually associated with the thinker Nagarjuna (second–third century CE). Madhyamaka proposes a “middle way” between positivism (things exist) and nihilism (nothing exists), arguing that things exist provisionally insofar as we experience them, but are empty of inherent, enduring nature. In this construction, the phenomenal world and enlightenment are perceptual aspects of the same reality. All Tibetan Buddhist traditions study Madhyamaka philosophy, but it forms the central part of the monastic curriculum of Geluk tradition.