國立臺灣大學哲學論評

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The purpose of this paper is to present Nondual Middle Way as guidance in ways of navigating to unfold Thorough Reality of the Life World, and to explain the intent and rationale of Nondual Middle Way in Buddhist doctrine.

With expediency and prevalence of comparison and contrast, dichotomous ways of thinking and viewpoints have not only taken root in philosophical thinking and religious discourses, but have also been absorbed into the basic structure of everyday life, and are easily taken for granted and thus hard to detect or throw away. With its uniqueness of basic concepts and basic issues, Nondual Middle Way, originating from the inclination to spot and drop dichotomous ways of thinking, offers a creative point of view for both philosophy and religion. This unusual way of thinking is able to provide an extraordinary viewpoint to inspect the basic structures of philosophy and religion, and thus point out a way that might lead to further and deeper discussion in both fields.

The undertaking of this paper is to answer the following questions： “Why should we view the life world as Nondual Middle Way?”, “How can we view it as Nondual Middle Way?”, and “As what kind of Nondual Middle Way should we view it?” In order to answer the series of questions, the major methods employed in this paper focus on differentiating concepts, analyzing issues, elucidating connotation, and constructing argument.

Concerning the configuration of discourses, this paper firstly define and make clear major concepts by emphasizing that Nondual Middle Way and Thorough Reality are very innovative basic concepts for philosophy of religion and philosophy of life. In order to emphasize the idea of non-substantiality and to drop dichotomous ways of thinking from the very beginning, Nondual Middle Way is distinguished from dualism, monism, and pluralism. Then this paper seeks to exclude easy borrowings and rough copies of ideas. In addition, experience of practicing Buddhist teachings as a profession in accordance with related scriptures is also taken seriously as a reference for interpretation. Moreover, for the sake of making a more pertinent interpretation and to reveal Thorough Reality layer by layer, great emphasis is put on the explanation of methods of unlocking multi-faceted ways of thinking.

The main subject matter of this paper is composed in sequence of concepts such as not-self, impermanence, birth and death, dependent arising (dependent origination), emptiness, and middle way. These distinctive concepts in Buddhist philosophy collectively form an axis that is set to remove shades, limits, and seals, such as problems of objectification, reification, individualization, demarcation, discrimination, and conceptualization, which
derive from the daily language that are commonly used. From the point of view of conditioned arising and ceasing, the Thorough Reality of the life world is revealed layer by layer. And it is precisely Nondual Middle Way that pushes these basic concepts rolling, settles problems of comparison and contrast, breaks free from the tension and limitation of discrimination, makes a breakthrough in a series of conditioned arising and ceasing, and leads to Enlightenment and Nirvā a in the end. Various examples in the Āgama Sūtras show that the idea of non substantiality helps to free Nondual Middle Way
from seals of individualization, and by non-dichotomous ways of thinking, borders around Nondual Middle Way are removed. Nondual Middle Way is thus able to approach the variations of causal conditions, and the Thorough Reality of the life world is thus unfolded.