In Buddhism, the Middle Way is More Important Than Emptiness; In Philosophy, Post-structuralism is More Important Than Structuralism A Misunderstanding In Buddhism, the most important thing is firstly "the Middle" (Chū, Middle Way, Madhyamaka), and secondly "Emptiness" (Kū, Dependent Origination). This is a point that is easily misunderstood.

In Buddhism, the Middle Way is More Important Than Emptiness; In Philosophy, Post-structuralism is More Important Than Structuralism A Misunderstanding In Buddhism, the most important thing is firstly "the Middle" (Chū, Middle Way, Madhyamaka), and secondly "Emptiness" (Kū, Dependent Origination). This is a point that is easily misunderstood. I was watching a YouTube video explaining the Heart Sutra, and it was explaining it as "everything is emptiness." The Heart Sutra is said to be a summary of the essence of Buddhism. If so, it should mention emptiness, which it does, but the Heart Sutra is also at fault. The words "middle," "Madhyamaka," or "Middle Way" are not written in it. Upon checking, the character for "middle" (中) was used only once in the sutra, in the phrase "kō ze kū chū" (好是空中). However, the "middle" in this phrase is not the "middle" of the Middle Way or Madhyamaka. It is used to convey the content and nature of emptiness, as in "Therefore, in emptiness..." While concepts of Madhyamaka or the Middle Way are included in phrases like "Form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form; form is precisely emptiness, emptiness is precisely form," upon rereading, it is written in a way that is very susceptible to misunderstanding. The beginning is fine, but from the middle to the end, it contains many misleading or irrelevant things. Upon reflection, I wonder if the person who created the Heart Sutra didn't understand Buddhism very well. Buddhism has aspects that are very easily misunderstood. Previously, I was asked about Buddhism by someone from a branding company, wondering if modern philosophy or Buddhism could be branded. The story was that they had some personal issues and had become a Catholic or Protestant Christian. At that time, I was asked if it was true that Buddhism preaches emptiness, and I remember being met with anger when I answered something like, "Well, yes." I didn't quite understand why, but perhaps it was because the idea of emptiness would mean that God doesn't exist, and that somehow offended them. Indeed, his concern is valid. As a Christian, the spread of Buddhism would be problematic. He probably thought that emptiness was the same as nothingness and that God does not exist. That is essentially correct. If you apply the theory of emptiness to God, God ceases to be necessary. Though not a god, when Shakyamuni attained enlightenment, the content of his enlightenment was emptiness, and he used emptiness in that way. Shakyamuni's use of emptiness, as also found in the Heart Sutra, is that the five aggregates (skandhas) are all empty. If a human being is nothing more than the five aggregates, and the components of those aggregates are also empty, the conclusion is that there is no reincarnation. Shakyamuni's existential suffering was not that there is suffering in life, but that if the world and beings such as humans reincarnate, there is a possibility of being reborn after death and suffering again. If it were finite suffering or suffering that ends with death, it would not have been a problem for Shakyamuni, although he would have disliked suffering. The problem was a more general one: the possibility of being reborn again and again after death and continuing to suffer. In this sense, Buddhism is a religion, the birth of a new religion in response to the existing religions of India. Depending on one's perspective, it can also be seen as the creation of a new philosophical theory of ontology and epistemology, so both views are possible, and one can choose which to emphasize depending on the occasion. However, emptiness is not the core of Buddhism. For Shakyamuni, Nagarjuna, and Tiantai Zhiyi, in Mahayana Buddhism, the most important concept in Buddhism is the Middle Way, Madhyamaka, the Middle. Emptiness is Merely a Tool Nagarjuna, the founder of Mahayana Buddhism who created the theory of emptiness, said that "emptiness is just a tool." He also said that "emptiness is a medicine." He also said something to the effect that "those who cling to emptiness are incorrigible." In Buddhism, this is called kūshū or kūken (attachment to emptiness). For someone who doesn't know about emptiness, it's a concept with such an impact and emotional appeal that they might want to absolutize it upon learning of it. However, in Buddhism, there is a higher concept than emptiness. That is what is called the Middle, Madhyamaka, the Middle Way. Why Was Emptiness Created in the First Place? Wasn't the creation of emptiness somewhat accidental? Or perhaps it was influenced by the intellectual climate of the time and the places where he practiced immediately after leaving home. Shakyamuni's goal was to be permanently free from suffering. I don't think he was looking for a way to escape suffering in the short term. In the first place, I wonder if there were many cultures with the idea that "it's all over when you die." I think it's possible that some Japanese samurai and a part of the world's intellectual class had a partial belief that "it's all over when you die," but even so, I think there was an awareness of, and sometimes a conflict or tension with, the different ideas of surrounding cultures. In India, then and now, reincarnation is the prevailing belief. Therefore, for Shakyamuni to find a solution, he had to achieve one of two things: ① to be eternally free from suffering while reincarnating, or ② for there to be no such thing as reincarnation at all, and preferably, if there is no reincarnation, for it to be replaced by the idea that it's all over when you die. Shakyamuni's enlightenment came from establishing a philosophy that was satisfied with ②, not ①. The method for this was the invention of emptiness (or in Shakyamuni's time, Dependent Origination). The problem in achieving Shakyamuni's strategy of ② is what is called realism in Western philosophy. I don't know what that concept was called in India at the time. Realism is something that one acquires naturally unless one has a very severe intellectual disability (the kind where it's uncertain if they have been conscious since birth, which could also be called a very severe mind-body disability, usually due to being immobile from brain damage). It's something that is automatically included in what we call humanity, intellect, or intelligence, even without our being conscious of it. It's something that we might not even notice exists because no one is conscious of it or problematizes it unless it is made conscious and problematized. Perhaps the one who made this clearest in Western philosophy was Plato. Shakyamuni's Enlightenment Shakyamuni's enlightenment was the discovery, the invention, of emptiness (Dependent Origination). In modern philosophy, this overlaps with deconstruction, the critique of metaphysics, postmodernism, and structuralism. Understanding emptiness or structuralism is a joyful thing. Humans are happy when they understand something, or when they discover or invent something. And sometimes they become attached to it. However, as time passes and one becomes calm and able to see things objectively, one notices something else. That is Madhyamaka and post-structuralism. "To absolutize emptiness or structuralism and to reject and exclude realism" is like an armchair theory. We live with realism. This is true even after enlightenment. Even if you know about emptiness or structuralism, you probably can't live or think in a way that completely abandons realism. It might be possible, but it's very inefficient. In developmental psychology, it is thought that intellectual development first goes through the sensorimotor stage in infancy, followed by a stage of intuitive thought, during which cognitive abilities to recognize things as real and substantial are developed. And based on that foundation, various cognitive abilities, such as abstract thinking, are developed. To eliminate the foundational cognitive abilities and create new ones from scratch is a huge loss, even thinking about it simply. It is easier both sensorily and emotionally, and more economically or cognitively efficient, to use the thorough concepts of structuralism or emptiness as needed, while normally living with the realist cognitive abilities that one has acquired since before one can remember. In the first place, it would be great if one could create a structuralist cognitive system by completely denying realist cognitive abilities, but if that fails, the result is disastrous. One would be left with neither realist nor structuralist cognitive abilities. Some people call this the onset of mental illness. To use an analogy, it would be like someone who went to a foreign country to learn how to walk, failed to learn the new way of walking, but also forgot their original way of walking and had to crawl back home. Emptiness Can Deny Humans and Reincarnation, But That Doesn't Mean It Denies Realism Does a thorough application of emptiness or structuralist thinking naturally lead to the exclusion of realism? This is something we must think about carefully. In mathematics, this is expressed by the words "disjoint" and "independent," and if one doesn't understand these concepts, one can sometimes mix them up. Just because Shakyamuni came up with an innovative theory that denies humans—or rather, a soul-like entity as the subject of reincarnation—and reincarnation itself, that doesn't mean it proves that there is no soul or no reincarnation. Let's rephrase this in the language of modern science. What Shakyamuni came up with was a theory; he didn't prove anything. However, realism is also a theory. The existence of the theory of realism does not deny the theory of structuralism. Both are just theories. And they are not mutually exclusive theories. In other words, they are independent theories. Therefore, they can both coexist. In the first place, whether it's realism or structuralism, they are theories, so it's a separate issue from proof. Neither has been proven. In that sense, one cannot absolutize either of them, nor can one absolutize both. Perhaps there is a completely different theory, different from both realism and structuralism, that will be proven. If so, the very act of saying that realism is the truth of the world or that structuralism is the truth of the world becomes ridiculous. I, at least, often use concepts like "disjoint" and "independent" to explain the Middle Way, Madhyamaka, and the relativism of post-structuralism, but they may be central concepts necessary for organizing various ideas, thoughts, theories, and ideologies. We May Know Nothing, But We Can Become Richer In the end, we can't determine what is right or that one idea is correct and another is wrong, unless there are rules by which to judge, which there generally are not. Even if there are rules, those rules themselves are arbitrarily set by us, not because they are the truth or for any such reason. We can say that, in the end, we know nothing. On the other hand, we can also say that we are capable of knowing. If someone believes something with all their heart, it may be a known fact and the truth for them. But for others, it becomes a matter of, "If you think so, it must be right. But only for you." The important thing is that it's okay for us to have many different theories, ways of thinking, ideas, and ideologies. It gets complicated when there are things like the Bible that have clauses excluding other ideas, but that may be both the stability and the vulnerability of the Bible. If there are no clauses excluding other ideas, like in Japanese Mahayana Buddhism, all ways of thinking can be accepted. This is a form of richness. We may, as Socrates said, know nothing for certain. We may, as Wittgenstein said, "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." But perhaps that is as it should be. People who claim to know something, to be right about something, can be seen as arrogant and lacking in humility. Isn't it a common-sense and sensible view to think that we are, at most, thinking reeds, not beings who know or embody some truth? In human history, the absolutization of ideology sometimes becomes fashionable, and a way of thinking that one's own or one's group's ideas are absolutely correct, that others should absolutize the same ideas, and that society should be rebuilt accordingly, can sometimes erupt. But looking back, such things are like the cringeworthy "black history" of adolescence. Even in today's world of advanced civilization, science, and technology, we sometimes see such people. But after a while, they fall silent and seem to act as if that part of their past never happened. This cycle seems to be getting shorter year by year. Humans cannot live without air and water, but in the past, especially around the 20th century, it was an era where it was easy to create a certain atmosphere and difficult to throw cold water on it. Today, it is difficult to create an atmosphere, and how easy it has become to throw cold water on things is painfully clear to anyone who has become a YouTuber, tried to go viral, feared being flamed, or has had a terrible experience with it. The Importance of Madhyamaka Clinging to realism and clinging to structuralism are both like something a junior high school second-grader or an adolescent would do. It's green, immature, and not mature. When you become an adult to some extent, it becomes an embarrassing memory you want to erase, a part of yourself you wish would disappear. Madhyamaka, the Middle Way, the Middle, the relativism of post-structuralism are the ideas of an adult. If one could have this way of thinking from the beginning, neither emptiness nor structuralism would be necessary. But humans have weaknesses. Even at a mature age, they can sometimes insist that something is right, as if they were a god. People are prone to the sins of arrogance and self-righteousness. What they are particularly prone to are various things related to realism. This is, as I wrote earlier, unavoidable. It may not be innate, but in practice, it is almost as if it were programmed to be. In developmental psychology, if one does not reach the stage of intuitive cognition or recognition, one is considered to have an intellectual disability, or in English, mental retardation, and seen as a mentally delayed or slow child. I think it can be said to be a human universal, a common denominator that humans have regardless of culture or era. To understand various ways of thinking, ideas, and theories while being aware of such human nature—this can be called humanism, or it can be called intellect itself. Often, there are many people who are highly educated and have high specs, but whose way of looking at things is monotonous and easy to see through. It's a pattern where they are quick-witted, have a good memory, and a lot of knowledge, but have few methods of information processing, making them monotonous. Conversely, even if the hardware specs are poor and can't even run something like Windows, only an OS like Linux, if the software is excellent, it can often cover for the low specs. Conclusion The conclusion of Mahayana Buddhism and modern philosophy is that it is enough for humans to have Madhyamaka, the Middle, the Middle Way, the relativism of post-structuralism. However, there is something that stands in the way. That is realism. Realism is an invisible structure that almost all humans have, almost innately or fatedly, and are controlled by without knowing it. Because there is an invisible structure, structuralism is needed to expose and deconstruct that structure. If one were so inclined, the only ideas that could completely eliminate and replace realism were the Middle (Dependent Origination) of Mahayana Buddhism in the East and structuralism in Western thought. This is why emptiness and structuralism are said to be tools and medicine.