Thinking the Unthinkable / Unthinking the Thinkable: Conceptual thought, nonconceptuality, and Gorampa Sonam Senge's Synopsis of Madhyamaka .

摘要

The fifteenth-century Sakyapa scholar-monk Gorampa Sonam Senge was a prolific author, but he is most renowned for his philosophical writings on Madhyamaka. His encyclopedic Synopsis of Madhyamaka (dbu ma'i spyi don) has come to represent the mainstream philosophical view of the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, and its arguments continue to be studied in both Sakya and non-Sakya monastic institutions throughout Asia. Gorampa's unique flavor of Madhyamaka is distinguished based on his understanding of the two truths (bden pa gnyis), his methods for employing analysis within the tetralemma (mu bzhi), and his conception of a buddha's enlightened awareness (ye shes). Focusing on these key issues, Gorampa manages to successfully debate with other Madhyamika thinkers using rational, analytic arguments, while simultaneously employing those rational arguments against the entire project of rational analysis itself. As a result, Gorampa advocates for a philosophical practice by which one utilizes conceptual thought in order to eradicate conceptual thought in its entirety.