The Adornment of the Middle Way, Part 2

Shantarakshita was the main proponent of the Yogachara Madhyamaka syntheses and one of the first two main transmitters of Buddhism from India to Tibet - the other being Padmasambhava. The Madhyamakalankara represents the middle way view of emptiness based entirely upon the logic of things being neither one nor many, and therefore not being validly established ultimately. We will study this relatively short text in detail using the Padmakara Translation Committee translation which includes a wonderful commentary by Mipham Rinpoche, supplemented by selected recent analyses.

Core Materials

  1. Syllabus

  2. Source Book

  3. Source Text Outline

Supplemental Materials

  1. Refutation of Ultimate Existence Chart

  2. Diagram of the First Refutation

  3. Conditions and a Model of Experience

  4. Five Reasons Cheat Sheet

Class Recordings

  1. September 20, 2011

  2. September 27, 2011

  3. October 4, 2011

  4. October 11, 2011

  5. October 25, 2011

  6. November 1, 2011

  7. November 8, 2011

  8. November 15, 2011

  9. November 29, 2011

  10. December 6, 2011

  11. December 13, 2011