The Middle Way may be, roughly speaking, understood from the philosophical point of view that things are neither existent nor nonexistent(非有非無). Nagarjuna seems to assume that this philosophical understanding of the Middle Way is taught so as to cancel any discursive knowledge whatsoever, including discursive knowledge of existence and that of non-existence, both of which pertain to the most fundamental categories by which to comprehend phenomena. Tsong kha pa gives two sorts of interpretations of "neither existcnce nor non-existence." In a context which concerns "the four alternative positions" (catuh-koti) along the same lins as Nagarjuna does and assumes that one should negate any discursive knowledge whatsoever that presupposes hypothesized entitics, namely, not only hypothesized existence (有), but hypothesized non-existence (無) as well. However, unlike other Madhyamaka followers, including Nagarjuna, he thinks that mental activities should be classified as virtuous (prajna) viz. the understanding of non-substantiality (vicious). We must not discard the former. In another context, he gives another interpretation of it in terms of the "two truths theory" (satya-dvaya). It shows that the hypothesized entities are denied on the uhimate level(非有), but everyday things must remain undenied(非無)on the conventional level.
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