📘 Adult Edition: Buddhist Logic and Critical Thinking (16 Episodes)
🧠 Suitable for: College students and above, those who learn Buddhism through critical thinking, and individuals interested in comparing philosophy and Buddhism.
🌱 Core Goal: To build the ability to apply Buddhist "Emptiness Logic," "Non-Dualistic Thinking," and "Clinging-Breaking Reasoning."
🧩 Structure: Each episode covers one topic and consists of four parts: ① Explanation of the main concept ② Comparison with Western logic ③ Real-life examples ④ Critical thinking questions for practice
✅ Episode 1 | What is "Logic" in Buddhism? Not about right or wrong, but breaking clinging.
- Buddhist Logic: Aims to eliminate "clinging to mistaken perceptions," not to establish ultimate truths, but to dismantle false concepts.
- Comparison to Western Logic:
- Western logic cares about "whether the inference is correct."
- Buddhist logic cares about "whether one's thoughts and actions lead to suffering."
- Everyday Example:
- You say, "I'm just not good enough." → Madhyamaka says: "The 'I' you're talking about is fundamentally ungraspable."
- The point isn't to change the idea, but to break the "framework of self-clinging" that creates the idea.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Is your current "value system" based on an inherent self or on conditions?
✅ Episode 2 | Madhyamaka's Method of Deconstruction: Existence/Non-existence/Both/Neither — All are flawed.
- Four-fold Negation:
- "Existence" and "Non-existence" → Too simplistic.
- "Both existence and non-existence" and "Neither existence nor non-existence" → Attempt to reconcile but are contradictory.
- → Truth cannot be confined by concepts.
- Comparison to Western Logic: Western logic relies on the "Law of Excluded Middle," while Madhyamaka rejects the "clinging to a definite answer."
- Everyday Example:
- Asking "What is love?" and answering "Love exists" or "Love doesn't exist" are both too crude.
- Madhyamaka says: "The question itself uses the wrong logical language."
- Critical Thinking Question:
- In your relationships, what are you trying to prove? Do you believe there's "an inherent essence of love"?
✅ Episode 3 | "Emptiness" is Not Nothingness, It's Removing Fixed "Nature."
- Emptiness is not denying existence; it's "lack of inherent existence."
- → All phenomena have no fixed nature; their essence is a temporary combination of conditions.
- Comparison to Western Thought: Similar to the non-determinism of quantum mechanics, but Buddhism goes beyond concepts and also requires "non-clinging."
- Everyday Example:
- "I'm a bad person" is actually just a convergence of certain emotional conditions.
- Emptiness allows you to see: this is not your permanent self.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- What is the "identity" you are most unwilling to let go of? Does it have an inherent nature?
✅ Episode 4 | Madhyamaka's Eight Negations of the Middle Way: No Arising, No Ceasing; No Permanence, No Discontinuity; No Sameness, No Difference; No Coming, No Going.
- Eight Negations: Comprehensively dismantle common dualistic thinking about the world.
- → Breaks irrational binary thinking patterns.
- Comparison: Western thought often uses "synthesis" in dialectics, while Madhyamaka "directly exposes misconceptions."
- Everyday Example:
- "Did this relationship end or never begin?" Madhyamaka says: Defining relationships using a "linear timeline" is flawed.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Are you looking for an "absolute answer" to make yourself feel better?
✅ Episode 5 | What is "Dependent Arising and Emptiness"? This is the Core Logic of Buddhism.
- Dependent Arising: Everything arises from conditions and causes; nothing exists independently.
- Emptiness: Since everything arises dependently, nothing has a fixed, inherent nature.
- Comparison: Western systems theory is close, but lacks the goal of "breaking clinging and transforming the mind."
- Everyday Example:
- Emotions aren't a sickness you have; they are composed of stress, relationships, hormones.
- → Knowing it's "dependent arising," you won't blame yourself, nor will you blindly believe in it.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- What combinations of dependent conditions caused your recent suffering? Are they transformable?
✅ Episode 6 | Language is a Trap: How Madhyamaka Dismantles Language's Self-Clinging Influence.
- Buddhism states: All language and concepts are "mere designations."
- → Language is not ultimate truth; language arises from clinging.
- Comparison: Wittgenstein and Derrida also questioned whether language can reach truth.
- Everyday Example:
- When you say, "I'm worthless," you're actually repeating a phrase others gave you, not stating a fact.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Does a self-definition you recently spoke truly match your entire existence?
✅ Episode 7 | Karma is Not Fate: Buddhist Non-Linear Logic.
- Karma = The meeting of causes and conditions; it's not a linear, one-way "what you sow is what you rigidly reap."
- Buddhism emphasizes "transforming thought transforms karma": Karma can be changed, transformed, and transcended.
- Everyday Example:
- Childhood trauma doesn't mean you're destined for unhappiness as an adult.
- → Your "present mind" can plant new seeds.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Is the karmic relationship you currently believe in, like "I'm beyond help," truly unchangeable?
✅ Episode 8 | Breaking Down the "Self-Centered" View of the Five Aggregates.
- Buddhism states "the five aggregates are not self": Body, feelings, perceptions, mental formations, consciousness → all are composite forms.
- Comparison to Psychology: Overlaps with modern personality psychology, but Buddhism's goal is "breaking clinging, realizing emptiness."
- Everyday Example:
- "I get angry easily." → Buddhism says: That's just a combined reaction of certain forms, feelings, and perceptions; it's not "you."
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Is that "I am like this" belief you cling to most stubbornly actually just a combination of certain patterns?
✅ Episode 9 | How to Apply the Middle Way in Conflict and Choices?
- The Middle Way does not equal compromise; it is "transcending opposites, seeing the reality of dependent arising."
- No longer clinging to who is right or wrong, but seeing the causes and conditions behind each stance.
- Comparison to Western Thought: Similar to Hegel's "thesis-antithesis-synthesis" dialectic, but Madhyamaka emphasizes a direct realization of "neither establishing, nor refuting, nor combining."
- Everyday Example:
- Parents want you to pursue a government job; you want to study art.
- → The Middle Way doesn't pick a side, but looks at how each party's needs, fears, and love coexist.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Is your current trapped choice due to your insistence on "choosing a correct 'me'"?
✅ Episode 10 | Emotions ≠ Truth: How Madhyamaka Confronts the Deception of Emotions.
- Buddhism states: "Feelings are suffering" → Emotions arise from the dependent origination of the five aggregates, not from a real self.
- Do not trust your logic when you are sad; it is merely a product of "imagined nature."
- Comparison: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy also states that "thoughts do not represent reality."
- Everyday Example:
- "He didn't reply to my message → He doesn't care about me." → This is your thought creating a drama, not reality.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Was your last emotional outburst based on an unsubstantiated interpretation?
✅ Episode 11 | Good and Evil are Also Relative: Why Can Clinging to Goodness Lead to Suffering?
- Buddhism states: "Good and evil are empty, but one must not fail to act."
- → Do not cling to "goodness" as self-worth or suffer from merit anxiety.
- Madhyamaka does not deny good and evil, but breaks the notion of "thinking that doing good will give you control."
- Comparison: Kantian ethics states goodness comes from will; Madhyamaka states goodness comes from "selfless great vows."
- Everyday Example:
- "I'm so good to people, why do they treat me this way?"
- → This is treating "goodness" as a bargaining chip; it's self-clinging at work.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Have you ever felt anger because you believed "you are very kind"?
✅ Episode 12 | Imagined Nature: 99% of Life's Suffering is Self-Imposed.
- "Imagined Nature" is a Yogacara description of mistaken cognition; Madhyamaka primarily deconstructs it.
- Meaning: You forcibly impose concepts onto phenomena, treating "thoughts" as "facts."
- Comparison: Psychologists call this cognitive distortion.
- Everyday Example:
- He saw his phone but didn't reply to me = he doesn't love me. → This is a drama you "added," not a fact.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Is your greatest recent suffering from what someone did, or how you interpreted it?
✅ Episode 13 | Emptiness Does Not Make One Incapable; It Transcends Inferiority and Arrogance.
- Madhyamaka states: Inferiority and arrogance both arise from the "inherent self" operating in comparison.
- Seeing the self as a temporary combination of conditions eliminates the need for comparison.
- Comparison: Modern self-psychology states "the self is not an object, but a process."
- Everyday Example:
- Facing an excellent person, you feel small.
- → The wisdom of emptiness lets you know: their success is not "their inherent nature," but merely a manifestation of conditions.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Where do the reasons for your inner "self-definition as not good enough" come from? Has anyone truly verified them?
✅ Episode 14 | "Am I Worthy of Love?" This Question Itself is a Trap of Clinging.
- Madhyamaka states: This question presupposes "I have a constant value"—wrong!
- Love is not an exchange, but dependent arising → it comes when it comes, it goes when it goes; there's no fixed formula.
- Comparison: Existentialism is concerned with "being recognized," while Buddhism teaches that "inherently, the self needs no recognition."
- Everyday Example:
- In a relationship, asking "Am I good enough?" → This starts from a "self-worth" mindset, an endless loop.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- If you had never been loved, would you think you were "unworthy"? Who said that, anyway?
✅ Episode 15 | Can Emptiness and Compassion Coexist? Will it Lead to Indifference?
- Buddhism states: True emptiness gives rise to great compassion. → No longer bound by self-clinging, one can truly see the suffering of all beings.
- Emptiness ≠ indifference; emptiness is the clear compassion that arises after openness and non-clinging.
- Comparison: Aligns with modern "mentalization theory": the more one can see others' subjective experience, the more one can empathize.
- Everyday Example:
- Your child does poorly on a test; you neither scold nor indulge, but understand dependent arising and offer appropriate support. → This is compassion born from emptiness.
- Critical Thinking Question:
- Have you ever been so concerned with the "form" of love that you forgot what the other person truly needed?
✅ Episode 16 | Madhyamaka vs. Modern Philosophy Summary: Beyond Logic, Back to the Root of Mind.
- Madhyamaka is not a logical game, but a practice-oriented logic that leads to freedom through breaking clinging.
- Western logic aims for clear reasoning; Madhyamaka aims to break the habitual thought patterns that cause suffering.
🧠 Comparison:
🧪 Everyday Example:
When you can't let go of a relationship, logic gives you rational reasons; Madhyamaka helps you break down "why you need this person to prove your existence."
🎯 Ultimate Question:
Are you suffering now because you "don't know the truth," or because you "insist on a truth you want"?
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