9th Karmapa Middle Way Feast for the Fortunate (PDF)

All Buddhist philosophical systems explain how they adhere to a “middle way” or middle path, whether that middle way is one of view, meditation, or conduct. However, it is only the system of Nagarjuna outlined in his six treatises on reasoning, along with the tradition of exposition that stemmed from that system, that are universally renowned as the Middle Way.

In Tibet, the works of Chandrakirti, who lived some three hundred years after the time of Nagarjuna, became renowned amongst the masters of all four of Tibet’s Buddhist major schools as being the authoritative interpretation of Nagarjuna’s thought. Chandrakirti composed two works on the meaning of Nagarjuna’s main text, the Treatise on the Middle Way.

The first of these was a “word commentary” on the original text’s line-by-line meaning; the second was a “meaning commentary” designed to supplement Nagarjuna’s work by examining topics not treated directly by Nagarjuna.