檢視「空有不二」作為說明佛教「不二中道」之概念

A Critique of the Term "The Nonduality of Emptiness and Existence" in Its Elucidation of Buddhist Non-dualistic Middle Path

本文討論的主題，在於檢視用以說明「不二中道」的「空有不二」概念，是否是一個合宜的詞組，以及此詞組是否是一個適切說明佛教不二中道的概念。在探討「空有不二」之概念、學說時，大部分之論文多從歷史脈絡與宗派之主張切入，本文則不由歷史脈絡、宗派發展的角度切入。由於身處於哲學領域，著重於理論、概念之條理分析，因此，本文以直接分析「空有不二」詞組之意思入手檢視。逐一釐清該詞組涉及的概念，包括「有」、「無」、佛教之「空」義與「不二中道」義理，嘗試以分析與建構佛教經典的方式理解這些概念。最後，檢視若依據如此之解析，「空有不二」詞組是否為一適切詞組，以及在條理上是否契合於佛教所說的義理。本文透過如此分析、論理，了解到「空」義本身已涵蓋「有」、「無」之變化歷程，故不落入「有」、「無」任何一方。既不落入任一方，也就並非與「有」為一組相對概念，因此應不適合將兩者以「不二」來聯繫之。若欲彰顯空義非斷無之義，應可以重新釐清佛教空義的方式說明。

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the term "the nonduality of emptiness and existence" often used to elucidtate Buddhist nondualistic middle path in Chinese Buddhism. Through this analysis, we can discuss two further questions. Fisrt, is "the nonduality of emptiness and existence" a properly conbined term? Second, is it a suitable term to elucidtate Buddhist non-dualistic middle path? In contemporary Buddhist studies, the more common approaches are philological and historical. In this paper, I take a philosophical approach for two reasons. Frist, my main fi eld is Buddhist philosophy. Second, historical approach may provide historical answer, such as who or when this term was said or how this term varied among different period of time and different schools. In this paper, I want to focus on the doctrinal meaning of this term and its related concepts such as emptiness and non-dualistic middle path. A feasible way of constructing the doctrinal meaning of emptiness and non-dualistic middle path can start from reading into Buddhist teachings. By analyzing the the term "the nonduality of emptiness and existence," we found that emptiness is a concept for describing the continual-changing process of the world. Existence is the appearance of the co-arising conditions and non-existence is the lake of the related conditions. Accordingly, being non-dualistic, existence and non-existence are just different sections of the whole changing process. The changing process lacks a fi xed core or entity, and can therefore be described as emptiness. Emptiness in Buddhism does not mean nothingness. Through this analysis, we can understand that emptiness is not an opposite concept to existence. Emptiness is a concept that points to the process including existence and nonexistence. In conclusion, it is not appropriate to combine emptiness and existence as a conceptual pair to illustrate Buddhist non-dualistic middle path.