This course is an exposition of the Middle Way philosophical tradition based on Part One of The Center of the Sunlit Sky, expressed as the ground, path and fruition of Madhyamaka. Students explore the classification of knowable objects into the two realities and cultivate certainty in the view of emptiness of all phenomena, formulating the five great Madhyamaka reasonings. The course includes the presentation of personal identitylessness with the sevenfold analysis of the chariot.

Faculty: Jirka Hladiš

Dates: Tuesdays and Thursdays, October 26–December 23, 2021, 4:30–6:00p Pacific time. (No class on Thanksgiving, Thursday, November 25, 2021)

Prerequisites: BUD 501, BUD 510, BUD 520, BUD 530, BUD 601

Note: This course is open to the Nalandabodhi Connecticut cohort as well as all other students who meet the above prerequisites.

Required texts: (contact bookstore@nitarthainstitute.org to order the texts)

• The Center of the Sunlit Sky: Madhyamaka in the Kagyü Tradition, by Mitra Karl Brunnhölzl, 2004, Snow Lion Publications
• Not Even a Middle – Nalandabodhi Publications