Understanding Emptiness Through the Five Great Madhyamaka Arguments

A 6-week DharmaWeb course with Dan McNamara
May 24 – June 28 | Sundays at 4pm Pacific

In this six-week course, Dan McNamara will guide us through a short but profound text by Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo presenting the Five Great Madhyamaka Arguments. These arguments are among the most important reasoning methods used in the Buddhist tradition to examine how things truly exist and how confusion about that question becomes the root of suffering.

Four of the five arguments come directly from Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, which many of us have already encountered through Rinpoche’s teachings. The fifth draws on Śhāntarakṣita’s synthesis of Madhyamaka and Yogācāra and helps clarify the view of emptiness as presented in those systems.

Rather than approaching these arguments as abstract philosophy, we will explore them as practical tools for investigation. Each week we will work with one argument carefully and consider how it reshapes the way we look at experience, perception, and the nature of mind itself.

Along the way, Dan will introduce meditation approaches associated with Yogācāra and Madhyamaka as presented in sources such as Kamalaśīla and the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, helping us see how reasoning and meditation support one another on the path.

This course is especially helpful for students who would like to deepen their confidence in the view and connect philosophical study more directly with practice. Over time, these arguments are not simply ideas we understand. They become ways of looking that gradually loosen our assumptions about reality and open the door to direct insight.

We will explore one argument each week, followed by a final session to review and integrate what we have learned together.

This course is offered by suggested donation. A contribution of $50 is recommended if you are able. Donations will also help support Dan’s attendance in the upcoming summer retreat, making this offering part of our shared effort to strengthen study and practice together as a sangha.

About the Instructor

Dan McNamara is a senior student in Younge Drodul Ling. He first connected with Younge Khachab Rinpoche in 2003 and has been engaged in sustained study and practice within the Tibetan Buddhist tradition for many years.

Professionally, Dan is a researcher at Rangjung Yeshe Institute. He holds an MA from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a PhD in West and South Asian Religions from Emory University. His doctoral work examined the philosophy of the Indian Buddhist scholar Ratnākaraśānti and his engagement with Nāgārjuna and the Madhyamaka tradition.

Dan has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Buddhist philosophy, including Madhyamaka, Pramāṇa theory, Sanskrit, and classical Tibetan, at Emory University, Candler School of Theology, and the Carleton-Antioch Buddhist Studies Program in Bodh Gaya. His current research focuses on Ratnākaraśānti’s influence in Tibet and the development of other-emptiness thought.

In this course, he brings together careful textual study and long familiarity with the tradition to help make these classical arguments accessible and relevant for contemporary practice.