The Four Middles of Chi-tsang (Jizang) and the Emptiness School

1. Comparative: Compare whether one is emphasizing too much the emptiness/oneness aspect or the form/word/manyness aspect of a situation or phenomenon.

For example, too much emptiness, which is also not true emptiness: life is without words and (wrongly) without meaning. Life is meaningless, This is too much of the wrong kind of emptiness. Then, I have to have this certain person as my lover. This is too much form, in the wrong way (attachment to form). The middle is: I can be attracted to someone but let them go when the time is over.

2. Exhaustive Middle: When I have mastered the different kinds of situations that can arise, then I have exhausted the different sets of circumstances that I can encounter. In principle, my practice of the two-fold truth is 'exhaustive.'

3. Absolute Middle: Once I have mastered or exhausted all situations, then I come to a complete or absolute realization, or the Absolute Middle.

4. Creative Middle: However, life is not simply a series of problems to be solved such that I want to be finished with it in an absolute way. Rather, the culmination is that I now look forward to each situation as an opportunity to creatively express my practice of the two-fold truth.