Catuskoti - Four Extremes

Four Extremes

The 'Four Extremes' (Tibetan: མཐའ་བཞི, Wylie: mtha' bzhi; Sanskrit: caturanta; Devanagari: चतुरन्त) is a particular application of the Catuṣkoṭi:

• Being (Wylie: yod)
• Non-being (Wylie: med)
• Both being and non-being (Wylie: yod-med)
• Neither being and non-being (Wylie: yod-med min)

Dumoulin et al. (1988, 2005: pp. 43–44), in the initially groundbreaking work on Zen which is now for the most part dated due to progress in scholarship (though still useful as the premier English work of comprehensive overview), model a particular formulation of the Catuṣkoṭi that approaches the Caturanta engaging the Buddhist technical term 'dharmas' and attribute the model to Nagarjuna:

If we focus on the doctrinal agreement that exists between the Wisdom Sūtras and the tracts of the Mādhyamika we note that both schools characteristically practice a didactic negation. By setting up a series of self-contradictory oppositions, Nāgārjuna disproves all conceivable statements, which can be reduced to these four:

All things (dharmas) exist: affirmation of being, negation of nonbeing

All things (dharmas) do not exist: affirmation of nonbeing, negation of being

All things (dharmas) both exist and do not exist: both affirmation and negation

All things (dharmas) neither exist nor do not exist: neither affirmation nor negation

With the aid of these four alternatives (catuṣkoṭika: affirmation, negation, double affirmation, double negation), Nāgārjuna rejects all firm standpoints and traces a middle path between being and nonbeing. Most likely the eight negations, arranged in couplets in Chinese, can be traced back to Nāgārjuna: neither destruction nor production, neither annihilation nor permanence, neither unity nor difference, neither coming nor going.