earticle

영어

This paper offers a comparative philosophical inquiry into Nāgārjuna and Sengzhao’s doctrine of “neither existence nor nonexistence”( ) and Zhuangzi’s more radical formulation of “neither the negation of existence nor the negation of nonexistence”( ). Focusing on Buddhist discussions of dependent origination, emptiness, and the Two Truths, the paper examines how Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way is received and transformed in Sengzhao’s Prajñā thought, particularly through the concepts of non-coming and non-going( ), non-migration( ), and neither existence nor nonexistence. These Buddhist formulations are then placed in dialogue with Zhuangzi’s dialectical reflections on adaptive coming and going( ) and his employment of paradoxical negation that transcends binary oppositions. The analysis argues that Sengzhao’s philosophy does not merely negate movement, existence, or causality, but articulates a dynamic interdependence between movement and stillness, saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, existence and emptiness. Zhuangzi’s thought, in turn, anticipates a similar logic through his rejection of fixed distinctions between being and non-being, affirmation and negation. By juxtaposing these traditions, the paper highlights a shared non-dualistic horizon in which conventional distinctions are neither absolutized nor dismissed, but reinterpreted as mutually implicative.