With the four ordinary preliminary practices or the Hinayana Buddhist view, we can conclude that all compounded things are impermanent, suffering and contaminated. It is called “contaminated” since various afflictions can be produced. The investigative method of the Madhyamaka teaches us to investigate this life and next life, as well as other various external stuffs.  The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna has twenty-seven chapters, and most of the content is the investigation on the external spiritual’s substance, so to understand that all phenomena are empty and discover that the world is fundamentally an illusion that does not exist at all. Thus, our greed and ignorance are undermined and will not grow.

~ Depicted from Luminous Wisdom Book Series  9