ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Yogachara-Madhyamaka

Okay kiddo, today we're going to talk about yogachara-madhyamaka! Yogachara-madhyamaka is a very complicated idea that some really smart people came up with a long time ago.

To understand what it means, we first need to know what yoga is. Have you ever done yoga? It's a type of exercise where you move your body in different ways to help you feel better physically and mentally.

Now, the word "yoga" actually means "to yoke" or "to unite" in a language called Sanskrit. It's kind of like when you put two things together to make something new. So, yogachara means "yoga practice" or "union through practice."

Madhyamaka is another word in Sanskrit that means "middle way." It's like finding a balance between two extremes.

Now, when we put these two words together - yogachara-madhyamaka - it means that there is a way to find balance and unity through our yoga practice. But it's not just physical yoga, it's also about the way we think and feel.

Yogachara-madhyamaka is a way of thinking that says that the world we see around us is not exactly the way it seems. It's like when we see a tree, we might think it's just a tree, but yogachara-madhyamaka says that the tree is actually made up of a lot of different things and ideas that come together to make a tree.

The people who came up with this idea thought that if we can understand this about the world, we can understand ourselves better too. It's like knowing that we are made up of lots of different ideas, feelings, and experiences that come together to make us who we are.

So, yogachara-madhyamaka is a way of understanding the world and ourselves through yoga practice and finding balance between extremes. Pretty cool, huh?