Critiques of the Sanlun tradition often begin with its radical use of emptiness. By relentlessly negating all fixed views, Sanlun was accused of sliding into a kind of nihilism, as if nothing at all—karma, moral action, or the path itself—retained any meaningful validity. Other Buddhist schools worried that such an approach undermined confidence in positive teachings and practices, even if Sanlun masters themselves insisted that emptiness rightly understood should support, not destroy, moral causality. This reputation for “excessive negativity” led many to feel that the school had gone too far in dismantling conceptual structures without sufficiently clarifying how practice and realization remain possible.

Closely related is the charge that Sanlun “only breaks and does not establish.” Its hallmark dialectic, modeled on Nāgārjuna’s refutational method, excels at exposing the limits of any doctrinal position, yet offers comparatively little in the way of constructive doctrine or detailed soteriological roadmaps. Critics claimed that this left practitioners with subtle arguments but insufficient guidance for actual liberation, especially when compared with schools that articulated elaborate cosmologies, stages of practice, or visions of Buddha‑nature and “one mind.” The very power of Sanlun’s logical critique thus appeared, to some, to come at the cost of a clear and affirmative framework for spiritual development.

The school’s strong emphasis on abstract reasoning also drew fire. Its intricate use of logic and the tetralemma was seen as overly scholastic, difficult to translate into daily conduct, and prone to overshadowing meditative experience and direct insight. From this angle, Sanlun seemed remote from the concerns of ordinary practitioners, who might struggle to see how such rarefied dialectics could inform ethical choices, social responsibilities, or the cultivation of compassion in concrete situations. The specter of moral relativism loomed large for some observers, who feared that if all distinctions are deconstructed as empty, the basis for stable ethical norms and social order might be eroded.

Finally, there were broader cultural and philosophical misgivings. Within the Chinese context, Sanlun’s radical deconstruction of all positions appeared at odds with long‑standing ideals of harmony, moral cultivation, and constructive engagement with the world. Confucian and Daoist thinkers, as well as more synthetic Buddhist schools, regarded its stance as culturally discordant and practically irrelevant to governance, ritual, and everyday life. Philosophically, questions were raised about whether a teaching that negates all conceptual formulations can avoid self‑refutation, or even communicate its own insights without undermining them. These intertwined criticisms contributed to the perception that, despite its profound subtlety, Sanlun did not fully meet the religious and cultural needs of its milieu.