Sanlun, the “Three Treatise” tradition of Chinese Madhyamaka, is best understood as a scholastic and contemplative path whose distinctive practice lies less in outward ritual and more in a disciplined inquiry into emptiness. Its central activity is the intensive study and analysis of the Three Treatises themselves—the Middle Treatise, the Twelve Gate Treatise, and the Hundred Treatise—alongside related Mahāyāna scriptures. Through close reading, commentary, and formal debate, practitioners use dialectical reasoning to expose the limits of all fixed positions and to reveal the emptiness of inherent existence. This method of systematic refutation is not merely intellectual; it functions as a spiritual discipline that loosens attachment to views and undermines reified notions of self and phenomena.

Meditative contemplation in this tradition centers on emptiness and the two truths: conventional and ultimate. Practitioners reflect on the emptiness of all dharmas, then extend this insight to the “emptiness of emptiness” itself, so that even the standpoint of emptiness is not clung to. This gives rise to what is sometimes described as a “non‑abiding” practice, in which the mind does not settle into any extreme of existence or non‑existence, affirmation or negation. Such contemplation is meant to permeate daily perception, gradually transforming how phenomena are experienced without positing any final conceptual resting place.

Within this framework, general Buddhist disciplines are integrated rather than discarded. Ethical conduct, meditation, and the cultivation of wisdom are all undertaken in light of emptiness, so that generosity, morality, patience, energy, concentration, and insight are practiced without grasping at an actor, an act, or a recipient. Standard Mahāyāna monastic observances—such as sūtra recitation, confession and repentance rites, and the taking or renewing of bodhisattva vows—are present, but they do not form a uniquely Sanlun liturgy. Instead, they provide a communal and ritual container for a path whose hallmark is the relentless yet compassionate dismantling of all rigid conceptual constructions, allowing wisdom and non‑attached compassion to unfold together.