"by Frater Nigris
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Dharma.
The word of Avidya is Restriction.
NAGARJUNA - References and commentary
Introduction
What follows is a brief introduction and overview of Nagarjuna's life and teachings. It is composed of excerpts largely from western writers who either translated or were familiar with original texts. Therefore they may be flawed, yet they are considered scholars in the field.
Life story
"Nagarjuna...is described...as a Brahman [Hindu Priest] of southern India, who, while a mere boy, studied the four Vedas and became adept in all sciences, including those of magic. In his earliest youth he made himself and three friends invisible so that they might slip into the royal seraglio
[whorehouse], but the four had hardly begun to take advantage of their situation when they were apprehended. The friends were condemned to die, but Nagarjuna was allowed to elect the other death, namely, that of the monastic vow.
"In ninety days he studied and mastered the whole of the Buddhist Pali canon. Then he proceeded northward, in quest of further knowledge,
until he came to the Himalayas, where a monk of immense age committed to him the Mahayana sutras; after which a serpent king (nagaraja)
disclosed an authentic commentary on those pages. All these sacred
writings had been preserved in secret... for centuries. They were, in fact, authentic revelations of the doctrine, which the Buddha himself had regarded as too profound for his contemporaries and had therefore put into the keeping of competent guardians. Mankind had required
literally hundreds of years preliminary training (the training of the Hinayana) in preparation for his higher law....
"Nagarjuna was...a brilliant, crystallizing, and energizing
philosophical spirit. Throughout northern India they still speak
of him as 'the Buddha without his characteristic marks.' And the works ascribed to him are revered equally with 'the sutras from
the Buddha's own mouth'."
From" of "by Heinrich Zimmer, pgs. 519-20.
COMMENT:
The story of Nagarjuna's life, like that of other great historical teachers, is cast in different versions based on culture and school. There are some which are less controversial than this, probably some more. I find their
MYTHIC value to be more important than their historic value. This is true for all the teachers which precede modern historical record. Their mythic quality tell us something about the context of the teachings. This is true for modern persons also, but modern historians are less prone to use mythic description when faced with a lack of 'fact'.
Association with the Buddha
"Nagarjuna was the greatest of the Fathers of Mahayana.... He is believed to have been the reincarnation of Ananda, the Buddha's illustrious
disciple." Epitome of the Life and Teachings of Tibet's Greatest
Guru Padma-"by Yeshey Tshogyal, Evans-Wentz Ed., p. 157 note 2.
COMMENT:
His association with Ananda, along with titles such as 'Second Buddha'
are indicators of how deeply he was respected in the Schools which studied his teachings. Again, the mythic quality is important as a context.
Association with tradition since the Buddha
"Nagarjuna (c.200 A.D.), the founder of the Madhyamika school of Buddhist philosophy, which is the supreme statement of the Mahayana view, was...
one of the subtlest metaphysicians the human race has yet produced.
..Asanga and his brother Vasubandhu (c. 300 A.D.), the developers of the Yogacara school of the Mahayana, likewise merit the respect of
whatever thinker sets himself the task of really comprehending the
rationalization of Nagarjuna's doctrine of the Void." of "by Heinrich Zimmer, pgs. 509-510.
COMMENT:
That Nagarjuna should be considered the 'Father of the Mahayana', and
'one of the subtlest metaphysicians the human race has yet produced'
gives me pause when considering the possibility of attempting to place his assertions within the context of formal logic.
Nagarjuna's method
"Nagarjuna did not deny that reason is valid for [relative] purposes, but he condemned the rationalist project of 'salting the tail of the Absolute,' of arriving at metaphysical truth by wringing the essential meanings out of commonsense words and sentences. For him, utterances are just designations..., complex actions like fingers pointing at the moon. One must look beyond the finger to the moon... The meaning is not found in the utterance itself - as in an oath or a magical formula - nor in some supposed referent corresponding to words. The goal is realized when thinking no longer binds a person to thought-construction, when nameables are not assumed to be more real than nonnameables and the cinema of thought-constructs ceases. Nagarjuna's philosophy, like
several others, achieves its goal when the thinker is no longer
grasped by thought." Buddhist "by R.H. Robinson and W.L. Johnson, p. 92.
COMMENT:
This is the main reason that the processes of logic alone will not
allow us to discover Nagarjuna's depth. Nagarjuna shows the
LIMITATIONS OF LOGIC. To reduce his arguments to statements of
formal logic restricts his meaning and this may reveal what may
then be called 'flaws'.
This is similar to the student of Western philosophy who asks that
Zeno's paradoxes be reduced to formal logic problems so that she
can 'solve' them. Zeno's paradoxes reveal the fundamental limitation of quantitative concepts. To 'solve' them is to effectively
disempower them and neglect their true value.
The association of the Buddha's method with Nagarjuna's method
"The Buddha continually diverted the mind from its natural tendency to posit an abiding essence beyond, or underlying, the endless and
meaningless dynamism of the concatenation of causes. And this is the effect also of Nagarjuna's metaphysical doctrine of the void." of "by Heinrich Zimmer, pg. 524.
COMMENT:
How can a 'system of logic' ever be said to 'divert the mind from its natural tendency to posit abiding essence'? Nagarjuna's was a subtle means of OVERCOMING the trap of the linguistic constructs which held so many of his contemporaries in contention.
The context, goal and meaning of Nagarjuna's Middle Path
"The Buddha, and, after Him, Nagarjuna, who compiled the Prajna-
Paramita [Perfection of Wisdom], the chief Mahayana treatise on
Transcendental Wisdom, aimed to avoid in their teachings the extreme of superstition on the one hand and nihilism on the other; and so
their method is that of the Middle Path, which, under Nagarjuna,
became known as the Madhyamika [Middle Way or Path]. Prior to
Nagarjuna, Buddhist metaphysicians were divided into two schools of extremists, one school teaching of a real existence, the other of an illusory existence. Nagarjuna showed that nothing can be said to
exist or not to exist, for so long as the mind conceives in terms of dualism it is still under sangsaric [earthly] bondage, and fettered by the false desire for either personal immortality or annihilation.
Reality, or the Absolute [God], or Being per se, is transcendent over both existence and nonexistence, and over all other dualistic
concepts. According to Nagarjuna, it is the Primordial Voidness
[Nonduality or Emptiness], beyond mental conception, or definition
in terms of human experience.
"The Madhyamika maintains that the World is to be renounced not
as the Theravada [old tradition] teaches, because of its pain and
sorrow, but because it is as non-real as are dreams; it, being merely one of the many dream-states comprising the Sangsara, is wholly
unsatisfying. [The goal of the aspirant is to] awaken from all the
dream-states of the Sangsara into the State of True Awakening,
Nirvana, beyond the range of all the glamorous illusions and
hypnotic mirages of the Sangsara; and thus become, as is the
Buddha, a Fully-Awakened [Aware] One."
>From the introduction to" Tibetan Book of the Great "Ed. by W.Y. Evans-Wentz, pgs. 2-3.
COMMENT:
Here we have a more elaborate description of the Middle Way. It
consists of not holding to conceptual extremes. This includes
the extreme of one worldview. The object, of which Nagarjuna shows
the value, is to RELEASE conceptual frameworks. While they may be
useful tools, like the taoist fishing net, once they have served their purpose, they are no longer necessary. More than this, the very process of releasing one's grasp on conceptual frameworks may set the stage for liberation, enlightenment.
The Middle Way and how it differs from Nihilism
"...It appears that, when Nagarjuna approached the main philosophical teaching of the Buddha, he was confronted with a multitude of contending schools of philosophy, each making an exclusive claim, seizing the
fragmentary as complete, clinging to the relative as absolute. That this tendency was quite prevalent then among the Buddhist schools is evidenced by the emphasis put in the works of Nagarjuna on non-contentiousness (anupalambha), which he regarded as belonging to the very heart of the Buddha's teachings. There is also the explicit reference in the Sastra to the prevailing attitude of contention among the Buddha's followers which vitiated the atmosphere and constituted an obstruction to clear understanding....
"...This situation seems to have provided for Nagarjuna but one instance of the inveterate tendency of the human mind, the tendency to cling, to seize.
This tendency, which functions under a false imagination, and not on right understanding, is the root of suffering in life and of dead-ends (anta) and conflict in understanding....
"...As an individual, man is essentially related to the rest of the world.
He is also not apart from the indeterminate reality which is the ultimate ground of his very being. And in his ultimate nature man is himself indeterminate, unconditioned reality, the undivided being. The ultimate sense of the sense of lack, the sense of devoidness (sunyata), which is the thirst for the real, Nagarjuna would say, lies in the realization of this real nature of oneself. The imagination that one is bound forever to one's fragmentariness alienates the conditioned from the unconditioned, reducing the relative distinction to absolute separateness. The thirst for the real in man is not bound ot end in despair. What brings about despair is one's own imagination that one's limitedness is one's ultimate nature. A rise in one's awareness from the level of finiteness to the realization of one's ultimate nature is possible, Nagarjuna would say, and in this rise consists the fulfillment of the thirst in man.
"The way to this realization is prepared by one's awakening to the absurdities and self-contradictions involved in one's false imagination. Nagarjuna's criticism of the categories, the basic factors of life and understanding, is intended to lay bare these absurdities, thereby to reveal the conditionedness (sunyata) of the conditioned as well as the further truth that the conditioned is not unconditioned (sunyata-sunyata)....
"...[A] comprehensive understanding is sought to be conveyed in the philosophy of the Middle Way by prajna. As the principle of
comprehension it is the Middle Way, the way that rises above
exclusiveness. In it there is no rejection of anything except the
imagination of absoluteness in regard to what is relative....
"In the philosophy of the Middle Way, determinate entities as well as specific concepts and conceptual formulations are not only accepted but taken as essential to give expression to the real in man. These are essential for the complete realization of the ultimate reality. 'The ultimate truth cannot be taught,' says Nagarjuna, 'except in the context of the [relative] truth, and unless the ultimate truth is comprehended, Nirvana cannot be realized.' But clinging to the specific concepts and conceptual systems as absolute is rejected. A view, a specific conceptual formulation, is at root a unique way in which one seeks to give expression to the sense of the unconditioned... This is the growth which one achieves in respect to one's being in the world. This everyone does in his own way, from his own specific standpoint which embodies its own perspective. The rejection of views which is an essential point in the philosophy of the Middle Way means that no specific view, being specific, is limitless, and no view, being a view, is ultimate. The ultimate truth is not any 'view'.
'Silence is the ultimate truth for the wise.' And yet, the ultimate truth can be and needs to be expressed from the [relative] standpoint...."
"...It is this ultimate truth that the Madhyamika, the traveller on the Middle Way, has sought to lay bare. His claim that he has no position of his own means that this basic truth, which he lays bare is not anything exclusively his own but is in the possession of every self-conscious individual. One can see it if one develops an eye to see it and it is his mission to enkindle this insight. His rejection of views does not mean that he is opposed to building systems [Nihilism]; he would himself formulate specific systems, not to cling to them, but to use them as a help to those who are in need of them. That he does not have any position of his own means that he does not seize any specific formulation exclusively.
This sense of non-exclusiveness enables him to keep himself en rapport with every system and to see the truth in every position. Non-exclusiveness (sunyata), the Madhyamika would say, is of the very nature of wisdom (prajna).
Rejecting the error of misplaced absoluteness, he reveals the conditioned as conditioned and the unconditioned as unconditioned. In this he is doing just what the sun does; the sun does not make the high low or the low high, but just reveals the nature of things as they are, the low as low and the high as high."'s "by K.V. Ramanan, pgs. 37-42.
COMMENT:
I am reminded of the first chapter of" Te "which seems related
to the Middle Way:
The way that can be named
is not the absolute Way.
The name that can be expressed
is not the absolute Name.
The unnamable [sunyata?] is the absolutely real.
Naming is the beginning of the Ten-thousand things [Samsara?].
Free from passion, one sees the Mystery [that Samsara = Nirvana?].
Imbued with passion, one sees Manifestation [duality].
Mystery and Manifestation arise from the same Source [Mind?].
This Source is called Darkness [Void?].
From Darkness into Darkness,
The Gate to Enlightenment.
Lao Tzu, my interpolation, based on many texts, but especially these two" Te "by Stephen Mitchell, and" Wisdom of "Ed. by Lin Yutang.
To detach from concepts does not mean to reject them. It simply means that we do not mistake them for absolute reality. Perhaps this also means that we do not mistake conceptual thought for direct experience.
I am led to think that 'ultimate truth' is exactly
this direct experience. In this way, 'the Zen Mind is no different from our ordinary mind' in that our ordinary mind is an integral element of our experience.
Nagarjuna's philosophy is too recursive and transcendental to be
easily placed in the form of Aristotelian logic or other formal logic systems. I suspect that doing so may lead one to the conclusion that Nagarjuna favored one 'view' over another or that he was an apologist for Nihilism, neither of which is accurate by my reading.
He is given too little scrutiny by the bulk of Western scholars,
and why his name comes to stand in any but the Center I do not understand.
Perhaps future orientalists will come to see things more clearly.
Invoke me under my stars. Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in kinship,
Frater (I) Nigris (DCLXVI) CCCXXXIII
Tyagi Nagasiva
(C) 1993
nagasiva@luckymojo.com
Arkaotika
6632 Covey Road
Forestville, CA 95436
