From: portal!cup.portal.com!Tagi@uunet.UU.NET
Subject: Re: Wild attack on Nagarjuna (Defense)
Organization: ----
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 20:58:49 GMT

9207.29 e.v.


Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The word of Sin is Restriction.


Jochen Kleinschmidt writes:

I'm sending this article off with a sense of urgency and disgust... 

[long introduction omitted]


Response:

I almost bypassed your post because of these words.  Hey, next time dispense
with the introduction, ok?  I'd rather hear the flammables. :>


Jochen:

[Introduction and qualification of Jochen omitted]


Response:

Again, why don't you save this kind of stuff for a post about YOU? Personally
I don't care from whence an argument arises.  What I'm looking for is brevity,
coherence, and relevance.  I'm not always very good at perfecting these myself,
yet sometimes I bypass long posts which don't grab my attention.  You're lucky
I have a thing for Nagarjuna.


Jochen:

The basic question I raise is this: Is it beneficial or even necessary for 
a practicing Buddhist to try to understand the doctrine of emptiness as 
espoused by Nagarjuna and the Madhyamaka school he founded?  Or is such an 
effort an utter waste of time?


Response:

My immediate response to your questions:

1) It depends upon the Buddhist.

2) Time isn't real.  It cannot be wasted.

3) All foci are valuable.


Jochen:

[most material concerning what other people say omitted]

According to Tsongkhapa, the three pillars of Buddhist practice are: 1. 
renunciation (of all involvement with samsara), 2. arousing of bodhicitta 
(the intense desire to reach enlightenment solely for the sake of the 
welfare of all beings), and 3. correct understanding of emptiness....  


Response:

This is what Buddhism has devolved to?  I hope not.  Didn't Kapleau
describe the three pillars as something a bit more fundamental, a bit
more transcendental?  1 and 2 seem contradictory.  3 seems irrelevant,
unless understood in its broadest sense.


Jochen:

[historical evaluation of traditional 'Buddhists' omitted]

..So if these folks want to 
make us believe that enlightenment is impossible without truly 
understanding the doctrine of emptiness (Tsongkhapa's and Rabten's 
uncertainties notwithstanding), and if we believe them, then we don't have 
any other choice but to bite the bullet and tackle this esoteric subject, 
right?


Response:

If we are disciples of these individuals and we believe their words, it
would seem wise to follow their recommendations, yes.


Jochen:

Consequently, I have dabbled, off and on, in this refractory subject.  And 
I can only dabble because of the following considerations.  First, to do 
this right, one ought to be an expert reader of sanskrit which I am not.  
To make it even more difficult, the writings of Nagarjuna and Candrakirti 
are terse and cryptic, to say the least, and even expert sanskrit readers, 
I understand, are baffled by the tough linguistic problems posed by these 
authors.  I have spent hours trying to put together an English translation 
of just a few verses of Nagarjuna's karikas or of a couple of paragraphs of 
Candrakirti's "Clear Words" (what a joke, it should be called "Obfuscating 
Ruminations"), using multiple existing translations.  The differences 
between these translations (and the philosophical biases of the 
translators) are so pronounced that you sometimes hardly recognize you're 
dealing with the same verse or section of text.


Response:

Thank you for this review.  I have never taken it upon myself to examine
the original documents, preferring to approach the Source directly for
interpretation of the many interpretations.


Jochen:

Second, one ought to have a thorough understanding of the whole 
intellectual climate of Hindu/Buddhist India over the period of roughly 100 
B.C.E. (early prajnaparamita literature) to 700 C.E. (Prasangika Madhyamaka 
reaching its mature formulation with Candrakirti).  That's a tall order.  


Response:

I doubt that this is absolutely necessary, especially when we must face
MORE writers and their biases in order to attempt such an understanding.


Jochen:

Nagarjuna merely reacted to the schools of metaphysical thought existing at 
his time and tried to reduce them to adsurdities.  Although he should 
perhaps be applauded for it, personally I think his enterprise was equally 
absurd and superfluous.  It certainly seems absurd for us today to try to 
understand these ancient scholastic squabbles, except for purely academic 
interest, or to listen to those who tell us that these things are 
important.


Response:

Is it absurd to point out absurdity?  What are you doing here?


Jochen:

[commentary on Western buddhologists and other historical data omitted]

Among buddhologists, historians of 
Indian culture, translators, etc., I have not found anybody who has 
produced a digestable, incisive analysis and critique of Nagarjuna and the 
Madhyamaka body of thought, plus a defense or refutation of its relevance 
for us as Buddhist practitioners today.  As Richard Hayes observed here 
recently, Nagarjuna comes across as something of a misty oracle, open to a 
multiplicity of interpretations.


Response:

I frankly doubt that 'Buddhism' can be defined, let alone 'practiced'.
All mystical and ancient philosophical writings have survived because of
their AMBIGUITY.  What can you expect?  Take a look at Lao Tzu, for another
good example, from the Chinese culture.
 

Jochen:

..the basic premises from which 
Nagarjuna starts are false, and his logic is faulty.  I find it absurd to 
apply _any_ kind of verbally based or symbolic logic to such subtle matters 
of nonverbal experience as the experience of emptiness and the whole set of 
contiguous meditative experiences.  These things are not bricks or apples 
or any other well defined logical entity, they are intangible and beyond 
the grasp of ordinary conceptual analysis (for example, anybody please 
define and logically manipulate "pure awareness" for me; I know exactly 
what I mean by that but I believe I would sound like a lunatic if I were to 
try to explain it to you).  


Response:

I would not argue about what this person Nagarjuna did or did not do or think.
I will only offer my own reflections on the interpretations of others.
This is at best a glimpse into a cloudy storm.

Strange, I had thought that Nagarjuna's premises were that there were only
4 ways of approaching an assertion (X, -X, (X U -X) and -(X U -X)) and that
there are 2 levels of truth (literal and metaphorical).  Comparing and
contrasting these, I had assumed that he showed the limitedness of
language to comprehend absolute truth.  I could be mistaken.

I doubt that you would sound like a lunatic to me if you were to attempt to
describe 'pure awareness'.  While I cannot say that I know 'exactly what
I mean' by such a phrase, I might have had a similar experience which you'd
be referring to when voicing such a description.  

Communication cannot occur without a commonality of experience, however.



Jochen:

..Nagarjuna's conclusions are 
precisely what any intelligent pragmatist and skeptic immediately would say 
anyway, i.e. that hair-splitting scholastic and metaphysical speculation on 
these matters is inappropriate and should be avoided.  As Wittgenstein said 
in the final (or first?) sentence of his tractatus logicophilosophicus: 
about some things one simply has to be silent (or something to that 
effect).  Just keep your mouth and conceptual apparatus shut on these 
matters, as Zen Buddhists generally do.


Response:

I understood that Nagarjuna's philosophies attempt to promote the cessation
of seizing upon worldviews.  What is 'inappropriate' is not the speculation
but the dogged adherence to any one perspective.


Jochen:

[more historical commentary omitted]

But the 
Buddhist division of the entire universe, i.e. the whole of existence 
including the non-physical universe of the inner experience of sentient 
beings, into things called dharmas is rubbish, in my opinion.  I disagree 
with practically every major notion of the Buddhist abhidharma: the notion 
of dharmas, the possession by entities of the elements of earth, air, fire, 
and water, the skandhas, the details of pratityasamutpada, etc., etc.  


Response:

To 'disagree' one must adopt a particular view oneself.  Is your disagreement
based upon the worldview you have attached yourself to or due to some
fundamental error of logic that you claim these expressions hold?

Aren't these things you mention above simply models with which to come to
a more intimate relationship with Universe?  As such, how can they be 'wrong'?
  

Jochen:

What I find interesting, and greatly respect, in the abhidharma Buddhist 
analysis, is the _basic approach_ to investigating mental states, including 
refined meditative states not experienced by the ordinary person who is 
mired in samsara, _not_ the concepts and language in which the old Buddhist 
explorers described their results.  Their approach was very sophisticated 
and right on track but their conceptualization was primitive and is 
outmoded now.  I think we can profitably study and perhaps retain the basic 
epistemological techniques used by these pioneers but we need to do the 
whole research project over again and describe our observations in a 
modern, scientific language that can mesh with parallel research going on 
in the cognitive and neurosciences.


Response:

While I would support any variation of expression regarding our results in
meditative exploration, I don't understand why these models cannot be used
by those who prefer them.  Perhaps you simply argue as I do that the
'standard' ought be that which is most useful and in some sense 'accessible'
rather than that which is 'approved'.

Perhaps you would agree with me that stagnation is a danger of tradition
and that the 'establishment' is just as capable of ignorance, a falling into
Samsara, as any solitary monk, by virtue of the limitedness of consensus'
ability to establish meaningful expressions of personal truth.


Jochen:

Nagarjuna didn't like the idea of svabhava in the dharmas but he accepted 
the basic idea of dharmas, it seems to me, an idea that I find absurd.  He 
then tried to refute the svabhava in the dharmas and replace it with 
sunyata.  To me, the logic the madhyamikas used for this is questionable; 
it strikes me as inept and childish, especially in the hands of his 
commentator Candrakirti.  I could give many examples for this but most of 
you who read this must have gotten exasperated by this yourself.  This 
logic doesn't resemble any traditional logic, and their argument is full of 
fallacies.


Response:

While I really don't understand your words above ('svabhava', 'dharmas', etc.)
I think that 'logic' is as 'logic' does.  What was 'logical' for the minds
of a previous generation may be the 'illogic' of the present.  To argue that
there is any One Truth is to neglect Nagarjuna's 'emptiness'.


Jochen:

To recapitulate my first crack at criticizing Nagarjuna: 1. Nagarjuna at 
first seems to accept the practice common among abhidharma Buddhists of his 
time of creating abstract concepts and categories about experiences and 
things about which nothing concrete can in fact be said; he also accepts 
the silly idea of dharmas as the logical atoms of the universe, 2. he then 
uses fallacious logic and childish similes to demonstrate what he thinks 
are fatal contradictions in this body of ideas, 3. since much of his 
(flawed) logic leads to implausibilities, he considers this to be 
equivalent to a refutation, i.e. he concludes that many of these ideas are 
not true, most importantly the notion that entities are empty of 
self-nature.  What an exercise!  First, you accept your opponent's false 
premises, then through the use of whacky logic and unconvincing examples 
you try to show (possibly spurious) inconsistencies in your opponent's 
view, thereby supposedly refuting them, and finally you conclude that some 
subtle aspect in one of their basic premises (i.e. svabhava) is false, not 
realizing that the whole premise stinks.


Response:

An interesting analysis.  My reflection has been that Nagarjuna attempts,
like Socrates, to accept the views of others and then apply a type of logical
method to them in order to show their relatedness to their contradictories.
Whether this method is now seen to be 'silly' or not is somewhat irrelevant
as compared to the larger picture, which is that in theoretics (along with
ALL conceptualization) things arise in mutual interdependence and that such
'co-dependent origination' prohibits the primacy of any one thought-construct
from accurately representing Universe.  Again, perhaps I am mistaken here.


Jochen:

But Nagarjuna doesn't end there; now comes the killer.  Not content leaving 
things at that, he now reifies this absence of svabhava (the dharmas now 
are empty = sunya) and invents emptyNESS (sunyata)!  If svabhava can be 
thought of as some sort of essence (using medieval Western philosophical 
language) that dharmas possess, after having emptied them (cheers for 
that!), he now fills them up with emptiness!  From then on, in Buddhist 
philosophical discourse, the word emptiNESS is repeated a million times and 
explicated in countless more million words.  Emptiness now seems to have 
become something akin to an essence again, i.e. a solid property that all 
dharmas possess!


Response:

Another important point.  I'm sure that some have interpreted his words
in this way.  What I understand of them is that 'emptiness' does not
refer so much to a quality of essence as much to a lack of self-nature.
In other words, 'sunyata' is a description of Nirvana.  All things have no
self-nature (independent existence) and we can discern this lack
through careful examination of the relationship between supposedly
distinct entities.


Jochen:

I'm not even halfway through with what I wanted to say, and I have already 
wasted several hours on this silly subject.  I haven't pointed out some of 
the positive aspects of Nagarjuna's analysis, i.e. some ideas of his that I 
consider valid and that electrified me (e.g. how he manages to distill out 
so clearly the insubstantiality of events in consciousness = dharmas? :-), 
this would include such objects of conscouisness as love, democracy, 
fatherland etc., describing how they arise and disappear continually and by 
themselves are nothing, only existing as transient elements by virtue of 
being members in the cycle of pratityasamutpada, the interrelated chain of 
conditioned comings and goings).  Through my reading of Nagarjuna, I did 
indeed derive somewhat clearer insight (or illusion thereof) into this 
basic Buddhist notion.


Response:

My understanding is that Nagarjuna posits that ALL entities are like
those you mention - all arise and disappear continually.  I've thought it
useful to see this as 'radical subjectivity' in that this model only
addresses 'elements of consciousness', which are all we can ever relate to,
yet I see that even this is an incomplete model.


Jochen:

What bothers me is that I feel that Nagarjuna's main point was very simple, 
i.e. an uncompromising antimetaphysical attitude, something similar to the 
Buddha's habit of keeping silent whenever he was asked unpractical, 
metaphysical questions, or to Vimalakirti's "thunderous silence" in a 
similar situation.  But somehow Nagarjuna and/or his interpreters botched 
the job, and one of the consequences is that Tibetan lamas, Gelugpas 
certainly, spend at least two years studying Madhyamaka philosophy (along 
the way learning about a dozen different flavors of emptiness, as well as 
the emptiness of emptiness), and tell their students, including those in 
the West, that the understanding of emptiness is an essential prerequisite 
for enlightenment, thereby giving everyone a big headache.  The purpose of 
this exercise in futility seems to be that at the end of it you can say to 
yourself that you learned that you shouldn't have been doing this. 


Response:

I disagree with the form of your comment here yet feel your attitude
toward traditions is probably accurate.  From my understanding, Nagarjuna's
'main point' was an uncompromising NONmetaphysical attitude.  Simply
put, he didn't wish to choose a worldview and argued that one needn't
do so from the outset - indeed that such a choice could be avoided through
understanding the inherent error in doing it, and that one could understand
WHY it was an error by recurrent comparison of supposed opposites.  For
more on this idea from the perspective of the Western esotericists, see
Aleister Crowley and the writings of Alchemists.


Jochen:

My conclusion which I have only intimated but by no means proven (can it be 
proven?) is that Nagarjuna et al. have little to offer to a practicing 
Buddhist in the 20th century.  Most of the issues the madhyamikas deal with 
are pseudo-issues that arose from false assumptions.  Don't get sucked in 
by this Madhyamaka fraud!  You can be enlightened (and already are, 
according to Dogen) without ever having heard of sunyata. 


Response:

In that Nagarjuna posited the identity of Samsara and Nirvana, I think that
he would have agreed with your words above.


Jochen:

..I may be badly mistaken in my arguments, after all I've barely put my mind 
to it, but then please tell me so.  I consider this subject important, and 
I want to gain some certainty about it, once and for all.  My silent hope 
is to find somebody who can give me an incisive, clear and definitive 
discourse on this subject, in particular on the question of what, if 
anything, in Madhyamaka thought may still be important and pertinent for us 
today.  One must admit that Nagarjuna did make some good points.  If you 
know of any exceptionally clear reading (less than 200 pages, please!) that 
fits this description, by all means tell me.  Thanks.


Response:

I cannot answer for the official 'Madhyamika School' if there is one.
Certainty is the trap which Nagarjuna was warning against.  Confidence,
on the other hand, is what sunyata is about - freedom from attachment
to worldviews.

My favorite tome about Nagarjuna's philosophy (really the only one I've
ever read that explored it in detail) was called _Nagarjuna's Philosophy_,
but I don't recommend anything in it beyond the introduction and the first
couple of chapters. The author, K. Venkata Ramanam, seems to have a firm
grasp of both sanskrit and Buddhism.  Whether he is entirely 'accurate'
I cannot say.  The book is published by Motilal  Banarsidass and was
originally distributed in 1966.

 

Jochen:

P.S. Funny, now that I'm reading over what I've written, my aversion 
towards Nagarjuna is much weaker than it was at the outset (what do you 
expect, you dummy, from ever-arising/ever-vanishing dharmas!).  I see a new 
angle on this concept of emptiness now, a rather liberating angle.  Maybe 
Buddhism works, after all!


Response:

I think that argumentation and logical analysis naturally lead us to
release our hold on worldviews.  You seem to be experiencing this as
a release on a revulsion from the writings of Nagarjuna.  Congratulations.

Nagarjuna is unimportant to Buddhism.  Sometimes the most unimportant
things can act as triggers for something very profound.


Invoke me under my stars.   Love is the law, love under will.


I am I!

Fr. Nigris

Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern