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The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
The Buddhist saint Nagarjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the second century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mahayana Buddhist philosopher. His many works include texts addressed to lay audiences, letters of advice to kings, and a set of penetrating metaphysical and epistemological treatises. His greatest philosophical work, the Mulamadhyamikakarika—read and studied by philosophers in all major Buddhist schools of Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea—is one of the most influential works in the history of Indian philosophy, and the foundation of the Mādhyamaka school particularly.
400 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1970
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About the author
Nāgārjuna
134 books135 followersAcharya Nāgārjuna (Telugu: నాగార్జున) (c. 150 - 250 CE) was an Indian philosopher and the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
His writings are the basis for the formation of the Madhyamaka school, which was transmitted to China under the name of the Three Treatise (Sanlun) School. He is credited with developing the philosophy of the Prajnaparamita sutras, and was closely associated with the Buddhist university of Nalanda. In the Jodo Shinshu branch of Buddhism, he is considered the First Patriarch.
His writings are the basis for the formation of the Madhyamaka school, which was transmitted to China under the name of the Three Treatise (Sanlun) School. He is credited with developing the philosophy of the Prajnaparamita sutras, and was closely associated with the Buddhist university of Nalanda. In the Jodo Shinshu branch of Buddhism, he is considered the First Patriarch.
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September 2, 2020
In my opinion, Nagarjuna is the greatest philosopher who has ever lived, and this is his magnum opus. In a series of reductio ad absurdum-like analyses of various types of phenomena, Nagarjuna demonstrates the incoherence of the belief in an inherently existent basis for objects of awareness. Phenomena are in fact dependent on the transient aggregation of their spatial and temporal parts, and cannot be described without invoking the process by which they are registered by a conscious entity. The attempt to discuss phenomena in the abstract is a conceptual distortion which leads, in the view of this system, inexorably to unnecessary forms of human misery.
This key insight not only forms the bulwark of all subsequent Buddhist philosophy, it dispels a mental chimera that plagues us to this day in the European intellectual tradition: the exaggerated belief in the objectivity of appearing phenomena, which cannot be ultimately disentangled from the perceptual and cognitive apparatus by which they are disclosed.
Update 2020: I would amend this brief and rather old review with a note that Garfield's initial translation has been superseded by the translation he inscribed in his translation of Tsong Khapa's Ocean of Reasoning, and that may be a preferable addition for some readers, particularly if they're already familiar with the basic ideas of this context and would benefit from Tsong Khapa's commentary, which constitutes a masterpiece in its own right.
But my current recommended edition of the Mulamadhyamakakarika is the Dharmachakra Translation Committee's Ornament of Reason, which includes the commentary of Mabja Jangchub Tsondru, my favorite available commentary. I believe Mabja sticks rather closer to the original sense of Nagarjuna's text than the Gelukpa commentarial tradition tends to do, invaluable as it is.
This key insight not only forms the bulwark of all subsequent Buddhist philosophy, it dispels a mental chimera that plagues us to this day in the European intellectual tradition: the exaggerated belief in the objectivity of appearing phenomena, which cannot be ultimately disentangled from the perceptual and cognitive apparatus by which they are disclosed.
Update 2020: I would amend this brief and rather old review with a note that Garfield's initial translation has been superseded by the translation he inscribed in his translation of Tsong Khapa's Ocean of Reasoning, and that may be a preferable addition for some readers, particularly if they're already familiar with the basic ideas of this context and would benefit from Tsong Khapa's commentary, which constitutes a masterpiece in its own right.
But my current recommended edition of the Mulamadhyamakakarika is the Dharmachakra Translation Committee's Ornament of Reason, which includes the commentary of Mabja Jangchub Tsondru, my favorite available commentary. I believe Mabja sticks rather closer to the original sense of Nagarjuna's text than the Gelukpa commentarial tradition tends to do, invaluable as it is.
November 10, 2008
This book is hella good. Excellent introduction to Mahayana Buddhism straight from the monk's mouth. Jay Garfield really knows his shit, and draws apt parallels with Hume and Wittgenstein without meandering into comparative philosophy.
The actual text of Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way is way too obscure for anyone who hasn't been schooled in this stuff, and Garfield does a great job of explicating the text, as well as giving references to alternate interpretations and guidance to the different schools of thought that have commented on this work over the last 1800 years. My favorite footnote cites the Dalai Lama based on conversation (!).
Garfield does a great job putting the work into the terms of western philosophy while keeping it in its proper context in the Madyamika (specifically Tibetan, the translation is actually from a Tibetan translation of the originally Sanskrit text) school.
Garfield shows the brilliance of Nagarjuna's thought by explicating the rigor of the Buddhist's argumentation, mainly directed at rival Buddhist schools of the 2nd century AD. The thrust of the argument is simple but subtle, culminating in the rejection of an ultimate truth underlying conventional reality, while maintaining that conventional descriptions of reality are inadequate to describe what is really going on. Nagarjuna thus draws a "Middle Path" between the reification of an Absolute behind conventional reality (or worse, of conventional reality itself) and the nihilism of saying nothing really exists. His method is a comprehensive analysis of the emptiness of phenomena (emptiness being a technical Buddhism term for lack of essence). Plus, Nagarjuna tells you how to get away from it all by achieving Nirvana! (Note: achieving Nirvana involves serious meditation on the emptiness of existence).
Nagarjuna is a baller, and this book shows the real philosophical depth of the thought of this South Indian (represent!) Buddhist monk.
The actual text of Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way is way too obscure for anyone who hasn't been schooled in this stuff, and Garfield does a great job of explicating the text, as well as giving references to alternate interpretations and guidance to the different schools of thought that have commented on this work over the last 1800 years. My favorite footnote cites the Dalai Lama based on conversation (!).
Garfield does a great job putting the work into the terms of western philosophy while keeping it in its proper context in the Madyamika (specifically Tibetan, the translation is actually from a Tibetan translation of the originally Sanskrit text) school.
Garfield shows the brilliance of Nagarjuna's thought by explicating the rigor of the Buddhist's argumentation, mainly directed at rival Buddhist schools of the 2nd century AD. The thrust of the argument is simple but subtle, culminating in the rejection of an ultimate truth underlying conventional reality, while maintaining that conventional descriptions of reality are inadequate to describe what is really going on. Nagarjuna thus draws a "Middle Path" between the reification of an Absolute behind conventional reality (or worse, of conventional reality itself) and the nihilism of saying nothing really exists. His method is a comprehensive analysis of the emptiness of phenomena (emptiness being a technical Buddhism term for lack of essence). Plus, Nagarjuna tells you how to get away from it all by achieving Nirvana! (Note: achieving Nirvana involves serious meditation on the emptiness of existence).
Nagarjuna is a baller, and this book shows the real philosophical depth of the thought of this South Indian (represent!) Buddhist monk.
May 2, 2011
Hold up, folks, this gets scholarly.
As interpreted by Garfield, Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika is most everything I ever wanted to say to the "early" Platonic dialogues but didn't quite have the sharp vocabulary as a college freshman to do so: you only get to worrying about ultimate forms and causes if you think people have to have a coherent meaning when they talk about them, and you don't have to think we're in Berkelian idealism-land otherwise.
In other words: in Garfield's Western-via-Tibetan-commentaries interpretation of this really fundamental text (so fundamental that Buddhists have been arguing it out ever since, and major schools of belief have been based on one interpretation vs. another), it resonates profoundly with the thread of scepticism that runs from Heraclitus into Sextus Empiricus through Hume and smack through the heart of late Wittgenstein. (And though he never mentions it, Derrida and Deleuze as well.) But expressed with extreme compression and razor-sharp wit in aphoristic verse form.
Garfield is smart enough to drop you the uninterrupted translation to get the wiry prose set up, then spend the next 4/5 of the book as an instant replay with Translator's Commentary, which is precisely when this gets usable.
As the argument here runs, there's conventional truth, in that it's silly to reply to "Watch out for that oncoming bus!" with "But it's not reeeaa---*splat*".
But philosophers are trying to figure out "ultimate truth," which is nothing we as people are ever going to be able to talk about, or see as existent in that conventional way. What's the ultimate truth about that oncoming bus? If there is one, the word "bus" (or the correct philosophical replacement for the word "bus") would have an ideal definition, the ultimate all-covering right answer about buses, or even about that bus. Is a bus' identity about the shape? Is a broken bus still a bus? How much bus-ness is left in a picture of a bus? When in the factory did its bus-ness emerge? Is a bus BEING a bus when it splatters you on the pavement rather than when considered as mass transit? Is it less a bus when not used for mass transit? If so, does it still imply mass transit? Define "mass transit," punk. INFINITE REGRESS, and even the philosophical God of a Newtonian universe would fall short trying to reconcile it: any such definition, if it REALLY satisfied what felt like the right answer, would give you ten billion paradoxes trying to reconcile physical description with all the different social and functional meanings of a bus. (And before you turn the skeptical weapon back on the wielder, this is a text that certainly doesn't mind being seen as only provisionally true.)
Which, yes, brings you to Derrida territory as much as Wittgenstein territory, but coming from a 2nd Century Indian Buddhist context, it pulls different rhetorical moves. The whole text, as one friend called it, is a giant game of ontological strip poker with its imagined opponents, who think they're playing plain-old Jenga instead. If we did have a universe where there were Right Answers about all these things--where there is a secret pre-Babel language where words correspond directly to things-in-themselves, you would have a cosmos based on inherent being. In other words, every object and idea and action would have so many Right Answers hard-coded in that it's hard to see how anything ever changes or moves or grows. And to avoid the whole system of the universe having an old-school "Does not compute!" crash every time one of these definitions conflict, you would be stuck with every little time-slice of every particle, every shape, every idea, every thought process, all hanging individually and alone in the oh-so-inherent ether, never touching, so as to avoid the Blue Screen of Immovable-Object-and-Irresistible-Force-Death.
I like this; it's just my style, and at least for me far simpler to dive into than late Wittgenstein or post-structuralists (though finishing this had me diving back into the Blue and Brown Books to decide whether I liked them any better from this point of view, and the answer is yes-somewhat). He certainly has a Buddhist soteriological project at the heart of this, attempting to rescue said project of enlightenment from what he clearly saw as an unbearable scholasticism (And this particular proposed solution to that problem had MASSIVE echoes down through all his Mahayana successors. Nirvana=Samsara starts here, folks). I'm by no means a Buddhist, but I'm having a lot of fun with my little comparative religion independent study here, and I am definitely in awe of the rhetorical awesomeness and colossal mind deployed by Nagarjuna.
PS:
Also, total grin at the badass scholarly arrogance found in the footnotes by Garfield, which do a whole lot of work to draw out the features of all the competing English translations so as to be able to say after 24 chapters of one reading, "To misread this line is to miss the entire point of the text." Regarding another competitor: "In his zeal to see Nagarjuna as a non-Mahayana philosopher and as a Jamesian pragmatist,I fear that he distorts the central epistemological and metaphysical themes of the text." He further waits till precisely the chapter when his source text does the SAME THING to his imagined interlocutors. ZING.
As interpreted by Garfield, Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika is most everything I ever wanted to say to the "early" Platonic dialogues but didn't quite have the sharp vocabulary as a college freshman to do so: you only get to worrying about ultimate forms and causes if you think people have to have a coherent meaning when they talk about them, and you don't have to think we're in Berkelian idealism-land otherwise.
In other words: in Garfield's Western-via-Tibetan-commentaries interpretation of this really fundamental text (so fundamental that Buddhists have been arguing it out ever since, and major schools of belief have been based on one interpretation vs. another), it resonates profoundly with the thread of scepticism that runs from Heraclitus into Sextus Empiricus through Hume and smack through the heart of late Wittgenstein. (And though he never mentions it, Derrida and Deleuze as well.) But expressed with extreme compression and razor-sharp wit in aphoristic verse form.
Garfield is smart enough to drop you the uninterrupted translation to get the wiry prose set up, then spend the next 4/5 of the book as an instant replay with Translator's Commentary, which is precisely when this gets usable.
As the argument here runs, there's conventional truth, in that it's silly to reply to "Watch out for that oncoming bus!" with "But it's not reeeaa---*splat*".
But philosophers are trying to figure out "ultimate truth," which is nothing we as people are ever going to be able to talk about, or see as existent in that conventional way. What's the ultimate truth about that oncoming bus? If there is one, the word "bus" (or the correct philosophical replacement for the word "bus") would have an ideal definition, the ultimate all-covering right answer about buses, or even about that bus. Is a bus' identity about the shape? Is a broken bus still a bus? How much bus-ness is left in a picture of a bus? When in the factory did its bus-ness emerge? Is a bus BEING a bus when it splatters you on the pavement rather than when considered as mass transit? Is it less a bus when not used for mass transit? If so, does it still imply mass transit? Define "mass transit," punk. INFINITE REGRESS, and even the philosophical God of a Newtonian universe would fall short trying to reconcile it: any such definition, if it REALLY satisfied what felt like the right answer, would give you ten billion paradoxes trying to reconcile physical description with all the different social and functional meanings of a bus. (And before you turn the skeptical weapon back on the wielder, this is a text that certainly doesn't mind being seen as only provisionally true.)
Which, yes, brings you to Derrida territory as much as Wittgenstein territory, but coming from a 2nd Century Indian Buddhist context, it pulls different rhetorical moves. The whole text, as one friend called it, is a giant game of ontological strip poker with its imagined opponents, who think they're playing plain-old Jenga instead. If we did have a universe where there were Right Answers about all these things--where there is a secret pre-Babel language where words correspond directly to things-in-themselves, you would have a cosmos based on inherent being. In other words, every object and idea and action would have so many Right Answers hard-coded in that it's hard to see how anything ever changes or moves or grows. And to avoid the whole system of the universe having an old-school "Does not compute!" crash every time one of these definitions conflict, you would be stuck with every little time-slice of every particle, every shape, every idea, every thought process, all hanging individually and alone in the oh-so-inherent ether, never touching, so as to avoid the Blue Screen of Immovable-Object-and-Irresistible-Force-Death.
I like this; it's just my style, and at least for me far simpler to dive into than late Wittgenstein or post-structuralists (though finishing this had me diving back into the Blue and Brown Books to decide whether I liked them any better from this point of view, and the answer is yes-somewhat). He certainly has a Buddhist soteriological project at the heart of this, attempting to rescue said project of enlightenment from what he clearly saw as an unbearable scholasticism (And this particular proposed solution to that problem had MASSIVE echoes down through all his Mahayana successors. Nirvana=Samsara starts here, folks). I'm by no means a Buddhist, but I'm having a lot of fun with my little comparative religion independent study here, and I am definitely in awe of the rhetorical awesomeness and colossal mind deployed by Nagarjuna.
PS:
Also, total grin at the badass scholarly arrogance found in the footnotes by Garfield, which do a whole lot of work to draw out the features of all the competing English translations so as to be able to say after 24 chapters of one reading, "To misread this line is to miss the entire point of the text." Regarding another competitor: "In his zeal to see Nagarjuna as a non-Mahayana philosopher and as a Jamesian pragmatist,I fear that he distorts the central epistemological and metaphysical themes of the text." He further waits till precisely the chapter when his source text does the SAME THING to his imagined interlocutors. ZING.
March 27, 2021
Translating a text like Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK) is no easy task, especially since the Sanskrit text is itself often obscure and has an 1,800 year history of incredibly varied interpretation, commentary, and translation in Asian and European languages. Additionally, one might wonder whether this text requires yet another English translation when there are already several decent ones available (e.g., Garfield's The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, Inada's Nagarjuna: A Translation of His Malamadhyamaka Karika, etc.). More cynically, drawing on works like Tuck's Comparative Philosophy and the Philosophy of Scholarship: On the Western Interpretation of Nagarjuna, one might wonder if another translation of the MMK will do anything but mirror the translator's views and interpretations.
For the most part, this translation from Siderits and Katsura, both eminent scholars of Buddhist philosophy, offers both a novel, insightful translation and allows readers to come to their own conclusions about the interpretation of the text (and thus avoids becoming merely a mouthpiece of the translators' interpretations, with a few exceptions, which I'll note below).
Like Inada's translation, this one includes the Sanskrit text along with the English translation, which is helpful for those who read Sanskrit or who are even just familiar with a few of Nāgārjuna's key terms like svabhāva, śūnyatā, etc. As a teaching tool it helps to show students a little bit about the original language even if they don't read Sanskrit at all. Siderits and Katsura provide their own commentaries on the verses that are relevant for a modern philosophical audience while drawing on the major Indian commentaries of Candrakīrti, Bhāviveka, and Buddhapālita without merely reproducing these commentaries. They don't go much into non-Indian commentaries (Tibetan, Chinese, etc.), nor do they say much about contemporary scholarship. While hard core Nāgārjuna scholars may feel this is not doing proper justice to the text, I think Siderits and Katsura are wise to take this approach: let readers wade into the text before diving into the oceans of scholarship and commentary.
While the translators generally present the text in a way that allows readers to draw their own conclusions (to the extent that this is possible for any translation), there are occasionally places in which Siderits's particular anti-realist interpretation is presented as more obvious than it really is. The translation of prapañca as "hypostatization" instead of something like "conceptual proliferation" (e.g., p. 15, 125-126) is a less literal translation than they usually give. Also the inclusion of "metaphysical" in square brackets before verse 13.8 (p. 145) is a strange move unless one were convinced that only certain types of interpretations (like anti-realism) were right to deny that Nāgārjuna could literally mean "all views" (although this tactic is not taken in the last verse 27.30, p. 334).
Still, I think Siderits and Katsura's is probably now the best English translation available. I recently used it in a course in comparative philosophy. While Nāgārjuna is never easy, this translation was able to present the text to newcomers in a way that allowed them to get something out of it. It also helped me make more sense of a text with which I've been grappling for years and plan to continue grappling with for years to come.
For the most part, this translation from Siderits and Katsura, both eminent scholars of Buddhist philosophy, offers both a novel, insightful translation and allows readers to come to their own conclusions about the interpretation of the text (and thus avoids becoming merely a mouthpiece of the translators' interpretations, with a few exceptions, which I'll note below).
Like Inada's translation, this one includes the Sanskrit text along with the English translation, which is helpful for those who read Sanskrit or who are even just familiar with a few of Nāgārjuna's key terms like svabhāva, śūnyatā, etc. As a teaching tool it helps to show students a little bit about the original language even if they don't read Sanskrit at all. Siderits and Katsura provide their own commentaries on the verses that are relevant for a modern philosophical audience while drawing on the major Indian commentaries of Candrakīrti, Bhāviveka, and Buddhapālita without merely reproducing these commentaries. They don't go much into non-Indian commentaries (Tibetan, Chinese, etc.), nor do they say much about contemporary scholarship. While hard core Nāgārjuna scholars may feel this is not doing proper justice to the text, I think Siderits and Katsura are wise to take this approach: let readers wade into the text before diving into the oceans of scholarship and commentary.
While the translators generally present the text in a way that allows readers to draw their own conclusions (to the extent that this is possible for any translation), there are occasionally places in which Siderits's particular anti-realist interpretation is presented as more obvious than it really is. The translation of prapañca as "hypostatization" instead of something like "conceptual proliferation" (e.g., p. 15, 125-126) is a less literal translation than they usually give. Also the inclusion of "metaphysical" in square brackets before verse 13.8 (p. 145) is a strange move unless one were convinced that only certain types of interpretations (like anti-realism) were right to deny that Nāgārjuna could literally mean "all views" (although this tactic is not taken in the last verse 27.30, p. 334).
Still, I think Siderits and Katsura's is probably now the best English translation available. I recently used it in a course in comparative philosophy. While Nāgārjuna is never easy, this translation was able to present the text to newcomers in a way that allowed them to get something out of it. It also helped me make more sense of a text with which I've been grappling for years and plan to continue grappling with for years to come.
May 6, 2009
This is a truly eye-opening book, especially if you're not familiar with Madhyamika philosophy. A little background in western epistemology and ontology is helpful (Plato, Hume, Kant) but not absolutely necessary if you're willing to let Garfield lead you through the arguments. My only worry about this is that Garfield is almost too good at this -- it's hard to read this as critically as one should. On the other hand, Nagarjuna is a ferocious logician and his arguments -- incredibly compact as they are -- stand on their own. This book is as gripping as any thriller for those willing to work through its admittedly difficult passages. Required reading for Buddhist philosophy and a philosophical thrill ride for anyone.
September 26, 2007
I had the extreme good fortune to be Jay Garfield's teaching assistant when he was writing this book and got to read (and proofread!) an early draft. More importantly, Prof Garfield explained the text with such clarity and intensity that the wisdom of the middle way was layed before me. Truly changed my life, and continues to inform my priorities. Thanks Jay, Thanks Nagarjuna. OmAhUm Benza Guru Patna Siti Om
May 6, 2024
No philosophy I've read prior to this comes close.
February 23, 2024
Emptiness, tell me about your nature. Maybe I’ve been getting you wrong…
(Adrianne Lenker, “Zombie Girl”)
Emptiness is not easy to grasp.
Like the snake mishandled by the ignorant, emptiness, when misapprehended, can cause more harm than good. So let me begin this review with the intention of explicating emptiness as best I can, to help rather than harm.
In saying that something is empty, what does it mean? Empty of inherent existence. We act as if things exist inherently when we assume that they are unchanging, independent.
Here's a statement that betrays a belief in inherent existence. A loved one has just died, and you are told that he or she is in a better place. Not really. The truth is that the molecules that made up him or her are now in the ground. And he or she, as we knew him or her, has ceased to exist.
So the first and most obvious candidate for emptiness of inherent existence is the self, since Buddhism already takes the belief that there is no self. But Nagarjuna doesn't stop there. Other candidates for emptiness include motion (since it depends on a mover), time (since it depends on a chronology of before and after), and most radically, emptiness itself.
To say that emptiness is empty may sound mystical at first, but it's actually the opposite. We may think that if we live in an empty world, there must be some other, non-empty world, perhaps Plato's world of forms, where everything is actually as it appears. The emptiness of emptiness just says that emptiness itself is not an inherent essence. It's not an unchanging property, but simply a dependent property of things. Emptiness is always emptiness of.
So, why should we care? Because emptiness provides a middle way between two extremes of thinking that cause suffering. The first extreme is reification, which holds that all things are inherently real. Think about the last time you felt that something was eternally real and unchanging. Maybe the borders of a country, maybe your mental state. These beliefs cause harm because they're untrue. Emptiness shows how nothing is as fixed as it appears, and there's great liberation in that.
But emptiness also provides solace against the opposite of reification, which is nihilism. To take a nihilistic point of view is to believe that nothing is ultimately real, that nothing matters. This is the most common misconception about emptiness, probably what Nagarjuna is referring to in his metaphor about the snake wrongly apprehended.
Emptiness is precisely the opposite of nihilism. Because it asserts that every single thing depends on its existence and on its meaning on everything else. The nihilist lives in a world of atomized individuals, things, and events that have no connection to everything else. The individual who views emptiness lives in the opposite world, in a rich mesh of interconnection and dependence.
(Adrianne Lenker, “Zombie Girl”)
Emptiness is not easy to grasp.
Like the snake mishandled by the ignorant, emptiness, when misapprehended, can cause more harm than good. So let me begin this review with the intention of explicating emptiness as best I can, to help rather than harm.
In saying that something is empty, what does it mean? Empty of inherent existence. We act as if things exist inherently when we assume that they are unchanging, independent.
Here's a statement that betrays a belief in inherent existence. A loved one has just died, and you are told that he or she is in a better place. Not really. The truth is that the molecules that made up him or her are now in the ground. And he or she, as we knew him or her, has ceased to exist.
So the first and most obvious candidate for emptiness of inherent existence is the self, since Buddhism already takes the belief that there is no self. But Nagarjuna doesn't stop there. Other candidates for emptiness include motion (since it depends on a mover), time (since it depends on a chronology of before and after), and most radically, emptiness itself.
To say that emptiness is empty may sound mystical at first, but it's actually the opposite. We may think that if we live in an empty world, there must be some other, non-empty world, perhaps Plato's world of forms, where everything is actually as it appears. The emptiness of emptiness just says that emptiness itself is not an inherent essence. It's not an unchanging property, but simply a dependent property of things. Emptiness is always emptiness of.
So, why should we care? Because emptiness provides a middle way between two extremes of thinking that cause suffering. The first extreme is reification, which holds that all things are inherently real. Think about the last time you felt that something was eternally real and unchanging. Maybe the borders of a country, maybe your mental state. These beliefs cause harm because they're untrue. Emptiness shows how nothing is as fixed as it appears, and there's great liberation in that.
But emptiness also provides solace against the opposite of reification, which is nihilism. To take a nihilistic point of view is to believe that nothing is ultimately real, that nothing matters. This is the most common misconception about emptiness, probably what Nagarjuna is referring to in his metaphor about the snake wrongly apprehended.
Emptiness is precisely the opposite of nihilism. Because it asserts that every single thing depends on its existence and on its meaning on everything else. The nihilist lives in a world of atomized individuals, things, and events that have no connection to everything else. The individual who views emptiness lives in the opposite world, in a rich mesh of interconnection and dependence.
November 10, 2015
absolutely top-notch annotated translations. You get not just the verses but the combined major commentaries in these verses. Highly recommend to all interested in Buddhist philosophy
January 26, 2008
Nagarjuna is one example of a philosopher that says enough provocative things to hold peoples' interest, but is not quite clear enough for any one interpretation to win out, thus keeping his name on the lips of Indian and Buddhist philosophers for the last 1,800 years. Nagarjuna has come to be interpreted in a wide variety of ways by Indian, Tibetan, Chinese and Western readers. I myself favor the skeptical interpretation that Garfield favors in this translation and which is also one of the main interpretations in the Tibetan tradition. For a good study of the nihilist interpretation which was more common among Nagarjuna's Indian opponents, see Thomas Wood's Nagarjunian Disputations. One of the main issues is this: when Nagarjuna claims that he wants to destroy all views, does he mean all views including any he might have or all (false) views? That no one has really figured this out, but that the question still intrigues those willing to think of it, makes this a true philosophical classic.
October 8, 2025
I finally got through this tome. When I consider that it was composed almost two millennia ago, I have to say that I am amazed, not only that Nāgārjuna composed it, but that his disciples and his disciples’ disciples memorized it and passed it on. A deeper, more complicated text I cannot imagine
This translation and commentary by Mark Siderits and Shōryū Katsura was excellent. I perused others but settled on this one as bringing the greatest clarity to my often confounded mind.
As part of my reading of this classic, I simultaneously read Westerhoff’s introductory essays on Nāgārjuna’s philosophy, his translation and commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Vigrahavyāvartani (the Dispeller of Disputes), and relevant sections of his ‘The Golden Age of Indian Philosophy’. This has been a long, drawn out exercise in teaching myself the basics of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy. I feel that I have barely skimmed the surface. I will continue to read the works of Nāgārjuna’s later commentaters in the future, but for now I will take a break and apply myself to Yogacara philosophy.
This translation and commentary by Mark Siderits and Shōryū Katsura was excellent. I perused others but settled on this one as bringing the greatest clarity to my often confounded mind.
As part of my reading of this classic, I simultaneously read Westerhoff’s introductory essays on Nāgārjuna’s philosophy, his translation and commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Vigrahavyāvartani (the Dispeller of Disputes), and relevant sections of his ‘The Golden Age of Indian Philosophy’. This has been a long, drawn out exercise in teaching myself the basics of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy. I feel that I have barely skimmed the surface. I will continue to read the works of Nāgārjuna’s later commentaters in the future, but for now I will take a break and apply myself to Yogacara philosophy.
February 4, 2026
110220: i have been reading this, studying actually, going back and forth, comparing it to all the other philosophy- particularly buddhism- i have read over the years. this is one i remember best Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality . i have far from exhausted the insight in that text or this, the understanding, i feel gained over just the past weeks (and years...). this is a text to read over and over. from the second century this is timeless, brilliant, logical (buddhist logic) and has given me great moments of awareness that exceed any intellectual comprehension. i feel a need to write out what little i get right now, however limited, for this is something i will often return to...
the first part of the book is translation of the text of ‘fundamental wisdom of the middle way’, the second part is garfield’s extensive commentary...
as this is translation from tibetan and sanskrit, from an entire different time, culture etc, garfield must argue for his interpretations, but as i do not read the original languages i just accept the rendering. there are twenty-six chapters of verses, the arguments very dense, closely entwined, and any repetition is directed to support each argument. buddhist logic that nagarjuna employs is ‘four cornered’: that is, true, false, both true and false, neither true and false. i think there is equivalent form in western logic but have not studied it. each chapter nagarjuna uses this logic to come to conclusion and move on to the next conception to be sort of ‘deconstructed’, that is, revealed as incoherent in terms usually given, leading to his final ‘conception’...
i give conception quotes because for nagarjuna this is probably the wrong way to think of it. more perspective than concept. garfield maintains the most important chapters, the most concise, are chapter 1) examination of conditions, and chapter 24) examination of four noble truths, so i will try to focus on those. or rather, give an idea what they argue. the entire ‘wisdom of the middle way’ is an argument for our self and world as between essence and nihilism. 1) insists that all that exists (self, world) is of ‘dependent origination’, exists only because of how it relates to everything else, has no ‘inherent essence’, or being from its own side, then goes on to argue in subsequent chapters how because of this there are two levels of truth: ‘conventional’ and ‘ultimate’, where dependent origination is the perspective of our conventional, daily, ordinary world, grass is green, snow is white, you are you, i am i etc, but on the ultimate level there are none of these determinations but instead ‘emptiness’...
‘emptiness’ is not ‘nonexistence’. our world is not ‘illusion’ in that sense, it is very real, it is illusion if we insist it has an inherent essence, that something desired is desirable, hated is hateful etc rather than reflecting our attitude or relationship. this is called ‘reifying’ (making ‘concrete’) and is an error built on refusal to awareness of the fact of ultimate emptiness. dependent origination is the way of conventional truth but awareness is not somehow transcending the world, seeing platonic forms etc, but coming to that perspective by which what exists is seen as empty. and then the argument must continue: emptiness is itself ‘empty’ of inherent essence. nagarjuna works through a series of chapters that clarifies this (i hope) but it is not until he talks about the table i sort of understand...
the table is empty: that is, it is of its parts, antecedent and subsequent history, various ways it is employed etc, it is not ‘essentially’ a table, not ‘inherently’... and then this ‘emptiness’ is itself empty for there is nothing but ‘emptiness of’ the table. it is as much mistake to claim emptiness is essence as anything else is essence, so nagarjuna insists not to say ‘is’ or ‘is not’ or ‘both is and is not’ or ‘neither is or is not’...
by chapter 24) examination of four noble truths, we get to the core of all buddhism and how nagarjuna argues for conventional truth and ultimate truth and the relationship between them, the first to note is one is not ‘more’ than the other though it is called ‘ultimate’, that both are ‘real’. through previous chapters nagarjuna has argued how emptiness is real, here he must argue the four noble truths apply to emptiness. first, there is suffering, second, there is a cause for suffering, third, there is a cure for suffering, fourth, this is the cure (eightfold path)...
the way i understand his arguments here as through the whole text is that we live simultaneously on the two levels of truth, that the suffering referred to is on the conventional truth, of becoming, persistence, decay. cyclic existence, dependent origination. samsara. and nirvana is not separate realm of bliss but enlightened perspective of the emptiness of cyclic existence of birth, suffering, death. to become a buddha, become enlightened, is to recognize that inherent essence is error of reifying, and perspective of emptiness of all existence (world, self) is awareness of ultimate truth, of nirvana...
note: i have read a few books on buddhism etc (61- (now 193 on 241215) but few primary texts, i do not read the languages, i have read no other commentary on this text. so my enthusiasm is perhaps amateur but no less sincere... there are so many books to read and so little time...
241215: Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
more technical:
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
more:
Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream
Women in the Footsteps of the Buddha: Struggle for Liberation in the Therigatha
Gender Equality in Buddhism
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood Through Continental, Japanese, and Feminist Philosophies
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
What the Buddha Thought
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School
The Kyoto School
Nishida And Western Philosophy
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy
Why I Am Not a Buddhist
Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey
Indian Buddhist Philosophy: Metaphysics as Ethics
The Vimalakirti Sutra
the first part of the book is translation of the text of ‘fundamental wisdom of the middle way’, the second part is garfield’s extensive commentary...
as this is translation from tibetan and sanskrit, from an entire different time, culture etc, garfield must argue for his interpretations, but as i do not read the original languages i just accept the rendering. there are twenty-six chapters of verses, the arguments very dense, closely entwined, and any repetition is directed to support each argument. buddhist logic that nagarjuna employs is ‘four cornered’: that is, true, false, both true and false, neither true and false. i think there is equivalent form in western logic but have not studied it. each chapter nagarjuna uses this logic to come to conclusion and move on to the next conception to be sort of ‘deconstructed’, that is, revealed as incoherent in terms usually given, leading to his final ‘conception’...
i give conception quotes because for nagarjuna this is probably the wrong way to think of it. more perspective than concept. garfield maintains the most important chapters, the most concise, are chapter 1) examination of conditions, and chapter 24) examination of four noble truths, so i will try to focus on those. or rather, give an idea what they argue. the entire ‘wisdom of the middle way’ is an argument for our self and world as between essence and nihilism. 1) insists that all that exists (self, world) is of ‘dependent origination’, exists only because of how it relates to everything else, has no ‘inherent essence’, or being from its own side, then goes on to argue in subsequent chapters how because of this there are two levels of truth: ‘conventional’ and ‘ultimate’, where dependent origination is the perspective of our conventional, daily, ordinary world, grass is green, snow is white, you are you, i am i etc, but on the ultimate level there are none of these determinations but instead ‘emptiness’...
‘emptiness’ is not ‘nonexistence’. our world is not ‘illusion’ in that sense, it is very real, it is illusion if we insist it has an inherent essence, that something desired is desirable, hated is hateful etc rather than reflecting our attitude or relationship. this is called ‘reifying’ (making ‘concrete’) and is an error built on refusal to awareness of the fact of ultimate emptiness. dependent origination is the way of conventional truth but awareness is not somehow transcending the world, seeing platonic forms etc, but coming to that perspective by which what exists is seen as empty. and then the argument must continue: emptiness is itself ‘empty’ of inherent essence. nagarjuna works through a series of chapters that clarifies this (i hope) but it is not until he talks about the table i sort of understand...
the table is empty: that is, it is of its parts, antecedent and subsequent history, various ways it is employed etc, it is not ‘essentially’ a table, not ‘inherently’... and then this ‘emptiness’ is itself empty for there is nothing but ‘emptiness of’ the table. it is as much mistake to claim emptiness is essence as anything else is essence, so nagarjuna insists not to say ‘is’ or ‘is not’ or ‘both is and is not’ or ‘neither is or is not’...
by chapter 24) examination of four noble truths, we get to the core of all buddhism and how nagarjuna argues for conventional truth and ultimate truth and the relationship between them, the first to note is one is not ‘more’ than the other though it is called ‘ultimate’, that both are ‘real’. through previous chapters nagarjuna has argued how emptiness is real, here he must argue the four noble truths apply to emptiness. first, there is suffering, second, there is a cause for suffering, third, there is a cure for suffering, fourth, this is the cure (eightfold path)...
the way i understand his arguments here as through the whole text is that we live simultaneously on the two levels of truth, that the suffering referred to is on the conventional truth, of becoming, persistence, decay. cyclic existence, dependent origination. samsara. and nirvana is not separate realm of bliss but enlightened perspective of the emptiness of cyclic existence of birth, suffering, death. to become a buddha, become enlightened, is to recognize that inherent essence is error of reifying, and perspective of emptiness of all existence (world, self) is awareness of ultimate truth, of nirvana...
note: i have read a few books on buddhism etc (61- (now 193 on 241215) but few primary texts, i do not read the languages, i have read no other commentary on this text. so my enthusiasm is perhaps amateur but no less sincere... there are so many books to read and so little time...
241215: Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
more technical:
The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
more:
Innovative Buddhist Women: Swimming Against the Stream
Women in the Footsteps of the Buddha: Struggle for Liberation in the Therigatha
Gender Equality in Buddhism
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Nietzsche and Buddhist Philosophy
Buddhist Philosophy: A Historical Analysis
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
Ethics Embodied: Rethinking Selfhood Through Continental, Japanese, and Feminist Philosophies
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
What the Buddha Thought
Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment
Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
Self, No Self?: Perspectives from Analytical, Phenomenological, and Indian Traditions
After Buddhism: Rethinking the Dharma for a Secular Age
Philosophers of Nothingness: An Essay on the Kyoto School
The Kyoto School
Nishida And Western Philosophy
Buddhism: A Philosophical Approach
What the Buddha Thought
Wisdom Beyond Words: The Buddhist Vision of Ultimate Reality
Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction
An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy
Why I Am Not a Buddhist
Why I Am a Buddhist: No-Nonsense Buddhism with Red Meat and Whiskey
Indian Buddhist Philosophy: Metaphysics as Ethics
The Vimalakirti Sutra
August 24, 2019
The Mulamadhyamakakarika is a foundational text of Mahayana Buddhism, including the Mahayana branches of Tibetan Buddhism and Zen. But this text is not confined to those interested in Mahayana Buddhism. This is a serious book for anyone interested in the nature consciousness. Nagarjuna was one of the most influential figures in India, not only in the evolution of Buddhism, but also in the understanding of consciousness itself. So much so, that we have to look back to this text (among numerous others in the East) to get a deeper view of the nature of the mind and the world around us. But beware because this is a serious book for study and so it can be tedious at times if you're not familiar with Buddhist thought and the nature of karika-style texts. But for myself this is a breath of fresh air and critical to the future of my own study and work. Approach it with patience and calm and you will reap the rewards.
September 27, 2017
This is the single greatest philosophical text I have ever read, and also it was the most difficult for me to understand. Nagarjuna tackles just about everything, and somehow, through language, shows the woeful inadequacy of language itself in describing ultimate reality.
The commentary is phenomenal, and yet, understanding both Nagarjuna's points, as well as the commentary, takes great patience. However, every time I "got it", and understood exactly, and deeply, what he was trying to say, I felt a great sense of awe.
If you decide to tackle this masterpiece, I recommend fully comprehending each chapter before moving onto the next. Read every chapter, in order, in it's entirety, with the commentary, and really truly understand what Nagarjuna is trying to argue. If you do this, I promise you, it will change your conception of reality.
The commentary is phenomenal, and yet, understanding both Nagarjuna's points, as well as the commentary, takes great patience. However, every time I "got it", and understood exactly, and deeply, what he was trying to say, I felt a great sense of awe.
If you decide to tackle this masterpiece, I recommend fully comprehending each chapter before moving onto the next. Read every chapter, in order, in it's entirety, with the commentary, and really truly understand what Nagarjuna is trying to argue. If you do this, I promise you, it will change your conception of reality.
November 1, 2014
The translation is a joke. Roshi's understanding of Sanskrit is very poor and both him and Brad Warner are too focused on presenting their own views and putting them in Nagarjuna's mouth, instead of translating what is actually there and trying to understand the original text. Nevertheless, Roshi's views are interesting, but for that you can read his other book, "To meet the real dragon". If someone is looking for the translation of Nagarjuna's Middle Way treatise, this is not the place to look for it!
September 16, 2012
Read it cos I had to ...cos my Guru suggested it. Actually maybe he didn't...maybe I only read it because I needed to use it to rebut a particular stupid and pointless series of dogmatism by the pathetlic loser that was my Guru's translator...eek, nothing like having some sort of ex-harvard creep who was born in the Middle of a Republican Convention...yeah his mom broke water there and then stayed until the end and dropped him on his head and kept Cheering Ronald Reagan! Lol. Joke...stupid...do not speed-dial your lawyers! You are such a moron!
Anyway...that was why I read Nagarjuna. Overall, it was okay and really worth studying if you are into that sort of thing and the excessive use of the word "Syllogism" by over-zealous and linguistically dull translators of the past make this translation at least readable to the end because he didn't do that! Nagarjuna was not that cerebral when translated into Chinese and Tibetan from sanskrit. But what do you know? Republican moron got it wrong and then decided he was right. Sexist! Goes without saying!
I was left with no choice but to go: "Er hand's up the person who can read it in its orignal language or first citations?" He goes,"yeah, I read it in Tibetan." and I go,"Shut it, I read it in Ancient chinese."
So after a bit of hair-pulling (literally) we went to the Sanskrit translator and what do you know? I was right and this translation is better than his! Also, goes without saying!
Personally I've always preferred the more spontaneous compositions of Saraha's Doha..simply because I doubt very much that Saraha would be caught dead in a Republican convention unless ordered by his Lady Guru to do so and that is a good enough reason for me to think that Saraha is Top-notch!
:) If you do not understand the in-jokes in this review, don't bother...go to your nearest Shambhala center and ask someone to explain it to you! hahahha. Try not to drop yourself on the head during yoga!
www.ceciliayu.com
Anyway...that was why I read Nagarjuna. Overall, it was okay and really worth studying if you are into that sort of thing and the excessive use of the word "Syllogism" by over-zealous and linguistically dull translators of the past make this translation at least readable to the end because he didn't do that! Nagarjuna was not that cerebral when translated into Chinese and Tibetan from sanskrit. But what do you know? Republican moron got it wrong and then decided he was right. Sexist! Goes without saying!
I was left with no choice but to go: "Er hand's up the person who can read it in its orignal language or first citations?" He goes,"yeah, I read it in Tibetan." and I go,"Shut it, I read it in Ancient chinese."
So after a bit of hair-pulling (literally) we went to the Sanskrit translator and what do you know? I was right and this translation is better than his! Also, goes without saying!
Personally I've always preferred the more spontaneous compositions of Saraha's Doha..simply because I doubt very much that Saraha would be caught dead in a Republican convention unless ordered by his Lady Guru to do so and that is a good enough reason for me to think that Saraha is Top-notch!
:) If you do not understand the in-jokes in this review, don't bother...go to your nearest Shambhala center and ask someone to explain it to you! hahahha. Try not to drop yourself on the head during yoga!
www.ceciliayu.com
July 3, 2014
It is so important for one who takes up the onerous job of translating a text like this one of Nagarjuna, to be not just familiar with the teachings, but see the text as a one that provides insights to a seeker. For that one must be a seeker oneself. Only then can the words speak to us.
Nagarjuna's Mulamadhhyamakakarika is one of the defining books of philosophy. Not just for Buddhism, but for any seeker of truth in general. It is so fascinating that someone could be so seized of truth and nothing but the truth, and find so much to write about. Mark and Shoryu have done a remarkable job in sticking to one thing.
'What was said in sanskrit, say the same in English'.
Brilliant book! Gives a direct insight into Nagarjuna's way of seeing. Which in turn is supposed to tell us more about what Buddha spoke. No doubt, this book inspired Gaudapada so much, that he used quite a bit of these ways of arguments in his Karika on Mandukya.
Once again goes to show how Buddha and Shankara said the same thing. The threshold they stood on appeared different.
This book will remain a boon in the hands of not just many Buddhists, but so many who are eager to hit the truth. Who care about true perception.
Nagarjuna's Mulamadhhyamakakarika is one of the defining books of philosophy. Not just for Buddhism, but for any seeker of truth in general. It is so fascinating that someone could be so seized of truth and nothing but the truth, and find so much to write about. Mark and Shoryu have done a remarkable job in sticking to one thing.
'What was said in sanskrit, say the same in English'.
Brilliant book! Gives a direct insight into Nagarjuna's way of seeing. Which in turn is supposed to tell us more about what Buddha spoke. No doubt, this book inspired Gaudapada so much, that he used quite a bit of these ways of arguments in his Karika on Mandukya.
Once again goes to show how Buddha and Shankara said the same thing. The threshold they stood on appeared different.
This book will remain a boon in the hands of not just many Buddhists, but so many who are eager to hit the truth. Who care about true perception.
November 15, 2023
Quite good. This book begs comparison with Jay Garfield's translation and commentary of same work (though Garfield's is based on the Tibetan text, not that I can see it makes much difference). Whereas Garfield's commentary tends to be more expansive, e.g. drawing parallels with modern philosophy ("Hume would agree with Nāgārjuna here because..."), Siderits is much more restrained (more scholarly? more boring?) and tends to stick to the what's on the page, often referencing Chandrakirti and Bhāviveka's commentaries when something is unclear. Obviously which approach appeals more to you is a personal matter. Total newcomers probably should go to Garfield, while being cautious of his Gelug biases.
Some of the word choices here are a bit too technical if you ask me ("hypostatization"), and he leaves some words needlessly untranslated--skandha, dharma, nāmarūpa, dhātu, but it's a minor issue.
Five stars for Nāgārjuna, four for Siderits.
Some of the word choices here are a bit too technical if you ask me ("hypostatization"), and he leaves some words needlessly untranslated--skandha, dharma, nāmarūpa, dhātu, but it's a minor issue.
Five stars for Nāgārjuna, four for Siderits.
November 26, 2014
Simply incredible. A surgical approach to the middle way with easily accessible commentary. I'll be working with this book for a long time to come.
June 11, 2025
2025 Review:
TRANSLATION: Padmakara Translation Group
PUBLISHER: Shambhala
12
In "what has gone," the motion does not start;
And neither in the "not yet gone" does motion start.
And if it does not start within the "act of going,"
Where can motion be begun?
2
The sense of sight
Its own self does not see.
And how can that which does
not see itself
See other things?
8
And through the sense of sight it should be understood
That hearing, smell, and taste, The sense of touch and mind, The hearer and the heard are
all explained.
6
If separate things can coincide,
Are then desire and agent of
desire
Established as two separate
things,
Whereby the two can
coincide?
30
Indeed for an existent thing
Cessation is not tenable.
For it cannot be that in a
single object
Being and nonbeing coincide.
2
In what exists, no doing can
be present,
For then there'd be a deed
without a doer.
In what exists no doing can be
present,
For then a doer there would be without a deed.
9
If the seer is different from the one who hears
And different also from the
one who feels,
Then, when there is the seer, there would also be the hearer
And thus there would be
many selves.
2
To what has no beginning and
no end
What midpoint can there be?
Thus the earlier and the later
stages
And the two at once are all
untenable.
4
If by one's own person Suffering is produced,
What is this pain-producing
person
That from suffering stands
apart?
5
If from another person
Suffering arises,
How can there be someone, who from suffering stands apart,
To whom the pain is given, made by someone else?
10
To say that things exist means
grasping at their permanence;
To say they don't exist implies the notion of annihilation.
Thus the wise should not remain
In "this exists" or "this does
not exist."
11
Something that exists by its
intrinsic being,
Since it cannot not exist, is
permanent.
To say that what once was is
now no more
Entails annihilation.
11
There is no identity and there's no difference-
There is no annihilation, there's no permanence.
1
If the present and the future Depend upon the past,
Then both the present and the
future
Are existent in the past.
2
If the present and the future Are not present then,
How could the present and the
future
Be dependent on it?
10
How can something that has ceased and disappeared
Engender the effect produced?
How can a cause engender its
result
When still existent and conjoined with it?
5
How could arising happen
Together with destruction?
Birth and death do not take
place
Within a single instant.
6
Since these can be established
Neither as occurring at the
same time,
Nor as not occurring at the
same time,
How are they to be established?
10
That arising and destruction Should be one thing and the same is inadmissible.
That arising and destruction Should be different-this too
is inadmissible.
9
Whatever is appropriated
Lacks intrinsic being.
That which does not have
intrinsic being
By no means can exist by virtue of another thing.
33
No one ever practices
Virtue or nonvirtue.
For what is to be done with what's not empty?
There is no activity in that which has intrinsic being.
37
If you do away with emptiness,
There's no activity at all.
For there would be activity without its being started, And agents there would be who do not act!
16
If nirvana's neither an existent Nor a nonexistent thing, Who is it who knows this
saying:
"It is neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing"?
24
Every point of reference
subsides;
All conceptual constructs utterly subside.
At no time, nowhere, and to
no one
3
When name-and-form occur,
The six Senses arise.
On the basis of six senses, Genuine Contact then arises.
4
This is only born dependent
On the eye, on form, and on attention.
Dependent upon name-and-
form
[Visual] consciousness
occurs.
5
The gathering of these three (Of eye and form and consciousness)
Is contact; and from contact,
23
If the past ones were destroyed
And if, depending on the same,
The subsequent did not arise, The world indeed would have
an end.
24
If the past ones weren't
destroyed
And if, depending on the
same,
The subsequent did not arise, The world indeed would be
unending.
25
If one part had an end
And one part were unending, The world would have an end
and yet be endless.
This indeed would be absurd.
28
If the finite and the infinite Were both established,
One could assert
establishment
Of both nonfinite and noninfinite.
29
And yet, since each and every
thing is empty,
To whom and where, And for what reason should
the views
Of permanence and all the
rest occur?
—————
2024 Review:
Had to read the Oxford edition. Hard to find anything else. Had to, you know, get the reificationist perspective.
I would say it’s disrespectful to write a book which is 4/5 explanation and only 1/5 actual philologically doctored content…but that would be missing the point. All the greatest works are diluted by the historical language converters of modern propaganda. The more profound the work, the more surrounding explanations needed to make sure the reader won’t understand it for themselves, without considering the political implications.
To use phrases like “that would be crazy” over and over again in the commentary of this book…to compare Nāgārjuna to Wittgenstein, Hume, Descartes, Berkeley, and Kant…when even comparing him to the western philosophers who attempted to follow him ie: Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, C.S. Peirce, Deleuze, Baudrillard, and Levinas to name a few..would have been disrespectful enough. But to make it seem like Nāgārjuna is dialectically sparring with ideology is to misunderstand monism in its entirety.
This is supposed to be Nāgārjuna’s attempt at simplifying monism. To rebalance the dialectical misunderstandings of Buddhists who had made a duality out of impermanence, desire, suffering, and causality. Buddhism is separated on far too many dividing lines by Nāgārjuna before we need a misplaced western interrogation.
This commentary makes it seem as though the west was just a parallel, but differing perspective of the same thing. It’s poetic in a way when you think about it. The west has been influenced and moving for centuries (if such a thing were possible in this paradigm) in the direction of understanding Nāgārjuna. But never realizing its cause or effect. The agent and the ever shifting relation to its action. Maybe once dualism is defined within monism and monism defined by differential repetition of dualism…we (the modern west) will get somewhere. Nowhere being the opportune place to be when somewhere is presented.
To be clear, Nāgārjuna is two millennia ahead of the west, considering monism has still not been fully understood by any red blooded source citing westerner. We tend to start from a point inherently contrasted to the difference and simultaneity necessary to regonize the conflict inherent in the dualistic definitions of causality. An agent and its action cannot be both conceptually the same and different at the same time. A concept cannot be both agent and action, while still making sense, while still engendered to one name.
What I really want to say, is that other than the Buddhist contemplatives, a few of the French philosopher/semiologists and a couple other dudes no one has heard about, there has been no sorting of historical monism. To recognize that the medium is not only the message, but that the medium is the self…itself (to be dualistically redundant). And then to recognize that the self is a bunch of mutually exclusive senses, seeming to compete for the territorialization of awareness from one moment to the next…but I am remiss to interrupt Nāgārjuna.
Chapter X
Examination of Fire and Fuel
If fuel were fire
Then agent and action would be one.
If fire were different from fuel,
Then it could arise without fuel.
It would be forever aflame;
Flames could be ignited without a cause.
Its beginning would be meaningless.
In that case, it would be without any action.
Since it would not depend on another Ignition would be without a cause.
If it were eternally in flames,
Starting it would be meaningless.
So, if one thinks that
That which is burning is the fuel,
If it is just this,
How is this fuel being burned?
If they are different, and if one not yet connected isn't connected,
The not yet burned will not be burned.
They will not cease. If they do not cease Then it will persist with its own characteristic.
Just as a man and a woman
Connect to one another as man and woman,
So if fire were different from fuel,
Fire and fuel would have to be fit for connection.
And, if fire and fuel
Preclude each other,
Then fire being different from fuel,
It must still be asserted that they connect.
If fire depends on fuel, And fuel depends on fire,
On what are fire and fuel established as dependent?
Which one is established first?
If fire depends on fuel,
It would be the establishment of an established fire.
And the fuel could be fuel
Without any fire.
If that on which an entity depends Is established on the basis
Of the entity depending on it,
What is established in dependence on what?
What entity is established through dependence?
If it is not established, then how could it depend?
However, if it is established merely through dependence,
That dependence makes no sense.
Fire is not dependent upon fuel.
Fire is not independent of fuel.
Fuel is not dependent upon fire.
Fuel is not independent of fire.
Fire does not come from something else,
Nor is fire in fuel itself.
Moreover, fire and the rest are just like
The moved, the not-moved, and the goer.
Fuel is not fire.
Fire does not arise from anything different from fuel.
Fire does not possess fuel.
Fuel is not in fire, nor vice versa.
Through discussion of fire and fuel,
The self and the aggregates, the pot and cloth
All together,
Without remainder have been explained.
I do not think that
Those who teach that the self
Is the same as or different from the entities
Understand the meaning of the doctrine.
TRANSLATION: Padmakara Translation Group
PUBLISHER: Shambhala
12
In "what has gone," the motion does not start;
And neither in the "not yet gone" does motion start.
And if it does not start within the "act of going,"
Where can motion be begun?
2
The sense of sight
Its own self does not see.
And how can that which does
not see itself
See other things?
8
And through the sense of sight it should be understood
That hearing, smell, and taste, The sense of touch and mind, The hearer and the heard are
all explained.
6
If separate things can coincide,
Are then desire and agent of
desire
Established as two separate
things,
Whereby the two can
coincide?
30
Indeed for an existent thing
Cessation is not tenable.
For it cannot be that in a
single object
Being and nonbeing coincide.
2
In what exists, no doing can
be present,
For then there'd be a deed
without a doer.
In what exists no doing can be
present,
For then a doer there would be without a deed.
9
If the seer is different from the one who hears
And different also from the
one who feels,
Then, when there is the seer, there would also be the hearer
And thus there would be
many selves.
2
To what has no beginning and
no end
What midpoint can there be?
Thus the earlier and the later
stages
And the two at once are all
untenable.
4
If by one's own person Suffering is produced,
What is this pain-producing
person
That from suffering stands
apart?
5
If from another person
Suffering arises,
How can there be someone, who from suffering stands apart,
To whom the pain is given, made by someone else?
10
To say that things exist means
grasping at their permanence;
To say they don't exist implies the notion of annihilation.
Thus the wise should not remain
In "this exists" or "this does
not exist."
11
Something that exists by its
intrinsic being,
Since it cannot not exist, is
permanent.
To say that what once was is
now no more
Entails annihilation.
11
There is no identity and there's no difference-
There is no annihilation, there's no permanence.
1
If the present and the future Depend upon the past,
Then both the present and the
future
Are existent in the past.
2
If the present and the future Are not present then,
How could the present and the
future
Be dependent on it?
10
How can something that has ceased and disappeared
Engender the effect produced?
How can a cause engender its
result
When still existent and conjoined with it?
5
How could arising happen
Together with destruction?
Birth and death do not take
place
Within a single instant.
6
Since these can be established
Neither as occurring at the
same time,
Nor as not occurring at the
same time,
How are they to be established?
10
That arising and destruction Should be one thing and the same is inadmissible.
That arising and destruction Should be different-this too
is inadmissible.
9
Whatever is appropriated
Lacks intrinsic being.
That which does not have
intrinsic being
By no means can exist by virtue of another thing.
33
No one ever practices
Virtue or nonvirtue.
For what is to be done with what's not empty?
There is no activity in that which has intrinsic being.
37
If you do away with emptiness,
There's no activity at all.
For there would be activity without its being started, And agents there would be who do not act!
16
If nirvana's neither an existent Nor a nonexistent thing, Who is it who knows this
saying:
"It is neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing"?
24
Every point of reference
subsides;
All conceptual constructs utterly subside.
At no time, nowhere, and to
no one
3
When name-and-form occur,
The six Senses arise.
On the basis of six senses, Genuine Contact then arises.
4
This is only born dependent
On the eye, on form, and on attention.
Dependent upon name-and-
form
[Visual] consciousness
occurs.
5
The gathering of these three (Of eye and form and consciousness)
Is contact; and from contact,
23
If the past ones were destroyed
And if, depending on the same,
The subsequent did not arise, The world indeed would have
an end.
24
If the past ones weren't
destroyed
And if, depending on the
same,
The subsequent did not arise, The world indeed would be
unending.
25
If one part had an end
And one part were unending, The world would have an end
and yet be endless.
This indeed would be absurd.
28
If the finite and the infinite Were both established,
One could assert
establishment
Of both nonfinite and noninfinite.
29
And yet, since each and every
thing is empty,
To whom and where, And for what reason should
the views
Of permanence and all the
rest occur?
—————
2024 Review:
Had to read the Oxford edition. Hard to find anything else. Had to, you know, get the reificationist perspective.
I would say it’s disrespectful to write a book which is 4/5 explanation and only 1/5 actual philologically doctored content…but that would be missing the point. All the greatest works are diluted by the historical language converters of modern propaganda. The more profound the work, the more surrounding explanations needed to make sure the reader won’t understand it for themselves, without considering the political implications.
To use phrases like “that would be crazy” over and over again in the commentary of this book…to compare Nāgārjuna to Wittgenstein, Hume, Descartes, Berkeley, and Kant…when even comparing him to the western philosophers who attempted to follow him ie: Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Bergson, C.S. Peirce, Deleuze, Baudrillard, and Levinas to name a few..would have been disrespectful enough. But to make it seem like Nāgārjuna is dialectically sparring with ideology is to misunderstand monism in its entirety.
This is supposed to be Nāgārjuna’s attempt at simplifying monism. To rebalance the dialectical misunderstandings of Buddhists who had made a duality out of impermanence, desire, suffering, and causality. Buddhism is separated on far too many dividing lines by Nāgārjuna before we need a misplaced western interrogation.
This commentary makes it seem as though the west was just a parallel, but differing perspective of the same thing. It’s poetic in a way when you think about it. The west has been influenced and moving for centuries (if such a thing were possible in this paradigm) in the direction of understanding Nāgārjuna. But never realizing its cause or effect. The agent and the ever shifting relation to its action. Maybe once dualism is defined within monism and monism defined by differential repetition of dualism…we (the modern west) will get somewhere. Nowhere being the opportune place to be when somewhere is presented.
To be clear, Nāgārjuna is two millennia ahead of the west, considering monism has still not been fully understood by any red blooded source citing westerner. We tend to start from a point inherently contrasted to the difference and simultaneity necessary to regonize the conflict inherent in the dualistic definitions of causality. An agent and its action cannot be both conceptually the same and different at the same time. A concept cannot be both agent and action, while still making sense, while still engendered to one name.
What I really want to say, is that other than the Buddhist contemplatives, a few of the French philosopher/semiologists and a couple other dudes no one has heard about, there has been no sorting of historical monism. To recognize that the medium is not only the message, but that the medium is the self…itself (to be dualistically redundant). And then to recognize that the self is a bunch of mutually exclusive senses, seeming to compete for the territorialization of awareness from one moment to the next…but I am remiss to interrupt Nāgārjuna.
Chapter X
Examination of Fire and Fuel
If fuel were fire
Then agent and action would be one.
If fire were different from fuel,
Then it could arise without fuel.
It would be forever aflame;
Flames could be ignited without a cause.
Its beginning would be meaningless.
In that case, it would be without any action.
Since it would not depend on another Ignition would be without a cause.
If it were eternally in flames,
Starting it would be meaningless.
So, if one thinks that
That which is burning is the fuel,
If it is just this,
How is this fuel being burned?
If they are different, and if one not yet connected isn't connected,
The not yet burned will not be burned.
They will not cease. If they do not cease Then it will persist with its own characteristic.
Just as a man and a woman
Connect to one another as man and woman,
So if fire were different from fuel,
Fire and fuel would have to be fit for connection.
And, if fire and fuel
Preclude each other,
Then fire being different from fuel,
It must still be asserted that they connect.
If fire depends on fuel, And fuel depends on fire,
On what are fire and fuel established as dependent?
Which one is established first?
If fire depends on fuel,
It would be the establishment of an established fire.
And the fuel could be fuel
Without any fire.
If that on which an entity depends Is established on the basis
Of the entity depending on it,
What is established in dependence on what?
What entity is established through dependence?
If it is not established, then how could it depend?
However, if it is established merely through dependence,
That dependence makes no sense.
Fire is not dependent upon fuel.
Fire is not independent of fuel.
Fuel is not dependent upon fire.
Fuel is not independent of fire.
Fire does not come from something else,
Nor is fire in fuel itself.
Moreover, fire and the rest are just like
The moved, the not-moved, and the goer.
Fuel is not fire.
Fire does not arise from anything different from fuel.
Fire does not possess fuel.
Fuel is not in fire, nor vice versa.
Through discussion of fire and fuel,
The self and the aggregates, the pot and cloth
All together,
Without remainder have been explained.
I do not think that
Those who teach that the self
Is the same as or different from the entities
Understand the meaning of the doctrine.
April 2, 2021
Man, this might be why a lot of monks are bald - the texts like these that promote incessant head-scratching.
First, I love the approach: throw a grenade in there and then just run away. Nagarjuna is not trying to demolish in order to rebuild, he just wants to flatten the place like a mean kid running through a sand castle.
But I'll be if he isn't on to something. Just like cold doesn't exist - it's the lack of heat, and darkness doesn't either (just a lack of photons), so too is emptiness empty. One could then argue that both heat and light are empty too because they arise out of a dependent origination. (see the response to 24.18) In this case the origin can be the same, a sun. Space itself is commonly called 'empty' since it is bereft of both of those things (and matter, of course) and certainly has no "intrinsic nature."
But who cares? No one can live their life like that, right? Maybe this sounds a lot like the navel-gazing around "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin" and the like. But in fact, this infinite regression of theories (think linked dependencies spawning ever more dependencies - "it's turtles all the way down") can be paralyzing and destructive. (just ask Constantinople) This seems to me what Nagarjuna is fighting. If we can agree to eschew nihilism (emptiness ≠ nothingness) then we can come down on the idea of tossing out being a slave to our views just like the Buddha said we shouldn't be to our desires. Sounds pretty liberating.
First, I love the approach: throw a grenade in there and then just run away. Nagarjuna is not trying to demolish in order to rebuild, he just wants to flatten the place like a mean kid running through a sand castle.
But I'll be if he isn't on to something. Just like cold doesn't exist - it's the lack of heat, and darkness doesn't either (just a lack of photons), so too is emptiness empty. One could then argue that both heat and light are empty too because they arise out of a dependent origination. (see the response to 24.18) In this case the origin can be the same, a sun. Space itself is commonly called 'empty' since it is bereft of both of those things (and matter, of course) and certainly has no "intrinsic nature."
But who cares? No one can live their life like that, right? Maybe this sounds a lot like the navel-gazing around "how many angels can fit on the head of a pin" and the like. But in fact, this infinite regression of theories (think linked dependencies spawning ever more dependencies - "it's turtles all the way down") can be paralyzing and destructive. (just ask Constantinople) This seems to me what Nagarjuna is fighting. If we can agree to eschew nihilism (emptiness ≠ nothingness) then we can come down on the idea of tossing out being a slave to our views just like the Buddha said we shouldn't be to our desires. Sounds pretty liberating.
November 22, 2020
বৌদ্ধ ধর্ম ও দর্শনের এই বুদ্ধিবৃত্তিক দিকটা আমার খুব পছন্দ। বিশেষ করে কোনো কিছু মেনে নিয়ে যে হৃদয়বৃত্তি চলে অন্যান্য থিওলজি ও থিওলজিক্যাল মেটাফিজিক্সে সেটার সাথে তুলনায়।
এই বইতে প্রথমত নাগার্জুন এসেনশিয়ালিজমকে একেবারেই সমূলে তুলে ফেলেছেন, এক্সিসটেনশিয়ালিস্ট কনভেনশনাল রিয়্যালিটির স্বভাব ও গুরুত্ব বুঝিয়েছেন এবং বৌদ্ধধর্মের মূলনীতিগুলোর জন্য কেন এক্সিসটেনশিয়ালিজম অপরিহার্য সেটা ব্যাখ্যা করেছেন।
অবশ্য সে ব্যাখ্যা কমেন্টারি ছাড়া বোঝা সম্ভব না, অন্তত, যাদের বৌদ্ধ দর্শনে ও ভারতীয় দর্শনের ভাষায় দক্ষতা নেই তাদের দ্বারা একেবারেই না। বলা যায় গারফিল্ডের কমেন্টারি ছাড়া এগুলো আমার মাথা ঢুকতো না।
এখনো ভাবছি বইটা নিয়ে, পরে হয়ত লিখবো বিস্তারিত।
এই বইতে প্রথমত নাগার্জুন এসেনশিয়ালিজমকে একেবারেই সমূলে তুলে ফেলেছেন, এক্সিসটেনশিয়ালিস্ট কনভেনশনাল রিয়্যালিটির স্বভাব ও গুরুত্ব বুঝিয়েছেন এবং বৌদ্ধধর্মের মূলনীতিগুলোর জন্য কেন এক্সিসটেনশিয়ালিজম অপরিহার্য সেটা ব্যাখ্যা করেছেন।
অবশ্য সে ব্যাখ্যা কমেন্টারি ছাড়া বোঝা সম্ভব না, অন্তত, যাদের বৌদ্ধ দর্শনে ও ভারতীয় দর্শনের ভাষায় দক্ষতা নেই তাদের দ্বারা একেবারেই না। বলা যায় গারফিল্ডের কমেন্টারি ছাড়া এগুলো আমার মাথা ঢুকতো না।
এখনো ভাবছি বইটা নিয়ে, পরে হয়ত লিখবো বিস্তারিত।
March 6, 2025
nāgārjuna is a fantastic philosopher, and this translation and straightforward, gradual commentary guides you through his arguments commendably. i am not confident in its authority as final word on this diversely interpreted text, though it doesn't pretend this status. it helped me separate those parts of the argument i didn't understand from those i find disagreeable, which is of primary importance. still, i come away thinking that one can accept all of nāgārjuna's conclusions without being a buddhist (this in fact seems quite sensible to me, coming from an non-buddhist point of view), you just can't accept all his premises without being so
August 30, 2022
Le doy dos estrellas a tenor de la gran labor de documentación del traductor.
La introducción y las notas son la única parte decente del libro, aportando contexto y datos biográficos.
Comprendo que es un libro de filosofía mística de hace dos milenios, pero el autor original solo hace alarde de un estilo pomposo “refutando” supuestas verdades que se caen por su propio planteamiento.
Si quieres comprobar como la mística es críptica e irracional en ese periodo de tiempo y contexto sociocultural, es un buen documento. Si esperas sacar en claro algo u obtener un punto de vista constructivo de la realidad que nos rodea, ni lo intentes ( de hecho, el autor niega esa realidad, a pesar de que supongo que hidrataría y nutriría su cerebro “irreal” el tiempo necesario para escribir el libro al menos).
La introducción y las notas son la única parte decente del libro, aportando contexto y datos biográficos.
Comprendo que es un libro de filosofía mística de hace dos milenios, pero el autor original solo hace alarde de un estilo pomposo “refutando” supuestas verdades que se caen por su propio planteamiento.
Si quieres comprobar como la mística es críptica e irracional en ese periodo de tiempo y contexto sociocultural, es un buen documento. Si esperas sacar en claro algo u obtener un punto de vista constructivo de la realidad que nos rodea, ni lo intentes ( de hecho, el autor niega esa realidad, a pesar de que supongo que hidrataría y nutriría su cerebro “irreal” el tiempo necesario para escribir el libro al menos).
Read
November 13, 2022garfield is the best Buddhist philosophy teacher in the whole world
October 21, 2023
A must read.
November 29, 2023
Ah, clearly! True emptiness is emptiness!
July 6, 2023
I selected this translation and commentary of Nagarjuna's text because I was looking for a) a Tibetan-inflected interpretation and b) an interpretation that is aware it is an interpretation. The translator, Garfield, makes it clear that that is what his work is, and delivers on the promise.
According to Garfield, what sets Nagarjuna's madhyamaka thought apart is the key role played by the concept of "the emptiness of emptiness". This concept turned out to really resonate with me. I'll try to back up into it as I now understand it.
For starters, we have the general Buddhist "two truths" doctrine. We have "conventional truth", which allows us to make positive statements about everyday things like selves, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, causes, and physical objects. Speaking in the "conventional" voice, we don't worry about whether we are actually capturing an essential metaphysical nature of things, i.e. whether our terms actually refer. We are more interested in the pragmatic effects such assertions have on us.
Then we have "ultimate truth". This is explained in deliberately vague terms at first, but we are given to understand that this is something to be sought. So far so good.
Next, we can introduce "emptiness". Much of the text is dedicated to proving that various "conventional" concepts are "empty". The "emptiness" in question is in particular an emptiness or lack of "independent essence". I think that an "independent essence" here plays a similar role to "substance" in Spinoza. I would say that something has an independent essence if it is what it is because of its own nature, and not because of its relationships with other things or mere conventions. It's really worth digging into this, I promise.
The example that I rely on most heavily is the notion of the "true self". The "true self" would be the core part of you that is the way it is not because of external influences (i.e. your independent essence). If you've ever done something you regret, then you understand perfectly well the temptation to define your "true self" as being something different than the sum total of your actions. Of course, this makes the "true self" perfectly up for debate. Who can say beyond doubt whether or not someone's choice reflects their actual character, or whether they were merely acting under an external influence that is not essential to them? Upon reflection, it becomes clear that the "true self" is constructed, by attributing some actions to it and others not. This line of thinking is familiar from existentialism- our existence precedes our essence.
The point is, if you carry through the idea of an "independent essence" to its own internally logical conclusion, it turns out to be a really strange thing indeed. There is a very high bar to clear to prove that something has an "independent essence" of its own, and is not something that we choose to form the boundaries of arbitrarily. This is exactly what happens in Spinoza- he takes an Aristotelian-inflected notion of substance, and ends up proving (quite mathematically) that the only candidate for an actual, truly independent substance is the entire universe. Everything (conventional) that is, is what it is only through inextricable dependence on other things and conventions.
This is not to say that "conventional truths" like "there is a table over there" are strictly incorrect. They are, after all, conventional truths. To say a table is empty of independent essence is to say (put one way) that there is nothing about the collection of atoms comprising the table alone that make it a table. Our perceiving it as a table means we make a choice to pick out a subset of atoms in the room and call it a table; the atoms of the table contributed to that choice, but did not determine it by themselves.
What I find really interesting about the argument that conventional things are "empty" is the way it parallels Wilfrid Sellars' Myth of the Given (cf. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind), and Garfield is with me on this. I don't feel like I can explain this well enough to elaborate on it here, but I find it compelling. Basically nature doesn't come "carved at the joints" for non-arbitrary uptake into the "logical space of reasons".
Deep breath. If that was a more or less satisfying explanation of "emptiness", we can proceed to the "emptiness of emptiness". You might be wondering what became of ultimate truth, if "conventional" things like the words and concepts I'm using to discuss all this are utterly empty of independent essence. Can we say anything in an ultimate voice at all? If not, then what happens to the ultimate validity of any part of what I've said along the way? As Garfield points out, the situation here is remarkably similar to that at the end of the Tractatus, as Wittgenstein tells us we have to throw away the ladder after we've used it to climb. What sets Nagarjuna apart is that he is willing to do this, and insists that this is in fact a crucial part of the Buddhist project (at least according to Garfield).
When we can only speak in the "conventional" voice, all of our discourse becomes ostensive, rather than referring. It points us in a direction without claiming to already be the destination. Being a little more adventurous, I might say that ultimate truth might play the role of a Kantian "regulative principle"; itself an essential part of conventional reason, not beyond it, although we are tempted to try to look for something where it points.
You could interpret this ("ostention") as a key difference between Buddhist thought and Western thought (at least, pre-Wittgenstein). Because discursive thought just doesn't do what one hopes it would (e.g. come bearing absolute truth, or bring you immediately to Nirvana just by hearing it), internalizing the lessons of Buddhist discourse becomes a matter of practice, process, especially a matter of meditation. It just points you in the right direction; you still have to develop good mental habits and learn through hours of experience paying attention to your own mind.
The shocking conclusion (and Garfield builds up the hype for this) is that Nagarjuna ends up identifying nirvana with samsara, in some sense. To do otherwise would be to attempt to reify an ultimate truth as an independent essence separate from conventional truth. You don't have to have blind faith in an incomprehensible process by which a moment of enlightenment literally teleports you out of our illusion-universe. And this is what makes so much sense to me: what brings peace to samsara is the well-internalized realization that it is, monistically and univocally, conventional all the way down- nirvana is samsara understood differently. And you don't have to worry so much about the metaphysical interpretation of that last sentence, because it itself is merely a signpost to get you to think differently.
A lesson that I personally take away from this is that it's probably OK to think of a lot of Buddhist practices from an empirical psychology perspective (admitting, of course, that Buddhists themselves may disagree). To me, the point of the "emptiness of emptiness" concept is that anything we actually do, with any actual semblance of significance, is immanent to samsara, not mysteriously in the realm of Platonic forms. Actually behaving with this insight would then be both key to the process and key to the desired end state, if there is such a thing.
And this is the Middle Way, as far as I understand it: not nihilistically withdrawing from a world you know to be "nonexistent" or "unreal", nor egotistically grasping after a world taken to be essentially and inexorably the way it is, but lightly navigating the moderate course of a world that is taken to be "conventionally real", with exactly the degree of seriousness that such a thing entails.
One of my favorite works of philosophy.
According to Garfield, what sets Nagarjuna's madhyamaka thought apart is the key role played by the concept of "the emptiness of emptiness". This concept turned out to really resonate with me. I'll try to back up into it as I now understand it.
For starters, we have the general Buddhist "two truths" doctrine. We have "conventional truth", which allows us to make positive statements about everyday things like selves, thoughts, feelings, perceptions, causes, and physical objects. Speaking in the "conventional" voice, we don't worry about whether we are actually capturing an essential metaphysical nature of things, i.e. whether our terms actually refer. We are more interested in the pragmatic effects such assertions have on us.
Then we have "ultimate truth". This is explained in deliberately vague terms at first, but we are given to understand that this is something to be sought. So far so good.
Next, we can introduce "emptiness". Much of the text is dedicated to proving that various "conventional" concepts are "empty". The "emptiness" in question is in particular an emptiness or lack of "independent essence". I think that an "independent essence" here plays a similar role to "substance" in Spinoza. I would say that something has an independent essence if it is what it is because of its own nature, and not because of its relationships with other things or mere conventions. It's really worth digging into this, I promise.
The example that I rely on most heavily is the notion of the "true self". The "true self" would be the core part of you that is the way it is not because of external influences (i.e. your independent essence). If you've ever done something you regret, then you understand perfectly well the temptation to define your "true self" as being something different than the sum total of your actions. Of course, this makes the "true self" perfectly up for debate. Who can say beyond doubt whether or not someone's choice reflects their actual character, or whether they were merely acting under an external influence that is not essential to them? Upon reflection, it becomes clear that the "true self" is constructed, by attributing some actions to it and others not. This line of thinking is familiar from existentialism- our existence precedes our essence.
The point is, if you carry through the idea of an "independent essence" to its own internally logical conclusion, it turns out to be a really strange thing indeed. There is a very high bar to clear to prove that something has an "independent essence" of its own, and is not something that we choose to form the boundaries of arbitrarily. This is exactly what happens in Spinoza- he takes an Aristotelian-inflected notion of substance, and ends up proving (quite mathematically) that the only candidate for an actual, truly independent substance is the entire universe. Everything (conventional) that is, is what it is only through inextricable dependence on other things and conventions.
This is not to say that "conventional truths" like "there is a table over there" are strictly incorrect. They are, after all, conventional truths. To say a table is empty of independent essence is to say (put one way) that there is nothing about the collection of atoms comprising the table alone that make it a table. Our perceiving it as a table means we make a choice to pick out a subset of atoms in the room and call it a table; the atoms of the table contributed to that choice, but did not determine it by themselves.
What I find really interesting about the argument that conventional things are "empty" is the way it parallels Wilfrid Sellars' Myth of the Given (cf. Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind), and Garfield is with me on this. I don't feel like I can explain this well enough to elaborate on it here, but I find it compelling. Basically nature doesn't come "carved at the joints" for non-arbitrary uptake into the "logical space of reasons".
Deep breath. If that was a more or less satisfying explanation of "emptiness", we can proceed to the "emptiness of emptiness". You might be wondering what became of ultimate truth, if "conventional" things like the words and concepts I'm using to discuss all this are utterly empty of independent essence. Can we say anything in an ultimate voice at all? If not, then what happens to the ultimate validity of any part of what I've said along the way? As Garfield points out, the situation here is remarkably similar to that at the end of the Tractatus, as Wittgenstein tells us we have to throw away the ladder after we've used it to climb. What sets Nagarjuna apart is that he is willing to do this, and insists that this is in fact a crucial part of the Buddhist project (at least according to Garfield).
When we can only speak in the "conventional" voice, all of our discourse becomes ostensive, rather than referring. It points us in a direction without claiming to already be the destination. Being a little more adventurous, I might say that ultimate truth might play the role of a Kantian "regulative principle"; itself an essential part of conventional reason, not beyond it, although we are tempted to try to look for something where it points.
You could interpret this ("ostention") as a key difference between Buddhist thought and Western thought (at least, pre-Wittgenstein). Because discursive thought just doesn't do what one hopes it would (e.g. come bearing absolute truth, or bring you immediately to Nirvana just by hearing it), internalizing the lessons of Buddhist discourse becomes a matter of practice, process, especially a matter of meditation. It just points you in the right direction; you still have to develop good mental habits and learn through hours of experience paying attention to your own mind.
The shocking conclusion (and Garfield builds up the hype for this) is that Nagarjuna ends up identifying nirvana with samsara, in some sense. To do otherwise would be to attempt to reify an ultimate truth as an independent essence separate from conventional truth. You don't have to have blind faith in an incomprehensible process by which a moment of enlightenment literally teleports you out of our illusion-universe. And this is what makes so much sense to me: what brings peace to samsara is the well-internalized realization that it is, monistically and univocally, conventional all the way down- nirvana is samsara understood differently. And you don't have to worry so much about the metaphysical interpretation of that last sentence, because it itself is merely a signpost to get you to think differently.
A lesson that I personally take away from this is that it's probably OK to think of a lot of Buddhist practices from an empirical psychology perspective (admitting, of course, that Buddhists themselves may disagree). To me, the point of the "emptiness of emptiness" concept is that anything we actually do, with any actual semblance of significance, is immanent to samsara, not mysteriously in the realm of Platonic forms. Actually behaving with this insight would then be both key to the process and key to the desired end state, if there is such a thing.
And this is the Middle Way, as far as I understand it: not nihilistically withdrawing from a world you know to be "nonexistent" or "unreal", nor egotistically grasping after a world taken to be essentially and inexorably the way it is, but lightly navigating the moderate course of a world that is taken to be "conventionally real", with exactly the degree of seriousness that such a thing entails.
One of my favorite works of philosophy.
March 9, 2020
A really good translation of Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika, probably his most important work on Buddhist metaphysics. Nagarjuna extended the idea of 'Shunyata' or 'Emptiness' of the Buddha to demonstrate that ultimately, everything is 'empty' of an intrinsic self or essence (including emptiness itself) and this interpretation of Buddha's doctrine of 'Dependent Origination' led to the establishment of the Madhyamaka school of thought.
In his work, Nagarjuna employs the structure of a 'Tetralemma' to formulate the various causal possibilities of an object (say O) and an a cause (say C), which goes, roughly, as follows :
1. C is the cause of O (thus, causally related.)
2. C is not the cause of O (thus, distinct entities)
3. C is both the cause and non-cause of O
4. C is neither the cause nor the non-cause of O
He then uses a form of inductive reasoning to disprove each of the 4 points and conclude that both the object and the cause are empty of intrinsic nature. He uses this method in a lot of situations (27, to be exact) such as when arguing about the nature of Dharmas, Skandhas, Time etc.
About the book in general : I am extremely impressed with the quality of the translations as well the clarity in which the rather aphoristic lines are explained to the reader. The authors have kept their personal interpretations of the text to a minimum and instead, presented the interpretations of several famous Buddhist commentators such as Chandrakirti, Akutobbhaya, Buddhapalita etc. Philosophical texts are often extremely esoteric in nature and very difficult to understand for people who are not familiar with the (original) author's works in general. This masterful work overcomes all such difficulties and presents a book that can be read by students as well as the casual reader.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in understanding Nagarjuna's idea in some depth.
In his work, Nagarjuna employs the structure of a 'Tetralemma' to formulate the various causal possibilities of an object (say O) and an a cause (say C), which goes, roughly, as follows :
1. C is the cause of O (thus, causally related.)
2. C is not the cause of O (thus, distinct entities)
3. C is both the cause and non-cause of O
4. C is neither the cause nor the non-cause of O
He then uses a form of inductive reasoning to disprove each of the 4 points and conclude that both the object and the cause are empty of intrinsic nature. He uses this method in a lot of situations (27, to be exact) such as when arguing about the nature of Dharmas, Skandhas, Time etc.
About the book in general : I am extremely impressed with the quality of the translations as well the clarity in which the rather aphoristic lines are explained to the reader. The authors have kept their personal interpretations of the text to a minimum and instead, presented the interpretations of several famous Buddhist commentators such as Chandrakirti, Akutobbhaya, Buddhapalita etc. Philosophical texts are often extremely esoteric in nature and very difficult to understand for people who are not familiar with the (original) author's works in general. This masterful work overcomes all such difficulties and presents a book that can be read by students as well as the casual reader.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in understanding Nagarjuna's idea in some depth.
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February 2, 2026https://fivebooks.com/best-books/time...
From Helgolan by Rovelli:
"
When speaking about quanta and their relational nature, I had frequently met people who asked: Have you read Nāgārjuna?
The central thesis of Nāgārjuna’s book is simply that there is nothing that exists in itself independently from something else. The resonance with quantum mechanics is immediate.
“What articulates language does not exist. The circle of thoughts does not exist.”
So is emptiness the only reality? Is this, after all, the ultimate reality? No, writes Nāgārjuna, in the most vertiginous chapter of his book: every perspective exists only in interdependence with something else, there is never an ultimate reality—and this is the case for his own perspective as well. Even emptiness is devoid of essence: it is conventional. No metaphysics survives. Emptiness is empty.
The fascination of Nāgārjuna’s thought goes beyond questions raised by contemporary physics. His perspective has something dizzying about it. It resonates with the best of much Western philosophy, both classical and recent. With the radical skepticism of Hume, with the unmasking of badly posed questions in Wittgenstein. But it seems to me that Nāgārjuna does not fall into the trap in which so much philosophy is caught, by postulating starting points that invariably turn out to be unconvincing in the long run. He speaks about reality, about its complexity and comprehensibility, but he defends us from the conceptual trap of wanting to find it an ultimate foundation.
"
From Helgolan by Rovelli:
"
When speaking about quanta and their relational nature, I had frequently met people who asked: Have you read Nāgārjuna?
The central thesis of Nāgārjuna’s book is simply that there is nothing that exists in itself independently from something else. The resonance with quantum mechanics is immediate.
“What articulates language does not exist. The circle of thoughts does not exist.”
So is emptiness the only reality? Is this, after all, the ultimate reality? No, writes Nāgārjuna, in the most vertiginous chapter of his book: every perspective exists only in interdependence with something else, there is never an ultimate reality—and this is the case for his own perspective as well. Even emptiness is devoid of essence: it is conventional. No metaphysics survives. Emptiness is empty.
The fascination of Nāgārjuna’s thought goes beyond questions raised by contemporary physics. His perspective has something dizzying about it. It resonates with the best of much Western philosophy, both classical and recent. With the radical skepticism of Hume, with the unmasking of badly posed questions in Wittgenstein. But it seems to me that Nāgārjuna does not fall into the trap in which so much philosophy is caught, by postulating starting points that invariably turn out to be unconvincing in the long run. He speaks about reality, about its complexity and comprehensibility, but he defends us from the conceptual trap of wanting to find it an ultimate foundation.
"
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