The Central Philosophy, basic verses

Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārika’s Translated from Sanskrit with commentary by Erik Hoogcarspel

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0. Introduction______________________3 0.1. Nāgārjuna...............................3 0.2. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh. .4 0.3. The transcendental wisdom.....5 0.4. The kārikā’s............................7

1. Causality________________________10 2. Movement ______________________15 3. The senses______________________20 4. The components________________23 5. The elements____________________26 6. The emotions____________________28 7. Origination, duration and disappearance_____________________30 8. Actor and act____________________35 9. Self-consciousness_____________37 10. Fire and Fuel _________________40 11. The cycle of existence________43 12. Suffering______________________45 13. The mental factors___________47 14. Cooperation___________________50 15. Substance_____________________52 16. Bondage and salvation ______55 17. Karma_________________________58 18. The Self________________________62 19. Time___________________________66 20. Conditions _____________________68 21. Disappearance and origination 72 22. The Buddha ___________________76 23. Wrong views___________________78 24. The Buddhist teaching________82 25. Nirvāņa_________________________87 26. The Twelve Chains____________90 27. Against the dogmatism_______92 Index_______________________________96 Literature__________________________97

Preface Years have passed since I tried to translate Nāgārjuna’s kārika’s together with a group of fellow students and a buddhologist at Leiden University. It wasn’t easy, but we had many interesting and instructive discussions. I was to write a dissertation comparing Nāgārjuna with the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The project stranded because I was forced to find a job outside university and Heidegger’s revelational philosophy was gradually loosing it’s grip on me. But I had this translation of the kārika’s and so I decided to make this available to the public. Reading the translations after all these years, it seemed as though the text had ripened in me. It was as though I could understand some line better and after repeated reading the Sanskrit seemed to become more transparent. I must admit that I had to give up some of the academic precision, but it was not my intention to write a text strictly within academic bounds. This translation is what I expect Nāgārjuna would have liked himself: accessible, in contemporary language, provoking and as clear as the subject allows. The original text is written in a tight meter, and had to be adapted to it. In the translation there’s no trace of the meter left. Along the translation I’ve tried to give some indication of what the relevance might be of Nāgārjuna’s philosophy for western thought and the other way around. I didn’t because to make a comparison, but it helped me to understand Nāgārjuna better. Heidegger did not believe in the possibility of Nonwestern philosophy, because he saw philosophy as a historical phenomenon, well here’s my answer. The illusion of the exclusiveness of Western philosophy might be a historical phenomenon, caused by the influence of a Christian Church who wanted nothing more than to be exclusive and have a monopoly on the truth. Maybe it’s now time to reconsider. I feel like I’m a dwarf standing on the shoulders of giants. I have to thank first of all Professor Vetter without whose skill and understanding this work wouldn't have ba possible, but also many philosophers near and far who's books taught and inspired me, and my teachers at the universities of Groningen and Leiden. Aside from this it is a honored custom to thank the master Nāgārjuna himself and his teacher the Buddha. Rotterdam, august 2004

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Introduction

0.1. Nāgārjuna About Nāgārjuna’s life many myths have been told. Most of them we find in Tibetan sources, among others Tāranātha’s ‘History of Buddhism in India’, but also in the travelogue of the Chinese pilgrim Hsüen-chuang: ‘Records of the Western world’. A number of myths try to account for Nāgārjuna’s alledged long life-span. The reason why Nāgārjuna was thought to have lived for about six centuries is peculiar. It was not unusual in India for a writer to sign a text with the name of a highly admired predecessor under whose inpsiration the text had been composed. So Nāgārjuna’s name was not only found on second century philosophical texts but also on texts about yoga from the seventh and texts about alchemy from the ninth century. Tibetan investigators concluded that those texts were written by one and the same author, who must have lived for more then 600 years. The name Nāgārjuna has also been an occasion for a lot of speculation. It can be separated into two words: ‘Nāga’ and ‘Arjuna’. ‘Arjuna’ is the name of the main hero in the Bhagavad Gīta, India’s most popular epic. The word is the name of a tree as well and it means ‘bright’ or ‘white’. In order to explain his name, Nāgārjuna is said to have been born under such a tree. Nāga’s are a kind of mythical water snakes akin to dragons, who are uspposed to live in cities on the bottom of the ocean1. So the name can be explained as ‘The Bright One among the Dragons’ (nāgaarjuna). This etymology gave rise to stories wherein Nāgārjuna teaches the nāga’s his philosophy and cures their king of a bad disease. He even allegedly stayed a few months at their king’s palace and received treasures and holy books. All sources however agree that Nāgārjuna was born somewhere halfway the second century in Vidarbha in South-India2. His father was a rich brahman. According to a legend an astrologer predicted at the birth of Nāgārjuna that he wouldn’t grow older then seven years. Therefore the desperate parents sent the little Nāgārjuna away with a servant just before his seventh According to a documentary from National Geographic fishermen at the East coast of India have caught occasionally fish which lives in very deep water and can grow more then 10 meter in length . 2 present Berar 1

birthday. They couldn’t bear to watch him die. Along the road Nāgārjuna met a monk who advised him to enroll at the university of Nalanda or Nalendra3. There he learned a ritual with which he could avert his appraoching death and even extend his life

indefenitely. So Nāgārjuna could have lived for ever, why then did he nevertheless eventually die? According to another legend he was befriended with a South-Indian king and had promised this king not to outlive him. The son of this king however got tired of waiting for the throne and persuaded Nāgārjuna to give him his head. Being a bodhisattva who was eager to help his fellow beings, Nāgārjuna died. The king died shortly afterwards and the son, who became the new king buried Nāgārjuna’s severed head far from his body. According to some versions of the tale Nāgārjuna’s head could only be chopped with a blade of grass. Since that moment the head creeps every year a few yards closer to the body and will reunite with it in due time.4 Kumarajīva (344-413) translated the Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh and Nāgārjuna’s biography into Chinese. He was a scholar from Kucha (a kingdom South of China), had been abducted on the order of the Chinese emperor and received the assignment to translate Buddhist texts. In his translation we find another biography. It describes Nāgārjuna as a see Walleser ’79 p. 8, probably not a large university at the time, see p. 35 ibidem 4 see the biography by Sera sMad Geshe Lobsang Tharchin on http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/4886/naga1.htm 3

talented student of the Veda’s5. On his 24th he tried to become invisible by means of a magical trick and sneak into the royal harem together with three friends. They got caught and only Nāgārjuna could escape, the others were killed. After a crisis Nāgārjuna decides to devote himself to Buddhist studies. There are no biographical data in the kārika’s, the only personal message Nāgārjuna gives is that he is convinced to give a better explanation and to have a better understanding of the teaching of the Buddha then his contemporaries. His references to the emptiness of all phenomena seem to come from experience. He directs his critique mainly against the ideas of other Buddhists. Later on his pupil Aryadeva will criticize the ideas of non-buddhist philosophies. Apart from the Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh eleven other texts are generally attributed to Nāgārjuna6, although experts do not all agree. Apart from these thirty-six other texts are attributed to Nāgārjuna by different Buddhist traditions. There is very little data to draw conclusions from. There’s a text for instance, the ‘Suhŗlleka’, which could qua date have be written by Nāgārjuna, but the style and content is very different from the kārikā’s. It’s generally a dull text addressed to a ruler, numbering up all the Buddhist does and don'ts. It is very traditional and it contains no trace of what in the kārika’s appears to be Nāgārjuna’s one and only message. So maybe this could be something Nāgārjuna has written while relatively young, even as a kind of examination, before he started his career as a philosopher and debater. Nāgārjuna makes abundantly use of the reductio ad absurdum (prasangah). He enjoys showing all the absurd consequences of his opponent’s point of view. A few centuries later a discussion came up on the question whether this is a decent and sound way of arguing. According to the Indian logical conventions every debater had to formulate his own point of view. A certain Buddhapālita (470-540) thought this rule should apply for the madhyamaka philosophy as well. However in the Vigrahavyāvartanī, a text very close to the Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh, Nāgārjuna denies categorically to have a point of view. Buddhapālita’s folowers called themselves ‘svātantrika’s’ (svatantra means ones own proposition). A contemporary scholar, Bhāvaviveka (490-570), found this to be a false deviation of Nāgārjuna’s method. His followers called themselves ‘prāsangika’s’. Nāgārjuna’s point of view is never totally rejected by the subsequent Buddhist tradition. It was more or less pushed aside by the Yogācāra school of philosophy, which emphasized more a mental training by which 5 6

oldest and most important texts of the brahmans see Lindtner p. 10

the phenomena could be recognized as modifications of being caused by the way we are used to know the world. Later Buddhist scholars like Śāntarakşita (8th century) unified both philosophies into one system.

0.2. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh The text consists of 27 chapters with varying numbers of verses of four lines each, kārika’s. These are meant to be learned by heart in order to provide a solid ground for ones own meditation and debate with others. Meditation on the verses is an important factor in the development of insight in emptiness, which leads to Buddhahood. The Sanskrit text used here dates from the 10th century, Kumarajīva’s Chinese translation from the 4th century. There are differences between both, but these are not far reaching enough to speak of conflicts. Most chapters contain subjects which were hot topics in discussions between various Buddhist schools in Nāgārjuna’s days. They are also discussed in a few other texts, for instance in the Vasubhandu’s Abhidharmakośa7. Nāgārjuna shows generally that all Buddhist scholars of his time are just wrong because of their stubborn belief that words refer to things that exist independently. Chapters 17, 26 and 27 contain a a less critical attitude and it is very likely that they were added later on. The first 10 chapters are the oldest part and probably were the whole text for some time. The other chapters might have been written later when Nāgārjuna became more famous and had developed his technique and insight in the main subjects of Buddha’s teaching. Here Nāgārjuna is very confident and inserts often positive notes abut the experience of nirvāņa. We find some of those notes also in the first ten chapters, but there they don't seem to fit very well, so they might have been added later. Chapter 25 is clearly the climax of the text, 26 and 27 seem to be not more than an appendix. In the 7th century the Buddhist scholar Candrakīrti wrote a famous comment on the kārika’s by the name of ‘Prasannapadā’ (‘Clear Words’). Although Candrakīrti is traditionally considered to be an authority, there is also unmistakably a distance between him and Nāgārjuna. Candrakīrti mainly adds replies of a virtual opponent and constructs a little theater dialogue and the obligatory supporting quotes of other Buddhist texts. The text has been translated into English several times, as is shown in the table underneath.

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Vert. into French by L. de la Vallée Poussin – Paris 1925

datu auteur m

titel

brontaal

Ausgewählte Kapitel Sanskrit aus der Prasannapadā Jong, J.W. Cinq chapitres the la Sanskrit 1949 the Prasannapadā Candrakīrti Sanskrit 1959 May, J. Prasannapadā Tibetan Madhyamakavŗtti 1967 Streng, F. Emptiness Sanskrit Mulamadhyamakak Chinese 1970 Inada, K. arika Lucid exposition of Tibetan 1979 Sprung M. the Middle Way Kalupahana The Philosophy of Sanskrit 1986 , D. J. the Middle Way The Fundamental Tibetan Garfield, J. 1995 Wisdom of the L. Middle Way Batchelor, Verses from the Tibetan 2000 S. Centre 1931 Schayer

Why yet another translation? I hope this one will give the reader a better taste of Nāgārjuna’s voice and what he has to say. I have tried to stay close to the Sanskrit orginal, and I have also tried to understand the text as a philosophical text and a historical one. In my view Nāgārjuna didn’t write some words from heaven just out of the blue. He had something to say in a particular time to a particular audience. I think I found some traces of this and it helped me to understand the text better.

0.3. The transcendental wisdom After the death of the Buddha different schools came into existence which all had different opinions about all kinds of facets of Buddha’s teaching. An important issue appeared to be the status of laypersons. According to some schools only monks or nuns could make substantial progress on the way to nirvāņa. Laymen and women couldn’t and shouldn’t do more then just give alms to the monks and nuns in order to gain enough merit. This way they could hope to be reborn as a monk or a nun next life. The major division in the order of followers of the Buddha was the one between schools where the separation between monks and nuns on one side and laymen and women on the other was unquestionable and the so-called ‘mahāsanghika’s’, where lay persons also took part in religious meetings. Within this movement a new kind of Buddhism grew, the ‘mahāyāna’ (large vehicle), where the goal is not just to become an ‘arhant’ (a victorious

one, who has slain his passions) who is free from the worries of worldly existence, but a Buddha: a teacher who delivers others. A Buddha is not only awakened himself, but awakens others as well. Someone who is on his or her way to become a Buddha is called a ‘bodhisattva’. Whether this new Buddhism is a heresy or already implicated by the Buddha himself in his teachings, is of course a matter of discussion. Not long after the Buddha’s death (or parinirvāņa as Buddhists call it) his main pupils tried to bring all teachings they could remember into one system. The systemizations and commentaries were called ‘abhidharma’. During the following centuries disagreement arose about the legitimacy of the abhidhama and some decided to follow only what survived as the word of the master himself. Apart from these sautrāntika’s as they called themselves ‘(from the word ‘sūtra’, meaning the teaching of the Buddha) several different abhidharmaschools existed, each with their own view on philosophical questions. In circles of the mahāsanghika’s a new kind of literature started to be written during the first century B.D. These texts were about what was called the transcendent wisdom (prajñāpāramitā). Up until the 6th century several prajñāpāramitāsūtra’s have been composed, named by the number of verses, like the 8000 Verse Prajñāpāramitāsūtra, the 12000 Verse, etc. In the oldest one, the 8.000 version (of which the first two chapters are the oldest kernel) is told how the Buddha inspires a pupil to teach a new kind of wisdom which is a new way to awakening. The message is however not for everyone’s ears, because it is difficult to understand. Most people don’t and only get frightened. Those who are not shocked however are qualified to hear this teaching. This theme has been repeated and expanded several times in new prajñāpāramitāsūtra’s during the following centuries. The central message is that only merit and discipline is not enough to become a Buddha. A special kind of wisdom is required: transcendent wisdom (prajñāpāramitā). An important aspect of this is the insight that deliverance is not the result of an accumulation of merit, virtues or selfrestraint; it’s an entirely different matter. This is according to the followers of the new way what the Buddha meant when he explained in his first teaching that neither harsh asceticism nor lust will lead to awakening, because in both cases concerns about the body get in the way. The so-called ‘middle way’ means that all worldly concerns are irrelevant. One should just deal with the world in an efficient way so that there’s ample opportunity to develop the transcendent wisdom. In a certain sense a monk, a nun, or a saint is not closer to the awakening than a lay person. The real

awakening is a leap into a new way of seeing reality; one could call this a shift of ontological paradigm or a radical change of language game.8 The transcendent wisdom is a kind of paradigm-shift, in two ways: it was a new way of being a Buddhist and the actual breakthrough of transcendent wisdom means a new way of life. The ideal Buddhist is no longer a monk who is meditating all day keeping his discipline up in the strictest manner. The ideal Buddhist is now someone who understands the transcendent wisdom and that’s a wisdom that looks upon all norms and facts of society as a game which he plays knowingly. The old style monk or nun is still part of this game, because he or she still thinks in terms of good and bad, reward and punishment, danger and safety. For the one who understands transcendent wisdom there is nothing more to gain or to loose. Of course the lifestyle of a monk can still be very useful if you want to develop transcendent wisdom, because you have plenty of time and teaching. But it’s no longer required. In ‘The sūtra of Vimalakīrti9’s teaching’, which has probably been composed during the first century A.D. is a clear example: a lay person even explains transcendent wisdom to an audience of monks. Transcendent wisdom has a lot to do with the understanding that the world is a game, made by people acting according to rules, competing for what’s at stake. The world doesn’t exist by itself, but is being done. Any reward or quality has no meaning outside the game. It is difficult to to comprehend this because one has to cut through the fascination of the game. Awakening means that one is no longer spellbound. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu called this fascination ‘illusio’. Let’s look at a fragment of the Ratnagunasamcayagatha, a text which is shorter and probably older the oldest Prajñāpāramitāsūtra.10 We cannot find any wisdom, no highest perfection, no bodhisattva, also no aspiration for awakening (bodhicitta). Someone who’s not shocked when he hears this and in no way concerned whatsoever, this bodhisattva abides in the Buddha’s wisdom. He doesn’t find a resting-place anywhere, not in form, feelings, perceptions or consciousness. He Scientific paradigm shifts have occurred in the history of science. At the beginning of the 20th century for instance classical Newtonian physics was pushed aside by quantum mechanics. Events which until then were supposed to be impossible, like a particle behaving like a wave and the other way around, became quite normal. It’s important to see that this is not merely a theoretical shift, it entails many new questions, new practices, new investigations, new instruments, etc. It changes the way people think about what good science is and what not. From one moment to the other the old ways seem suddenly hopelessly inadequate. 9 Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra 10 adapted from a translation by Edward Conze 8

wanders without a home, phenomena don’t hold him and he doesn’t reach for them. He’s on his way to obtain the body of a Victorious One. The wanderer Srenika could find no basis because of his insight in truth, although the components were not decomposed. In this way a bodhisattva doesn’t retire into sacred quietness, when he understands the phenomena as they should be understood. Then he abides in wisdom. ‘What is this wisdom, from where and who does she come?’ he asks, and then he sees that all these phenomena are completely empty. If a person is not shocked when he’s confronted with this discovery and stays without fear, then he is not far from deliverance. Those who dwell in the components11 , in form, in feeling, in perception, in will etc., who don’t succeed to see them from the perspective of wisdom, or who imagine these components as being empty, remain in the sign and don’t know the path of nonarising. However he who doesn’t abide in form, in feeling or perception, in will or consciousness, but wanders without a home, remaining constantly in wisdom and not aware of it, his thoughts focused on non-arising – with him stays the best of all absorptions (meditations). Because of this the bodhisattva abides now silently within, his Buddhahood in the future is guaranteed by the Buddha’s from the past. He doesn’t cling, whether or not he’s absorbed in meditation. Because he knows things as they are, he knows their essential original nature. In this way he abides in the wisdom of the Buddha’s and still he perceives no phenomena wherein he abides. He knows this abiding wisely as non-abiding. This is his practice of wisdom, the highest perfection. The fools hold the non-existing for existing. They imagine nonexistence as well as existence, while existence and nonexistence are both not real phenomena. A bodhisattva leaves his home when he understands this wisely. If he knows the five components are an illusion, but doesn’t make from illusion one thing and from the components another, if he abides in peace, liberated from the concept of multiple things, than this is his practice of wisdom, the highest perfection. Those who have good teachers as well as deep understanding, cannot be frightened if they hear the deep principles of the mother, but those who have bad teachers, who can be misled by others, are destroyed by them, like an unbaked pot that becomes wet. So there’s a new kind of wisdom which consists of understanding that things don’t really exist, that they’re empty and that their existence is an illusion. This is an ontological understanding, an understanding in what it 11

composing parts of the person

means for a thing to exist. One who doesn’t change his view on being but only thinks of things with the index ‘emptiness’ or just sees things as before and imagines them as being empty, has missed the point. Opinions about what’s real and what not and what does or doesn’t exist change fundamentally. These concepts are no longer opposites. It’s very important to be able to accept this and not become frightened, to trust being and not the beings. Apparently this fundamental acceptance of the relativity of reality is very difficult to explain to certain people who are naïve realists by nature. Who succeeds gets a deep inner peace and is liberated of the worries of life. But watch out, it’s a dangerous path; any misunderstanding can destroy a person.

0.4. The kārikā’s Nāgārjuna has set himself to the task to build a philosophical foundation for the transcendent wisdom. This was apparently necessary; the new way must have been under fierce attack from the old school who could quote the Buddha himself to support themselves. The problem with the old school as well as with the worldly view is that words supposedly refer to substances, things which exist out there in reality by themselves independent of other things or what we think of them. Transcendent wisdom begins when someone stops seeing substances, or rather starts seeing substances in an ironic manner. Such a person knowingly sees substances, with the awareness that they’re nothing but effects of his or her habits. A substance is in philosophical terms something that exists by itself and it is itself the cause of its qualities. Tale these characters for instance, they exist whether you read them or not and their color and form is also not dependent on who’s reading, so they are substances all right. We live in a world of substances. The train doesn’t leave because we because it to, but because of the timetable. The wind doesn’t blow because we think so. There happens to be a wind of 4 Beaufort out there, whether we believe it or not. It’s no use to say that the timetable is a convention and that this is also the case with the expression ‘4 Beaufort’. Who says so imagines the things as being empty, but nothing changes because of this. There are some empty things, but the contrast between empty and not empty remains. We are still involved in what Bourdieu calls ‘the social game’. ‘If on the contrary you have a mind which is formed in accordance with the structures of the world in which you play, you find everything obvious and even the question whether you really know if the game is worth playing doesn’t occur to you. In other words:

social games are games which hide itself, like also the illusio, the magical bond with a game, which is the consequence of a bond of ontological complicity between the mental and the objective structures of the social space. This is what I meant with ‘interest’. You think it’s important, interesting, the games matter for you, because they’ve forced themselves to you and they’ve entered into your head and into your body in the form of what one calls the meaning of the game.’12 Bourdieu is talking about a specific field, a specific part of society, but Nāgārjuna is talking about the world as such. This is a game which is more difficult to step away from, because the interest is stronger. It’s called ‘thirst’ by the Buddha. And becoming a Buddha is not going to heaven. One stays in the world and not all involvement is stopped, that would be impossible. A world without substances is unthinkable. We believe in substances. Every noun, every substantive, announces a substance. Our belief in substances is confirmed all the time by our language. Liberation therefore requires that we free ourselves from the influence of language. According to Nāgārjuna this happens after due reflection and it is confirmed by successful meditation. Transcendent wisdom is a total reversal of our way of thinking, after which we no longer take the game of the world for absolute. From the outside there may change little, but we see of the world as a game and we see that all we can win is game money. The illusio of the world, the belief that there’s something substantial to gain or loose has been broken. Interest still exists, but it’s not coercion anymore, it is esthetical fun. Everyday is a holiday. Nāgārjuna says on several places with different words that the discipline of a monk doesn’t help here and must be practiced as a game, ‘ironically’ Richard Rorty would call it. This is possible because it has become clear that language never matches reality, it’s only a model. All words are metaphors according to Nietzsche, so every word is a model. A model doesn’t have to have the same appearance as what it represents. In other words it’s not an icon, it doesn’t show it’s meaning by means of resemblance. A map doesn’t have to have the same color as the country is represents and the word ‘blue’ has no color at all. So nouns are called indenpendent, but they don’t represent independently existing substances. Nāgārjuna shows that the transcendent wisdom also makes sense. It is substantialism that’s illogical. We’re only so used to it that we don’t see this. We’re locked within our own perspective all the time because we take it for absolute. These characters look like they exist on their own behalf, but in reality they are only 12

Bourdieu 1994 p. 151 (my translation)

what they are for those who can read English and even that might not always be the case. Some may see it as absurd nonsense, but others as a source of inspiration and new thoughts. They even don’t exist at all for somebody who has been born blind, and we’ll never know what they are in the eyes of a fly. If these characters don’t exist on their own behalf, how do they exist? They must exist, surely, how could you be reading otherwise? They exist for someone who’s reading them, who looks at them from a reading perspective. Someone who reads doesn’t make the characters to appear and the characters don’t teach somebody how to read, both are factors which implicate each other; if there’s the one there the other. This is also the formula which the Buddha used in the ‘Teaching to Sakuludāyin’13: if the one is there, the other is there if the one arises, the other arises if the one isn’t there anymore, the other isn’t there anymore if the one doesn’t arise, the other doesn’t arise. We usually never think about the mutual implication. We believe that things are the effects of causes and that there first has to be a cause for an effect to exist. So the usual point of view is that the world consists of causes and effects, the enlightened point of view that the world is structured by mutual implication. It’s not surprising therefore that Nāgārjuna starts with a critique of causality. In almost all chapters Nāgārjuna shows over and again that the concept of substance is not tenable. The most vulnerable point is that substances are supposed to be independent, while it’s obvious that things are only what they are from our point of view. A chair is a chair for us, but not for a dog and it’s also probably not what a chair used to be for someone twenty centuries ago. Furthermore relations or interactions with and between substances are out of the question, because the definition of a substance wouldn’t allow it: they exist on their one behalf and are immutable. Moreover a substance as such has never been perceived, this is why European empiricists like Hume didn’t want to hear of it. Finally a substance has to get its name because of an activity or a quality, but the name then gets a double function: it mentions both itself and the substance to which it belongs. If we say that the walker walks, then the activity of walking must be part of the walker. As a substance the walker gets his identity from the act that he walks, but walking is also what he does. So there must be two ‘walkings’: the activity and the identity. So is ‘the rain rains’ double Dutch and also ‘the fire burns’ and ‘the pain hurts’. Nāgārjuna concludes that language is not a projection of 13

Madyamanikaya

reality, but a mentioning ‘as a figure of speech’. What language calls doesn’t exist, it’s an illusion. Reality is the playing field of language and therefore empty of substances. Nāgārjuna tries to show that the substantialist view of the world is complete nonsense. This opens the eye for the nonsubstantialist view that is the view where substances are out of the question. This means that even the proposition ‘substances don’t exist’ is not possible anymore. It would be the same as saying that the present king of France is bold. It’s impossible to say anything definite about a something that absolutely doesn’t exist because sentences are supposed to give information about exisiting things. Things are empty of substance, but that doesn’t mean that there’s a substance missing. The term ‘emptiness’ has become a new kind of substance in the eyes of some commentators. The commentators of the Kyotoschool, among others have explained emptiness as the Platonic nothingness, which means so much as the absence of all limitations. Some philosophers called it ‘being’, the absolute fullness, which encompasses all other things14. This caused for a great deal by the influence of the Reinland School of mysticism and the negative theology, which also had considerable influence on Romantic German philosophers. Nāgārjuna however doesn’t show any trace of this kind of Romantism. Finally there are some philosophers which come close to Nāgārjuna’s point of view. We have to mention the Chinese philosopher Chuang Tse as first. In the antiquity the skeptics in Europe sought happiness through giving up any belief in dogmas. We cannot say whether their experience of happiness was akin to Nāgārjuna’s, but we find several arguments of Nāgārjuna’s also in the writings of the skeptic Sextus Empiricus. In the modern days Nietzsche is undoubtedly someone who has some affinity with Nāgārjuna15. Nāgārjuna would certainly appreciate Nietzsche’s points of view about language and truth. Nāgārjuna is certainly a postmodern philosopher, because he rejects any claim on an independent truth. We must also not forget Wittgenstein whose analysis of language in the second period shows a lot of affinity with Nāgārjuna. Nāgārjuna’s philosophy and the school of transcendent wisdom seems to be totally new, but one could ask if the Buddha wasn’t on the same track. After his awakening he walked around for several days asking himself whether there would be anybody who could understand his new insights. The first teaching 14 15

as an ‘absolute transcending field’, Nishitani 1982 see Mistry 1981, p. 92 a.f.

which has been written down however doesn’t seem difficult at all. The most readers understand it in fifteen minutes, but the first teaching went on for days. What would be so hard to understand? We read that the Buddha started with his rejection of fierce asceticism as well as bathing in luxury. Both are leading away from awakening. The Buddha calls this the ‘middle way’. It doesn’t mean off course to be temperate or knowing ones limits just to avoid sickness or a waste of time. If that would be the deep wisdom which liberates men from all worries of life then half of all people was already spontaneously liberated. What’s more likely is that the Buddha had found out after years of strict asceticism that this doesn’t help because it’s just irrelevant. The solution is not to conquer worldly clingings, but to understand them. Maybe this was the difficult part because it’s a view from a totally different angle. Nāgārjuna himself quotes another teaching where the Buddha speaks of the middle way as the rejection of being and nonbeing of things. The Buddha mentions also thirst for lust, thirst for being and thirst for non-being as the main obstacles on the way to awakening. So it could be that the view of transcendent wisdom is closer to the teaching of the Buddha then it would at first sight appear. Nāgārjuna speaks of a dangerous wisdom. If transcendent wisdom is another cup of tea indeed, than she has nothing to do with social values and goods. The way to Buddhahood then gets an element of coincidence. It becomes impossible to coerce awakening by good behavior. Good qualities like compassion, energy and persistence are fine, they result in Nobel prices and maybe holiness, they are a blessing for all human beings, but they bring nobody closer to awakening. Discipline is also only a means to an end. So the wisdom could turn into foolishness in a person who thinks of himself as the only individual that matters. It’s very important not to rid the world of substances and forget oneself.

Causality

1.

10

Causality

1. No thing ever has existed anywhere, whatsoever, that has arisen without cause, by itself, by something else or by both.16 It seems an odd start. There is no introduction, nothing17 to tell the reader what the subject is and why it is interesting. This tells us that we do’nt have a regular book here. These are verses, meant to be learned by heart, an introduction is not needed. But why would Nāgārjuna begin with a critique on the concept ‘causality’ and not something else? Is it a coïncidence? Have the pages been mixed up and came these up front? Appearantly Nāgārjuna doesn’t like to beat about the bush, probably, as already said, because it wouldn’t support the pragmatics of the text. But then again: why causality and not suffering or ignorance, which are usually a very hot topics in Buddhism? Appearantly causality was one of the most important topics in the discussions between the schools of transcendent wisdom and others. It has been an important topic in India and the West as well. We usually don’t think about it but causality is a major factor in our daily life. If we want to make sure that we’re not dreaming we pinch our arm, in other words we check wether a simple action has the consequences we expect and which we consider specific for reality. If we hear a sound and we are not sure whether we actually heard it or it was our imagination, we start looking for it’s cause. We’re only sure that we really heard something only after we have found the cause. Arthur Schopenhauer (17881860) wrote in his book ‘The World as Will and Representation’ that something really exists only if it’s an effect or a cause. Ghosts don’t exist, because they cannot produce a lasting effect. Kumarajīva has two introductory verses here. I honour the Fully Awakened One, the supreme teacher, who taught dependent origination, the blissfull cessation of all phenomena without origination, extinction, impermanence and eternity without identity and differentiation, without coming up, without going down 17 The introductory verses are probably added later. 16

10

Something wihtout consequences makes no difference, and therefore does belong in the causal network we call reality. Without cause and effect reality would be a dream, or a nigthmare, becasue anything could happen and there would be nothing we could do. Causality is so obvious that we never think about it. We grew up with it. Still it’s an unsolved philosophical puzzle. The philosopher David Hume (1711-1766) wrote in his book ‘An enquiry Concerning Human Understanding’: ‘It’s certain that the most ignorant and stupid peasants, nay infants, nay even brute beasts, improve by experience and learn the qualities of natural objects by observing hte effects which resukt from them. When a child has felt the sensation of pain touching the flame of a candle, he will be carefull not to put his hand near any candle...’. 18 The question is how this child knows for sure that it will have the same kind of experience as before. It doesn’t expirence any causality, but only one experience succeding another. It didn’t conclude after serious reflexion about the past twenty times when contact with fire ended with a painfull sensation that fire must be the cause of pain and that this is always the case because it is part of the structure of this world. No, the child knows it already after one single experience. It doesn’t ask itself whether it’s a true causal connexion or try to prove it is. It simply believes that one phenomenon originates becasue of the other. And not only a child, but every human being believes in causality, often mistakenly. Many believe that a person catches a cold because of being exposed to draft and ignore that it’s caused by a bacil. Many believe that exrta vitamine C protects against colds, but there’s no evidence it really does. Advertisements exploite this mechanism. If we see someone enjoying himself on the beach in an advertisement for ensurance, we think that the ensurance will make us rich and give us an opportunity to go to the beach, allthough the opposite is much more realistic. Nāgārjuna seems to think that there is something wrong with our everyday belief in causality. And he has his arguments.

219. Because there is no substance in the causes of things and such, and if something is not determined by itself , it’s also not determined by something else.

Hume 1777/1978 p. 53 This verse is after next one in the original, the order is changed because this gives a logical argument. 18 19

Causality The word ‘substance’ is a translation of the Sanskrit word ‘svabhāva’, litterary ‘ownbeing’ .This is also the usual philosophical definition of the concept ‘substance’, in the words of the philosopher Baruch the Spinoza (1632 – 1677) ‘something that exists from itself and is known from itself’. A substance is what it is and it has it’s own unchanging essential qualities, whether or not someone knows or percieves them. We usually take for granted that this is the way things exist. A chair exists to sit on and anyone who doesn’t know this is a savage. The chair isn’t supposed to be a chair because we think so. The chair is a chair from itself it it shows itself by itself as what it is. It doesn’t exist like a word, like ‘substance’ for instance. A word doesn’t exist from itself, it exists because of a convention: the meaning we are used to give it and this meaning doesn’t show itself, but has be learned. It is a philosophical convention to define the word ‘substance’ as ‘ independently existing thing’, to define it as ‘stuff’ is another convention.

3. There are namely four kinds of causes: the effective cause, the object-cause, the precedent cause, and further the indirect cause, there’s no fifth. In most schools of Buddhism these four kinds of causes are taken for granted and this goes also for the sarvāstivādinschool, whose views are the special target for Nāgārjuna. The effective cause is the cause we’re familiar with in daily life. It explains why things happen. The other kinds of causes are typical Buddhist, they are used to explain series of events in consciousness. The object-cause (literary ‘support´) consists of the outward causes that determine consciousness, so appearances, things as they appear in perception. These determine what we think, together with the mental factors. The sarvāstivādins had a dualistic philosophy: they looked upon mind and matter as absolutely different things. Matter as such cannot therefore cause mental effects. The influence things have on our mind is therefore not a material causality, but a kind of its own. The characters we’re reading are in their material aspect just inkspots. But characters have an influence on our mind, because they mean something, as can be noted when one observes a person reading a tax assessment. The third kind of causes, the precedent cause, is the disappearance of the former thought or moment of consciousness that makes the next one possible. Thoughts appear and disappear all the time and a thought is accordign to Buddhist view already disappearing the moment it has appeared. We cannot make or prevent a coming thought by means of a present thought, like we

11 cannot chose what we’ll dream tonight either. A present thought causes therefore not a coming one like one biljartball causes the movement of another. No, normally a thought comes spontaneously as it were by the sucking influence of the disappearing thought. The best method to stop thoughts from appearing in order to get inner silence is therefore according to the sarvāstivādins holding on to a present thought. The fourth kind of cause is literary called ‘the highest lord’. It means the influence of dominance. When it is beautifull weather and we wreck our car the emotions about our car determine our consciousness through dominance over other emotions like being pleased with the weather. When we fall in love our loved one determines our emotions because of dominance over other persons. The first example is subjective dominance, the second one objective dominance. 11

4. An effect doesn’t have causes and isn’t without cause. Causes are not without effects but don’t contain them. Let’s first look at the normal effective cause as we know it from daily life. We drop a pen and the fall of the pen causes a sound. The sound in itself doesn’t contain a pen or a fall and also is not the surface on which the pen lands, it exists completely isolated by itself. It doesn’t sound however without cause: we don’t hear it if we don’t drop the pen. The dropping of the pen doesn’t contain the sound, but this sounds everytime the pen falls. So what have cause and effect to do with each other?

5. If one says that the socalled causes originate dependend on others, how could it be possible that these are not causeless as long as those are not yet there? OK, let’s say that cause and effect depend on each other and that we call some events or things ‘causes’ and others ‘effects’. Then we’re not off the hook. The peculiar fact occurs that before we hear the sound, the fall of the pen is just an event, and then magically and suddeny bcsomes the cause of the sound afterwards. We see this even more clearly in the case of illnesses or accidents. If a plain has crashed we because very much to know what the cause is, because nobody likes to travel in plaines that fall down spontaneously. If the cause would be a crack in a bolt, then this crack is the cause of the crash, but only after the crash not before, for instance during the previous flight when everything was normal. Still the crack didn’t

Causality change. By what kind of magic becomes the ‘just a crack’ suddenly ‘crack-as-cause-for-crash’?

6. A cause of something is nonsense, whether it exists or not. Something that exists doesn’t need a cause, so much the less something that doesn’t exist. Something that already exists, for example the sound of a pen falling is an event by itself and doesn’t need anyhting to sound. Just listen to the sound, you just hear the sound, you don’t hear it being caused. The sound is what it is. And it’s even more absurd to look for a cause of an event that doesn’t exist.

7 If an existing phenomenon doesn’t originate, nor a non-existing, nor one that does and doesn’t exist, how can one in all these cases speak of a cause? A phenomenon or a thing that exists cannot originate, as we’ve seen, because it’s already there. It’s also impossible to originate for a fenomenon or a thing that doesn’t exist, because something doesn’t just come from nothing. A pen that dosen’t fall makes no sound. And if we combine both possiblities, we only double the nonsense. In India there were two models for causality: the satkāryavāda, that means the model where the effect is supposed to be already present in the causes, and the asatkāryavāda, the model where that’s not suppose to be the case. Both models are here and in the last verse rejected: to say that a thing originate as something totally new and unrelated to anything else is nonsense, but to say that a thing originates that’s allready there even more. The satkāryavāda focusses on the continuïty between cause and effect, so the consequence is that nothing disappears. Causality is nothing but transformation. An apple originates from an appletree and is a specific manifestation of it. Later it will show itself again as appletree. The asatkāryavāda on the other hand sees in the effect a transgression of the cause, it’s something complete new that couldn’t be found in the cause. Causalitiy is here the disappearence of causes in order to make place for new effects. This model is called in buddhist circles ‘the annihilationmodel’. When someone knist a sweater, the sweater is something totally new which couldn’t be found in the strings of wool before. The growth of plants and animals seems to be an illustration for continuïty, for the transformationmodel: one can see the plant slowly grow from the seed and it looks as if the plant is a manifestation of something that was

12 already present in the seed. Other phenomena of nature like lightning or a rainbow, or thnings made by human beings, seem to show more discontinuïty, are better explained by the transgressionmodel, because the effect seems to be something totally new. We find these models also in Western philosophy, alltough they’re not mentioned explicitely. Democritos (470-360 v. j.) would, if asked, support the transgressionmodel. In his view all phenomena orginate from the collision and sticking together of atoms and the atoms have no similarity with the things they form together. Even now we find it not odd at all that the atoms which make up this papier are not white at all, but the paper is. Aristotle (384-322 v.j.) and with him most Medieval European philosophers was a supporter of the continuïtymodel, the ability or potentiality to be butter is already present in the milk. 12

8. A phenomenon, so it’s said, is precisely something that exists without an object. If a phenomenon doesn’t have an object, then what again is the use of the object? Nāgārjuna turns now to the causeobject. When we’re watching a movie we have a good example of an object that’s an opportunity for mental events. We feel exitement and pity or sympathy for the main character and find it difficult to concentrate on something else. There’s however nothing in the film or in the light or in the screen that causes our thoughts. There isn’t a special object that provokes our feelings. Besides the feelings and toughts are different in every member of the audience, because we all have our own preferences and prejudices. If there’s no object that causes the phenomenon, in this case the film as we see it, what’s the use of speaking of a causeobject? The phenomenon is there all right, but is not among the things. So Nāgārjuna really tries to say: if there’s nothing in the material process of the show that can be pinpointed as the thing that causes the public to evaluate the film in a certain way, there’s no way you can present the film as the cause of it’s evaluation and feelings.

9 If phenomena don’t originate, you cannot say that they disappear; so a (causing) previous moment is nonsense and if they do disappear: which factors are there? This verse refers to the third kind of cause and uses the conclusion of vers 7: phenomena cannot originate. What doesn’t originate cannot disappear either. As a consequence the theory

Causality that the disappearance of one phenomenon is the cause of the appearance of the other, doesn’t make any sense. Besides, they have to bring something about by disappearing: the appearance of a coming phenomenon and that supposes therefore causal factors, but what kind of causal factors are to be expected of something that has already gone? There isn’t the slightest moment that they are there at the same time (see illustration).

10. There’s no such thing as the existence of non-substantial things, so if somebody says that the one is contained in the other, then this is totally impossible. Is there something like a non-substantial car? Some might say there is. One can dream of a car and Donald Duck has a car. But a closer look tells us that this is jumping ot conclusions, because we’re used to call these kind of cars nonexistent. No real person can steel Donald Duck’s car or sell it. Something that doesn’t exist cannot contain anything. So it’s completely absurd to say that a thing contains a substance of existence, because that would mean that it’s there in the first place and contains substance or existence on top of that .

11. The effect exists not in the causes eperately and also not in all together; how can something originate from causes if it’s not in any of them? Now what about the general cause? If a general cause were possible then there has to be at least an effective cause as well. In that case where can we find the effect: in the effective cause, in the general, or in both, beit seperately or together? The effect is not in these causes, because it isn’t there yet. If it were, it would have to be caused. If the effect would be really something new that’s not in the causes, how can it then suddenly appear? Something that really exists, a substance, surely doesn’t come from nothing! You need eggs to make an omelet. Everybody can phantasize an omelet fantaseren, but the funny thing about omelet is that it doesn’t exist. If it would nobody would die from starvation anymore!

12. If there’s an effect that (first) didn’t exist, but nevertheless later originates from causes, why doesn’t it in that case originate from the non-causes?

13 The next arguments are avlid for all kinds of causes. Suppose that we have an effect that earlier didn’t exist. We made an omelet, that didn’t exist previously. The omelet is a substance, it’s there by itself and shows itself as omelet, regardless who’s looking. Being substance it’s also something news, it wasn’t in the eggs or in the frying pan or in the oil. So a substance originates from substances it’s no part of. In that case, can anybody explain why we cannot make an omelet from a pack of yoghurt? 13

13. The effect arises from the causes, but the causes do not arise from themselves; how could an effect arise from causes, who’re incapable of making themselves arise? An answer to verse 12 could be that the difference between the eggs, the oil, the cooking fire and the frying pan on one hand and a pack of yoghurt on the othe is that the first have the power or potential to make that an omelet arises. This applies for all kinds of causes, they can be called a cause because they have the ability to bring about that something arises. So causes have a causal function that noncauses are missing. The eggs, the oil, the frying pan, etc. don’t contain an omelet, but they do have the ability to make the origination of an omelet and this happens to be absent in a pack of yoghurt. See here the difference! Nāgārjuna is not satisfied with this answer. How obtain these causes their causal function? They didn’t make themselves arise, so they cannot have much causal functioning themselves. Has this causal function entered before? Did the chicken put in the eggs the ability for becoming an omelet and were the factory the other ingrediënts provided likewise? In that case is a mystery why teh chicken didn’t lay omelets or why the omelet wasn’t in the frying pan when we bought it! These arguments may look more forced in English then in Sanskrit, although this shouldn’t have any influence on their validity. The Sanskrit word for cause is literary ‘root’ and the word for effect is literary ‘fruit’ . A fruit arises from a plant because of growing power. This also makes the plant grow. In the case of a plant one could say that the fruit is already contained in the plant. The fruit is a kind of manifestation of the plant and the plant is again a manifestation of a previous fruit.

14. So the effect isn’t arisen from causes and (also) not from noncauses. How could there be causes and noncauses, if there’s no effect?

Causality Because something is a cause or isn’t, and it has been proven that effects cannot originate from one of them, the existence of causes has become untenable. So if there are no effects, there are no causes and also no noncauses. So if there are no effects, there’s no question of there being causes or noncauses. This seems to be begging the question. Or not? Nāgārjuna is discussing with several Buddhist schools,among others the sarvāstvādins. Some of their opinions are in gareement with common sense, for instance the conception of an effective cause. Nāgārjuna shows that these opinions are not logically sound. Thisd doesn’t mean that he denies the existence of cause and effect. Several times he refers to daily life where causes and effects are obvious. He reproaches his oppponents however that they see cause and effect as substances. This reproach doesn’t apply only for all buddhist schools, because in that cause this text wouldn’t be more then a cause effect discussion between two buddhist ppoints of view. Buddhist monks and nuns are not the only ones who make cause and effect and a lot more matters into substances: we all do! Moreover, the surprising thing is that this opinion is very short-sighted and that we understand much more about the world around us if we surmount this prejudice! It’s curious that some of Nāgārjuna’s arguments can also be found in the writings of Sextus Empiricus, nota bene a contemperary. they never met of course, because South-India and Rome were absolutely seperate worlds at the time. Sextus too notices that we only can think of a cause if we know the effect and the other way around20. He too thinks that we cannot deny cause and effect . What however stands out more in Sextus’ wrtings, is that cause and effect are concpets that keep each other alive, like ‘day’ and ‘night’: if you think one, the other is there as well, they implicate each other. The concept of ‘substance’ is however not mentioned.

20

SE 167-169

14

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Causality

2.

Movement

1. There’s no movement where something has moved, neither where it has to move. However nothing moves apart from where it has moved or has to move. Nāgārjuna is going to show that movement is incomprehensible if one holds on to the concept of substance and that our concept of movement is not possible without substances. He directs his critique most of all against the sarvāstivādins, but they're certainly not the only ones who live in a world of substances. It appears to be very difficult to reconcile the concept of substance with the concept of movement, but we cannot imagine movement without something that moves. Nevertheless there is movement, even now. You’re reading and your gaze moves across the characters. In European philosophy this problem has also been a hot topic. One of the oldest European philosophical texts precisely tackles this problem. It is the poem of Parmenides (530 - 455 v.j.), where he explains in the form of a revelation that everything that exists has to be what it is and how it is and what doesn't exist cannot be there. Change is impossible because for change to take place something that exists has to vanish and something that doesn't exist has to come into being. It’s impossible for something that exists to have been non-existant. This also applies to movement because it means that something that used to be at one spot appears at another one where it didn’t exist before. Parmenides concludes that movement doesn't exist. We see things move, but that is an illusion. Perception must be an illusion according to Parmenides. Truth is what can be proven. This point of view has many similarities with that of the sarvāstivādins. They too think of a substance, as something that exists on its own and cannot not be where and what it is. A car driving by divides the road in two parts: the part the car has passed and the part where the car yet has to go. Where is the car moving at the moment you see it? It's not on the part where it comes from, but certainly not on the part where it yet has to go. Nāgārjuna doesn't deny that the car is moving, because otherwise there wouldn't be a problem. Perhaps one could

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say that the car moves where it is, but that's not a place, it's noting but a rapidly changing dividing line between where the car has gone and where it still has to go. Some would say that the car occupies a part of the road of at least five yards, but that's not the point. We can also discuss the place of a certain part of the car, say the point exactly midway between front and back and a point doesn't have length according to geometrical definitions. If there is something that moves, then it has to be somewhere. If you want to understand the movement of the car, you must be able to tell where it is and thousands of traffic victims experience yearly that cars certainly are somewhere when they're moving.

2. Because the movement21 is where the mover is, precisely where it's going, therefore the movement is in the going. The mover is neither where it has moved nor where has not moved. One could say that the movement doesn't take place on the road, but in what's moving. We see the car move, so there's the movement and not somewhere on the road.

3. How could a mover be moving, if there is no mover that doesn't move? 4. If there would be a moving of a mover, it would imply that there is a mover apart from the moving. However it's the mover who moves. Saying of something that moves that it's moving, suggests that there must be a thing, the mover, that is involved in an activity called 'moving'. But that would be a very strange thing, because it doesn't exist apart from what it does. No one speaks about a mover that remains on the spot.

5. If there would be a moving of the mover it would mean that there is a double moving: apart from the moving that Nāgārjuna uses two words which are almost synonymous: the movement and the going. The movement refers to the act of moving, the going to the fact that something is moving, this difference in nuance doesn't have to mean anything. One word may have been used instead of the other in order to fit the meter (see May ’59 p. 57n) 21

Causality

makes the mover a mover, there would be the one that the mover moves. If a driving car would really exist as a substance, there has to be a moving that makes the difference between the driving car and all other non-moving objects. Apart from this there has to be another moving, which is the activity of the substance 'driving-car'. Without the first the substance ‘driving-car’ would not emerge from the background and the word ‘car’ in the sentence ‘the car drives’ would have no meaning. Without the second the word ‘drives’ would have no meaning. The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384- 321B.D.) divided the world in 8 or 10 categories, among which substance, quality and activity, whereby he assumed that this were separately existing things. Something we call a car is a substance called ‘car’, which possesses activities, qualities etc. If language is a projection of reality, the activity, in this case 'moving', has to exist by itself, apart from the substance, the qualities, etc. A car drives because the substance ‘car’ executes the activity called 'driving'. The change that Gallileo Gallileï (1564 - 1624) introduced didn’t make it easier to explain movement. Movement in his view is relative, but it exists apart from things.22 A spot on the tire of a wheel moves in a circle with respect to the center of the wheel, but it has another movement with respect to the road. This means that each moving thing executes an endless amount of movements simultaneously, because each perspective introduces another movement. This is completely absurd of course. Movement is even passed on to other things which start to move in their turn. If the driving car hits a ball, the ball gets a part of the movement of the car. So in Gallileï's view movement has to be an existing thing as well. Nāgārjuna would undoubtedly ask how a mover could give his movement to another thing, while it would cease to exist without it and at what point: while moving or after it's movement has stopped. In the first case there wouldn't be any giving, because the giver still has the gift in the second case there would be no gift because the giver doesn't possess what it is supposed to give.

6. If there would be a double moving, then it follows that there are two movers, because there is no moving without a mover. Twice a driving of the car would mean that there have to be actually two cars and if one would consider each case again there would be duplication, so it would be Liberty Hall. 22

see Feyerabend ‘76

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7. If moving can exist without a mover, how could a mover exist in the absence of moving? So there's no driving car without the existence of a movement. Nāgārjuna rejects the rationalism of the Greek philosopher Parmenides of Elea (540 – 480 B.D.) and his followers who declared movement to be an illusion. His pupil Zeno of Elea (490 – 430 B.D.) has become famous for his paradoxes with which he tried to prove his point. One of them is related to Nāgārjuna's discussion on the relationship between past, actual and future movement. If we take a photo f a driving car there's no movement to be seen. A movie consists of motionless pictures which give the illusion of movement because they are shown very quickly one after another. Conclusion: movement is just an effect of our sensory perception and therefore doesn't exist. Nāgārjuna however doesn't draw this conclusion, he doesn't reject the 'Lebenswelt', the world of daily life as we experience it. He even repeatedly refers to it, when he says time and again: 'this is impossible' and 'this is nonsense'. So on one hand he takes normality for granted, but on the other hand he maintains that we're mistaken about this normality. So he maintains that movement and moving things exist, be it not the way they're usually thought to be.

8. The mover doesn't move, neither does the non-mover; which third is moving then, apart from the mover and nonmover? The driving car doesn't move substantially because that position leads to absurdities as we have seen, nor does a parked car, being another substance as the driving car. What else is there in the domain of cars or things that could have or exercise the activity of driving?

9. How can one say that it's the mover who moves, if there cannot be a mover without moving? 10. Those who maintain that a mover moves must accept that there exists a mover apart from moving. Such a person wants a moving to exist which belongs to a mover.

Causality If one wants to maintain that ‘the car drives’ is a meaningful proposition which describes a state of affairs accurately, one has to accept that 'car'(and intended is here ‘the driving-car’ because that's the perceived substance) and 'driving' are two separately existing things. There are two kinds of propositions: analytical ones and synthetical ones. The analytical propositions are conventions, they are learned and contain no information about the world we live in, for example 5+6=11 or a bachelor is unmarried. If we want to check them we must reflect. Synthetical propositions contain information about the world, for instance ‘the sun is shining’ of ‘Paris is the capital of Italy’. We have to rely on perceptions or on the perceptions of others in order to check them. Nāgārjuna criticizes those who think that ‘the car drives’ is a synthetical proposition, which expresses that there are two things: ‘the car’ and ‘drives’ and that at a certain moment the last is an actual activity of the first.

11. Besides if the mover moves, it follows that moving exists twice: as that by which the mover is known as a mover and that by which the mover is the one who moves. There is a driving that’s part of the substance driving-car and driving that’s the activity exercised by the substance. The activity can stop, the substance cannot. If it's unthinkable that the substance driving-car doesn't drive, then the proposition ‘the car drives’ must be an analytical one, but that means that nor driving nor the driving car really exist, they're just a kind of things we decided to agree on, like a telephone number or the name of a street.

12. Moving doesn't start where something has moved, it doesn't start where it has not moved yet, it (also) doesn't start where it's moving, well then: where does it start? Just as we cannot show where the moving really happens, we also cannot point out where the beginning is of what has to be covered. We are on our way to Moscow and we still have 400 miles to go. The stretch of 400 miles is something that really exists, isn't it? We don't make this up, do we? We have to see that we have enough gas, do we? That's right, but where do we begin driving the distance? Not somewhere in the part that we have covered already, but also not on the spot where we are now, because that's where we are now and the 400 miles are ahead of us. Besides: if we’re not

17 yet moving, the moving, covered and to be covered don't really exist by themselves, at that time they only exist in our imagination. Or is this all our imagination inspired by our insane whim to go to Moscow? 17

13. Before the moving has begun there is no mover or covered part. Where would the moving begin, how can that be in the part not yet covered? 14. How would one imagine covered part, moving and not covered, if only but a beginning of moving is nowhere to be seen? We might not be able point out where the moving starts, but it should be clear anyway that the moving ends. Nāgārjuna however doesn't think so. If a substance moves, the moving belongs to its very nature, so it cannot stop moving in any way.

15. The mover doesn't stop, nor does the non-mover. Which third (substance) stops if neither the mover nor the nonmover? 16. It's said that the mover stops, but how is that possible if there cannot be any mover at all without moving! A substance which is moving on account of its own nature cannot stop. A freezing mover is nonsense. Something that doesn't move cannot stop because that would mean a double stopping: the stopping because of which the stopper is different from the moving and apart from that the stopping that the stopper executes. This duplicity is apparently inherent in the concept of a substance and is quite clearly illustrated by the definition of a substance that Spinoza gave: something that exists by itself and is known by itself. A substance has to be known by itself, because it has to have it's own objective qualities. God can only be a substance in circles where there's agreement about His qualities.

17. The mover doesn't stop in the state of moving, in the state of being moved nor in the state of not yet moved. The very

Causality

same that applies for moving applies for going, beginning and stopping. So according to substantialism it's impossible to stop. If one moves one doesn't stop and if one stops, one isn't moving. So it's unthinkable that someone who's driving a car actually stops. This applies also for someone who has driven a car for a while or has the intention to drive a car. It's just the same we've seen with moving: the car doesn't move on the part it has covered nor on the part it still has to go. And when it moves one needs two concepts of moving on order to explain how a substantial car moves. This applies also for movement that's witnessed from outside and for the beginning or stopping of a movement.

18. To say that moving is nothing else than the mover is nonsense. To say that the mover is something totally different from the moving is nonsense too. 19. Because if that was the case, moving would be the very same as the mover, it would mean that actor and action would be one and the same. If driving and the movement are identical no one is driving.

20. However if the mover is represented as something different from the movement, then the movement would exist without a mover and a mover without a movement. If one assumes that the driver and driving are different things, how could they affect each other? One would have to find each one in the street without the other!

21. How would it be possible to determine of two things exist if it's impossible to determine whether they’re identical or different? Isn’t it clear what the relationship is between driver and driving since the driver shows herself as such by driving a car? ‘No’, says Nāgārjuna, ’because there would have to be a driver first which shows herself subsequently as such by driving a car.’ But in that case there would be a

18 driver in the first place who's not driving. This is clearly absurd. We call someone a driver only if she’s driving, and in that case there's a double activity of driving going on: one to make a driver and one to describe what the driver does. (Of course a cabdriver who’s having a day off is still called ‘cabdriver’, but this is because the word ‘driver’ has for us other meanings which were not intended by Nāgārjuna, like ‘being capable of driving’ or ‘having driver as a profession’.) This seems very logical, but maybe there's still some feeling of discomfort because it's seems also logical and obvious to say that a driver drives. Nāgārjuna however doesn't want us to believe that there's anything wrong with that. He wants us to understand the absurdity of two prejudices: o words refer to actually existing things o to exist means to be a substance. 18

22. The mover doesn't execute the movement by which he's known as a mover, because there's no one who's moving before the moving (takes place). 23. The mover doesn't execute a different movement than that by which he's known as a mover: a double movement is not possible, because there's only one person who moves. 24. A real mover doesn't execute the movement in one of the three ways. An unreal mover doesn't execute the movement in one of the three ways. Suppose we admit it: movement is an illusion, do we have an agreement? 'No', says Nāgārjuna. 'Movement, be it real or illusory, or both (that means according to one possible perspective real an according to another unreal) is just incomprehensible. There's no such a thing as a mover who's moving anywhere, real, unreal or both.

25. Neither a real nor an unreal mover executes the movement in one of the three ways, so there doesn't exist a (substantial) going, mover or movement. This means that the words ‘mover’, ‘moving’ and ‘(stretch) to go’ don't refer to actual things which exist independently and by themselves. The discussions about movement in Western philosophy are well known. Parmenides thought

Causality that being meant being a substance and concluded that movement and change (in Antique philosophy both were closely related) is impossible. A substance is what it is and cannot possibly ever stop being or become anything else. To exist is to exist positively, when we say that something is, we confirm it. The word ‘not’ belongs to human imagination and is no part of reality. What is has no differences, because being not something is a paradox. Parmenides' pupil Zeno van Elea has become famous by his the clever arguments against the existence of movement. The most famous is the example of Achilles (famous athlete in his time) and the turtle. They run against each other 500 yards and Achilles gives the turtle a head start of 100 yards. Achilles runs twice as fast as the turtle, so when he's at 100 yards, the turtle is at 150. When a little later Achilles is at 150 yards, the turtle is at 175. Every time Achilles is at the place where the turtle was, the turtle is just a little further. A cannot win. The rationalist view is that something only really exists if it can be proven logically, so if Achilles and the turtle do run and Achilles wins, it's a proof that movement doesn't really exist.23 Sextus Empiricus also mentions the argument of the impossibility to point out the place of the movement24 and a refutation based on causality25. A movement must have a cause and that can only be another movement. This must also have a cause and so on. So a first cause is impossible, because an unmoving thing cannot cause movement (if applied to the level of primary particles this is still an interesting argument, because all change is retraced to the Big Bang, and the cause of this cannot be explained). The sophists also have criticised the view that words refer to existing things. Gorgias of Leontini (480 – 380 B.D.) has become famous by the verdict that nothing can exist, because if so, it has to be eternal or temporary. Eternal things are impossible, because such a thing cannot fail to be anywhere, so it also has to be endless and endless things are impossible, because they would have to contain themselves or be a part of something else. Both possibilities are absurd for a thing. Temporary things cannot exist because they would originate from existing or not existing things. The last possibility is absurd, the first leads to an endless regression Moreover if something would exist no one would be able to know it, because it would have to exist by itself. But if one would know something existing, one wouldn't be able to describe it as it is, because there's no natural and real connection between words and things.26

23 24 25 26

see ook SE p. 181 SE p. 180 SE p. 179 Coplestone p. 113

19

19

The senses

3.

20

The senses

1 The six senses are: sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch and the mind; the domains of these are the visible etc. After reading last chapter many will shake their wise heads: how can one deny that something like movement exists: everybody sees, hears, and feels lots of things moving all the time? True, but what does that prove? In other words the question is: can we trust our senses? Nāgārjuna thinks not. Today it may be not obvious to call the mind a sense, but in the past there have been philosophers who saw the necessity of a inner sense that composes the data of the different outward directed senses into a complete picture and informs us about our own state of mind. The Sanskrit word for this sixth sense is ‘manas’ and this is related to the root ‘man’, to think. The word ‘thinking’ may give the false impression that the mind is supposed to restrict itself to calculation and logic. Any opposition between reasoning and emotion is not at stake here. Each sense has its own kind of sensation and its own kind of objects. The eye sees forms and colors, the nose smells scents, the ear hears sounds, etc. Such a collection of sense objects or sensedata is called a domain (literally pasture). The domain of the nose consists for instance of all smells.

2 The sight doesn't even see itself. Well, how could something that doesn't see itself see something else? This doesn't sound logical at first sight: a camera doesn't take pictures of itself and still there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with the photographs it makes. There is however a difference between a camera and our eyes: a camera takes pictures, a videocamera even moving images. We can see these images at the same time at a screen or through the looking glass and later on a monitor or on paper. A camera produces nothing but images. How about our eyes? Well, if our eyes would be producing images, there would have to be somebody who’s

looking through them. Do we have a little person in our head which looks at the pictures that come from our eyes? Obviously not! Such a homunculus was never found during brainsurgery or x-ray photographs. We learn at school that our eyes send impulses to our brain, but our brain imagines the images. How our brain does this we don't know. We cannot check our eyes either. If we compare a photograph to the real thing, we can see if the camera works accurately, but how could we compare the images our eyes give us with the real thing? Our sight doesn't see itself, so it cannot control itself! We know that our eyes and other senses are different from those of other people and very different from those of some animals. What we see is strictly private. Who then sees the real thing? What is the real thing?

3 The example of the fire doesn't apply to the sight. Like the sight this has already been refuted by the arguments against going, the goer and the movement. The objection that the eye works like the fire that enlightens itself as well as other objects doesn't apply here. If the fire would enlighten itself, it would have to burn twice: once to be a fire and once to enlighten things. In chapter 10 we will find a more elaborate refutation of this argument.

4 If something that doesn't see isn't sight, how can it make sense to say that the sight sees? Like the case of the going, the proposition ‘the sight sees’ seems to be an analytical proposition, it doesn't mention anything that's happening in reality. It is a convention and not referring to a matter of fact. To ascertain whether or not the sight sees, we must be able to determine under which conditions the sight sees and under which not. The sight is however always seeing, because a sight that doesn't see is absurd. One cannot call something a ‘sight’ if it's not seeing. It’s true of course that we don't see many objects in the dark or in dense fog, but in that case we see the dark or the fog. Only a blind person has lost his sight. Moreover without sight there is no one who sees.

5

The senses

It's not the sight that sees and nor something else than the sight. It's is clear that with the sight also the seer has been explained. 6 The seer doesn't exist dependent on the sight nor apart from it. If the seer doesn't exist, how in that case could the visible exist and the sight? It's impossible that the seer exists dependent on the sight, because in that case she wouldn't be a substance. This would have peculiar consequences. Someone would for instance suddenly stop being a seer at the moment she closes her eyes and pop up as a seer on the moment she opens them again. Such a person would be a seer according to one person and not according to another, because she wouldn't be herself objectively. If the seer would exist apart from the sight, their relationship would become in comprehensible. There would be a sight without a seer and a seer without anybody seeing anything. Now an argument of opponents is presented without comment.

6a27 Consciousness originates because of sight and the visible like a son is born from a father and a mother. This has already been refuted by the verse before, because father, mother and son exist independently. Each can disappear without affecting the existence of the others. If we would apply this to the present situation: if you still would have an awareness of seeing these characters after this book has been closed, it's time to seek medical help.

7 If it’s accepted that the quadruplet of consciousness etc. doesn't exist because the visible and the sight don't; how could the attachment and the rest in their turn exist? If there's no one who's seeing, there’s no consciousness of images and therefore no knowledge thereof, so no feeling of involvement in images and no desire. Consciousness, knowledge, feeling and desire form together the quadruplet that's mentioned here. There's a well known model, a circular chain of twelve links28 that describes how we get attached to things by perceiving them first, liking them etc. In this way 27 28

this vers is missing in Kumārajiva's version see chapter 26

21

we develop attachment step by step and get involved in our day to day world of worry and desire. Buddhism advises us to free ourselves from this world because it's also a world of suffering and sorrow. So Nāgārjuna concludes that this world of worry and sorrow, this cycle of suffering, doesn't exist, in other words there's nothing to free oneself from.

8 Together with the sight now also has been clarified how hearing, smell, taste, touch and the mind exist and also the hearer, the heard, etc.

The senses

22

The components

4.

23 23

The components

1 Matter is not perceived apart from the cause of matter. The cause of matter is also not perceived without matter. This chapter has as subject the five components which make up the person according to Buddhism, literally the ‘ramifications’ (skandha’s). These are: matter, emotions, perception, predisposition's (inclinations) and consciousness. The discussion itself is related to the discussion on cause and effect of chapter 1. Nāgārjuna starts with a critique on the concept of matter. According to Buddhist philosophy matter consists of four elements: fire, water, air and earth. These four elements are therefore the four causes for the existence of matter. Common sense tells us that if matter exists, the causes also have to exist.

2 If there would be matter without the cause of matter, it would mean that matter doesn't have a cause, but something without a cause doesn’t exist anywhere. 3 Well, if the cause of matter would exist apart of matter, there would be a cause apart of the effect, but a cause without an effect doesn't exist. 4 If matter exists, it’s impossible for a cause of matter to exist. If matter doesn't exist, it’s impossible for a cause of matter to exist. This verse uses the conclusions of chapter 1. First of all it's obvious that if matter doesn’t exist, there's no cause of matter either. On the other hand if matter exists, there has to be a cause for it, because everything has its causes. In that case effect and cause would exist simultaneously, so the cause would be superfluous.

Common sense tells us there is a cause for everything, but matter is not just a thing,it is the way we exist, it is our world. A cause for matter is altogether a different matter. The things we percieve exist in a material way, they originate, not matter.We even don’t know what matter looks like and we certainly never saw it orignate. So why would we need a cause? Matter as a seperate existing stuff is an abstraction so it’s cause is nothing but speculation or scientific investigation: it's theory. The theory of the four elements will not have many supporters today in the West today (unlike during the Middle Ages), but we still imagine a cause of matter. We learned at high school or from science pages of newspapers that matter is made out of atoms or even quarks or strings, in short elementary particles. But what difference does this make for things? This book consists of matter, one can grab it, throw it to a cat, burn it, etc. These are facts, everyone can try. They belong to the world and we take them for granted. A cause for these facts is completely unnecessary. Where does the story about the elementary particles come in? We cannot grab those or throw them anywhere. They're invisible. Do they contribute to the readability of the book or do they cost extra? Of course not, Nāgārjuna looks at things from an phenomenological point of view, for him reality is what reveals itself, the rest is theory. Science makes theories about reality. Atoms don't exist, they are theoretical terms, even if one can use them in a nuclear plant. The book reveals itself to us. In dealing with the book, the only thing that matters is the book in front of us. Whether science tells us that the book consists of four elements or quarks, doesn't matter. A low quality or an expensive book doesn't have low quality or expensive quarks. We also fall in love or get angry with another person, not with his or her cells or quarks.

5 Again: without a cause it's impossible that matter exists at all, therefore one should not make any representations about matter. We might have all kinds of theories about matter, but we always need to have an idea about a cause and also about the properties. Any idea about causes is theory and speculation. The only thing that reveals itself and matters to us is the thing. The explanations of why matter has weight or is impenetrable are interesting from a scientific point of view, but not from a Buddhist

The components or existential or phenomenological point of view29.

6 One can't say the effect is similar to the cause. One can't say the effect is dissimilar to the cause. If the effect is similar to the cause, then is one of them is superfluous. The effect is in that case just a repetition or continuation of the cause and everything there is to know about the effect was already known from the cause. The effect doesn't show anything that the cause didn't. In fact they're indistinguishable. In the case of a fire for instance the flames at one moment would be the causes for the flames the next moment. It's however impossible to say whether cause and effect are different or just parts of the same phenomenon: the fire. In fact flames never occur apart from a fire. If the cause is very different from the effect, any relation between them is impossible and any information about the cause is useless for understanding the effect. If a fire were hot and it’s flames cold, it couldn’t be the cause of it’s flames. Is this still a problem today in the West since we've science and quantum mechanics and very sophisticated labs and that kind of stuff? Well, our representation of the cause of matter has become very complicated and we even have machines which show us the pictures we need to to complete this representation, like for instance the electron microscope. Great! But since more then a century philosophers of science have tried to fill up the gap between this representation and the reality of our daily life, the 'lifeworld'. It appears to be impossible. Scientific terms, like ‘atom’, ‘economical depression', ‘high pressure area', ‘PH-number’, etc. cannot be reduced to simple unbiased perceptions. One cannot perceive them without the scientific theory and instruments. Rain can be the effect of a low pressure area (simply put). The concept ‘low pressure area' is a theoretical concept, no one can perceive it or understand what it means without having some basic understanding of meteorology. A low pressure area doesn't resemble rain and the relation between both is invisible. Usually no one thinks about it, but it might become clear if one has to explain to a child how a barometer works. The cause explains the effect only on the basis of a certain bias, if we understand the explanation we unknowingly take certain presumptions for granted. In fact a low pressure The Buddha once said that if one is hit by an arrow one doesn't ask what color it is or where it was made, the only thing that matters is to get the arrow out. The arrow is a metaphor here for the suffering of cyclic existence.

24 24 area causes rain because we've decided to say so and not because our sense tell us so. We could as well have decided that a rain god makes the rain fall.

7 What applies to matter, applies to emotion, thinking, perception, the inclinations and even to all things. This concludes all there is to say about matter. But it applies to other phenomena as well. There's for instance no emotion without a cause, etc. The last two verses of the chapter that follow here are rather different. They may have been added later. They contain an advice on discussions about emptiness and were probably needed because the same mistake was committed over and over again. Apparently the discussion about the components often turned into a discussion about emptiness in general. If Nāgārjuna is right, matter doesn't exist, or rather matter is not a substance. But this is the very way we experience matter, as something that exists on its own, independent of what we think. Is the world we live in an illusion? Well, if this is an illusion, what is real? This book, you, dear reader, your body and all you care about, exists only conventionally, the same way as the characters these words are made of, the same way as a traffic sign or a mortgage. Everything exists because of expectations and habits. There's nothing that exists apart from our thoughts and expectations. This world is just a window-dressing, behind the phenomena there's openness. We speak of emptiness when something that we’re expecting to find misses. The glass is empty because it could be full. What misses according to Nāgārjuna, is a fixed structure, something that is what it is, independent of what we think of it, a rock-bottom of reality. Could we get used to this emptiness? Is it something that exists? We've seen that emptiness is based on expectations. We shouldn’t make the same mistake twice and take emptiness as a substance or a phenomenon, for instance as a higher world, heaven or God. One might be tempted to use it to win a discussion, saying ‘everything is emptiness’ and perhaps even add this is ones very own (meditation) experience. This however would be a huge mistake. Emptiness doesn't exist apart from this world. Emptiness is a question, not an answer and certainly not an argument. If one makes emptiness the object of expectations and fantasy, one’s further away from understanding life then ever.

29

8

The components

Who in a discussion answers with an appeal to emptiness when an objection is made, makes all his (points) that are not disproved invalid with the proof. So when somebody defends his point by saying that everything is empty, there is nothing more to defend and nothing more to prove or say and has the discussion become useless. Emptiness is

25 25

the end of discussion and thought, never the beginning. It is not a fact, but the transparency of facts.

9 Who in a comment answers with an appeal to emptiness when criticism is made, makes all his (points) that are not criticized invalid with the proof.

The elements

5.

The elements a primary or secondary element. All that can be said about space also applies to the other elements.

1 Space doesn’t exist at all before the characteristic of space, because in that case space would initially exist without characteristics and acquire them only later. According to abhidharma, the theoretical elaboration and schematization of the teachings of the Buddha, matter causes atoms, which appear only a short moment and subsequently vanish, not unlike the pixels on a TV-screen or a computer monitor. These atoms consist of elements. The primary elements are water, earth, air and fire. Apart from these there are 24 secondary elements, one of them is space. Each element has specific characteristics and functions. The characteristic of space is that it separates atoms. In Europe there has been a lively correspondence between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646 - 1716) and Isaac Newton (1642 1727) about the question whether space is absolute or relative. Newton thought space to be absolute; it is in his view something that contains things. Take away the things and you have pure space. Leibniz didn't agree, he saw space as a relation between things. If you take away the things the space is also gone. The abhidharma agrees with Leibniz. Space is something relative; it is the distance between atoms. If one takes away the atoms there's no space left. This view is one step away from idealism, the philosophy that reality is a projection of consciousness (be it one's own or a shared one), because a relation exists only for those who recognize it. Therefore relative space is an interpretation, a concept. It was Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) who finished this line of thinking and redefined space and time, but also cause and effect and a number other so called ‘facts’ forms of thought. Space and time exist for us only because we think in terms of space and time. Kant considered himself to be an idealist. For him space and time don’t exist on their own.30 Nāgārjuna shows that here too the concept of substance doesn't work. He shows that space doesn't exist as a substance and that there's no Murti mistakenly (in my opninion) sees many similarities between Kant's position van and Nāgārjuna's, see for instance Murti p. 123 30

2 Not a single thing exists, what ever it might be, that doesn't have its characteristics. If no thing exists without characteristics, where could a characteristic develop? The discussion is about over specific characteristics. If the specific characteristic of space is to separate objects, then there's no space without this specific characteristic. Such a characteristic can therefore not originate as a new quality of space; it has to exist simultaneously with space. This calls for the question what is first: the substrate (which is said to carry or posses the quality) or the quality and this is a chicken-and-egg question.

3 A characteristic doesn't appear on something that has the characteristic already, nor on something that doesn't have the characteristic yet, neither on something else than what does or doesn't have the characteristic. 4 However if a characteristic doesn't appear, then a substrate of the characteristic is impossible. But if a substrate of the characteristic is impossible, then the origination of a characteristic is impossible. Each characteristic needs a substrate, for instance a color like red needs a surface, it cannot just float in space. The element space is the substrate of the characteristic ‘separation of objects’. This characteristic is specific for the element space. Space originates and disappears, together with the atoms, because it is an element of the atoms. How can space arise if its specific characteristic, the separation, cannot arise? Conclusion there's no space and on characteristic of space. The fact that you nevertheless see a space between these characters is not a serious objection. It simply means that you see phenomena which don't exist as a substance. Space exists for you and exists in relation to the activity of reading.

The elements

5 Therefore no characteristic exists nor a substrate of characteristics. However not a single thing exists without characteristic and substrate. We can distinguish the things by their specific characteristics. It is impossible for two things to be two things if are exactly alike, as Leibniz has pointed out. They would be one and the same. Even two chocolate bars of the same brand and type are different because they're not on the same spot. One bar is to the right of the other and that characteristic is enough to distinguish it. Is that characteristic a substance? Yes, says the abhidharma, because we have a word for it and each word that has a meaning refers to an existing substance. OK, we have two bars, we put the one at the right side of the other, so a specific characteristic is suddenly there. How is it possible for it to appear suddenly on this one bar? The other one is different as well, how does this acquire its characteristic?

6 Which no-thing would exist if there would be no thing at all and if a phenomenon could be both a thing and a no-thing? Who could know something that's both a thing and no thing? The thing that we call the right bar apparently arises out of nothing, because its origination is inexplicable. It disappears suddenly when we move the bar. If it would really be a substance, a real thing, then it couldn't just arise out of nothing and later disappear. Is it maybe a nothing, or both thing and no-thing? How can one

imagine such a thing and no-thing,, it couldn't be an object of knowledge anyway.

7 Therefore no thing nor no-thing exists, neither a substrate nor a quality. This applies to space and the five elements of the kind as space (earth, water, air, fire and consciousness). 8 The simpletons however, who see what's not there as what's there, don't see what they should: the beneficial appeasement of things. This verse is kind of extra; it doesn't fit into the line of reasoning. It can be applied to many discussions. It looks like it has been added later as a kind of stimulus. Who understands the discussion would have to agree, because every step is logical. Who doesn't agree is blind. Such a person doesn't see what is obvious, he's even stupid. The worst is that such a person misses something: he cannot let go of things and doesn't experience the benefit that arises when things subside in themselves. Nāgārjuna says now for the first time that he's not only trying to win a discussion. Understanding the emptiness of phenomena opens the way to another kind of experience of the world, which is beneficial and peaceful,an amazing inner peace. Nāgārjuna has a positive message and speaks apparently from experience. It's remarkable that according to Nāgārjuna nirvāņa (because that's the state of inner peace) is not for simple people. To get it one has to be clever and think and investigate. It cannot be reached by ritual, asceticism or devotion.

The emotions

6.

28

The emotions doesn't exist yet? It would make no difference for the impassioned one whether the passion exists or not.

1 If previous to the passion an impassioned one without passion would exist, then passion would arise dependent on him, so the passion arises when the impassioned one exists. How about passions, the most dangerous enemies of a monk? Nāgārjuna cannot deny the passions because on the Buddhist path, which he supports not less then his adversaries, the battle against passions is top priority. Passions cause wrong views, they make us see things which aren't there and ignore other important things. Passions make us look upon things which are impermanent, like our children or our body or reputation, as something everlasting. And that causes worries and suffering when they change or vanish. The goal of Buddhism, the state of nirvāņa (which means literary 'blown out'), is the state of mind where passions are extinguished. Passions are a kind of inner afflictions or mentaltorments (kleśa’s) which keep us away from nirvāņa. What applies to passions, applies to all mentaltorments. They are very real because without them we all would be buddhas, which we're clearly not. Nāgārjuna first notes that passions and the impassioned person cannot be separate substances, but not one substance either. If they are separate substances, they have to exist independently, if not passion and impassioned person must be two names of the same thing, which is absurd. It's often said a passion arises when someone's moved or touched. That would mean that there would have to be a person first who subsequently changes into a moved person who develops the passion. This is nonsense obviously, because to what use is the passion if the person is moved already? So we have to saaume that the passion arises in an unmoved person.

2 On the other hand, where does the passion arise if the impassioned one

Where does the passion arise if not in an impassioned person? If anger doesn’ arise in an angry person, it may also be possible for cheerful people or daffodils to become angry. On the other hand anger becomes superfluous if a person is angry already. An angry person cannot become angry because he already is. A cheerful person cannot become angry, because he would first have to stop being cheerful in order to become angry. Only one alternative left seems to be: the passion and the impassioned one arise interdependently.

3 The interrelated origination of passion and impassioned one is sheer nonsense, because in that case the passion and the impassioned one would have to exist independently. This alternative causes a new problem: two things can only be called interrelated if they exist separately. So an angry person and anger have to exist first in order to be interrelated. It’s impossible for anger and the angry person to be the same thing because in that case there would be no relation but identity. What if anger and the angry person arise separately and interdependently?

4 In case of a unity interdependent origination is impossible; the one cannot arise dependent on the other. If they would exist independently, how could they originate dependently in anyway? If there is one substance, there's nothing to be dependent on. If there are two substances, they are necessarily independent and a relationship is out of the question. Apparently the problem is the concept of substance. This makes any relationship incomprehensible.

5 If there would be dependent origination in case of a unity, origination would have to take place when only one exists. If there would be dependent origination in

The emotions

case of separateness, origination would have to take place when only one exists. So it's impossible for anger and the angry person to arise dependently on each other, whether they are a unity or two separate substances, because the concept of a substance implies independence. Anger would have to arise dependent on an angry person even if he weren't there.

6 What does the dependent origination of passion and impassioned one mean if they exist independently? How would it be possible for them to originate dependently if it's a fact that they both arise independently? If the angry person and anger are two separate substances, they cannot arise through dependence on teach other. We say that a person becomes angry. The person exists by himself. This person feels his anger coming up, there has to be anger as well. It's complete nonsense to say that anger and the angry person arise dependently.

7 On which grounds you imagine that passion and the impassioned one arise dependently? It is a fact that they each originate separately! 8 You deny that separateness is a fact, so you suppose dependency! And in order to prove that they arise dependently, you suppose even that they arise separately. If one denies that the angry person and the anger exist independently because they depend on each other, one has to accept separateness in order to make a relation possible. If there's a

29

relation between anger and an angry person both have to exist. But how is in that case dependence possible?

9 If it's not possible to prove that they arise separately then certainly not that they arise dependently. How do you imagine they arise dependently while they arise separately? 10 Likewise there's s no proof that passion exists, not with and not without an impassioned person. In the same way as for passion it has been proved for all phenomena that they cannot exist separately nor in dependence. The theory of substances makes itself impossible, it contradicts itself all the time. We suppose a relation between substances, between anger and the angry person, between a strawberry and redness, between a wedding and a groom, etc., but we cannot account for it. If we suppose separate origination, we contradict ourselves. If we suppose oneness we have to accept the reality of Parmenides: one substance without differences and change, a kind of mystical timeless fog. A world without substances however is equally impossibl: it would be a world without things. The problems of the dependence of things is also a subject of discussion in Plato's dialogue the Phaedo, where Socrates explains that something can only be beautiful if it takes part in the absolute form (idea) of beauty. (in the sense that 4 and 22 both take part in the number 2, because 2 is a factor of both). In the same way Socrates tries to explain that 1+3 are 4, although none of them take part in 4. So in the discussion above Socrates would have said that the angry person becomes angry by taking part in the absolute form of anger. This wouldn't have helped him very much because taking part is just another way of dependence in separateness.

Origination, duration and disappearance 30

7.

Origination, duration and disappearance If origination, lasting and disappearing would have each for itself the characteristics of being caused, then an endless regression would be the result and if not they wouldn't be caused.

1 If origination is caused, then it has necessarily its triple characteristic. If origination is not caused, how could it in that case have the characteristics of being caused? According to Buddhism there's nothing that lasts eternally. Everything is impermanent; everything arises, lasts a moment and disappears finally. Besides, things arise only if the necessary conditions are present. If something has been caused, it has to arise, last a while and disappear. These are the three characteristics. The abhidharma schools came to the conclusion that these three characteristics must exist really, so substantially. Arising, lasting and disappearing are real in our world; they exist on their own and are not dependent on how we think about them.

2 The three actions of the characteristics, like origination etc., are in itself incapable to accomplish anything. However if they were to act in combination: how could they be present at the same place and at the same time? Origination only is possible if something arises, but this must have the triple characteristic, because everything has. Moreover if something would arise that doesn't have the characteristics of lasting and disappearing, it wouldn't be able to last or disappear. The three actions however cannot be present simultaneously, because they rule each other out. Something that's lasting isn't disappearing or arising.

3

Suppose that the origination of a rainstorm would have in itself origination, lasting and disappearing, this would also be the case with the origination, lasting and disappearing of the origination of the rainstorm and again with the origination of the origination, etc. The originations and the rest wouldn't come to an end. If an origination would take time, how little it would be, something couldn't possibly originate, because each phenomenon would have an endless series of originations and nothing could exist because according to Buddhist teaching everything that exists is caused. If we therefore suppose that origination, lasting and disappearance don't have each the triple characteristic, then it follows that they're not caused and therefore don't exist. The opponent now invents a trick to avoid the problem: circular causality. He distinguishes an origination of the origination and a basic origination. The basic origination causes the phenomenon to appear. The origination of the origination takes care of the basic origination that in his turn also causes the origination of the origination. phenomenon

basic origination

origination of origination

4 The origination of the origination is just the origination of the basic origination. The basic origination causes in its turn the origination of the origination. Such a vicous circle is of course absurd: something cannot cause its cause and cannot be caused by its very own effect.

5 If, as you say, the origination of the origination would be the origination of the basic origination, how could that

Origination, duration and disappearance 31

which has to be caused by the basic origination cause it? 6 If, as you say, the basic origination would cause that which is caused by the basic origination, how could the basic origination cause that by which it still has to be originated? The opponent still takes another shot. He says that the basic origination causes the origination of the origination while still in the process of originating. That too is nonsense of course.

7 If you suppose that the one causes the other while originating, then the other must be able to cause the one while it has not yet arisen.31 The opponent is not convinced and mentions a counter example which should show that an effect can produce its own cause.

8 The origination can cause itself and other things, just like a lamp, which enlightens itself and other things. Nāgārjuna answers that the example doesn't make sense: there's no causal relationship between the lamp and its light.

9 There's no darkness in the lamp, nor on the place where it is. What is it the lamp enlightens: light only exists where darkness has been dispelled, isn't it? 10 How is darkness dispelled by a lamp which is switched on32? It doesn't touch the darkness when it's switched on, does it? Kumārajiva has two verses here: If the origination of the origination is able to cause the opportunity of origination while the basic origination (and) the origination of the origination don't exist just yet, how could this cause the basic origination? 31

If the basic origination could cause the opportunity of origination while the origination of the origination (and) the basic origination don't exit just yet, how could it (then) cause the origination of the origination? 32 literary: is arising, at the time a lamp was a kind of fire

The opponent admits that he never saw a lamp having contact with the darkness. Is this really necessary? Yes, because:

11 If darkness is dispelled without having contact with a lamp, then this one here would dispel all darkness in the world. 33 12

If a lamp would enlighten itself and other things as well, darkness would undoubtedly darken both itself and other things. In other words one wouldn't be able to see darkness, because it would hide itself and other things.

13 How can an origination cause itself if it has not yet arisen? If it causes itself, when takes the origination place and what causes it, since it has already arisen? 14 There's nothing at all that is arising, arises, or yet has to arise. The issue of what originates has already been dealt with by the discussion about the going, gone and not gone. With this the discussion seems to have come to an end, but a second part follows. How would it be possible to imagine the origination of something? How can we account for it to exist in reality? Something has to arise because of something else; it doesn't exist by chance.

15 At the moment the arising thing arises, it doesn't proceed. How is it possible to say that something is arising because of the arising? Origination, endurance and disappearing cannot proceed from one to another; they cannot imply each other, because they rule each other out. Substantial origination is unthinkable. And if arising arises by itself something would never stop arising.

16 33

this verse misses in Kumārajiva's translation

Origination, duration and disappearance 32

Al that originates dependently has been cured of substance; therefore the arising and even that which still has to arise have been calmed down. An example of something that we're used to see as dependently arisen are the elements of a game. The ace of spades is not substantially the highest cart in the game, the winner is not substantially better then the others. During the game everything depends on rules, relations and positions, everything is relative. If there is the one, there is the other. Therefore one can see all that's happening during the game and even the game itself as transparent openness.

19 If another origination causes this origination, there is an endless regression; if there would be an origination without origination, everything could originate. 20 The impossibility already has been proved of the origination firstly of an existing thing, secondly of a non-existing thing and of thirdly a thing that both exists and doesn't exist.34

21 17 If there would be something somewhere A thing that's disappearing is cannot arise, but it's impossible that a thing that's not arisen, it would have to arise. exists that's not disappearing. But this doesn't exist: what could have to arise? The opponent brings up daily experience (in utter despair): things are known to arise. How would it be possible to deny that? The answer is simple: show something that hasn't yet arisen. The answer to such a question could only be an expectation, not a real thing. When someone says for example ‘some rain's gonna fall’, the rain is just a thought in her mind. From this it follows that real things cannot originate, only imaginations. And this means that origination is not real. There's an experience to support this. When we see a painter at work, we sometimes understand what he's painting and so we see how the painting slowly arises. If however we're unaware of what she's trying to paint, we don't see anything but paint and we're very surprised if she suddenly says 'it's finished, what do you think?'

18 If the origination causes the originating thing, which origination would cause in its turn this origination? The opponent still tries to prove that there's an element in things that causes them. If there's a headache coming up, there would be something in the headache which makes it arise. In that case however that which causes the headache also has to arise and so on. So there's an endless regression. If one would put an end to the regression by supposing that there's an element that's not caused by something else, there would be something without cause, which arises spontaneously. This violates Buddha's teaching that all things are produced by conditions.

It's impossible for a thing to arise and disappear simultaneously, because both processes rule each other out. According to the Buddha's teaching however everything is impermanent, so disappearing. We like to think of ourselves that we're born, grow up, stay the same for a while and become old in the remote future, but we're fooling ourselves. We're aging from the moment we were born. And the car we bought yesterday is not new anymore by now. Everyone and everything is on its way out. This is not new or specifically Buddhist. It has also been confirmed by the atomic model of present day science and it has frequently been declared by philosophers in the Western tradition. The fragments of Heracleitos of Milete (540 – 480 B.D.) are famous. He taught that everything is continuously changing; one cannot step into the same river twice, because the second time the river is not the same as the first time.

22 A thing that hasn't endured, doesn't endure. A thing that has endured, doesn't endure. Something that's enduring, doesn't endure. So which unoriginated thing endures? Next characteristic to discuss is enduring. According to abhidharma the world consists of momentary atoms, dharmas. A dharma is thought to arise, last and disappear. Arising and disappearing is impossible, but how about enduring? That's unthinkable too, according to Nāgārjuna. A dharma or even a thing has to 34

see verse 1.6. and 1.7

Origination, duration and disappearance 33

endure in order to exist, because if something exists for 0 seconds it doesn't exist at all. Well, if something hasn't lasted, it's not there, maybe it's just appearing. It doesn't fit int the causal network of our world. It's not perceived and didn't have any effect on other things or persons, because in order to do that it would have to endure for some time. Something that doesn't exist cannot endure. If something has lasted, it's disappearing and therefore not lasting anymore. Something that's enduring would have to endure twice: as an identity and as an activity. Sextus Empiricus has a similar argument: something exists or not. Origination and disappearance are therefore impossible. An existing thing cannot originate or disappear, let alone a non-existing thing.35 The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) has noted that we have to ignore and correct all our perceptions to convince ourselves that we live in a stable world. At the very level of perception everything changes all the time. The best example is perhaps the so-called objectpermanence, this great ally of all magicians, (seeing a single thing changing and moving, in stead of a series of separate things) is the effect of a very creative interpretation by our brain. It takes a newborn baby a few months to learn it.

23 It’s impossible for a thing that's disappearing to endure. However it’s impossible for a thing that’s not disappearing to exist. It cannot exist because of the Buddhist ontology of impermanence. The objection the opponent answers with is obvious: if there would exist nothing lasting, it would be senseless to talk about the duration of a life and so the words 'old age' and 'death' would be nonsense. The teaching of the Buddha is however based on the factual ailments of human existence, being old age, sickness and death. True, answers Nāgārjuna, but if something ages, it doesn't remain the same, so it's not an enduring substance.

24 Which things endure, in other words are without aging and death? Isn't it true that all things always are subjected to the law of aging and death? 25 It's nonsense to say that the enduring endures by itself or even by another 35

SE p. 187-188

enduring, because the origination doesn't originate through itself nor through something else either. 26 Something that hasn’t disappeared doesn't disappear. Something that has disappeared doesn't disappear. Something that's disappearing doesn't disappear. So which unoriginated thing is disappearing? The last characteristic to discuss is disappearing. We've seen that things cannot possibly arise. Would it be possible for them to disappear? The answer is not different of course from what we found to be the case with enduring. If something exists, then it's still there and therefore not disappearing. If something doesn't exist anymore, it's not possible that it disappears again. If something disappearing would disappear, it would have to disappear twice: as identity and as activity. Sunshine is blocked by a cloud, has the sunshine disappeared? In the mind of the observer concepts of difference between sunshine and clouds arise, and then the sunshine stops and the cloudy sky begins. Without these concepts however there wouldn't be any phenomenon and nothing would happen.

27 At one hand it's impossible that something enduring disappears. At the other hand it's impossible that something not enduring disappears. 28 Because this very moment doesn't disappear through this very same moment, but this moment doesn't disappear through another moment either. Does this moment of sunshine cause this moment of sunshine to disappear? That’s absurd, good for a Baron von Münchhausen story. Does the moment of cloudiness cause the moment of sunshine to disappear? Only if they would meet, but then they would have to exist simultaneously and that's impossible!

29

Origination, duration and disappearance 34

It's impossible for a phenomenon to disappear, just as it's impossible for a phenomenon to originate. 30 At one hand it's impossible for an existing thing to disappear, but on the other hand it's impossible for a thing both to exist and not to exist, because it's a unity. 31 It's impossible for a non-existing thing to disappear; one cannot chop off a head a second time. 32 Something doesn't disappear through itself or something else, just like it doesn't originate through itself or something else. 33 Nothing exists that has been caused, because origination, enduring and disappearing are not established. If it isn't established that anything has been caused, how could the existence of something be established that has not been caused? The things in our world, which in Buddhism have the characteristics of being caused cannot possibly exist as substances (and we' don't know any other way to exist). But maybe something else could substantially exist, something that hasn't been caused, something like a thing that exists in itself? Nāgārjuna rejects this, because this uncaused thing only makes sense if it can explain the things we experience, which have been caused. In abhidharma philosophy some elements are accepted as being not caused. Most systems accept the absolute existence of the elements earth, water, air, fire and

consciousness. These never appear in their pure form, but are a part of the dharma's or momentary atoms. Their existence is accepted in order to explain the existence of these dharma's and the things that exist through them. However if the fenomena don’t exist, the uncaused elements that cause them cannot exist either. In Western philosophy there's also a famous uncaused thing, the Thing in Itself, invented by Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804). When he understood that causality doesn't exist in the world, but is merely a human interpretation of what happens, Kant thought that the mind functions as an interface between the world as it is in itself and the world as it is experienced. You're reading words. These can be compared with the world as it is experienced, the phenomena. The words consist of characters which are in fact inkspots. The inkspots stand for the reality in itself. It is a little difficult to see the characters not as characters but as inkspots, because our mind is used to see the inspots as characters and the characters as words. The same happens according to Kant when we look at things and events. We cannot perceive reality in itself, because our mind interprets our sensedata before we become aware of them. Nāgārjuna would say that a thing in itself is impossible if the phenomena don't exist, because the thing in itself only makes sense in relation with the phenomena. We’ll never find the cause of a not existing fire.

34 Origination, enduring and disappearance are like an illusion, like a dream and like a mirage; so has been declared. Nāgārjuna quotes probably words of the Buddha here, although he doesn't mention from where he has the quote. It boils down to the point of view that things don't exist, but appear like they do. If we're under the influence of an illusion, a dream or a mirage, we think that what we see really exists, while in reality this is not the case. In the very same way we think that things arise, last and disappear, while in reality there's nothing of the kind.

Dader and daad

8.

35

Actor and act something to say for the view that a murderer and a murder wouldn't exist without a judicial system. But in that case: why are we afraid of a murderer?

3 If an unreal actor would commit an unreal act, then act and actor would exist without causality.36 1 A really existing actor doesn't commit a really existing act. A not really existing actor however doesn't commit a not really existing act either. A real actor is only known as an actor because he does something; otherwise he's not an actor. Someone is a murderer for instance because he has committed a murder. However if we say that a murderer commits a murder, we need two murders, the first one is necessary to identify the person as a murderer and the second one to know what he does. Someone who doesn't really exist is incapable of doing anything, because to do something one has to exist first. Nobody in this world has ever been killed by Mickey Mouse, even in the comics no real murder ever has been committed. Mickey Mouse is not responsible for any real or unreal murder. An atheist cannot accuse God for having created a real or unreal unjust world.

2 Something that really exists doesn't have any effectiveness; an act should exist without an actor. Something that really exists doesn't have any effectiveness; an actor should exist without an act. Something that really exists needs no effectiveness in order to be what it is. A murderer is what he is, whether he commits a murder or not. A substance which exists and is known by itself, needs to do nothing to prove itself, otherwise it wouldn't be what it was if it would remain inactive. Why would an act have to be attributed to an actor? Does a rainstorm become less wet because we know that nobody is raining? A substantial killer doesn't have to do anything in order to be what he is; he would be a killer even without killing. If that is true, apparently 'actor' and 'act' must be seen as merely conventional concepts. So they don't really exist. In effect there's

An unreal actor doesn't do anything, only a real actor does. There's no reason to call such a person an actor. An unreal murder is never really committed, so no one has any responsibility for it.

4 If there's no causality, there's no cause and effect of an action either and if those don't exist, effectiveness, actor and means for action don't exist. We cannot do anything if our actions have no effect. We know how this feels: we're powerless. If this would be our normal situation our life would be a dream.

5 Without effectiveness etc., good and evil wouldn't exist and without good and evil, (ethical) results of action wouldn't exist. Why would anybody try to do his best? Every action would be in vain. It wouldn't be possible to reach nirväņa. A Buddha couldn't have existed nor Buddhism.

6 Without effectiveness, a way to deliverance and heaven wouldn't exist; from this it would follow that every activity would be pointless. 7 An actor which does and doesn't exist doesn't execute an act that does and doesn't exist, because how could existence and nonexistence, which rule each other out, be a unity? 8 36

Kumarajīva: ‘if an unreal actor would commit a real act’

Dader and daad

An act that doesn't exist isn't executed by an existing actor and an act that exists isn't executed by a non-existing actor, because from this would follow the same absurdities. When we dream we don't act. Nobody can be convicted for a murder committed in a dream. Donald Duck cannot be charged for public disorderly behavior. In the next verses Nāgārjuna merely completes the series.

9 A really existing actor doesn't commit an act that doesn't really exist nor one that both does and doesn't really exist, for reasons already mentioned. 10 A not really existing actor doesn't commit a really existing act, nor one that both does and doesn't really exist, for reasons already mentioned. 11 An actor which both does and doesn't really exist doesn't commit an act which both does and doesn't really exist, that's clear for reasons already mentioned.

36

12 The actor originates dependent on his act and this one originates dependent on the actor, we don't see any other grounds for their existence. This is one of the few positive propositions in this text. Nāgārjuna has extensively criticized the philosophy of substances, because of its concept of absolutely existing things. As an alternative he offers relativity. Things exist in mutual relativity. This doesn't mean that things create each other, because that would again imply substances. Only a substance can be created. It means that we make things to exist in dependence of each other and in dependence on our thoughts and emotions. A murder implies a murderer and this implied again a whole network of concepts and conventions. Without this language game reality wouldn't exist and we wouldn't live.

13 In this way one has to understand the components: analogue to the refutation of act and actor. One has to consider other things like act and actor too. In other words all other things don't exist as substances either, but merely in mutual dependence or implication.

the zelf

9.

Self-consciousness

1 1.

Some assert that the subject arises prior to the senses37 and also the components38.

2 Because how could senses belong to something that doesn't exist? Therefore a separate being exists before they are there. Nāgārjuna refers to abhidharma schools like the pudgalavādins of Vātsīputrīya’s and sāmmitīya’s who accept the existence of a person (pudgala). This is is in conflict with the teaching of no self (anātmavāda), which is for most Buddhists a cornerstone of Buddhism. These schools have been popular some time but became later the object of criticism and even prosecution. Nāgārjuna directs his criticism at the philosophy of these schools, because he considers the idea of a self or a person an example of the belief in substances. The idea of a self is not a taboo in Hindu philosophy or in European traditions. Plato attributed an individual soul or psyche to each living being. This soul even makes us into what we are, it is our true identity. The body is a kind of shadow and unimportant. Aristotle also thinks that there's mental principle apart from the material things, but he considers our identity to be here on earth in the way we live our lives. After death the soul merges into the universal soul. Epicurus accepts a soul too, this one is made out of atoms and falls apart at death. Christendom makes the soul into the ultimate object of worry and blackmail. The soul carries the sins and goes to heaven or hell. Without the soul Christendom wouldn't be possible. Only during the Enlightenment doubts emerge again: David Hume (1711 – 1776) notes that the presence of a soul cannot be ascertained. So the soul has to be a piece of fantasy. Kant objects literary: sight, hearing and de rest literary: the emotions and de rest. The five components of a person are: body, emotions, perception, predispositions and consciousness 37 38

37

that subjects remain the same during all actions and that this principle of responsibility is hard to deny. Otherwise nobody could be rewarded or punished for past actions. The soul is in his view a metaphysical entity, something that's not a thing and no part of the material reality. With the growth of suspicion against metaphysics in general during the nineteenth and twentieth century, the soul loses its popularity in Europe too. If there's no soul, the reincarnation model becomes a lot more complicated: what is it that reincarnates? The Buddhist solution is that reincarnation isn't a journey of a soul, but a kind of continuity of mental events. A wave moves in a horizontal direction wile matter, in this case water, only rises and falls. Likewise a person consists of mental and material events which make up the biography. After death a subtle stream of consciousness remains and that transfers the karma, the remaining impressions and habits of past life, into next life.

3 In that case how is that separate being discernible, that exists prior to the senses and the components? 4 If this separate being exists apart from the senses, then these must undoubtedly exist without him too. If the person, the senses and the components are substances, then they all must exist on their own, independent of each other.

5 Someone is discernible because of something, something is discernible by someone. How could someone exist without something? How could something exist without some one? How do we know a person? Because we perceive what she does and what her body looks like. What we perceive are all material things and events. The person or soul is not perceptible, it´s metaphysical. It is powerless without a body so it´s not possible for ghosts to exist. Things which cannot possibly be known by anybody don´t exist. Otherwise the number of existing things and possible causes for any event would be endless. If there would be no restriction on what exists, it wouldn't be possible to prove that something doesn't exist and the word

the zelf ‘existence’ wouldn't have any meaning.39 In short: there's no matter or object without mind or subject and no mind or subject without matter or object.

6 Before all senses have come together, no being exists. Isn't someone discernible each time by another of her senses? Although there were no computers at the time most abhidharma schools didn't believe in multitasking. When we're watching a movie it seems like we're hearing and seeing at the same time, but in reality moments of hearing and sight consciousness alternate very quickly.40 However who is perceiving, which part of the process of perception can be identified as the subject of perception? What substance makes the difference between a perception by a person and a registration by a video camera? Would it be possible that the person exists each moment as a part of a different sense consciousness? How could it be the same person? There must be somebody who's looking and hearing! It's not possible that this person appears only after the looking and hearing have taken place. He doesn't exist prior to the looking and hearing separately or together either. The 'senses'are not the organs here, because they exist all the time, even when we're sleeping. They are the perceptions, which are a cooperation between organ, consciousness and object.

7 If no one exists before the senses have appeared, how could someone exist before each different sense separately? 8 If the one who's seeing would be the same as the one who's hearing and the one who's feeling, he would have to exist prior to each and that's nonsense. For reasons mentioned above.

9 If on the contrary the one who's seeing is someone else then the one who's hearing and the one who's feeling, then the one who's hearing would have to exist simultaneously with the one who's seeing and several subjects would arise. So if God cannot be known, He doesn't exist. This is what most computer designers today misleadingly call multitasking. 39 40

38

The seeing soul would be another one then the hearing soul, etc. That's absurd of course, because when we're enjoying a show we don't fall apart into different persons.

10 Moreover the subject doesn't exist in the element from where the senses and the mental factors originate. The abhidharmaschools accepted (like other philosophical traditions in India) that the senses arise from the four elements: earth, water, air and fire. In none of these elements a subject is to be found.

11 If the one who owns the senses and mental factors doesn't exist, then these also don't exist. 12 The concepts ‘being’ and ‘non-being’ don’t apply here, because no one exists prior to the senses, nor simultaneously with them, nor after them. Nāgārjuna is close to Kant's position here: the transcendental ego. Kant distinguishes between the transcendental ego and the empirical ego. The last one is the object of care, can become disoriented, mad, angry, etc. Like Hume Kant thinks that this is not an entity, but an effect of several mental processes. The transcendental ego is the ego-structure which every one has. It's not a thing, but just the fact that our consciousness has a center of responsibility. In all our thinking and acting we know that we did it and no one else. Kant denies the objective existence of the ego at one side, but maintains at the other side that we cannot understand ourselves and others without accepting a structural ego. Nāgārjuna doesn't mean that there's not such a thing as a person. It would be absurd to write a book without assuming that there exist persons who will read it. Nevertheless the substantial existence of a person doesn't appear tenable. There must be something wrong with traditional ontology, the way we take the concepts ‘being’ and 'non-being' for granted. If the person doesn't exist as something independent how does he? What do we have to think of being and nonbeing?

the zelf

39

Fire and fuel

40

10. Fire and Fuel

1 If fuel and fire would be one and the same, actor and act would be one and the same as well. If a fire would be something different from its fuel, then it would also have to exist without fuel. The pudgalavādins used the relation between fire and fuel as a model for the relation between the soul and the five components of a person (body, emotions, perception, predisposition's and consciousness). This is the reason why Nāgārjuna discusses the relation between fuel and fire following his refutation of the view that a subject exists apart from perception. It's clear to begin with that fire and fuel don't exist apart. Daily experience shows that they vanish when they're separated. Fire exists never without fuel; if that would be the case fire could just ignite anywhere any time.

substances and that's just what they're supposed to be! How is it possible to maintain that one ignites fuel if something that doesn't burn isn't fuel? It would be logical to accept that fuel doesn't really exist and that something is just fuel as far as we call it fuel. In fact we started calling uranium and plutonium fuel not until halfway the twentieth century. Before that time anyone who would have done that would have been called insane. In India dried cowdung is called ‘fuel’ and in Europe one throws it the under the roses. So fuel is not something existing, it is a classification of things in view of certain ways of doing things. If this is true the relation between fuel and fire cannot be used as a model for the relation between the components of a person and a substantial soul.

5 If it's something different from fire, it will not be able to approach it. That which cannot be approached by fire, will not burn either. It will not extinguish and not being extinguished it will remain as it is having its own characteristics.

2 Fire would ignite without causes and even burn for ever41. Reignition would be pointless, and in that case it wouldn't have any effectiveness.

6 Exactly if fire is something different from fuel it can approach it, like a woman approaches a man and a man a woman.

3 It wouldn't be dependent on something else, so it would ignite without causes. It would burn for ever and thus reignition would be pointless.

The opponent doesn't give up just yet. He rejects Nāgārjuna's conclusion of the difference between fuel and fire. Interaction is very well possible when two things are different. The refutation is quoted in short here, but in formal debate it would be a syllogism like this: claim: in spite of fire and fuel being different things, interaction is possible reason, the general law from which the claim follows: between two different things interaction is possible example from the daily life (the lifeworld): man and woman are different entities and interaction exists relevance of the example (does it prove the law?): man and woman are just as different as fuel and fire conclusion: interaction between fuel and fire is possible This Indian syllogism generally is refuted by proving that the example is irrelevant. So

4 If anything that's burning somewhere would be called fuel, how would it be possible for this fuel to ignite? It has been done already! Fuel only exists if something is burning. Before something is burning it's not fuel. Normally we're used to call some material fuel if we mean that it's potential fuel or meant to be used as fuel, but that's not correct according to Nāgārjuna. A piece of wood that initially is called ‘bookshelf’ is thrown into a fire and suddenly becomes fuel. Apparently things are what they are depending on circumstances, but in that case they're not 41

literary: be always ignited

Fire and fuel Nāgārjuna will have to prove that what is generally taken for granted in the relation between man and woman doesn't apply to fuel and fire.

7 Suppose that fire would approach fuel exactly because of being something different: fire and fuel would have to exist separately! We see men and women walking in the streets by themselves without any interaction. So the example is irrelevant and therefore the general law not established and the conclusion not proved. If one cannot reach the other fire and fule have to be interdependent. But which one comes first?

8 If fire would be dependent on fuel or fuel dependent on fire: which of both arises first, dependent on which there is fire or fuel? 9 If fire would be dependent on fuel, then fuel would have to exist before there is fire. If that would be the case it would also originate without fire. What is fuel? Something burning at least. If it's there fuel before there is fire, it would have to burn without fire! The opponent has to try the alternative: fire before fuel. But this is absurd as well.

10 Something only arises because of that on which it is dependent. If that on which it has to be dependent still has to arise, what would be dependent on what? Fire only arises if there's fuel, so fire being there before fuel is impossible. If that would be possible a stove could burn spontaneously and cars would start on by themselves.

11 How would it be possible for thing to arise, if that on which it is dependent hasn't arisen yet? Moreover dependency is nonsense if the dependent thing has already arisen. How could there be fire without fuel? How could there be fuel without fire? Moreover if the fire

41

already exists without fuel, on which could it be dependent?

12 Fire isn't dependent on fuel nor independent. Fuel isn't dependent on fire nor independent. 13 There's no fire in fuel and fire doesn't come from somewhere else. The same that has been said about the to go, the gone and movement applies to fuel. So it's impossible to determine when the fire starts to burn, is burning or has burned. It's impossible for fuel to exist as a substance.

14 Again: fuel isn't fire nor is fire somewhere else then near the fuel. Fire doesn't contain fuel, there are no fuels in a fire, nor is there any fire in the fuels. 15 What has been explained by means of fire and fuel, applies to the self and the components as well. Together with the explanation of the existence of a pot, or a cloth etc. the explanation is complete. The self or the soul doesn't exist without the components nor in relation with them. Each attempt to represent an objective relation ends in absurdities. It's impossible to establish whether or not a pot exists already in the clay from which the potter is going to make it. To say therefore that the pot exists apart from the clay is absurd. It's equally absurd to maintain that a cloth exists apart from the threads from which it has been woven although the cloth isn't to be found in them. These questions are related to the discussion about the two models of causality: the satkāryavāda and the asatkāryavāda42. Soul and components are no substances and they don't cause each other. When we talk about a soul we take the components for granted and the other way around. They implicate one another. The last sentence suggests that at a certain stage the text ended here. And there's a difference indeed between the subjects which have been treated so far and those in the follow 42

see p. 2

Fire and fuel up. Up until here the existence of the elements of daily life has been discussed, in what follows the doctrinal subjects are treated. Next verse probably has been added as well. It already announces a topic that will be emphasized again and again in next part: the madhyamaka philosophy is the true meaning of the teaching of the Buddha.

16 Those who proclaim the existence of a self and things, show that they don't

42

understand anything about the meaning of the teaching. Something like a self doesn't exist, at least if that self is considered to be something existing on its own in stead of an implication of a language game. This applies to the things around us as well. Nāgārjuna thinks that this understanding is a necessary condition for understanding the meaning of the teaching of the Buddha.

The cycle of existence

43

11. The cycle of existence How about the cycle of birth and death (samsāra)? It's impossible to deny its existence isn't it? Denying this means denying Buddhism, because the buddhist path is at least a way, according to most Buddhists even the only out of the cycle. If there wouldn't be a cycle of birth and death Buddhism would be a hoax.

1 ‘The limit of the past is unknown’, the Great Wise One43 said, ‘because the cycle of existence is without limits, nothing precedes nor succeeds it.’ Nāgārjuna begins with a quotation of the words of the Buddha. He wants to make clean that his views are in agreement with the teachings of the Buddha.

2 How could there be a middle of something that hasn't a beginning and no end as well? So sequences from before to now and from now to later are impossible. An absolute middle point in an endless continuum is impossible. Everyone can pick a moment at will and call it the middle. If a middle point doesn't exist, an absolute now (which would be the middle between past and future) is impossible. In that case before and afterwards have to be relative as well. This means that they don't exist substantially, but merely in the speaker’s perspective. Future and past are words that don't refer to existing things or conditions but to other words. This is in contradiction with the view on time of some abhidharma schools, especially the sarvāstivādins. The name of the school already says it: sarvāsti = sarva asti =everything exists. Everything exists, the things of past and future too. The Olympic Games which took place in Athens in 2004, still exists. It merely has changed aspects. In 2003 it had the aspect of future, in august 2004 the aspect of present and today the aspect past. The passing of time means that the games and all other 43

Mahāmuni, traditional title for the Buddha

things continue to exist and merely change time aspects. A peculiar point of view you might say and many Western scholars could hardly suppress their smiles at the sight of such a naïve Asian thought. But make no mistake, it's exactly the point of view taken for granted in all stories about time traveling, like Orson Wells and the creators of Star Trek who made Captain Kirk and his spaceship enter into the next century via a warphole. Even Albert Einstein considered he space-time continuum to be a forth dimension of things, which presupposes that time has at least an aspect of presence. Within the school of the sarvāstivādins different views existed about the nature of the time aspects. The reason for the theory is that it was necessary to explain why something that doesn't exist anymore still could have some influence on things. It's clear that the past has influence on the present, and it would be very difficult to accept this when you're certain that the past doesn't exist anymore. How could the present have any influence on the future if the future doesn't exist yet? It would also weaken the theory of karma, which explains that actions done in former lifes determine the quality of the present one. The sarvāstivādins came upon these questions because they assumed that language is a projection of reality. So every word which means anything has to refer to an existing entity. This is a point of view which is also defended in the famous book ‘Tractatus Logicophilosophicus44 In the following verse Nāgārjuna criticizes the continuity between past, present and future, which is taken for granted in daily life. Everybody knows that one is born first, grows older and finally dies.

3 If there were birth first and aging and death later, birth would be without aging and dying and one would be born an immortal. If birth exists the way the opponent thinks it does, i.e. as a substance, something that is what it is, it must be independent of death. This is absurd of course; therefore it’s impossible for birth, aging and death to be substances, because otherwise continuity would be impossible. The opponent has a solution: the sarvāstivādin philosophy of time. When someone is born, he has already the characteristics of aging and death, but these aren't active or manifest yet. Nāgārjuna is not impressed.

44

Ludwich Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) published in 1922

The cycle of existence

4 If aging and dying would exist from the beginning and birth only later, they would be without a cause. Moreover how could something that's not born yet become older and die? But what if dying and aging would be present at birth?

5 To say that aging and dying are present at birth is nonsense. That which is born would die instantly and both would exist without a cause. 6 How imagine people that one is born, becomes older and dies, if no sequences of preceding to succeeding (events) exist?

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What has been said of birth, aging and death applies for many things because al phenomena imply time. Everything that exists in time doesn't exist in itself, apart from a beginning and an end.Everything has a beginning and an end and these depend on the perspective of the observer. Nietzsche has analyzed the consequences of the perspectivism in our understanding of the world and found this to be an important reason to declare the death of God. Nāgārjuna finally notes that the impossibility of limits also applies to the subjects already discussed.

7–8 There's absolutely no limit to the past of the cycle of existence and no limit to the past of all beings, nor to effect or cause nor to substrate and quality as well as emotion and the one seized with emotion and all things that exist furthermore.

Suffering

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12. Suffering components of suffering would in that case be caused by those other ones.

1 Some say that suffering causes itself, others that it's caused by something else, others again that it's caused by both and others again that it doesn't have a cause. However it's nonsense to say that it's the effect of something. 2 If it would be caused by itself, it would exist independently because of this. However these components arise dependent on others. The five components of a person (body, emotions, perception, predisposition's and consciousness) are called the five components of attachment, because together they constitute a normal person, who lives from an attitude of attachment to the world, himself and his possessions. This attachment unavoidably leads to suffering, because the things of the world cannot satisfy human desire permanently. The components are sometimes identified with suffering, because they're the cause as well as the effect of suffering.45The present components are the cause for the existence in the cycle of birth and death. The future ones are the effect of present actions which are motivated by suffering. The components don't exist apart from each other, they're interdependent. Perceptions for instance evoke feelings, which arise in relation to other emotions and predispositions. If suffering would cause itself, it would have to exist apart from the person and that's impossible: where would it have to be found? So there's no alternative but to accept that suffering is caused by something else.

3 If these components would be different from those in the past, or those different again from others, then suffering would be caused by someone else. These 45

See AK iv 185 and Ak vi 122

If the components would be independent unchanging substances, then it's unavoidable that one component now causes the suffering of other ones in the future and those of other ones again later. A component like emotion could also cause the suffering of another component like the body. Suffering is connected to the components. A component or a set of components that are causing suffering would produce suffering for other components. In that case feedback is impossible. What do those components have in common in that case? Why would this component transmit suffering to this very other one and that one? The origination of suffering would be completely incomprehensible. The opponent understands now that this way will not lead him anywhere near a defendable position and tries something else: not the components, but the person produces the suffering, because he's responsible. The person is the one who takes decisions in order to put an end to suffering by becoming a Buddhist.

4 If suffering is produced by a person himself, who is then this person who's without suffering himself, but causes his own suffering? Someone who makes a mistake or an apple-pie is not identical with the mistake or the apple-pie. One is not what one makes or causes because the substance and his activity are two different things. If one causes ones own suffering, one has to be without it and that's absurd. However some maintain that suffering is caused by education or mistakes made by someone else which have unfortunate effects. It's possible for instance to be seduced to commit a theft and end up in jail, so that finally one becomes a professional criminal.

5 If suffering is caused by another person, how could there be someone without suffering, to whom suffering caused by another is passed on? The criticism of Nāgārjuna's is directed against the views of suffering as a substance, something that's made or caused (that in itself is an absurdity) and subsequently passed on as a thing. It's still quite common in Buddhist circles that merit, the opposite of suffering, is specially

Suffering made and devoted and even transferred to others. In Nāgārjuna's eyes that's complete nonsense.

6 If suffering arises because of another person, who is this other person without suffering, who sends it to another after having it caused? 7 The existence of self-inflicted suffering hasn't been established. How could it then be caused by others? The other, who would cause the suffering, would have to be someone with self-inflicted suffering, would he? Suffering cannot be passed on endlessly; it has to be caused somewhere somehow by someone. This doesn't apply only to persons, it applies to causes too.

8 Suffering isn't caused by itself to begin with, because one thing is necessarily caused by something else. How would it be possible that suffering is caused by something else if that other one hasn't caused it himself?

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There are two options left: suffering arises by the cooperation of more than one factor, or it arises spontaneously, like some disease of which not a precise cause can be determined.

9 If suffering would be caused by both it would have to be caused by each separately. How could suffering exist without a cause, not caused by something else and not by itself? It's impossible that each factor causes a piece of suffering, a case of suffering is an undivided unity. Suffering without cause however cannot be prevented and the Buddha maintains that he has found a way to prevent suffering. That's why he's called a Buddha!

10 Because not only suffering doesn't exist in one of the four ways, of all external things there's no existence in one of the four ways. • • • •

In other words the four ways are: not caused by itself not caused by something else not caused by both itself and something else not without a cause.

The mental factors

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13. The mental factors

1 The Exalted One has called false all that's deceptive; all mental factors are deceptive and therefore false. Mental factors (samskāra’s) are the factors which determine someone's personality. They are the tendencies we find in the second chain of the cycle of twelve in chapter 26. They are the containers of karma formed by actions in the past and in previous lives. They give us a false self-image and distort our view of the world. They block any progress when we try to understand emptiness, because they suggest a world full of substances. So they are deceit and block salvation. The Sanskrit word deceptive is ‘mŗşā moşadharma’46, this is could be a pun because it resembles the word ‘mokşadharma’ teaching of salvation and an important chapter from the Hindu epos ‘Mahābhārata’.

2 The Exalted One said: ‘If all what's deceptive is false, what is it that's falsely depicted’? He did this in order to explain emptiness. 3 Seeing the change of things it follows that things don't possess a substance, but no thing exists without a substance, that's why things are empty. Things don't possess a substance, we can see that when we watch something change very carefully. Most things however change very slowly, so it's not very obvious. Things don't exist independently; they don't exist apart from each other and not independent of what we think of them. Things aren't substances, they seem to be because we attribute them substantiality. So substantially they're not substances. This nonsubstantial substance is called emptiness. It's false, it's a deceit, a wrong view produced by subconscious tendencies, but something that's falsely depicted doesn't exist. There's not something that's not depicted as it is. This resembles the problem of the definite descriptions that made Bertrand Russell (1872 – 46

See Edgerton p. 441

1970) famous, but can also be found in the Buddhist book 'Milinda Pañña' . If someone says 'The daughter of Santa Claus isn't pregnant', that doesn't mean that Santa Claus has a daughter who might expect a baby. If we would have to answer with 'yes' or 'no' we would silently admit that Santa Claus has a daughter, but that's wrong because the description ‘daughter of Santa Claus’ doesn't refer to an existing person. The proposition 'substances are false' doesn't imply that there are true non-substantial things. Even in Buddhist literature emptiness is sometimes considered to be a kind of true or higher reality. In China and Japan this was the consequence of attempts to unify the concept of emptiness with the concept of Tao. Philosophers of all times all over the world have noticed that things aren't what they seem to be. Most of them tried to find the real thing, the true state of things but Nāgārjuna denies that such a thing or state exists.

4 Of what non-substantial thing could the substance change? Of what substantial thing could the substance change? If no substance exists there's nothing to change, neither if there is one, because a substance is by definition something that doesn't change.

5 The very change of such a thing, or of anything else for that matter, is nonsense. It would mean that a young girl wouldn't grow older, nor an old man. A young girl wouldn't grow older, because she would stop being a young girl, which is her substance. An old man wouldn't grow older because he's old already.

6 Sweet milk would turn into sour milk if change of milk would really exist. In that case the nature of sour milk has to arise out of something else. Sour milk is something very different from sweet milk; it's not the same thing. It has different qualities, but where do these come from? The substance sweet milk cannot possibly turn into a different substance like sour milk, so the sour milk-substance has to come from somewhere, but where? Emptiness is not a quality of a thing or substance. We find this kind

The mental factors of argument also in the writings of Sextus Empiricus47.

7 If something not empty would exist, then something empty would exist as well. If however nothing exists that's not empty, how could something empty exist? 8 The Victorious Ones have declared emptiness to be the transcendence of all doctrines. They've said however that those who adhere to a doctrine of emptiness are incurable. Emptiness isn't a doctrine; it doesn't have to say anything about what's going on. Whether things are empty or not, it makes no difference for the things. Everyone needs money, but no one gets rich or poor or solves his financial problems through the insight that money is nothing but digits in the computers of banks, or that bank notes and coins are just conventional signs. Someone who thinks that this has any effect lives in a dream and will get into financial problems probably very soon. But why would Nāgārjuna write this book? Well, there are people who expect that possession of large amounts of money will make them happy and therefore treat money very foolishly. They harm others and commit crimes because of money. They become depressed when they're in debts and feel very confident when they're rich etc. These people might change their life if they would understand that money is empty. In the same way most of us are very much attached to things and persons because we expect too much of them. It helps if we understand that we don't see things and persons as they are, but that they are as we see them. The worries we have about ourselves in relation to things and persons disappears if we understand that persons and things are empty, in itself without an ‘in itself’.

47

see SE p. 496-502

48

The mental factors

49

50

14. Cooperation Contact between two different things that exist separately doesn't exist. Contact between the visible and the rest doesn't exist, therefore there's no contact from where they could operate.

An opponent objects to the interpretation of emptiness. ‘What emptiness, I see there's a table over here, don't you? What makes you think that the table is empty, or doesn't exist as it reveals itself to us?’

1 The seen, seeing and the seer, all three of them each is different from both others, it's impossible for them to get in touch, let alone cooperate. You see a word, both seeing and the word are different things. The word also exists when there's nobody to see it. It existed before you opened the book. You exist whether or not you're seeing the word, even when you're not seeing anything at all. The word is what it is, it's part of a book that's in front of you. You are what you are. Seeing is an activity that doesn't need you to exist. It's impossible to explain what happens when we see something if we take the words ‘the seen’, ‘seeing’ and ‘seer’ to refer to substances which exist apart from us. Besides the objections that are mentioned in chapter 2 apply here as well. What applies to the trio of seer, seen and seeing, applies of course to all trios of subject, object and activity.

2 In this way passion, the passionate and the object of passion have to be understood, the other mentaltorments and the other ranges are triple too. The ranges are the different ranges of the senses, like sounds, tastes, etc. In the case of a mental torment48 there's the subject, the object at which the mental torment is directed and the mental torment itself, so in the case of pride there's the proud person, the reason why the person is proud and the pride itself.

3 48

my translation of ‘kleśa’

4 No difference exists in case of the seen etc. Moreover when the one gets into contact with the other any difference is impossible. So there would be no difference between seen, seer etc., because they apparently cooperate.

5 Everything that's dependent on something else is not without any difference. But it's impossible for anything that's dependent on something else to be different from it. If two things are dependent on each other, they must have something in common, but they have to be different as well. This is clearly a contradiction. If the seen depends on seeing, they cannot be the same, but also not totally different. And if one maintains that the one depends a little bit or partially on the other and that they are a little bit or partially alike, the logic still applies to the part or the degree in which the dependence or similarity exists.

6 If something that's different from something else would exist also without the other from which it's different, then the other would not be different and therefore wouldn't exist, because that from which it's different doesn't exist. If we attribute being different to a substance, then being different is a quality of the substance and it has to have this quality by itself so without the other. But that's clearly nonsense. Difference is not a quality it's a relation, it's an interpretation, it's the result of a comparison someone makes, which is however wrongly attributed to things. If the difference between two things doesn't exist, any contact is impossible and it's impossible that anything is perceived. Every interaction of two things or more is an interpretation of observers and doesn't exist on its own.

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7 The difference doesn't exist in the other nor in the not-other. And if the difference doesn't exist, then the other doesn't exist, nor even this one.

The not-other is all other things besides the other thing.

8 So the contact of two different things is nonsense, making contact doesn't exist, nor contact nor anything that makes contact.

Substance

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15. Substance

1 That a substance originates through causes and conditions is nonsense. A substance which has been originated through causes and conditions would have been caused. 2 On the other hand, how of all things could a substance be caused? A substance is something that's not caused and independent of anything else, isn’t it? 3 If something isn't a substance through its own support, how could it be a substance through the support of something else? What’s called a substance from outside in that case, is the own substance of that other thing. 4 On the other hand how could something exist without being a substance by itself or by something else? Only if it's a substance by itself or by something else is it possible to ascertain the existence of something, isn’t it? This book exists. How do we know? Let's compare it with something that doesn't exist, the big book of Santa Claus for instance. The main difference is that this book can be read, what's written in it is a fact, it cannot be different from what it is. We cannot read the big book of Santa Claus. Someone who's acting to be Santa Claus reading his book has to create his own text. The essential difference is not that this book exists materially; a real book can be in a computer or in someone's memory. The Buddhist texts have been transmitted orally for centuries, but they were a fact. Nobody in the world could decide their content or whether they existed or not. They existed on their own. The philosopher

Edmund Husserl (1859 – 1938) called this the transcendence things. Something that exists is always more then we know. It has a reality claim on its own. This means that texts can be interpreted differently by different readers and that material things can be perceived differently by different people. At this moment you don't see the backside of this the book, but that doesn't mean that you can decide how it will be when you take a look. If you're thinking about a book you want to write you'll have to decide what it's going to look like. But this book is a substance, it exists on its own, whether we like it or not and it is what it is, whatever we think of it. So something doesn't exist if it isn't a substance and if something could be a substance by something else, then it's not what it is but that very other thing. That would be the case if one sees Santa Clause, who appears in fact to be the neighbour. The appearance ‘Santa Claus’ is in that case a substance by the neighbour.

5 If a thing is not a fact, then its nonexistence is not a fact either, because people only speak of the non-existence and change of things. Like we've seen before, a discussion about something that doesn't exist is pointless, because nobody and everybody is right simultaneously.

6 Those who see a substance, be it by itself or by something else, a thing or a non-thing, don't see the essential truth in the teaching of the Buddha. The abhidharma schools agree with Nāgārjuna that things are not what they appear. Persons and things don't exist, they say, because they are formations of dharmas, momentary atoms. Things owe their substances to these atoms. Nāgārjuna doesn't see phenomena as being formations of something else, but as what they are in themselves: appearances. In Western terms he would be called a phenomenologist. He finds himself supported by other Buddhist texts. 7

The Exalted One, who understands the significance of being and non-being, has rejected in ‘the teaching to Kātyāyanā’49 49

samyutta-Nikaya (xxii. 90)

Substance

both words ‘existence’ and ‘nonexistence. 8 If the existence of something would be based on its own nature, it would be impossible for it not to exist. Its own nature certainly couldn't change! If this book being a material thing would exist because of itself, it couldn't be torn apart, because its existence wouldn't depend on any condition. There's a proof of God that uses such a logic, the proof of Anselmus of Canterbury (1033 – 1109). In this proof God is supposed to have a nature and therefore has to exist, because existence belongs to His nature. o God is the most perfect being. o it is more perfect to exist than not to exist. o God exist, because if not it would contradict (1) and (2). Most people, Kaccana, cherish belief in existence or belief in non-existence. But who reflects in the light of highest knowledge, Kaccana, how the world originates, loses the belief in non-existence of the world. and who reflects in the light of the highest knowledge, Kaccana, how the world ceases, loses the belief in existence of the world. The world, Kaccana, is mainly kept together through pursuit, attachment and preferences, but a monk doesn't support this pursuit and attachment nor dogmatism, preferences, or prejudices that support a self. He has no doubts and doesn't ask whether only evil arises or only evil disappears, and his opinion of facts depends on no one but himself. This, Kaccana, is what right opinion means. That things exist, Kaccana, is one extreme of the teaching; that things dont exist is another extreme. These extremes, Kaccana, are rejected by the Tathagata, he has taught a teaching of the center: On ignorance depends karma ; On karma depends consciousness; On consciousness depend name and form; On name and form depend the six senses; On the six senses depends contact; On contact depends emotion; On emotion depends desire; On desire depends attachment; On attachment depends existence; On existence depends birth; On birth depend old age and death, sorrow, unhappiness, misery, worries and despair. Thus arises this whole complex of misery. But through complete disappearance and stopping of ignorance karma stops; Through discontinuation of karma consciousness stops; Through discontinuation of consciousness name and form stop; Through discontinuation of name and form the six senses stop; Through discontinuation of the six senses contact stops; Through discontinuation of contact emotion stops; Through discontinuation of emotion desire stops; Through discontinuation of desire attachment stops; Through discontinuation of attachment existence stops; Through discontinuation of existence birth stops; Through discontinuation of birth old age and death stop, sorrow, unhappyness, misery, worries, and despair stop. Thus stops this whole complex of misery.

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This is begging the question of course, but philosophers have been misled by it for centuries. Like many an atheist already has noticed, speaking about something is paramount to accepting it's existence, especially when God referred to by a definite description (the most perfect Being). His existence is already implied. Kant has revealed a second sophistry: existence is not a quality and therefore doesn't make anything better. A $100 doesn’t become a cent more when I have it in my pocket instead of in my dream.

9 Of what could a change occur if no essence exists? Of what could a change occur if an essence exists? The problem is language. We speak about things as something fixed. That influences our image of the world, because this is made up by our expectations of how the things are and are going to be. If things wouldn't be something fixed, expectations would be impossible or at least highly uncertain. Something fixed however cannot change and something indefinite has no fixed qualities and therefore cannot change either.

10 The word ‘existence’ implies the dogma of eternity and the word ‘non-existence’ the philosophy of annihilism, therefore a wise person will not be mislead by existence and non-existence. These days a philosophy of eternity would have been called a philosophy of spirituality. It means to take eternal truths, values and norms for granted. This makes it unavoidable to suppose a higher unchanging world on top of this one. So it's tied up with metaphysics as well. It's related to the dogma that the effect is merely a different appearance of the cause. The world always deviates from this eternal norm and man is send here to correct this. The soul never dies, but ascends to the eternal world and is eventually reincarnated. The present is a transformation of the past and nothing really new ever happens. The philosophy of annihilism maintains on the contrary that the effect is something completely new, not present in the cause in any way. It's the philosophy of materialism. Everything is made from atoms and the soul is a kind of ephemeral phenomenon. When the body disintegrates, the atoms and molecules make new combinations which are not related to the old ones in any way. Nāgārjuna thinks both to be misleading. The third way can only be a new ontology, a

Substance relativistic ontology, whereby the concepts ‘existence’ and ‘non- existence’ no longer have an absolute meaning. Does this book exist? From our perspective it does, from the perspective of a fly it doesn't.

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11 Why? Because it's impossible to call something non-existent if it exists substantially. If something that existed before is called non-existent now, it follows that it's annihilated.

Gebondenheid and verlossing

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16. Bondage and salvation

1 If the tendencies are reborn, they're not reborn in case they exist eternally, and neither in case they're impermanent. This applies to a being too. Something that exists eternally doesn't die and therefore cannot be reborn. Something impermanent dies all right, but if it's dead, it cannot be reborn. This applies also to persons. Substantial eternity means no change at all. Substantial impermanence means there's nothing to change.

2 If a person who's reborn in the components, the sense ranges and the elements, is searched in each of the five ways, he isn't to be found. Who is reborn then? The five ways are: 1. Is the person to be found in the components? 2. Are the ranges, components and elements to be found in the person? 3. Is the persoon caused by the components, ranges and elements? 4. Are they caused by the persoon? 5. Are both mutually caused by each other?

3 If a person would be reborn from one set of components into another set of components, he wouldn't be reborn himself and who's not reborn doesn't have components. Who is he? How is he reborn? The concept of rebirth is problematic in itself. Most believers imagine it not unlike buying a new car. The old one goes to the junkyard and the new one gets a new owner.

The driver of the car and the car however are two independent entities. One meets the owner without car in the shopping mall and the car is parked in the garage without owner. In the case of a birth the components (body, emotion, perception, tendencies and consciousness) are born not the owner. He cannot leave his old components and go to the new ones, because he doesn't exist apart from his components. Buddhism rejects the existence of a soul, a personal metaphysical identity, so the person is nothing but his components.

4 In that case there's no way the tendencies could possibly expire and a being couldn't expire in any way. The expiration (nirvāņa) occurs when the tendencies and mentaltorments have disappeared. If they would exist apart from the owner, they would follow their own course and therefore the owner can do nothing to make them expire. And if they would it wouldn't affect the owner.

5 In that case the tendencies are not bound and not released because they have the quality of arising and disappearing. As already said, a being is not bound nor released in that case. The opponent defends himself by saying that bondage is nothing but the components of attachment.

6 If bondage is nothing but the set of components, then its owner is not bound. If someone without a set of components isn't bound, in which situation is the bound one then? What is true for the car isn't necessarily true for the owner; this one isn't for example four meters long. If the components constitute the bondage, then the owner must be free from bondage, because being a substance he exists apart from the components. Someone who's released doesn't have any components anymore, but what would be the difference between who does and someone who doesn't have components? Someone who brings his

Gebondenheid and verlossing car to the junkyard doesn't change himself, does he? Moreover the situation of bondage must exist already. How could somenone be bound from one moment to another?

7 If the bounding would exist first and subsequently the bound one, it would be able to bind. This is however not the case. The rest has already been said in the discussion about the to go, the goer and the gone50. 8 Anyway the bound one is not released and neither the released one. If a bound one would be released, bondage and salvation would have to exist simultaneously. If there's no salvation nobody is released, if there's no bondage there's nobody to release.

9 ‘When I'll be without attachment I'll expire, the expiration will be mine’, those who have this yearning, have a strong yearning for the components of attachment. Who looks upon himself as being a substance that is to change into another substance, never escapes the rizome of worldly desires. He even gets more involved. Salvation has to be based on understanding and letting go thoughts, impressions and emotions, not on pursuit of substance and holding on to something. Just let go.

10 Where no pattern of expectations exists of expiration and removal of rebirth, what rebirth is there? How can expiration be imagined there?

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see chapter 2

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Gebondenheid and verlossing

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Karma

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17. Karma

1 A self-restraining mind, which is benevolent against others and kind: this is the teaching, this is the seed that bears fruits after death as well as in this life. In this chapter the discussion is less intense than in the others. The opponent has more to say and the criticism is shorter, even almost restrained A lot of space is devoted to traditional enumerations of the effects of karma. Actually these effects have been refuted in previous chapters, but any reference is missing. It looks like someone else wrote this chapter or maybe it’s an early piece that has been inserted later. Moreover the style of writing is clearly different from the other chapters. In verse 20 the style changes and becomes more Nāgārjunian. There is a reason to be careful with critique on the concept of karma, because the Buddha rejected any teaching that denies the effects of karma. The main reason seems to be that he didn't want his followers to go easy on discipline and personal responsibility. The author first gives his opponent ample time to elaborate his theory before starting his critique. The opponent merely states the traditional Buddhist theory of karma.

2 The Greatest Seer of all seers has said that karma consists of the will and the consequences of the will. He has explained in different ways this disctinction of karma. So according to the teaching of the Buddha there are two kinds of actions with two kinds of ethical consequences: the will and the consequences of the will, in other words subjective and objective. The teaching of karma is not about the ordinary consequences of actions. Originally the word ‘karma’ was used to denote the Vedic sacrifice or

some ritual action. In a sacrifice there are two kinds of causality: the usual practical causality, which has been discussed in the first chapter, and a metaphysical kind of causality, that's the motive of the sacrifice. If mistakes are made at the practical side, for instance the wood is to wet, then the sacrificial fire will not burn and the ritual will be stopped or delayed. If mistakes are made at the supernatural side, for instance the spells are wrongly pronounced; the ritual will not work or even have contrary effects. The word ‘karma’ refers to the ethical, supernatural consequences of our actions. So it's not just cause and effect. Ethics are at stake not effectiveness and technique. In the karma of a murder for instance it is not the act of killing that matters the motive. A surgeon who makes a mistake causes the same material effects as a robber who stabs his victim to death, but the karma is in both cases very different. Nevertheless the model and terms of practical causality are used in the karma theory to denote ethical consequences. The opponent continues. Factors that cause karma Will Effects of the will Speach Actions Disciplin Undiscip Disciplin ed lined ed Endurence of karma Favoura Unfavou ble rable

Undiscip lined

3 The karma that is called ‘will’ here; is remembered by the mind. The karma that's called ‘consequences of the will’ is the physical and verbal. The will is purely mental and subjective. The consequences of the will constitute the objective part: the perceptible words and actions, caused by the will.

4-5 The seven elements that are known to cause the process of karma are: words and movements that aren't consciously recognised and without discipline, the same but wit discipline, the endurance of karma that's favourable or unfavourable and the will.

Karma So according to the tradition of the abhidharma school that's represented here, there're seven elements that cause karma.

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The result is the former seed, because from the seed comes growth and from the growth arises the result, therefore this is neither momentary nor eternal.

The author starts the discussion.

6 If karma is dormant until the time of ripening, it has to stay blocked eternally. How could it produce an effect when it's blocked? A serious problem of the karma theory is that it explains consequences only in retrospect. It's impossible to predict the effects of karma. Nobody can predict a long life on the basis of karma, but when someone dies at an early age, there's always karma involved. Karma is a justification for unexpected events and its main function seems to be to deny fate and drama in human life and provide an image of reassurance and control. In many cases it gives the rich and powerful an excuse not to help the pour. What the theory cannot explain is the moment of ripening. Why happens the ripening just now and not last week or next month if the karma existed already? The theory of karma cannot answer this question, because it would evoke an endless regression of karmas. Moreover since others are involved too, the karma explanation must be very complex. The only option is to call upon material causality for help. With this however every event can be completely explained without karma. That the material causality has its shortcomings too we know from chapter 1. The opponent tries to explain the ripening of karma by comparing it with a seed (the action) that develops into a fruit (karmic consequences), but the author refutes the argument.

7 When a sprout develops from a seed it's growing; after this the fruit exists apart from the seed so it doesn't develop. So the author answers that the comparison doesn't apply, because when the seed has developed into a fruit, it stops growing. The karma that arises after an action exists apart from the act and wouldn't be able to develop any further. How is it possible that the karma of an act, a murder for instance, develops into the real event of being killed? The karma has been lying dormant for years. How could it have been activated? Is this not the eternalist model of causality, where the result is just the cause in disguise?

8

The opponent tries to explain that there is a development indeed: the continuity between act and karma. This continuity is in agreement with the teaching of the Buddha, who rejected eternalism and annihilism. The Buddha rejected the theory that the effect and the cause are essentially identical, that there's never anything new and everything exists for ever. The Buddha rejected also the theory that the effect is totally different from the cause and everything that arises is totally new. The continuity of consciousness is often compared to a stream. The author replies.

9 Because the stream of consciousness is the effect that develops from thought, afterwards it exists apart from the mind and doesn't develop. If the stream of consciousness is the effect of thought, it has to exist on its own after being produced, how could it develop itself? How could it preserve the karma and make it ripen?

10 Because the effect arises from the stream of consciousness and the stream of consciousness is produced by the mind, therefore the consequences, which are the karma of the past, are neither destroyed nor eternal. The opponent repeats his theory and it's the end of the discussion. Continuity exists and there's neither eternalism nor momentariness. It's remarkable that the objection is not refuted by the author. The opponent even has the last word here! He continues to declare how one can cause good karma by following the teaching of the Buddha.

11 The means to realize the teaching are the ten ways of pure action. The result of the teaching are the qualities of desire in this life and afterwards. The ten ways of pure action are: generosity, discipline, meditation, respect, subservience, transferring merit, rejoicing in another's merit, listening to the leer, instructing the teaching and developing insight. The five qualities of desire or

Karma the five objects of the senses (impressions of touch, taste, smell, sound and colored forms), an older alternative is: songs, dances, spoken words, music and women (things which are forbidden to monks). Another opponent objects and gives his own point of view.

12 If this would be the right representation, many small and big misunderstandings would follow, therefore this representation isn't possible here. 13 I however will explain a theory, which fits the real practice. It's followed by Buddhas, Pratyekabuddha's and hearers. There're three kinds holy persons in Buddhism. The hearers have understood the teaching of the Buddha, practiced it and overcome their desires. The Buddhas have reached the final state, but some don't teach. These last ones are called Pratyekabuddha's, Buddhas for themselves.

14 Karma is indestructible, like a written confession of guilt. It consists of the four elements and it's neutral by nature. The four elements are: water, air, earth and fire.

15 It's not gone after it has been released, but only after having meditated on it. So because it's not gone, an effect of karma arises. So according to this theory (which resembles the Jain point of view) karma is a kind of matter. Matter is not good or bad, it is like the ink of a confession of guilt, which doesn't owe anything to anybody. Karma is not taken away by good or bad deeds but through meditation or perhaps ritual.

16 If it would have disappeared after it has been released or after rebirth, then many misunderstandings would follow like the disappearance of karma etc. This opponent has found a reason for the continuity, but this introduces a new problem. He has defined karma as matter consisting of the

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four material elements: fire, air, water and earth, in other words: radiation, gas, liquid and solidity. These elements are nowhere to be found in their pure form, they are the elementary particles of things. The adherents of this theory imagine apparently that the elements carry the karma in the form of formations, inscriptions or signs; this would explain the comparison with a written confession of guilt. The author thinks the theory is absurd.

17 Only one kind of karma would be the result, because all equal and unequal karma's would merge in the same element. Al traces of karma which would be absorbed by the element water for instance would mix and become one karmaformation.

18 According to this theory only this one phenomenon would be the result of all different kinds of karma and it would stay even if all kinds of karma have ripened Favourable and unfavourable karma would neutralise each other and the result would be one phenomenon. Because karma is permanent like a written confession, it would never disappear and make the phenomenon appear again and again.

19 It would disappear through transcendence of the consequences or by death. It should be noticed that there’s a difference between karma with and without influx of worldly desire. The effects of karma would stop only after death or when becomes impossible for the consequences to develop (for instance if one would become a lonely hermit). In that case nothing could be done to neutralize it. The difference between karma that binds us to the world and karma that doesn't is important here because if someone would have world-binding karma, it would only stop at death.

20 The doctrine that has been taught by the Buddha is the emptiness and not the extinction of the cycle of rebirth; neither

Karma

the eternity nor the disappearance of karma. So emptiness is the real teaching of the Buddha and not the philosophy of substances that involves problems about the whereabouts of things and whether they are permanent or impermanent.

21 Karma doesn't arise out of someone because it's not a substance and it doesn't vanish because it hasn't arisen. 22 If karma would be some substance, it would undoubtedly exist for ever and it wouldn't be caused, because what is caused doesn't exist for ever. 23 If someone who didn't cause any karma would be at risk to get what he didn't make, the consequence would be violations (of the rules of the order) and life without a vow of chastity. Nobody would care to follow rules because it would make no difference.

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Karma and mental torments are called the fundamental conditions for a body (in a next life). If karma and mental torments are empty, what about the body? The opponent tries another shot, the pudgalaväda (personalist) point of view.

28 The one who endures karma is a being who's a combination of desires and didn’t overcome ignorance, and he's neither different nor the same as the one who makes the karma. We're neither the same nor another then the one who caused our karma in a previous life, but there is continuity.

29 Because karma hasn't arisen neither dependently nor independently here, the actor hasn't either. If karma would arise dependently it would have to depend on a substance. If it would arise independently it would have to be a substance itself. The same goes for the actor.

24 Even all common sense notions will be surely contradicted and the difference between committing good and bad deeds and gaining merit becomes nonsense.

30 There's no actor if karma doesn't exist. In that case how could there be an effect caused by karma? And if there's no effect, how could there still be someone who endures karma?

25 If karma would acutally be some substance, the effect even if ripened, would ripen again.

31 - 32 The actor who causes this karma is like a master, a mastermagician, conjuring a magical appearance and this conjured one is conjuring again other magical appearances. He is like a magical appearance conjuring another magical appearances.

Causing consequences would be a fixed qualitiy of karma it would always manifest.

26 Karma is basically the mentaltorments, but this karma and these mentaltorments don't really exist. How could karma really exist, if the mental torments don't really exist? 27

33 Mental torments, karma's, bodies, actors and consequences are like a city of ghosts, a mirage or a dream.

The self

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18. The Self In Western philosophy there's also been a debate about the self. Hume examined his inner life, but couldn't find anything like a self or a soul. He only found thoughts. So the self is not a thing, but the occasion of thoughts.

1 If the self would consist of components, it would be subject to origination and decay. If it would be something other then the components, it wouldn't have the characteristics of the components. From the beginning there has been a lively discussion in Buddhism about the status of the self or the soul51. There're lectures of the Buddha where he flatly denies the existence of a self, but in other ones speaks about a self in a usual way. Those who denied the existence of a self, maintained that the Buddha sometimes didn't want to confuse people with a theory of no self they wouldn't understand. Another tradition in Buddhism, the pudgalavādins, maintained that a self exists indeed and that this one is not the same as the components of a person, but not different either. They were strongly criticized by other schools. The discussion starts here with the point of view that's most common in abhidharma schools. Two alternatives are excluded: the self doesn't consist of the five components: body, emotion, perception, tendencies and consciousness, nor is it not something other. The self is a unity and cannot consist of more the one component simultaneously. We are not our body. If we would be our body we would stop feeling tired at the moment we wouldn't want to. If the self would consist of emotion we could become angry and happy at will. The same applies to the other components: we’re not our perceptions; we're not our tendencies or consciousness. It's impossible that the self would be something that exist apart from the components, because in that case we could not be tired or angry etc. What is the status of the self? The relation between self and soul is also subject of debate. The self may be defined as the capability of a person to refer to himself and make himself a subject of discussion and reflection. A person is able to look upon himself from the point of view of anther because he's capable to imagine himself to be another. A soul is that what makes a person what he is. It's a metaphysical element that is a guarantee for the absolute timeless identity and uniqueness of a person.

2 If the self doesn't exist how could anything be mine? A person is without a self or possessions because his self and egoism have stopped. A saint has overcome his egoism, so he has no self anymore according to tradition. Becoming a monk is traditionally an important training to become a saint.

3 Nevertheless there's no one without possessions or a self. Someone who sees someone who's without possessions or a self doesn't see. Nāgārjuna uses the verb 'to see'here in the sense of seeing reality. So if one thinks to see someone who's without possessions or a self, one doesn't see what is, but what one expects.

4 When outer and inner things aren't even called ‘mine’ and ‘I’ anymore, the attachment stops and when this is destroyed birth is destroyed Birth is attachment to life, which gets its shape in the five components of attachment. What Nāgārjuna, wants to make clear is that the attachment doesn't disappear through discipline or conditioning, but through understanding. Nobody is without a self to begin with. When the Buddha after his salvation declares himself to be a Buddha, he uses the word ‘I’ and that's not just an empty word without meaning. Everyone refers to himself with ‘I’ and calls things 'his'. The Buddha talks also about ‘his teaching’ and not about ‘the’ or ‘a’ teaching. It's doesn't help to think 'this is my hand, but I shouldn't think of as my hand', but if one stops labeling things, as Nāgārjuna has mentioned before, there is peace.

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5 If one imagines ones karma and mental torments, salvation must be achieved through disappearance of karma and

The self

mental torments. These arise because of the imagination, through emptiness however discursiveness is stopped. The concepts ‘karma’ and ‘mental torments’ are part of a model that is meant to explain human behavior. This is a foundation for methods that help people to achieve nirvāņa by means of different kinds of discipline. According to Nāgārjuna these models exist dependent on the discipline or method. He doesn't deny that they're useful, he prefers another method: the emptiness or the meditation on emptiness. This leads to an experience without imagination. Then the mental torments and karma are gone.

6 By the Buddhas has been taught at one hand the existence of a self and at the other hand the non-existence of a self. It has also been taught that someone has both a self and doesn't have a self. Whether a self exists or not depends on the angle with which one looks at it. The empirical self, the self that can become stressed or depressed doesn't exist substantially. Our mind is a stream of thoughts and not a unity. The empirical self does however exists conventionally, otherwise no one could become depressed. In fact according to abhidharma only isolated moments of consciousness occur. They succeed each other so quickly that we get the impression of continuity. The transcendental ego, the principle of responsibility, exists. But even if that would be untrue, still our inner life is mainly what we make ourselves believe. The empirical ego is what we are for ourseslves. Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) gives in his book ‘La transcendence de l'ego'52’ a description of how this ego grows. We make a representation of this ego on the basis of actions and thoughts we recall to have done and what we expect and like to do in the future. And we do this from the point of view of others, so what we think others think of us is essential. There's also the transcendental ego, but that's no thing or phenomenon. Kant called this the transcendental unity of apperception (the unity of conscious perception). Our thoughts imply a unity, because we can realize with any thought or perception that's our thought or perception and no one else's. So they're our responsibility. So this ego is an element of the structure of our world and our thoughts. It's also a grammatical form, the first person singular, which we learn at school although were familiar with it many years before. This ego exists be it not as a thing or a phenomenon; it exists because we share with others a language and a world. 52

Sartre 1965

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7 The namable has been stopped; the realm of thoughts has been stopped, because reality is without arising and decay, like nirvāņa. Nirvāņa is the final stopping of attachment and so of suffering. The experience of emptiness is nirvāņa, because the real way things are, the non-substantiality becomes real and is fully understood. The imagination has stopped and there's nothing to be attached to, no things, no representations and no emptiness, because this is no phenomenon.

8 Everything is real, but everything is not real too, and everything is both real and not real and also not real nor unreal, thus is the teaching of the Buddha. Everything is real as a phenomenon by showing itself as it is, but everything is unreal as well because it shows itself as what it's not: a substance. Everything is real and unreal because suffering is a real motive to strive for nirvāņa and to realize the unreality of things. From the point of view of a Buddha things are not real and not unreal. The example give traditionally is that it's impossible to tell whether the child of a barren woman is a boy or a girl. A contemporary example would be that it's impossible to tell whether or not the sun shone in New York the 30th of February 2002.

9 Not dependent on something else, silent, not manifested through discursiveness, without representations, without diversity, that are the characteristics of reality. 10 Everything that exists is dependent, because something isn't what it is, but neither something else, therefore things are neither momentary nor eternal. Nāgārjuna's image of being here, reminds of the one of the philosopher Baruch the Spinoza (1632-1677). Everything is determined by relations with other things. Things don't receive their identity from themselves. A good example is the fields of a chessboard. These are not just locations where one can put a piece of chess; a chess player knows that every field has its own strategic possibilities. These possibilities change

The self during the game. These fields are real and unreal, fixed and dynamic, not continuous nor discontinuous, themselves and not themselves etc.

11 No unity and no diversity, not momentary and not eternal, thus is the nectar of the teaching of the Buddhas, the protectors of the people. 12 When Buddhas don't appear and also the hearers disappear, understanding without contact arises in the Pratyekaboedda's. This is an interesting verse. What is it that Nāgārjuna wants to say? He appearantly considers himself to be a Pratyekaboddha53, a hidden Buddha. This is a Buddha who doesn't travel through the land with a flock of followers and founds a new tradition, a Buddha who has the understanding but not the merit, recognition and status. And apparently Nāgārjuna saw the glory of the Buddhist community fade in his time and thought it would be time for a new Buddha.

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Opinion of Professor T. Vetter, oral communcation

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The self

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Time

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19. Time At the other hand no past exists that's established independently. Therefore neither a present nor a future exists. 4 In exactly the same way both other time aspects have to be considered and the upper, lower and middle part, etc. and unity etc. 1 If the present and the future would be dependent on the past, then present and future would have to exist during the past. The question what time really is, has always occupied philosopher's minds. Augustine (354 – 430) wrote down: ‘What is time? When nobody asks me I know, but when someone calls for an explanation I don't know anymore!’ Most people assume that the past still exists somewhere; the idea of traveling through time has intrigued many writers and filmmakers. Still it doesn't match with daily experience. A broken vase doesn't exist anymore, it has definitively gone. There's no way that we can see it again there's no machine that can make events undone. It's only possible in our dreams, so time makes the difference between reality and dream. But is time real in itself? Augustine concludes that time doesn't exist, except in our minds. The past is what we remember and the future is what we expect. Fourteen centuries later Schopenhauer goes a step further and decides that the world isn't out there, but merely our own representation. The reason is that an existing thing must have a cause and be a cause, causality requires time and time only exists in our minds. This conclusion would be very much regretted by Augustine, because it would take away a lot of the glory of God, whose main achievement was the creation of the world. Nāgārjuna would be quite happy with the reasoning. In this verse he refutes the sarvāstivādin point of view that past and future objectively exist in a way. He doesn't need many words because daily experience is clear enough.

2 If on the contrary present and future didn't exist then, how could present and future still be dependent on it? 3

It will be clear the very same logic applies to the present and the future. It applies also to other interrelated conceptual trios, like for instance upper, middle and lower part of a thing. It applies as well to duos like unity and multiplicity. There's no unity if there's no multiplicity, but a multiplicity is a unity consisting of many unities.

5 Time that halts doesn't exist. Time that doesn't halt isn't perceived. How could time make itself known by perception if it's not perceived? An obvious argument in support of the existence of time is daily experience: we do experience time going by, do we? But what does this mean? One can only experience something existing. Time doesn't exist, it goes by, if not it wouldn't be time. Husserl will write later that time's merely our looking back to the past and anticipating the future, that's why it's determine whether an hour lasts short or long. Reading is a good example: every moment we read merely a word or a part of a sentence and we wouldn't comprehend anything at all of what we're reading if we wouldn't be looking back to what we've read and anticipating what we're going to read. This is the driving force behind our thoughts it has a lot to do with discursiveness, the wild growth of thoughts.

6 If time would be dependent on things, how could time exist without things? And how could time exist, since not one single thing exists? We can read the time from our watches or in the old days from a sun-dial. We can even see how much time goes by before a process has completed. But do we see time? We see the hands or a shadow, we've to read time. Reading is different from seeing, it involves interpretation. When we're reading the time

Time we're interpreting signs. So time is the meaning of timesigns, and meaning doesn't exist independent of our interpretation. One could maintain that Nāgārjuna's showing in so many words again and again that things are signs instead of substances. When we succeed to discontinue the ongoing chain of interpretations that occupies us day and night, there will be emptiness and inner peace.

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Things, like digits of a shadow don't exist on their own they're no substances, that's clear by now. Does time exist? If so it would mean that the hand of a clock shows us the time because of its movement. Movement doesn't exist; we've seen this in chapter 2. The hand isn't an object by itself; it has to be recognised by us as such. The hand isn't a timesign by itself; it has to be read as such. So time doesn't exist.

De voorwaarden

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20. Conditions 2 An effect arises because of an accumulation of causes and conditions, how could the effect arise because of the accumulation in case it doesn't exist already in the accumulation? 3 If the effect exists in the accumulation of the cause and conditions, it must at 1 least be perceptible in the accumulation; An effect arises because of an it's not perceptible in the accumulation accumulation of causes and conditions, how could the effect arise because of the however. accumulation in case it exists already in 4 the accumulation? In case the effect doesn't exist in the accumulation of the cause and It's remarkable that Nāgārjuna returns to the conditions, then causes and conditions problem of causality again. That has been dealt with, hasn't it? Was it necessary to ad something wouldn't be different from something to the existing part one: the first ten chapters? other then causes and effects. What's new is that this time the subject is a general view on causality and not the one of the abhidharma. Maybe this is the consequence of discussions with opponents who didn't support the abhidharma, possibly not even the teaching of the Buddha. An effect is supposed to arise because of a main cause in combination with conditions. Why are the streets wet? Because rain has fallen (main cause) and there's no roof over the street, nor a sheet of plastic and the temperature isn't high enough to make it dry instantly (conditions). . Anyway the line of argumentation should be clear: if the effect can be found in the accumulation of causes and conditions, it exists already and cannot arise. So what if it isn't a part of the accumulation? Well in that case it couldn't arise either because there're so many things that are not a part of the accumulation and they don't arise because of it. If anything that's not part of the accumulation could arise, anything could arise! One can make an omelet from eggs, but if nothing from the eggs can be found in the omelet there's no reason to suppose that you can make lots of things from eggs and omelets of lots of things other than eggs (the foodindustry has showed a gamma of possibilities). Moreover one would expect to find a trace of the effect in the accumulation because if not why would it belong to just this effect? There would be no reason to suppose a causal relationship. If that were to be the case, any two subsequent events could be called cause and effect.

5 If a cause disappears after it has caused an effect, there have to be two essences of the cause: the one that caused the effect and the one that has disappeared. Obviously the essence of a cause is producing an effect. This being the case a cause wouldn't be capable to do anything else, so disappearing would be out of the question. It would continue producing its effect for ever like the sun that cannot help shining. The cause would therefore need a second essence in order to disappear. So we would have a substance with two essences. Of course the effect cannot arise after the cause has vanished, that would be complete nonsense, because in that case the effect would be produced by something that doesn't exist, this would be like an immaculate conception.

6 In case the cause vanishes without having caused an effect, the effect would be without cause. It would have to arise while the cause has disappeared already. There's one option left: the causal complex and the effect exist simultaneously. Could this be the case?

7

De voorwaarden

If the effect would manifest itself simultaneously with the accumulation of cause and conditions, it would mean that the procreator and the procreated would exist simultaneously. It's possible for a father and his son to exist simultaneously; it’s even a normal situation. But how often does it occur that the son exists simultaneously with the spermatozoid or the egg-cel he grew from? Moreover the cause wouldn't be capable to stop producing effects and would produce the same effect over and again (like a computer that gets stuck), or an endless series of effects (like a waterfall). In what ever way one looks at it, the supposition of independently existing causes and effects leads into absurdity.

8 If the effect would appear just before the accumulation, an effect without cause would have to exist apart from cause and conditions. 9 If the effect would exist after the cause has vanished being the continuation of the cause, it would mean that the cause would arise again, in spite of having been arisen before. A final attempt to explain causation: the milk has vanished, but the butter which has com in its place, is a kind of continuation of the milk. Well, in that case there're two options: the milk is either identical with or different from the butter. If the milk is different from the butter, there's no continuation. If it's the same, it vanishes only to return a little bit later with another name. Allthough it’s quite common in present day businesslife, for milk it’s very odd.

10 How would it be possible that something that has disappeared and stopped would cause an effect that has arisen already? How could a cause that exists in the effect, but is hidden by it, cause this effect? We call the milk the cause of this butter only when we see this butter. To call the milk a cause for something that doesn't exist is nonsense, because what doesn't exist needs no causes. The milk, however has gone and it's impossible for it to exist when it has turned into butter. Why call the milk the cause of the butter? If the answer

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would be that the milk exists, but is hidden in the butter, it would be like a letter hidden in an envelope. Do we call the letter the cause of the envelope?

11 Which effect could it cause, if the cause is not hidden by the effect, because the cause doesn't cause the effect neither before nor after it has been spotted? Suppose the cause exists, but is not to be seen. Well, if the cause produces the effect before it shows itself, then it does its work before it exists, because to exist is to be manifest (this point of view shares Nāgārjuna with Husserl's phenomenology). A good example is God creating the world, this can never be proved. If the cause produces an effect while it shows itself, the effect either has to exist or not. If it does there's no need for a cause, if it doesn't either. If the cause has disappeared, it’s incapable to produce anything and if someone says the cause still exists, but is only hidden, any imperceptible made up thing could be the cause.

12 Because an effect that hasn't gone would exist simultaneously with a cause that has gone. Whether the effect has arisen or not, either way contact with the cause is impossible. When the effect exists, the cause doesn't and the other way around.

13 Because when the effect has arisen, contact with a cause is impossible whether is hasn't arisen yet, has gone or is arising. The effect exists and being a substance it doesn't need anything to be there. When the effect doesn't exist yet, it doesn't need anything either. Substances are what they are on their own; they've no relation with other things.

14 And when the effect hasn't arisen, contact with a cause is impossible whether it has gone, is arising, hasn't arisen yet. 15

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How could the cause the produce the effect if no contact exists? How could the cause produce the effect even if contact would exist? If there is contact, both exist; in that case what can be produced by the cause?

16 How could a cause that's free54 of effects produce an effect? How could a cause that's not free55 of effects produce an effect? Again if the effect isn't in the causes everything could produce anything. If the effect is in the cause, nothing can be produced. Here the word ‘empty’ is used in the sense of something missing that one expects to find. Sartre gives an example in ‘l’Être et le Néant’56: when one has an appointment with someone (John for instance) in a bar at four o'clock and John's not there, the bar is empty of John. In that case the emptiness is a phenomenon. A week before when the appointment didn't exist yet and John was not present in the bar, the emptiness was not a phenomenon, it was obvious.

17 An effect that's not empty couldn't arise nor disappear. This non-empty effect would exist as something eternal and not originated. The concept ‘empty’ doesn't mean here that the cause doesn't exist in the effect, but that it lacks any substance. Something that exists on its own, a substance, doesn't need anything and is therefore incapable to arise or disappear, not by itself and not because of something else. Emptiness is a manifest emptiness. One expects a substance and no matter how one looks, it's not to be found. The expectation of substances is the effect of language or concepts. Words suggest referring to substances, so do thoughts. When thoughts have faded away and we’re aware of it, there's peace.

18 How could an effect arise that's empty? How could an effect disappear that's empty? If an effect is empty it means, that it's eternal and not arisen, as well.

54 55 56

literary: empty literary: empty p. 43 e.v.

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So if one thinks that everything just becomes clear if we take emptiness into account, there's little disappointment here. Causality is incomprehensible, even from the point of view of emptiness. With or without substances, causality is impossible. In a movie, on a TV-screen, things are not what they are, they seem to cause each other, but in fact they don't. Something without substance is incapable of arising or disappearing, because it is not something.

19 Because effect and cause cannot possibly be identical and effect and cause cannot possibly be different. 20 If the effect and the cause would be identical, the procreator and the procreated would be identical. If the effect and the cause would exist independently, a cause would be identical with a non-cause. 21 How could a cause really produce an effect if would really exist as a substance? How could a cause really produce an effect if would really exist as a non-substance? In the first case the effect doesn't need a cause and in the second case causality is unnecessary because nothing originates.

22 Causality of anything that's not produced is certainly impossible and from what would an effect arise in case there's no causality? Another argument is that something has to be something in the first place to produce something, but what kind of entity is a combination of causal factors actually ? Is it something? Is it not a fantasy and how could a fantasy produce something that really exists? And if there's no real cause, we couldn't expect a real effect, could we? No cause without effect, no effect without cause!

23 How could of all things this combination of cause and conditions, that doesn't produce itself by itself, produce an effect?

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24 The effect isn't produced by the combination of cause and conditions

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neither by something else. How could a combination of cause and conditions be possible in any way without an effect?

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21. Disappearance and origination How could disappearance exist simultaneous with origination, because death never occurs at the very moment of birth?

1 Disappearance doesn’t exist at all, neither with origination nor without it. Origination doesn’t exist at all, neither with disappearance nor without it. According ot the teaching of the Buddha there're three essential characteristics of the world: everything is impermanent, unsatisfactory and non-substantial. No Buddhist in his right mind should even think about denying this. Nāgārjuna however flatly denies impermanence, but he can provide arguments.

2 How could disappearance exist without origination, there's no death without birth and no disappearance at all without origination. Disappearance and origination imply each other, so they cannot exist separately. No day exist without a night and no cause exist without an effect either. However they cannot exist simultaneously. That make sense one might think: something arises first, exists for a while and finally disappears. This paper has ever originated and will disappear again at a certain moment. So this means that origination and disappearance actually exist. Nevertheless, the origination and disappearance of this paper is of none importance at all when we read this book. These two only matter if we look at the paper as a temporary phenomenon, so if we want to know how many years the book exists and when and how it will disappear. And even then the origination and disappearance cannot exist as phenomena, we'll never perceive the paper disappear and arise at the same time, it are only our expectations. Origination and disappearance are therefore no fixed qualities of a substance, but concepts that function within a certain way of speech, in a certain language game. If origination and disappearance would be fixed qualities of a substance, they would have to exist simultaneously.

3

4 How could origination exist without disappearance, because nothing exists ever without impermanence? It's impossible for them to exist without each other and since they rule each other out, they cannot be qualities of a substance. In that case it's out of the question that existing things disappear.

5 Could origination exist simultaneously with disappearance, because birth never occurs at the very moment of death?57 6 How could the existence of two things ever be established if it has been proved that it's not possible for them to exist together nor without one another? Origination and disappearance, birth and death, cannot exist apart, neither together at the same time. Putting aside the impossibility of origination and disappearance of a substance, they're mixed up with contradictions. Nevertheless things and persons do have a beginning and an end. We can see a candle burn down. The candle disappears and so does the flame. However if we would take a film of the candle and look at the pictures one by one, we wouldn't see a candle disappear. We just would see the candle in different sizes. The concept of disappearance arises when we see the pictures as images of a substance going through a process. The nature of the process becomes clear to us if we compare the different phases. Seeing origination also involves a lot of thinking and interpretation. If we see a painter at work it may take some time before we see what she's painting. Until that moment we see paint strokes but nothing is arising If it's an abstract painting we might not see anything coming up at all. And 57 This verse is missing Kumarajīva's translation, perhaps because it's almost a repetitions. It often happened that translations in Chinese were abbreviated. The Chinese culture was at the time already a thousand years a culture of writing. The Indian texts were often long-winded and contained many repetitions to facilitate the memory. Written texts are always short because the reader can always turn the pages back.

Disappearance and origination when we hear the painter say that the painting is finished it may take quite a study before we see why. So origination and disappearance are products of the imagination. What has this to do with Buddhist salvation? Suppose we grow very attached the painting. The Buddha advises us not to get attached because we will worry about the safekeeping of the painting and regret it if it gets damaged. We can do this by reminding ourselves constantly that all things are impermanent. ‘One merely borrows ones possessions and loved ones, one doesn't really own them ', would the Stoic Epictetus say. Nāgārjuna prefers another method. He says that we will not get attached if we realize that everything is a product of our imagination. Moreover he mentions again and again that we can get to a stage where there's just for a while no attachment at all and when we've experienced this we realize that not being attached gives happiness of a much higher quality then getting what we want.

7 No origination exists of something that's impermanent; no origination exists of something that's eternal. No disappearance exists of something that's impermanent; no disappearance exists of something that's eternal. Something that's impermanent, that has the inherent quality of disappearing, is always disappearing. It couldn't stop it and couldn't do something contrary to it like to originate. That would be the same as going forward and backward simultaneously. A substance that's impermanent will always exist and cannot possibly originate. Something that's impermanent has the quality of disappearance and cannot exercise this as an activity, because that would require two processes of disappearance. It doesn't make sense to say that the rain rains (however in some languages like Turkish it's the proper thing to say).

8 Origination or disappearance doesn’t exist without a thing (that originates of disappears). No thing exists without both origination and disappearance. The existence of things implicates origination and disappearance. Origination and disappearance implicate the existence of things. This is just like the concept ‘checkmate’ implicates chess and the other way around and we know that chess is not out there, but in peoples minds.

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9 Something that's empty cannot possibly originate nor disappear. Something that's not empty cannot possibly originate nor disappear. Something that's empty is not a thing, not a substance and cannot have qualities or activities. A shadow doesn't really move or stand, arise or disappear (although it's not unusual to say so, but that's merely a metaphor). Something that's not empty is a substance and will never change.

10 It's nonsense to say that origination and disappearance are identical. It's nonsense to say that origination and disappearance are different things. They're not identical, because they rule each other out. They're not different things, because they're dependent. Nothing exists that only just originates and doesn't disappear or the other way around.

11 Origination as well as disappearance exist because they're perceived? Origination as well as disappearance are only perceived because of blindness! 12 A thing doesn't originate from a thing. A thing doesn't originate from something else than a thing. Something else than a thing doesn't originate from something else than a thing. Something else than a thing doesn't originate from a thing. There are two possibilities: something is a thing or not. An egg is a thing, so is an omelet. An omelet cannot originate from an egg, because in that case the egg would never stop to produce omelets and the omelet could not stop originating. The omelet doesn't arise from something other than a thing, like an activity or a pseudo-thing like a shadow, because in that case something would come out of nothing. A shadow doesn't originate from another shadow, from light or from an egg, because a shadow doesn't originate, but merely appears.

13 A thing doesn't originate from itself or from another thing. It doesn't originate

Disappearance and origination

from both itself and another thing. How could it originate? It's obvious that a thing doesn't originate from itself nor from both itself and something else, because it would have to exist before its origination. It has been proved that a thing doesn't originate from another thing. It's equally impossible that a thing originates from a combination of several things, because in that case the things from where something originates would or wouldn't have to merge with the new thing. If they do they wouldn't exist any longer, which is impossible. If they don't the origination would never stop. t

14 To believe in (the existence of) a thing means to believe in a doctrine of eternity or momentariness, because in that case a thing would have to be eternal or impermanent. An impermanent thing cannot possibly stay for a second. The theory of the abhidharma: all things consist of momentary atoms merely moves the problem of substance further ahead without confronting it. The alternative is the idea that things exist eternally; in that case origination is merely apparent change of an eternal substance. Both have been rejected by the Buddha. So Nāgārjuna shows that only his view of emptiness of things suffices the demands of the teaching of the Buddha. The opponent objects.

15 To believe in (the existence of) a thing doesn't mean to believe in a doctrine of eternity or momentariness, because a thing exists as a stream of origination and disappearance of causes and effects. 16 If a thing would be a stream of causes and effects is, then it follows that the cause is (continuously) disappearing because something that disappears doesn't arise again. 17 It is nonsense to say that a real thing, that substantially exists, would (ever) not really exist. During nirvāna however the stream of existence is stopped by inner peace.

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18 If the last one has disappeared a next thing is nonsense. If the last one hasn't disappeared a next thing is nonsense. The stream of existence is an illusion. It's the model of the abhidharma: coming and going of momentary atoms. However when an atom has disappeared, no cause exists for a next atom. If the atom still exists there's no place for a next atom. There's probably also a pun here, ‘is nonsense’ can also be translated as ‘not connected’. A next atom cannot follow a previous, because it's nonsense and because there's no connection between both. Note that verse 17 doesn't fit very well, because verse 18 follows logically verse 16. Maybe verse 17 has been added later like possibly other verses that state something positive about nirvāņa.

19 When a next one would originate while last one is disappearing, another would originate while the one is disappearing. The model of a stream is based on sequence and replacement. Sequence means that an atom comes precisely on the spot of the last one. Replacement means that the new atom takes over the function the last one. In both cases there has to be a border between last atom and next one. At that border nothing exists. Overlap between two atoms is absurd. So there has to be discontinuity and we're back at momentariness.

20 To say that the disappearing one is the same as the originating one is nonsense: is one born too in the same components in which one dies? 21 A stream of existence doesn't make sense with any of the three aspects of time. How could this stream of existence exist if doesn't exist during one of the three aspects of time? The three aspects of time are of course past, present and future. We have seen that the connection between a last and the next atom is incomprehensible and that therefore the whole idea of a stream just doesn't make sense. Also here ‘make sense’ could be translated as ‘is connected', which can be interpreted as a hint at the fact that the connectio between two following atoms is incomprehensible.

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22. The Buddha word exists dependent on the characters. In that case there's no disagreement. The Buddha is empty, he doesn't exist substantially and it's not possible to attribute him another substance, for instance to say that the Buddha exists as his teaching, or as a head of the order of monks.

1 The Buddha is not the components and not something else. The components are not in him, he’s not in the components and he doesn’t owe any components. Who’s the Buddha? A Buddhist denying the Buddha, here called the ‘tathāgata’ (literary: he who has come to the truth), it is getting better all the time! The Buddha really exists, does he? The Buddha is who he is, isn't he? Nāgārjuna doesn’t think so; the Buddha is empty as well. There may be a historical background to this discussion. During the first century after the Buddha’s death, he wasn't depicted. In pictures his presence was symbolized by a parasol or a pair of sandals. In Nāgārjuna's time the cults of devotion were growing rapidly. Nāgārjuna might not have applauded this. A person consists of five components: body, emotions, perception, tendencies and consciousness. The Buddha is not the five components together, because the five components are each different and he is one person, it's impossible that he's in all five simultaneously. He's not to be found anywhere else either. One doesn't have to find the Buddha first in order to discover the five components of the Buddha. Each component in itself doesn't contain a Buddha. He's not the owner of his components, because the owner and his possessions exist independently. So nothing exists anywhere that can be identified as being the Buddha. But maybe the Buddha exists as a person dependent on the components.

2 If the Buddha would be dependent on the components, he wouldn't exist substantially. How could something that doesn't exist substantially consist of another substance? The alternative seems to be that the Buddha doesn't exist somewhere, but manifests himself dependent on his components. Like a written

3 Something that exists dependent on another substance is said to be without a self, so how could anything without a self be the Buddha? The Buddha himself taught that all things are without a self. Things are without a self, dependent and unsatisfactory. The abhidharma explains this by means of the momentary atoms. All things exist like the images on a monitor or a Tv-screen they're flashing particles of different kinds that exist for a moment and then disappear. This paper is a phenomenon without substrate, it consists of flashing atoms that give the impression of paper, they are not paper. If that's the case and the Buddha exists in the same way, then there's no Buddha, there're only atoms that give the impression of a Buddha.

4 How could he be the substance of something else if he isn't a substance? Who’s that Buddha, that exist apart of its own substance or the substance of something else? It's impossible for something that isn't a substance by itself, something that exist independently, to exist independently on the bases of something else. A written word is a phenomenon that's dependent on its characters. It isn't a substance, because it appears dependent on someone reading it. It's impossible for the word to exist independently even noot for the reason that it has a substantial meaning.

5 If the Buddha is somebody who exists independent of the components, then he must have become dependent on them later, because he's dependent on them now. There's however reincarnation, taken for granted in Buddhist circles, certainly in India in the second century. The Buddha has reincarnated before his awakening and he had

The Buddha 77 the components by birth. The opponent maintains that the Buddha was independent of the components before he was born (like the avatars of the Hindu god Kŗşņna, who chooses freely to send an emanation the the earth). The problem is in that case that something very drastic has taken place: the Buddha has become dependent on his components, because he lived a normal life.

6 However there's no Buddha at all who takes on the components, how can something become dependent if it's not independent? Nobody's born without or independent from the components, not even a Buddha, therefore it's nonsense to say that the Buddha has become dependent on his components, in that case he would have to exist independently first.

7 It's impossible for an (a component) to arise in any way without being appropriated and no Buddha exists without appropriated things (components) is. The components have to become someone's in order to exist, but whose could they be? That could only be a Buddha without components and such a person cannot possibly exist.

8 The Buddha is neither the one nor the other, if he's examined in the five ways. How could it be possible to describe him by means of the appropriated (components)? It appears that the Buddha is not identical with the components and not with something else, is no part of them and doesn't exist independent of them. The three relations: being part of, containing, and owning, are not possible either. So there's no way to get t know the Buddha by means of the components. In other words: the Buddha is not his physical appearance.

9 What's appropriated exists in its turn not as a substance. How could something that isn't a substance by itself, be a substance by another?

What's appropriated exists in relation to an appropriator and is therefore not independent. Something that doesn't exist independently cannot take over the independence from somebody or something else, like the appropriator.

10 In this way an appropriated thing (component) and the appropriator are completely empty. How could the Buddha however be referred to as empty if he is empty? This looks very puzzling. Language refers to the world. The world is ‘all that is the case’ like Wittgenstein put it58. The sentence ‘the paper is white’ mentions a kind of thing which is a part of the world (‘paper’), it refers to a specific piece which is supposed to be known to the addressee (‘the’) and mentions a quality it possessees (‘is white’). Not everything has to exist materially. The sentence ‘the Santa Claus has a beard’ also refers to a specific person and mentions one of its qualities. The fact that Santa Claus is part of a virtual world doesn't make any difference. The sentence ‘the Buddha is empty’ looks the same but there's a difference. It denies itself because the quality (empty) denies the existence of the subject that’s supposed to be the substrate of the quality. The meaning f the sentence is ‘actually there's nothing one could call ‘the Buddha’', but since 'the Buddha' is the subject of the sentence, the sentence denies having a subject. The noun 'Buddha' suggests a subject, if not it's meaningless. So the sentence is a contradiction and therefore cannot possibly be a sentence, i.e. a meaningfull expression.

11 It's impossible to say that something could exist that's ‘empty’ or ‘not empty’, both or neither, it's only said as a figure of speech. Language is not a projection of the world. This is not a handicap. No language is possible that doesn't refer to substances. It’s pointless to try to make an artificial ideal language, because language is completely metaphorical it's only a figure of speech. The philosopher Heidegger has tried his whole life to express the essence of being, the real thing (whatever that may be). He failed. A critic, Jacques Derrida (1930-) called this a kind of homesickness.

12 58

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, proposition 1

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How could the quadruple of eternal, temporary etc. apply, if there's inner peace? How could the quadruple of limited, endless etc. apply, if there's inner peace? The Buddha is completely free of all worldly categories like eternal, temporary, both, neither, or limited, endless, both, neither etc. He has seen reality as it is, he has ‘came to the truth’ ('tathāgata’). He knows there're no substances with qualities and doesn't look upon himself that way. When someone asked him ‘where's the Buddha after his death?’ he remained silent. He couldn't answer the question, because there is no answer. Not every question has an answer. Any answer to the question 'How many wheels has the national anthem', would suggest that national anthems are objects that can be riding on wheels. This impossibility is even more pressing for something or somebody that has no qualities at all because it isn't something or somebody. Not everybody accepts this at first sight. Many Buddhists pray to the Buddha and seek comfort, looking upon the Buddha as a kind of supernatural father.

13 Because he who believes the superficial supposition that the Buddha exists, has to imagine too, because he imagines this, that he doesn't exist (anymore) after (his) nirvāņa. Who considers the Buddha to be a person that teaches and gives comfort, in short the hero of everybody's dreams, has to accept that heroes die. Even the Rambo and Rocky series are not endless.

14

The question however whether the Buddha does or doesn't exist after the final termination isn't even possible, because he's empty of substance. It's only possible for a substance to have qualities. Nevertheless people imagine the Buddha as a man with curly hair (due to Greek influence on Indian sculpture), who sits a certain position. Thus is the picture, but is this the Buddha? Is a picture capable to teach nirvāņa?

15 Those who imagine that the Buddha is eternal and transcends the imagination are fooled by their own imagination. None of them understands what the Buddha really is. 16 The substance of the Buddha is the substance of this world. The Buddha is without substance, this world is without substance. If we describe the world as ‘all that's the case’ then it's not a thing. Like Kant showed, we have the idea that everything that happens is connected somehow. If there would be anything that wouldn't have any influence on other things at all, it wouldn't be part of the world. The world is an imaginary unity, but we take it for granted in all our thoughts and actions. The world is not a substance, it doesn't have qualities. It's even impossible to say that there's one world, because there's nothing to count. The same could be said of the Buddha after his earthly life. That's why the Buddha is depicted in the oldest pictures as a parasol or a pair of sandals.

23. Wrong views

1.

Desire, aversion and ignorance are said to arise because of the imagination, because they arise under the influence of wrong views about good and evil.

The wrong views are a well known list in Buddhist teaching: • to consider the impermanent as permanent, • to consider the non-substantial as substantial, • to consider the impure as pure and • to consider the unsatisfactory as satisfactory. Why do we find something attractive or repulsive? Why do we stop in front of a window fascinated by an elegant luxurious armchair and even consider or a moment to buy it? We see the armchair as something that doesn't wear out . We imagine ourselves

The Buddha 79 sitting relaxed, reading the newspaper. What • the evil person is not in his mental we don't see is the worries to keep it nice, not torments, to damage it, to clean it, etc. We don't think of • mental torments are not in the evil the fact that the rest of our furniture will look person and terrible and that we never take more then a • the evil person doesn't own the mental half hour each day to read the newspaper. We torments. see the repulsive as attractive and the In the second series the mentalt orments and impermanent as something permanent. The the evil person have changed place. same applies to something we hate like a walk in the rain. This doesn't last for ever and 6. besides it trains our body to warm itself.

2. What arises under the influence of wrong views about good and evil doesn't exist substantially; therefore the mentaltorments don't really exist. The desire for a nice armchair is not a desire for a real thing, but for an illusion. It's not the thing itself we long for, but the representation we make of it. Therefore as soon as we understand that we desire something that doesn't exist, the desire is gone without a trace.

3. Whether a self exists or not hasn't been established in any way. How indeed could this be the case with the mentaltorments? 4. Because the very existence of the one who owns these negative emotions is not established and if there's no one at all, the negative emotions are nobody's. The mental torments have to be somebody’s mental torments. I has however been proved before that is’s impossible to decide whether anybody exists or not. Is it possible for Santa Claus to long for an armchair? How could we prove this?

Do mental torments originate under the influence of wrong views about good and evil? The influence of wrong views about good and evil isn't a substance.

Wrong views aren't things located somewhere in our thoughts. They're mistakes, misunderstandings, bad habits perhaps, but the moment we understand we're wrong they leave no trace, it’s as though they never existed. How could they produce something? We long for things or hate them while things themselves even don't exist. Because of this Nāgārjuna concludes that discipline and obeying rules don't bring a person closer to nirvāņa. Only understanding does. Who follows rules still recognizes wrong views as substantial. The best one can do is chose the way of life which gives the best opportunity to gain understanding in the emptiness of phenomena the rest doesn't matter.

7. One imagines form, sound, taste, touch, scent and phenomena to be the six kinds of objects of desire, aversion and ignorance. 8. Form, sound, taste, touch, scent and phenomena don’t exist in itself; they’re merely vain speculation and are similar to a mirage or a dream.

We desire or hate sense objects and 5. phenomena. These don't exist however by According to the materialists themselves; they exist in relation to our mentaltorments are not in the evil perception and imagination. person and the evil person is not in the mentaltorments in one of the five 9. ways. How could ever good or bad exist in things that are like magically conjured Not in one of the five ways means: persons or reflections in a mirror? • the evil person is not his mental

•

torments, the evil person is not something other than his mental torments,

10.

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What we call evil doesn't exist apart from the good. The evil cannot possibly exist because it dependents on the good. So good and evil are relative, conventional concepts. This view is at the base of Nietzsche’s book ‘Jenseits Gut und Böse59’. Good is what's favorable to people and evil is the opposite. There's no way to find out what's absolutely good or evil and nobody who has the authority to do so. God is dead.

mock the theory of wrong views, which might have been developed into a strict dogmatism.

15. No belief exists because that which someone believes in, the belief, the believer and what is believed, all this has been completely pacified. 16. If no belief exists, be it right or wrong, who could see things the wrong way and who couldn't?

11. What we call good doesn't exist apart from evil. The good cannot possibly 17. exist because it dependents on the At one hand no wrong views arise in evil. someone who sees things the wrong way. At the other hand no wrong views 12. arise in someone who doesn't see If at one hand the good doesn't exist things the wrong way. how could desire arise? If at other Someone who sees things the wrong way has hand the evil doesn't exist, how could wrong views, they cannot arise. Someone who aversion arise? sees things the right way has certainly no Good is not a metaphysical thing, or something that has been given from above, it’s merely desirable things and the evil is that which evokes repulsion.

13. To believe that something impermanent is permanent is a wrong view. In emptiness nothing is impermanent. How could one believe in a wrong view? A wrong view, like believing that something impermanent is permanent is only possible if we take things to be substances. Something can only be permanent if it's something; this is not the case if one sees the phenomena as empty. A shadow is not a lasting thing, but neither an impermanent thing. The same applies to both other wrong views.

wrong views.

18. No wrong views arise in someone who's getting a wrong view. Investigate for yourself in whom wrong views arise! Suppose someone thinks that not everything is impermanent and his fame as a sportsman will stay. If we want to establish whether or not wrong views arise in him, we first have to know whether his views are right or wrong and that brings us back to the previous verse. If there's no person where wrong views arise, we get the situation in next verse.

19. How could unproduced wrong views arise anyway? How could there be anyone who sees things the wrong way if wrong views have not arisen?

14. To believe that something 20. impermanent doesn't perish, is a A thing arises not by itself, also not wrong view. Why shouldn’t the belief that something impermanent is empty through something else and not both by itself and through something else. be a wrong view? How could anyone get wrong views? What's empty.like a shadow for instance, doesn't perish does it? Nāgārjuna seems to 59

‘Beyond Good and Evil’

This is a repetition of verse 1 from chapter 1 about causality and it has been discussed before.

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mental torments. Who could forsake 21. his substance? If something with a self, something pure, something eternal and 25. something happy would exist in that Or, how would they be forsaken if case the self, the pure, the eternal and someone would have any the happiness are no wrong views. unsubstantially existing mental torments, how could they ever be 22. forsaken? Who could forsake If something with a self, something something that doesn't really exist? pure, something eternal and something happy doesn't exist in that case something without a self, something impure, something impermanent or something unhappy doesn't exist either. There're two possibilities: it's possible the qualities exist or it isn't. If it is, the abhidharma schools are wrong. If it isn't, it's equally impossible that the qualities are absent, because there’s no substrate, no possible place for the qualities. One can have a cup of tea with or without sugar, but not with or without crocodiles. So in that case the abhidharma schools are equally wrong. This seems to be just a logical trick, but there's more to it. According to Nāgārjuna the abhidharma explanation is naïve and abstract. It's quite simple to say life stinks, but everybody knows that it's not always like that. Some things are good, some things are bad. It's impossible to say 'everything is....', because that would be an absolute judgment and everything is relative. 'The pure doesn't exist' is not a conclusion from a thorough investigation nor a emotional cry, nor the conclusion of logical reasoning (that's impossible because it's a synthetical proposition, nothing in the concept of pure refers to existing things), it's just a prejudice, a confession of faith or both. Many philosophers would think such a proposition is nonsense, because it contains no information, it doesn't delimit what's the case and what's not.

23. In this way ignorance is dispelled by dispelling the wrong views. If the ignorance is dispelled, the predispositions etc. are dispelled. 24. Because how could mental torments be forsaken in any way if someone would have any substantially existing

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24. The Buddhist teaching

1 If this all would be empty, no origination would exist nor disappearance, so according to you the Four Noble Truths don't exist. This chapter begins with a series of objections against the philosophy of emptiness. They are more or less the most serious objections which are possible: Nāgārjuna is said to deny all of Buddhist teaching categorically. If everything is empty, the very foundation of the teaching, the Four Noble (rather: existential) Truths don't exist. The first truth says that life is structurally unsatisfactory and permeated with suffering. Having read last chapter it seems clear that Nāgārjuna is flatly denying this. The second truth identifies the cause of this: it's desire (literally 'thirst’) . Nāgārjuna denies the existence of a desire, a desirous one and a desired. Moreover he denies causality. So this objection seems justified too. The third truth presents a remedy: when desire has been overcome, suffering is over. How could anything be changed is causality doesn't exist? The fourth truth gives the prescription of how to overcome desire. Reflect on the Four Noble Truths and follow the eightfold path which is the discipline of a Buddhist monk. Nāgārjuna doesn't support discipline, he thinks it leads us nowhere. The objections continue.

2 If the Four Noble Truths don't exist, understanding, giving up cultivation and realization are impossible.

The results are obtained by practicing the Buddhist discipline, it are the four steps on the way to nirvāņa: the streamenterer (the person who enters into the career or stream to nirvāņa), the streamwinner, the oncereturner (who has only one life to live after this one) and the nonreturner (who's living his last life). If these don't exist, no one has obtained them and the existence of those who reached the goal, the arhants (victorious ones) and even the Buddha’s for that matter is impossible.

4 If the eight kinds of persons don't exist the community of monks doesn't exist. If the Four Noble Truths don't exist, no True Teaching exists. The eght kinds of persons are: 1. the one on his way to become a streamenterer, 2. the streamenterer, 3. the one on his way to become a streamwinner, 4. the streamwinner, 5. the one on his way to become a oncereturner 6. the oncereturner 7. the one on his way to become a nonreturner 8. the nonreturner. These are of course impossible if results would be impossible. The Buddhist community consists of people who've come to one of these levels. So if these people wouldn't exist, Buddhism as a movement wouldn't exist. Moreover without the Four Noble Truths there's no Buddhist teaching.

5 How could a Buddha exist if the teaching doesn't exist nor the community? You deny the Three Jewels by what you say!

There would be nothing to understand, no desire to give up, nothing could be done to build good habits and behavior, and no one could reach nirvāņa the extinction of desire.

A Buddha cannot exist if there's neither Buddhist teaching nor a community. Nāgārjuna denies the existence of the Three Jewels he took refuge in when he became a Buddhist. What has come over him, has he become insane?

3 If this doesn't exist, the Four Noble Results don't exist. If the results don't' exist, there're no people who follow the path and reached the goal.

6 In case of emptiness consequences don't really exist, neither good nor bad. By this you deny all common sense!

The self

7 To this we say that you don't understand the import of emptiness and because of this you reject (the philosophy) of emptiness and its purpose. The opponent is satisfied about his attack, but Nāgārjuna stays calm. He even might have smiled knowing he'll return the attack back to sender. In the chapters beginning with chapter 22 Nāgārjuna gives the impression to have become very confident. He plays with the opponent, he treats him with irony. Perhaps he wrote these chapters some time later when he had won many debates and had many followers. He starts with a quote the opponent undoubtedly is familiar with: the Buddha has been using two levels of truth in his teaching. He didn't do this to make things more complicated, but because that was the only way to explain what he wanted to say. The Buddha talked about karma and discipline as if a self exists, but he explained as well that a person is nothing more than five components working together and nowhere a soul or self is t be found. The Buddha also gave rules for when a monk should have a meal but also said that no one should be attached to rules. So the Buddha taught on the level of daily life and common sense, but also on a philosophical or transcendent level. Nevertheless, this transcendent level was probably not a philosophy of emptiness, but Nāgārjuna doesn't mention this.

8 The teaching of the doctrine of the Buddhas is based on two levels of truth: the common concealing one and the absolute60 one. 9 Those who don't know the difference between those truths don't know the profound truth in the teaching of the Buddhas. So the opponent doesn't get it, because he mixes up the two levels of truth: common sense and philosophy. Common sense is practical, it has to work so it doesn't tell exactly what things really are. Philosophy doesn't have to be practical; it has to make sense, to reveal. When one looks at a watch one knows the time, but one doesn't know what time is. Both levels however are related (except in bad academic philosophy). Common sense is the subject of 60

Literally: thruth in absolute sense

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philosophy and philosophy is the fulfillment of common sense.

10 It's impossible to reach nirvāņa without the absolute level of truth. It's impossible to explain the absolute level without using the concealing one. That makes sense, the concealing level is the level on which language works in everyday life, where things are taken for granted. The absolute level is the level on which language is analyzed. Russell called the first ‘object language’ and the second ‘meta language’. It's impossible to analyze language without understanding how it is used and the words that are used in metalanguage are derived from the practical level.

11 Emptiness that's misunderstood can cause the down fall of an unintelligent person, like a wrongly pronounced magic spell or a snake grasped at the wrong end. A person who gets wrong ideas doesn't understand the absolute level, or confuses both levels. Some people might give up ethics, or become indifferent to suffering of others. In this way one gets into trouble. When one takes hold of snake at its tail in stead of at its head, one gets bitten. A mispronounced spell can harm in stead of benefit its owner.

12 That's why the Wise One renounced his intentions to teach the doctrine, because he realized how difficult it is for unintelligent persons to understand this teaching. Nāgārjuna isn't a heretic, the opponent is just stupid and therefore he understands nothing of the Buddha's teaching. Actually in the biography of the Buddha there is a moment just after his awakening where he doubts whether anyone would understand his new discovery. Only after a few days he decides to try his former five companion hermits. Nāgārjuna admits that his teaching of emptiness is something new that's not mentioned by the Buddha. He maintains however that the Buddha would’ve taught the doctrine if he would've had more intelligent pupils. This is risky, because according to the biography the Buddha showed just before his death his open hand to his pupils saying that he

The self had taught everything he knew without holding anything back.

13 The objection you raise against emptiness, has an inadmissible consequence which doesn't concern us: it doesn't apply to anything that's empty. 14 Everything is right of something of which the emptiness is right. Everything is wrong of something of which the emptiness is wrong. 15 You attribute your own faults to us, like you've forgotten the horse you've mounted! This refers to a well known story at the time. Someone had to bring ten horses to the king, but broke out into panic when he could only count nine horses. He had forgotten that he was sitting on a horse himself.

16 If you think things really exist because of their substance, you must think that they've originated without causes and conditions. 17 In this way you deny cause and effect and actor, activity and accomplishment, origination, disappearance and effect. 18 All that's dependent origination we call emptiness. This is a figure of speech. This indeed is the middle way. This is an important proposition. Emptiness is not a higher substance, a kind of hidden reality or a reality for clairvoyants or saints; it's just the nonexistence of substances, the fact that everything arises dependent on something else. So what does this mean? Causal origination is supposedly the origination of substances and it's a one way process. Dependent origination is a two way process, it is mutual implication: if there's the one, there is the other as well. If there's small, there's big. If there's high, there's low. If there's a cause, there's an effect. Things originate in other words from the difference we

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make. We don't make these differences at will; they're imbedded in our language and way of life. Using language is a kind of game, it is human behavior guided and bound by rules. Wittgenstein came to a similar conclusion: the meaning of the words doesn't consist of substances, the just the way we use the word. That way is bound by rules. Wittgenstein called a set of rules a language game. A language game is related to a ‘lifeform61. Wittgenstein didn't found a new way to awakening, but he asked himself different questions. Dependent origination is a subject mentioned by The Buddha but Nāgārjuna sees new implications. It is a difficult concept however, probably because it requires a high level of abstraction. Nāgārjuna calls his doctrine the way of the middle because the existence of things is neither affirmed nor denied; things are neither momentary nor eternal. The extremes are rejected however not by a compromise (like in Aritotles ehtiss), but by transcendence. Since the Buddha in his first teaching said that his teaching is the middle way between lust and severe asceticism, because both don't lead to the nirvāņa, the term ‘middle way’ has a became a kind of trademark for Buddhism.

19 Not a single phenomenon exists that hasn't originated dependently, because not a single phenomenon exists that's not empty. Nāgārjuna repeats one after another all reproaches the opponent made aginst him and shows that they all exclusivevly apply to his substantialism.

20 If this all wouldn't be empty, no origination and no disappearance would exist. Consequently according to you the Four Noble Truths don't exist. 21 How could there be suffering that hasn't dependently originated. Because suffering is called impermanence and this doesn't exist as a substance. According to the Buddha's own words suffering means being confronted with undesirable things, the loss of desirable things and uncomfortable experiences of the body. This is only possible because of causes and conditions.

22 61

see for instance Kenny p. 158 ff.

The self

How could on the other hand an existing substance originate? Therefore no origination exists if emptiness is denied. If suffering were a substance, it would exist and couldn't arise. So if emptiness is denied, suffering is denied.

23 No extinction of substantial suffering exists; you deny the extinction of it because of your substantialism. If suffering is a substance, it is not dependent on something else, so it would never disappear.

24 A method that's a substance cannot be practiced. If practice exists after all, then according to you there's no substantial method. A substantial method is not dependent on practicing persons and couldn't therefore be practiced by anyone. Persons wouldn't depend on what they practice, so no practice would have any effect.

25 If neither suffering exists nor it's origination or extinction, what could be achieved by a method designed to stop the existence of suffering? 26 How could something that as a substance hasn't been fully understood be understood later as yet? How could this later be possible after all? A substance is understood to be unchanging, isn't it? A substance is what it is and shows itself as what it is, without any interaction. It may be understood or misunderstood, but it stays that way. What ever someone would do nothing can change a substance. What's not understood in the beginning will be not understood for ever, so no progress is possible.

27 So you think realization, giving up, cultivation and understanding are nonsense and also the Four Results.

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28 Moreover how could a result be achieved that substantially is not achieved? Someone who could achieve something would've achieved it already because of his substance. An unachieved substance will never become an achieved substance. A substantial non-achiever will never become a substantial achiever.

29 If no result exists, there're no persons according to us who have achieved a result or are on their way. So the eight kinds of persons don't exist neither does the community of Buddhist monks. 30 If the Four Noble Truths don't exist, no True Teaching exists either and if there's neither teaching nor a community, how could a Buddha exist? 31 As a consequence the Buddha exists according to you independent of the awakening and the awakening independent of the Buddha. 32 However it's impossible to achieve awakening for someone who because of his substance is not awakened, even if he's on his way to awakening and behaves like a bodhisattva. Every effort to become a Buddha would be in vain because nothing could ever change. Even the most pure behavior of a bodhisattva, a candidate-buddha, would be pointless.

33 No one would ever achieve any good or evil. What kind of non-empty action could be done? It's impossible to commit substantial action, isn't it? 34 Because according to you a result exists without there being good or evil. So a result characterized by good or evil doesn't exist.

The self

35 If according to you a result characterized by good or evil exists after all, how could a result, that's originated because of good or evil, be not empty in you judgment? If something possesses characteristics it is impossible that it would arise without the involvement of those characteristics. If someone would kill a cat and there's no good or evil, the killing cannot have the characteristic of being good or evil. If the killing is evil, evil has to exist at the time of the killing and be involved. That means that the killing is dependent on evil, so the killing must be empty.

36 It's you who denies all common sense. You deny all that's dependently originated and emptiness. So emptiness is common sense. This doesn't mean that anyone with common sense understands emptiness. Insight in emptiness is called excellent wisdom (prajñapāramitā). Apparently emptiness is not mystical or secret, but merely the fulfillment of common sense.

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37 If emptiness is denied there would be nothing that could be done. Work wouldn't be taken up and an actor wouldn't do anything. 38 If people would exist substantially they would be without origination and disappearance, unchangeable and always in the same state because they're substances. 39 If everything would be not empty, it would be impossible to achieve something that wasn't achieved, nothing we could do would put an end to suffering and no mental torment could be given up. 40 One, who sees that everything is dependently originated, sees things as they are. This is the way of both the origination and the extinction of suffering.

Het nirvāņa

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25. Nirvāņa impossible for anything uncaused to exist anywhere. If nirvāņa would be a thing, it would be an event in this world of causation and nirvāņa would be part of it. Since everything is caused, nirvāņa would be caused as well.

1 If this all would be empty, neither origination nor disappearance would exist, in that case whose nirvāņa would follow after the giving up and the extinction? Without substances, there would be no substantial person achieving a substantial nirvāņa. But what could a substantial person achieve that he hasn't achieved already? And how could a substantially non-achieved nirvāņa ever be achieved?

2 If this all wouldn't be empty, neither origination nor disappearance would exist, in that case whose nirvāņa would follow after the giving up and extinction? 3 Nirvāņa is said to be neither lost nor gained, to be neither temporary nor eternal and to be neither impermanent nor originated. This is the abhidharmic definition of nirvāņa. Nirvāņa is uncaused. It's a thing that cannot possibly not exist, but is not an element in the causal network of our world. In the Western tradition it would be called a metaphysical object. It comes suspiciously close to the Hindu heaven. It is the substance by excellence.

4 As long something isn't nirvāņa, it's characterized by aging and death; if not there would be something without aging and death. 5 But if nirvāņa would be a thing, nirvāņa would have to be caused, because it's

6 If nirvāņa would be a thing, how could it exist without the components of attachment? Because there's nothing even not nirvāņa that exists without the components of attachment. Every being consist of the five components of attachment: body, emotions, perception, tendencies and consciousness. The body constitutes our physical world, the emotions our emotional world etc. Something that would be out of the range of the components could not exist. The only alternative left is that nirvāņa is not a thing, so it must be a non-thing. But how could a non-thing make a difference in a world of things?

7 If nirvāņa wouldn't be a thing, what kind of non-thing would it be? If nirvāņa is not a thing it's not a non-thing either. 8 If nirvāņa would be no thing, how could it exist without the components of attachment? Because nirvāņa is not a non-thing that exists without the components of attachment. This seems to be merely playing with words. The issue here is the abhidharma theory of language that presupposes that every word refers to an existing entity or thing. 'Nirvāņa' is a word, so a nirvāņa has to exist. It has to be a part of this world because the Buddha experienced it in the flesh. But what is it? A thing? An entity that's not a thing? A state of mind? Nāgārjuna brings forward a fact about nirvāņa that has escaped the attention of the abhidharma: as long as you don't experience it, you don't know what it is, when you do there's nothing to tell. So after a long discussion Nāgārjuna tells us that all this abhidharmic theory is just chatter. Next verse is the traditional definition of nirvāņa.

9

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What's in the state of restless going round has attachment and is dependent. What's without attachment and dependence, is called nirvāņa.

If nirvāņa would exist as something other than a thing or a no-thing. How would this so-called other then thing or no-thing be known?

10 The Master has taught the abandoning of (the concepts of) a thing and no thing, therefore it is nonsense to say that nirvāņa is a thing or a no thing.

17 It's said that the Exalted One exists after the pacification, but it doesn't show. It's also said that he doesn't exist, both and neither, but it doesn't show.

It's not clear which words of the Buddha are referred to here, but it might be the quote from the Kātyāyanāsūtra62.

18 It's said that the Exalted One exists changelessly, it doesn't show. It's also said that he doesn't exist, both or neither, but it doesn't show.

11 It's nonsense to say that nirvāņa is both, because awakening would be both a thing and no thing too. 12 If nirvāņa would be both a thing and nothing, nirvāņa would have to be both with and without the components of attachment. 13 How could nirvāņa be both a thing and no thing? Nirvāņa is not caused and something that's both a thing and no thing is! 14 How could nirvāņa be both a thing and a no-thing? It's impossible for both to be at the same place, just like light and darkness! This is not about nirvāņa, but about the point of view that every word has to refer to something. The opponents are even prepared to maintain the existence of a thing-no thing thing and even a thing-no thing no thing!

15 The tentative expression that nirvāņa is neither a thing nor a no-thing, would have been proved if only it has been proved that neither a thing nor a nothing exists. 16 See footnote chapter 15

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The Buddha is not a person, no substance that's part of everyday life and exists or not. He is not a saint rising up to heaven; nor a person who has died. People who say so didn't understand Buddhism. The Buddha is that which cures us from the world and that's not the same as the historical person who has been called by the name of Buddha for a while. Anything that could be said about the Buddha has be a fact, so it has to show, it has to be evident. Nāgārjuna rejects metaphysical speculation and if people can say what they fancy about the existence of the Buddha after his parinirvāņa, his death, this is just that. Besides, nirvāņa is not a heaven, a place Buddha’s go. It not any other place.

19 There's no difference between the cycle of existence and nirvāņa. There's no difference between nirvāņa and the cycle of existence. 20 The limit of nirvāņa is the limit of the cycle of existence as well; outside this nothing exists how subtle it might be. This doesn't mean that happiness is in the simple things. That's just romanticism.

21 After the extinction the doctrines about an end, eternity etc., and merge into nirvāņa that's the end of the foregoing as well as the hereafter. Nirvāņa is a change of perspective and it is just peace.

Het nirvāņa

22 If all phenomena are empty: what is endless, what limited; what both endless and limited, what neither endless nor limited? 23 What is just this, what is different, what is eternal, what is temporary, what is

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both eternal and temporary or even neither? 24 The pacification of all objects is the wholesome pacification of the multiplication of thoughts. The Buddha never taught any teaching about anything anywhere.

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26. The Twelve Chains This chapter has undoubtedly been added later. This is not Nāgārjuna speaking, nothing is refuted, and substances are taken for granted. This is merely a standard abstract of the teaching of the nidhāna’s, the twelve chains of dependent arising which explain the origination of our life of suffering, sickness and old age. Perhaps this text became part of a monk's standard equipment and was the subject found to important to be missing. Besides dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) is an important part of Nāgārjuna's philosophy. The list of twelve chains can be found in many other Buddhist texts. Its importance is open to doubt. The Buddha has mentioned in his teaching different sets consisting of different numbers of chains. The set of twelve is a kind of summary of all other sets. Dependent arising however, which connects the chains, seems to be more important then the actual number of chains. The chains originate each other in mutual dependence, so they implicate each other. If ignorance exists, worldly consciousness exists and the other way around. The twelfth chain and the first one implicate each other too. By taking away one chain, all disappear. The interpretation of the model is still a matter of debate. The traditional diachronic and abhidharmic one is without doubt a pseudocausal cycle that extends itself over three lifetimes. The first two chains: are placed in the previous life, the following eight in this life and the last two in the future life. The cycle can be broken be means of discipline (preventing nr. 7) and meditation (preventing nr. 1). Philosophically this interpretation is untenable. Mutual implication has nothing to do with time or history; it is not diachronical, but synchronical, not ontological but logical. One chain implicates another like the day implicates the night and checkmate chess. It is nonsense to try to prevent the night if there's a day, or to do away with words if you have a sentence. If the fascination of substances is broken, the world has been pacified. Nāgārjuna says it over and over again. Another point is that a being without ignorance should have reached nirvāņa. In the usual interpretation ignorance is a part of last life and if that's the case ignorance couldn't be overcome in this life, because it's over and everybody would have been awakened for the same reason. In order to make sense one had to combine the diachronical and the synchronical, which resulted in twelve chains going on simultaneously so that each of the twelve chains exists each moment (see table). This certainly not what the Buddha had in mind. 1 2 12 1

3 2

4 3

5 4

6 5

7 6

8 7

9 8

10 11 12 9 10 11

11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3

1 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4

2 1 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5

3 2 1 12 11 10 9 8 7 6

4 3 2 1 12 11 10 9 8 7

5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 9 8

6 5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10 9

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12 11 10

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12 11

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 12

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

1. ignorance 2. tendencies 3. (rebirth)consciousness 4. body-mind (person) 5. six senses 6. contact 7. emotions 8. desire 9. attachment 10. becoming (future) 11. birth 12. aging sickness and death

1 He who's blinded by ignorance causes the three predispositions for rebirth, by the activity of which he enters a form of life. The three predispositions are desire, aversion and ignorance. These come from a previous life.

2 Dependent on the predispositions the consciousness enters a form of life. When the consciousness has entered, name-and-form is generated. Name and form is a technical term for the split unity of mind and matter which constitute the body as a symbol of the person. Two chains from the traditional set are skipped here: the

De kringloop van wedergeboorte tendencies and (rebirth) consciousness. They are however mentioned at the end. Nevertheless it's a puzzling omission. Perhaps there used to be a version based on a cycle with fewer chains.

3 After name-and-form has been generated, the origination of the six sense-ranges takes place. When the six sense-ranges have arisen; contact with sense-objects takes place. The origination of the body is followed by the senses and their objects: odors, touch, sounds, tastes, colors and concepts. The concepts are the objects of the mind which receives the sense-data and organizes them to compose the objects we perceive. When we’re reading our eyes register different inkspots and our mind turns them into characters and words.

4 Consciousness arises dependent on the complex of name-and-form, like the eye dependents on the form and the attention.

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When we've determined that there's something nice, tedious or unimportant out there, we want to continue the contact or we don’t; that’s the predisposition of attachment or repulsion that causes us to take so much interest in what happens around us. It consists of four factors: the actor, the one who gets attached, the object of attachment and the attachment itself. Because we don't have much influence on what happens around us this attachment unavoidably results in worries, sorrow and misery.

7 When the attachment has arisen the life of an attached one arises, because if one would be without attachment, one would be awakened and no life would exist. 8 A life is formed by the five components and birth arises because of life. The suffering etc. of aging and death is sorrow accompanied by desire.

9 Because of the birth depression and One sees something only if there's something to distress arise, thus is the origination of be seen and one pays attention to it, the this whole accumulation of suffering. consciousness dependents on the bodyin the same way.

5 Contact is the coincidence of the trio of form, consciousness and eye and because of contact emotion arises. Perceptions cause the impression that there're perceived things out there and from this impression a relation arises between us and the things, because of which some things present themselves as attractive and others as repulsive or unimportant.

6 Desire arises dependent on the emotion, because one desires with respect to the emotion. He who desires grasps a quadruple attachment.

10 In this way the ignorant, which is the cause of the cycle of existence, causes the tendencies, therefore the ignorant is someone who acts. The wise ones aren't because they see the truth. 11 If ignorance has been eradicated then arising of dispositions stops and the eradication of ignorance is the effect of the cultivation of understanding. 12 When all has been eradicated of one none of the others will arise, in this way this whole accumulation of suffering is completely eradicated.

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27. Against the dogmatism 4 The so-called self would be something else than the components. How do you think a self could exist apart from the components? This chapter might not be a work of Nāgārjuna's63. Its style is not really Nāgārjunian, just like chapter 26 and the first 20 verses of chapter 17. It's not very consistent and contains a number of older grammatical forms and expressions. These might be quotes. The whole chapter could even be an adaptation of an older text. We find very little new here, even some repetitions, so it cannot be ruled out that this chapter has been written by someone else like a pupil of Nāgārjuna's. The subject seems to be the same as that of chapter 23: Wrong View. The arguments however touch the more general Buddhist idea of reïncarnation and not just abhidharma and the style of a running dialogue has been dropped.

1 Saying one existed before or didn't exist once presupposes a doctrine of eternity that's based on the past. 2 Saying one will not exist or become someone else in the future presupposes a doctrine of eternity that's based on the future. 3 It’s impossible to tell if one existed before or didn't exist at all, because one is not the same as one used to be in former existences. The philosophy of the middle rejects all extremes: both the dogma of eternal existence and the dogma momentary existence. Both are forms of substantialism. The doctrine of eternity, which implies transformative causality, is attributed to Hindu philosophies. The doctrine of momentariness, which implies transgressive causality, is attributed to abhidharmaschools and non-Hindu philosophies, like the Jains. The author reproaches them that they all emphasize future or past, and take time for granted. Time must be both continuity and change.

That this is untenable has been proved in chapter 18.

5 If you say that the self doesn't exist apart from the components, it means that the components would have to be the self, but you reject the existence of a self! A well known saying of the Buddha is that the body, the emotions, the perceptions, the tendencies and the consciousness cannot possibly be the self, because they don't obey the will. If one's body would be oneself one would be young and strong just through willing to be young and strong. Daily life proves otherwise. Even the most advanced plastic surgery doesn't make a person young. This proves that the body is a part of the world of things, which is a source of worries and distress for the self. The same applies to the other components. Besides one stays the same as a subject one's whole life, but this is not the case with the components.

6 The components disappear and arise and are not identical to the self. How could the owner of the components be the very same as the components? 7 On the other hand it is impossible for the self to be totally different from the components. If it were something else it would have to be perceived without components, but it hasn't. 8 So the conclusion is that the self is not something else and not the same as the components. The self neither exists with nor without the components. 9

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Oral communication of Professor T. Vetter

Tegen de dogmatiek

One cannot say that one didn't exist in the past, because someone is not someone else than one used to be during former existences. If that were the case, then a former and future existence would be impossible and that's unacceptable for a Buddhist.64 This would mean that a bad guy who gets away with his crimes in the present existence wouldn't be punished at all, because karma would be limited to this life. Such a limitation of the principle of justice and responsibility was unacceptable for the Buddha. His solution is that there's continuity between two existences but not identity. The flame of the lighter isn't the same as the flame in the cigaret, but a continuation of it.

10 If one would be someone else, one would exist apart of the other. This one would remain exactly the same as he was born and would be immortal. The same continuity exists within one life as well: an elderly person is not the same as she used to be when she was a child. If so they would each have their own karma and the very concept would be useless. In other words the karma of the child wouldn't be the one of the old person or the old person would endure karma he's not responsible for himself.

11 It would mean that karma disappears or that not the one who made it, but someone else would endure it etc. 12 It's also not the case that the self originates without having existed before. This would introduce the misconception that the self would have been caused, or originate without a cause. If someone first doesn't exist but later does, he has to have been caused or originated These days some Western Buddhists consider former existences a myth, but this doesn't have to mean the end of the doctrine of karma. One could assume that one lives on in ones children and friends. They will reap the consequences of what ne has done. This would however require a less individualistic image of mankind than is taken for granted within traditional Buddhism and modern philosophy. 64

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spontaneously. A subject, a consciousness always has a past or a history. It's not a thing. It doesn't exist causally or causeless.

13 So it's nonsense to say that one did or didn't exist in the past, both or neither. 14 Doctrines that implicate that one ever will exist in the future, or will not exist, can be dealt with the same way as has been done with the past. 15 If man has a soul65 he will live for ever. It's impossible for a soul to be born, because it's impossible to be born for something that exists eternally. 16 If man doesn't have a soul, he will not live for ever. If man doesn't have a soul, a continuity of rebirths is impossible. The author defends in fact the pudgalavādin point of view, or even a Hindu one. This has been rejected by Nāgārjuna in chapter 18. There the question was whether a self exists or not. Nāgārjuna's answer is that it depends on one's point of view. Here the question is about a substrate or carrier of the identity. Merely arguments pro and contra are presented here without a clear answer. When one looks at the history of a country, it becomes clear that no carrier is needed. Different governments succeed each other, but the continuation isn't lost. This is due to mutual implication. This makes that karma or responsibility is shared by all governments, without the need of things being handed over from one government to the next. The same model could apply to an individual. The karma could pass from one existence to another without a carrier or a 'deva' or soul. Next argument is sloppy, because it's not clear why the outcome is nonsense. Apparently the author takes it for granted that the soul is a unity. This is not evident. Aristotle thought there to be three souls in a human being and to day there’s an illness called the ‘multiple personality disorder’.

17 65

‘Deva’, an old word, which in later speech usually meant ‘a god’.

Tegen de dogmatiek

If one would be partly soul and partly human one would have to live partly for ever and partly be impermanent and that is nonsense. 18 If (the impossibility of) both eternal and impermanent has been proved, this is eventually also proved for not eternal neither impermanent. 19 For the cycle of existence to be without a beginning there has to be something that's coming from somewhere and going somewhere. However such a thing doesn't exist. 20 If nothing's eternal what could be noneternal, or both eternal and non-eternal, or neither? It looks like a copycat is writing here. The arguments don't make a consistent conversation, and the relativity of things is not mentioned. Next verse presupposes the belief in India and ancient Greece that different worlds and world-periods succeed each other. Between two worlds there's a cosmic fire.

21 How could a next world exist if the world would be impermanent? How for that matter could a next world exist if the world would be eternal? 22 Because the stream of components is like the flames of a fire, therefore it's nonsense to speak of eternity and impermanence. 23 Because the world would have an end if first these components would get exhausted and also dependent on those no components would arise anymore. If all beings would die and none would be reborn, the world would stop. The author doesn't believe that matter can exist independent of the mind.

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24 The world wouldn't have an end if these components wouldn't get exhausted and also dependent on those no components would arise anymore then.66 25 That the world would be partly impermanent and partly eternal, or both eternal and impermanent is nonsense. 26 How, to begin with, could a part of the one attached to the components decay and a part not; this is impossible. It's not possible for the components to exist if there's not someone who gets attached to them and identifies with them.

27 How could ever a part of the components decay and a part not, this is impossible too. 28 If (the impossibility of) the limited and limitless has been proved, then is this eventually also proved for both the unlimited and not limitless. Now the author goes even further then before: if everything is empty, no misconceptions or false doctrines exist, because there's no one who could believe in them

29 Where, of whom, how and why would the doctrines about eternity etc. have to originate, since things are empty? 30 I honor you, Gautama, who out of compassion taught the holy teaching that conquers all doctrines.67 Kumārajīva has an extra verse here: Because the true teaching, the true speech and hearing it is rare, the cycle of existence is not impermanent and not impermanent. 66

67

Kumārajīva has two more verses:

Tegen de dogmatiek

Not distroyed not originated, not impermanent and not eternal, not with one and not with different meaning, not come and not gone. The Buddha has explained cause and effect and put an end to all fantasy, therefore I acknowledge with reverence him to be my teacher who has explained the superior teaching of the middle.

95

index

Index

96

literature

97

Literature Titel

Auteur

Raisons Pratiques

Bourdieu

Digha-Nikaya

Breet & Janssen Conze

The Bodhisattvadoctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature Buddhist sects in India Jñānagarbha on the two truths

Eckel

Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary Grondslagen van the skepticisme David Hume on Human nature and the understanding The emptiness of emptiness

Het Boeddhisme

Nāgārjuna

Uitgever

Plaats

Pierre

Éditions the Seuil

Parijs

Jaart al 1994

Jan the & Rob Edward

Asoka

Rotterdam

2001

the Spectrum

Antwerpen

1970

Dayal

Har

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1978

Dutt

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1978

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1992

Edgerton

Nalinaksh a Malcolm David Franklin

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1985

Ferwerda

Rein

Ambo

Baarn

1996

Flew

Anthony

Macmillan Pub.

London

1978

Huntingto n Jr. Inada

C.W.

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1992

St. Univ. New York

Buffalo

1970

E.J. Brill

Leiden

1949

Cinq chapitres the la Prasannapadā Wittgenstein

Jong

Kenneth K. J.W. the

Kenny

Anthony

the Spectrum

Antwerpen

1974

Nagarjuniana

Lindtner

Chr.

Akademisk Forlag

1982

The Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutrta

Luk

Charles

Shambala

Copenhag en Berkeley

Candrakīrti Prasannapadā Madhymakavŗtti The central philosophy of Buddhism Nietzsche and Buddhism

May

Jacques

Adrien Maisonneuve

Parijs

1959

Murti

T.R.V.

Allen & Unwin Ltd.

London

1980

Mistry

Freny

Walter the Gruyter

New York

1981

A Manual of Abhidhamma

Nārada

Buddhist Pub. Soc.

Kandy

1980

Religion and Nothingness

Nishitani

Berkeley

1982

Guide through the Abhidhammapiţaka Nāgārjuna’s philosophy

Nyanatilok a Ramanan

Univ. of California Press Bauddha Sāhitya Sabhā Motilal Banarsidas

Colombo

1957

Delhi

1987

Early madhyamika in India and China Het ik is een ding

Robinson

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1978

Sartre

Richard H. Jean-Paul

Boom

1978

l’Être et le Néant

Sartre

Jean-Paul

Gallimard

Amsterda m Parijs

Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung

Schopenh auer Schuhl

Arthur

Reclam

Stuttgart

1978

Gallimard

Parijs

1962

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1968

Nashville

1967

Routledge & Kegan Paul Paul Guethner

London

1951

Parijs

1925

VandenHowck & Ruprecht Nag Publishers

Göttingen

1914

Delhi

1979

Les Stoïciens

Keji

K.Venkata

An introduction to madhyamaka philosophy Emptiness

Singh

PierreMaxime Jayadev

Streng

Frederick

The history of Buddhist thought

Thomas

Edward J.

l’Abhidharmakośa the Vasubandhu Prajñāpāramitā

Vallée Poussin Walleser

Louis the la Max

The life of Nāgārjuna

Walleser

Max

1972

1943

literature Indian Buddhism

Warder

A.K.

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

98 1970

Indian Buddhism

Nakamura

Haime

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1989

Philosophy and its development in the Nikāyas and Abhidhamma

Watanabe

Fuminaro

Motilal Banarsidas

Delhi

1983