Nagarjuna’s Game
Nagarjuna writes: “If I had a thesis
of my own to advance, you could find fault with it. Since I have no thesis to
advance, the question of disproving it does not arise.” In other words, “If I took a position, you could disprove (of) it (thereby
causing me distress). Since I take no position, the question of disproof
(and the distress that causes) does not arise.” 1 Nagarjuna (and who was, possibly, of Brahmin stock, i.e.
since he appears to have been literate) deconstructs – and voids – the
positions taken by a variety of Buddhist sects on each and every significant
topic of Buddhist discourse. By applying Indian 4-fold Logic to incomplete
(i.e. deliberately abbreviated) meaning units, hence a flaky logic, he simply
reduces to the absurd (= zero = emptiness, Sanskrit: sunya)
the entirety of Buddhist (and, by implication of non-Buddhist) meta-physical,
physical and psychological speculation.2 Despite the inane scholastic
gobbledegook produced by the Brahmin 5th columnist Nagarjuna who, claiming to have no comment to make,
nevertheless either appears to have recommended (like his Vedantin
teachers) the ‘don’t even try’ Middle Way or simply ‘proved’ that distress is
a figment of one’s imagination and that distress ends when the figments of
imagination have been eliminated. For instance: “Samsara is empty”3 (of abiding substance,
viz. atta, the latter meaning adjunct
‘abiding’ deliberately excluded by Nagarjuna)) “Nirvana is empty” (of abiding substance,
viz. atta) Consequently samsara
= nirvana To wit: 19 Middle Way: “There is not the slightest difference
between nirvana and samsara” (in relation to their having no abiding substance, which phrase he omits). Here Nagarjuna
is cheating. By excluding the crucial detail about ‘no abiding substance’ (or
intrinsic nature)4 he can show that
nothing exists, i.e. that there is only emptiness (i.e. Sanskrit: sunja)! Try this flaky logic: My father lacks (a coat) My mother lacks (a coat) Ergo: There is not difference
between my father and my mother. More patent nonsense from Nagarjuna:
“Neither
from itself nor from another, Nor from both, Nor without cause, Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.”5 So, how, or from where or from what
does anything arise (indeed, ‘emerge’), and which includes karmic residue? Or
does anything, anywhere arise (emerge) at all. Nagarjuna
doesn’t say or suggests so. The Buddha also didn’t say. The Buddha (or his
later followers) did produce a list (of 12 phases or dependent conditions,
all vacuous metaphors) of ‘emerged (from conditions or sub-sets) phenomena’,
starting with ignorance (i.e. avidya, no definition
given) as primary driver. However, he did not comment how ignorance (much
like the Big Bang) arises in the first place and from or in relation to what
ignorance arose. In short, he left the primal (because unending) cause
undetermined, i.e. he remained silent! Nagarjuna calls his method of deconstruction of position (or
view = dharma) Madhayma pratipad, quite obviously wrongly translated as ‘The Middle
Way’. Taking no position, that is to say, hovering between all positions
(i.e. off and in-between extremes, i.e. this shore >< the other shore
or neti-neti) without alighting on (i.e. attaching
to) any one of them cannot be called ‘middle’, specifically if one interprets
‘middle’ to mean ‘half way’, as in the Golden Mean concept. Not taking a
position means suspending judgement. It does not mean middle. But there was extremely clever Buddhist
method to his seeming madness. Since all thesis (read: dharmas
= positions and so on) are impermanent and without abiding substance = atta and because they (merely appear (to the ignorant)
to) happen as ‘emerged phenomena’, i.e. as not (because
‘not proper to’ = or owned, hence controlled) atta (the meaning of atta
remaining a mystery) hence causing distress6 (Pali:
dukkha), detaching from a position (thereafter all positions, i.e. Samsara and which are non-positions) eliminates
distress (completely), the latter being the stated purpose of the Buddha’s
endeavour. In short, Nagarjuna,
like the Buddha Sakyamuni before him, takes the Zero (read: emptiness = sunja)
Space (= no stand), the final internal and external
expression thereof being silence (= non-birth, i.e. absurdness). By
not taking a stand (i.e. by not
contending, i.e. interacting because no position is taken),
distress does not arise (i.e.
because all stands/positions are temporary and conditional, hence beyond
one’s control. And that’s the whole
Buddhist message and the rationale of Buddhist practice, to wit, “Take
no stand anywhere!” ….. but if you have to, don’t
respond.” The entire edifice of Buddhist physical
and metaphysical, and derived from the latter, moral speculation rests upon
the empty (because meaningless) metaphor
atta (usually wrongly translated as ‘self’), empty
itself because the Buddha never produced a positive and unambiguous
description or definition of it. No one knows what the Buddha meant when he
used the term atta.7 Until atta is defined (i.e. a positive position is taken), all
Buddhist reasoning (but not practice) remains spurious. Giving negative (to
wit, neti-neti) definitions to atta leads (and probably is intended to lead) nowhere,
hence to personal emptiness – and relief – resulting from recognition of the
absurdity of the whole speculative enterprise. © 2017 by Victor Langheld, alias Bodhangkur |
1. The mental attitude of not taking (= attaching to) a
position, for instance by remaining silent (i.e. as in ‘sitting on the
fence’) as the Buddha was wont to do, later applied to the ‘aggregates’ (i.e.
the drivers of life) and lived out by wandering about as a homeless beggar,
is the core or ‘heart’ of the Buddha dharma (of distress elimination).
It’s applied fully, as dialectic, in the Diamond Sutra (wherein all
statements are declared to be merely conventional views, i.e. metaphors), then condensed into the Heart (or Core) Sutra, the latter being compressed into the simple
(Tantric) mantra: “Awakening, gone, gone to the other shore, gone beyond the
other shore, Svāhā (= Amen!)” 2. Nagarjuna reduces all seemingly (positive) Buddhist
statements to the absurd by applying the Buddhist emptiness (to wit, anatta)
template to each topic analysed. By so doing he voids any meaning the Buddha
dharma might have had, the politics of morality and ethics apart, and so
actually begins the destruction of Buddhism. The unforgivable error of Nagarjuna however is the fact that he thoughtlessly takes
over key fantasised premisses of Upanishadic
speculation, namely the concepts of atman, karma and the unverifiable belief
that only the eternal is real (i.e. full rather than empty), none of which
had been clearly defined or explained by the Buddha. The fact that the former
notions were left undefined allowed generations of Buddhist intellectuals
wide scope for further speculation, right up to Candrakirti,
Jnanagarbha, Santarksita
and a host of others, including Tibetan scholars. Nagarjuna
was a superb academic (and his abstract speculation academic in the worst sence) but a lousy Buddhist monk. Had his mind been set
on Buddhahood rather than on demonstrating his intellectual brilliance he
would have returned to the Buddha’s original conclusions and independently
retested their validity against the latest state of the art of knowledge. 3. Better translated as: the belief in samsara is absurd. 4. The same happens in the body of the text of the
Heart Sutra. See: The Heart
Sutra Neither the Buddha nor Nagarjuna
discuss the notion of momentary substance, nor indeed, what they mean with
the metaphor ‘substance’. 5. The real (i.e. because eternal (so the Upanishad) or
ultimate) does not arise. In fact, as Jnanagarbha
claims, as non-sequitur, it cannot be known, And the
conventional, or transient does not arise either because it is unreal. Sadly
no evidence is provided. See the 3 characteristics sutta) 6. Neither the Buddha nor Nagarjuna
actually understood the (biological) cause of suffering, namely
that it happens as a signal indicating biological systems mal-function
resulting in loss of relative survival capacity. The Buddha’s superficial
solution to the causes and ending of suffering was good enough for the
distressed folk of 2500 years ago. Today his view is just silly, save for the
naïve. 7. Like in European languages, the term ‘self’
(Sanskrit: atta) emerged as a self-reflexive pronoun. It was later
used as a noun to serve as a useful
fiction. Out of the blue it sprang into being in the early Brihadaranyaka Upanishads as one of three sources of
creation, to wit, Prajapati, Atman and Brahman. Understanding the genesis of metaphors Buddhism is a game, like football |
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