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Nagarjuna is
generally recognized as the founding father of Mahajuna
Buddhism. Based on his work "Mulamadhyamika Karika," the
discussion will focus on the original contribution of the
Buddha, and Nagarjuna's elaboration of the middle way, and the
relationship between Pratityasmautpada (inter-relatedness of
everything) and Sunyata (emptiness).
Click Here For Mulamadhyamakakarika
by Nagarjuna
Translated by Jay L. Garfield
Based on the Selection and arrangement by Rev. Yin Shun
To provide a
backdrop for my discussion tonight, I will show clips from two
very popular movies—indeed, they are blockbusters that
captured the hearts and minds of America in the past few
years. The first is from Matrix, where Keanu Reeves, a
computer programmer, who was introduced to the real world when
he became aware of his existence in a totally simulated
construction. (Show Matrix)
The second is from
MIB, or Men in Black, where aliens roamed around in New York, some
from out of space. The scene you’ll see involves an
extraterrestrial emperor who was murdered. The interesting thing is
what lies behind the emperor. It is a graphic illustration of the
existence of atman, or the self, that which directs how we behave in
this world. (Show MIB)
We can talk more
about Tommy Lee Jones or the adventures of Trinity, Neo and Morpheus,
but maybe we should get back to why we are here tonight, before we
get too distracted.
First of all, I
want to emphasize that this is not a lecture on Nagarjuna’s
Mulamadhymakakarika. Rather, it is a discussion, based on the
writings of Rev. Yin Shun of Taiwan, and his disciple, Mr. Kar Shu
Wong of Toronto.
In Buddhism, a
central premise is that the atman, or the self, something that seems
so real to us, so profoundly entrenched, so eternally lasting, is
really a transient phenomenon. Self is often described as composed
of five elements: the material world, our feelings, thoughts,
behaviors, and consciousness. It does not mean that the self is
equivalent to the five elements, nor does it mean that the self is
different from them. The relationship of self to the five elements
is famously illustrated by that of a fist which is made up of five
fingers. When we put our fingers together, the fist appears. When
we spread our fingers, the fist disappears. There is no eternally
lasting fist, and there is no eternally lasting self. When the
causal conditions converge, the phenomenon appears. When they
diverge, the phenomenon disappears.
Philosophical
discussions aside, for a long time, neurobiologists have tried in
vain to locate that little person in our head. This is the self
that makes decisions and that consciously wills us into action. The
Harvard professor, Daniel Wegner, in his recent book, “The Illusion
of Conscious Will” suggested that the experience of consciously
willing an action and the causation of the action by the person’s
conscious mind are two separate things, that the feeling as though
we are causing the things we do is really caused by psychological
and neural mechanisms.
Another perhaps
even more fundamental premise in Buddhism is that of
Pratityasamutpada. Indeed, when the Buddha was asked what his
teaching was all about, he replied simply: “I teach
Pratityasamutpada.”
Pratityasamutpada
can be roughly translated as causality. Prof. Garfield translated
it as “co-dependently arisen”. It is the fundamental principle that
the entire world, from the largest to the smallest, from our
feelings to our consciousness, from how we think to how we act, come
into being as a convergence of necessary primary and secondary
causal conditions. The being will also cease when these conditions
change or diverge. While this principle is believed to be
applicable to everything including physics of the cosmos, the
teaching of the Buddha has concerned itself mostly with the affairs
of the human beings. Stated a little more clearly, this principle
says that “This arose thus that arises; this ceased thus that
ceases.”
The goal of
Buddhism is our liberation, or as Morpheus said to Neo in the
Matrix: “Free your mind.” The ignorance of Pratityasamutpada can
blind us about the transient nature of everything, especially about
the nature of self, and what can be identified as the extension of
the self. For example, my house, my tooth brush, my organization,
or my proposal, etc. The tyranny of our ego can make it difficult
for us to let go. It can also lead us to actions that can bring
suffering and make us live in hell. If we can be convinced of the
empty nature of everything, and if we are able to let go of or ego
and its extensions: my family, my contributions or my ideas. Me me,
my my, mine mine. We will have avoided actions that can bring
suffering. We will be liberated and live in nirvana, or heaven, so
to speak. This is the true meaning of Pratityasamutpada.
When Rev. Yin Shun
left the mainland to go to Taiwan in 1949, he stopped by Hong Kong
and was requested by some Buddhist monks there to speak on
Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhymakakarika. From now on, I shall call it Mula
for short. The original Mula by Nagarjuna consists of 446 stanzas.
Rev. Yin Shun selected only 70 and arranged them in an order which
he believed would be appropriate for an introduction to the Mula.
Whereas he took one month to talk about this version of the Mula, he
disciple, Mr. Kar Shu Wong, half a century later, spent an entire
year to expound on the same version but produced a book at the end.
I hope this
background will convey to you the impossibility of what I am trying
to do tonight, to introduce adequately Nagarjuna’s
Mulamadhymakakarika in only one hour. It will take more than an
hour just to read the 70 stanzas out loud. Therefore, this
discussion will be very selective. It will be a bird’s eye view, at
best. Please forgive me if I have omitted crucial passages and
overlooked important points.
In this discussion,
I am going to follow the works chiefly provided by Rev. Yin Shun in
his three books: “Proceedings of a Lecture on Mulamadhymakakarika”,
“Current Discussion of Mulamadhymakakarika”, and “The Study of
Emptiness in Essence: An Exploration of its Source”. I am also
going to rely on the book by Kar Shu Wong, “Introduction to the
Principles of Mulamadhymakakarika”.
There are many
translations of Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhymakakarika. I have chosen the
most accessible one in English translated by Prof. Jay Garfield, and
will supplement it with the Chinese translation by Kumoraja. I
should add that Nagarjuna wrote the Mula around the second century,
about seven hundred years after Buddha. Kumoraja, who was from
present day Xinjiang, translated it from Sanskrit into Chinese
around the fifth century. When Buddhism was introduced to Tibet
around the eighth century, Nagarjuna’s Mula was also translated into
Tibetan from Sanskrit. What you see on the handout, lying side by
side are two versions of the Mula: The Chinese version by Kumoraja
of the 5th century and the English translation of the
Tibetan version of the 8th century. With so many
different translations, discrepancy among the versions is probably
unavoidable. I shall point out some obvious ones in my discussion
later on.
The 70 stanzas
chosen and arranged by Rev. Yin Shun can be briefly summarized into
the following points: First, there is the opening dedication and
the eight no-nos. The eight no-nos are the four pairs of extreme
opposites that describe the emptiness of the world. The first pair,
“unceasing, unborn”, as you can see in Chinese, can mean “no birth
and no death”. This involves existence. The second pair, “no
permanence and no annihilation” involves time. If something that
exists forever, we call that permanence. If something that ceases
to exist, and remains so forever, we call that annihilation. The
third pair, “without distinction, without identity” in Chinese can
mean “no unity and no separateness” which involves space. Bronx,
Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens and Staten Island are separate boroughs;
together they are one municipality: New York. For another example:
The eye, the ear, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the mind are
separate sense organs; together they become one person. The fourth
pair, “No coming and no going” involves movement. This is when
something that exists changes in time and space.
There are thousands
of other pairs of extreme opposites, such as beautiful and ugly,
good and bad, big and small, etc. These four pairs are selected
because of their applicability to everything in the world:
existence, time, space and movement. This is meant for the general
public, however. As pointed out by Kar Shu Wong, in “Heart Sutra”,
the most popular Buddhist sutra in China, only three pairs were
mentioned. “No birth and no death”, “no pollution and no purity”,
and “no increase and no decrease”. The first pair, “no birth and no
death” is common to both the heart sutra and the mula, because
without existence, there is nothing else to talk about. “No
pollution and no purity” refers to the equivalence in quality. “No
increase and no decrease” refers to the equivalence in quantity.
Heart Sutra, despite its tremendous popularity, is actually aiming
at the more advanced students of Buddhism, who aspire to become
Buddhas. Before enlightenment, one may perceive one individual as
despicable and another as respectable. To the enlightened Buddha,
however, there is no difference between the two individuals.
The eight no-nos
are the first and most important stanzas of the Mula. Another
stanza, just as significant, is the 14th stanza in this
version:
Whatever is dependently co-arisen
That is explained to be emptiness
That, being a dependent designation,
Is itself the middle way
What this stanza
says is the equivalence of the following:
Pratityasamutpada =
Emptiness = Dependent Designation (Temporary Construction) = Middle
Way
If we can truly
understand these two stanzas, we would have a very good
understanding of the Mula. In Rev. Yin Shun’s abridged version,
Nagarjuna first presents the counter argument that emptiness
contradicts common sense, that if things are empty, then even
Buddhism would be destroyed.
The phenomenon of
birth and death is what leads to the understanding of impermanence,
and impermanence leads to suffering, as countless poets and
chanteurs have lamented throughout the world. A French love song
comes into mind: Plaisir d’amour ne dure qu’un moment; chagrin
d’amour dure toute la vie. So, withdrawal from attachment will
avoid suffering and lead to salvation. This is what Buddhist belief
is supposed to achieve. But if we deny birth and death, then how
can we establish Buddhism as we know them?
Nagarjuna then
suggested that this argument is misguided, that it confused the
ultimate truth with common sense, and that it mistook emptiness to
mean nothingness. Phenomenon: everything that we perceive, feel,
understand and react to, is nothing but a temporary construction,
which changes as different conditions change. Therefore, there is
no such thing as an essence that comes into being by itself and
remain unchanged forever. If such were the case, then East is East,
and West is West, and never shall the two betwixt. An ordinary
human being will never become a Buddha. Only when we can see that
both of them are nothing but temporary constructions or dependent
designations that an ordinary human being can have the opportunity
to be transformed into a Buddha. This is possible because the
temporary construction is not based on anything that is permanent.
The temporary construction is a result of various causal
conditions. When the conditions change, so will the result. Thus,
the result, or the temporary construction is empty in essence.
Nagarjuna then went on to argue that the entire world, from the
physical universe to the individual and his troubles, karma, and
sufferings are all empty.
That the individual
is empty, we have discussed it before, using the illustration of the
fist and the five fingers. It is important to point out that while
individuals, troubles, karmas, and sufferings can be empty, stanza
41 emphasized that “action is non-expiring”, or “every action will
have a reaction”, or “what has been sown will be reaped”.
Our troubles
include desire, hatred, and confusion. They all stem from our
thoughts and memories and are rooted in our differentiation of
various phenomena. (Here it may be helpful to point out that the
Chinese translation by Kumoraja [stanza 31] included the term
differentiation, whereas Prof. Garfield’s English translation did
not.) It is our tendency to differentiate that create opposites
such as pleasantness and unpleasantness, however. So, there is no
essence in both pleasant and unpleasant phenomena. In other words,
they are both results from other causal conditions. If these
conditions had changed, the results would necessarily change as
well. In this sense, both the pleasant and unpleasant phenomena are
not fixed. They are dependent on other causes. They are therefore
empty.
Our troubles start
when we crave the pleasant and hate the unpleasant. Our craving and
hatred can lead to actions (karma) that will bring suffering. Since
what we crave for or hate are indeed not fixed and empty, our
craving and hatred are also not fixed and are empty. In other
words, they can be changed. This means that our actions or karma
are not fixed and can be changed as well. When our actions are
changed, so will the resultant suffering. That is why Nagarjuna
said that all our troubles, karma and suffering are empty.
Kar Shu Wong used
an everyday example to illustrate the elusive nature of our
suffering: Going to work on a rainy day, getting through a crowded
subway, becoming late, with clothes all wet and sticking to your
body, you may feel very uncomfortable. But when you arrive at the
office, your boss publicly praise you for the work you have
performed, you may suddenly feel elated, and completely forget your
previous discomfort. Thus, our feelings change as conditions
change. Discomfort is only a changeable, temporary existence,
without essence or permanence.
Sometimes, it may
be easy to accept that our thoughts and concepts are empty in nature
because they seem to be more abstract or elusive. When confronted
with a physical object or person, however, we may reasonably raise
questions about calling them “empty”. Here, the terms “temporary
construction” or “dependent designation” may be helpful. In other
words, while these concepts, objects, and persons are ultimately
empty in nature, they are, nevertheless, temporary constructions at
the moment.
Rev. Yin Shun
provided a description of their existence: “Impermanent but
continuous”. Because their causal conditions change at every
moment, so too, the phenomena change at every moment. This is why
they are impermanent. At the same time, unless there are drastic
changes in the causal conditions, the phenomena will maintain their
previous form and function, thus they are also continuous.
It may be
instructive to go into more detail to see how Nagarjuna explained
the emptiness of suffering. (Stanza 44) This is an illustration of
the tetralemma methodology that he often employed to desconstruct
concepts. Everything, including suffering, if it is not empty, can
be produced in two manners: with cause and without cause. If it is
produced with cause, it can be self-produced, or produced by others,
or by a combination of self and others. These four possibilities
exhaust all the ways that suffering can be produced. Nagarjuna then
proceeded to show that suffering could not have been produced by any
of the possibilities.
The Buddha has said
that despite the emptiness of individuals, every action will
generate its own aftermath. Suffering is the reception of an
action’s aftermath. There is a dependency and a causative
relationship that exist between action and suffering, also between
the one who acts and the one who suffers.
First of all, if
suffering is produced without a cause, it will directly contradicts
causality, shatters the relationship between action and suffering,
and brings havoc to any view of morality, destroying all foundation
of common sense. It is therefore not possible. Thus, we reject the
proposition that suffering can be produced without a cause.
Can suffering be
produced with a cause, by the self, or others, or by them both?
When there is suffering, there is a sufferer. Suffering and the
sufferer are intimately related. They cannot be isolated one from
the other. Without the sufferer, we cannot talk about suffering.
As we have seen before, the sufferer is made up of the five
elements, (or aggregates) of which feeling is one. Suffering is the
aftermath of an action. Action is also intimately associated with
the one who acts. The actor, like the sufferer, is also made up of
five elements, of which behavior is one. So, we can say that the
suffering is produced by the actor, but the actor, even though it
shares many of the five elements with the sufferer, is not the same
as the sufferer. For one thing, one is with the past, and the other
is at present. We therefore cannot say that suffering is self
produced. Can we then say that suffering is produced by others?
Even though the actor is of the past, and the sufferer is of the
present, they are intimately related to one another. Without the
five elements that made up the actor previously, there could not
have been the five elements that made up the sufferer at present.
One is derived from the other. We cannot say that one is entirely
different or separated from the other. We therefore cannot say that
suffering is caused by others. This is the meaning of “impermanent
but continuous”.
Since neither self
nor others produced suffering, we cannot say that suffering is
produced by self and others. Thus, Nagarjuna exhausted all
possibilities.
The question of
whether or not the universe has a beginning or an end has been posed
to the Buddha during his lifetime. Every time it was raised, the
Buddha would refuse to answer it. It is one of the famous 14 no
comments by the Buddha. This question, of course, has also been
rigorously explored by cosmologists these days.
A point of
contention between some Hinayana and Mahayana is the apparent
difference in their perception of samsara and nirvana. For the
Hinayana, samsara is the phenomenon of endless birth and death
cycle. Through Pratityasamutpada, they see the impermanence in
everything. The avoidance of suffering and the ending of desires
and craving will also lead to the experience of emptiness and
nirvana. The Mahayana starts from the other direction, nirvana, the
ultimate truth where total emptiness would preclude all activities
including the birth and death of ideas and things. Thus in the
ultimate truth of nirvana, for the Mahayana, no birth and death is
equivalent to birth and death. Whereas the Hinayana believes that
samsara is different from nirvana, the Mahayana believes that in the
ultimate truth, they are the same.
The Buddha himself
has commented on this in the Diverse Agama Sutra #293 when he was
comparing Pratityasamutpada with nirvana, “The meaning of
Pratityasamutpada runs very deep. The silence and emptiness of
nirvana, without desire and letting go of everything, is even deeper
and more difficult to understand. One is of this world. The other
is beyond this world. To be born, to stay, to change and to die:
these are phenomena of this world. Beyond this world, the ultimate
truth is no birth, no stay, no change and no death.”
Another difference
between the Hinayana and the Mahayana that has been cited, mostly by
the Mahayana, perhaps lies in the lesson each draws from the
Buddha. Whereas the Hinayana takes Buddha’s teaching to heart and
practice to liberate himself to reach and stay in nirvana, the
Mahayana emulates the Buddha, delays his own enjoyment of nirvana,
and engages in the liberation of other human beings.
In his book
“Current Discussion of Mulamadhymakakarika”, Rev. Yin Shun
emphasized that “Nirvana definitely does not mean death, nor does it
mean an experience possible only after death… In Sanskrit, nirvana
has the connotation of negation and disintegration, as well as the
implication of comfort and freedom.” The nirvana that Buddha talked
about is the state of complete peace, calmness, and liberation that
we can experience in our daily lives, that we can reach if we see
through the mirage of seemingly endless cycle of birth, death, and
utter confusion.
Copyrighted
by Thomas Tam, 2003.
For permission to reprint, please send request to
Info@aaari.info
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