What if they're completely wrong?

Several years ago, the Buddhist scholar Stephen Hodge, a guy whom I have a great deal of respect for, remarked, “What if people like Nagarjuna, Chandrakirti and all their Madhyamika friends got it completely wrong and lying hidden at the very core of Buddhism is actually atta which they deny?”  I  gradually came to this conclusion after having spent a lot of time reading the Pali Nikayas trying to extract their recondite essence.  When I switched over to Nagarjuna it was one of the WTF! moments, or something like, “Where’s the beef?”

I didn’t find much if any Buddhism in Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamaka-karika.  I found much more Buddhism in Nagarjuna’s Maha-prajnaparamata Shastra with the help of K. Venkata Ramanan’s book, Nagarjuna’s Philosophy.  But here is a catch: scholars like Lamotte and others doubt that it is Nagarjuna’s authorship.  As a result, this side of Nagarjuna gets a short shrift when, for all we know, it was his centerpiece, without which, the Mulamadhyamaka-karika made little or no sense. 

 Nagarjuna is really two different people at times.  One time he is a Buddhist; the other a nihilist who leaves us with nothing but a negative dialectic that leads us to something like the Skeptic’s Ataraxia.  The Buddhist Nagarjuna will say things like the following:

“People who understand the meaning (artha) of the Buddhist doctrine and know the designation (prajñapti) say that the âtman exists. People who do not understand the meaning of the Buddhist doctrine and do not know the designation say that the âtman does not exist” (Maha-prajnaparamata Shastra ). (The bold is mine.)

Or,

“The true nature (tathatâ), the nature of phenomena (dharmatâ), the summit of existence (bhûtakoti), do not exist from the mundane point of view, but they do exist from the absolute point of view.  In the same way, individuals exist from the mundane point of view, but do not exist from the absolute point of view.”

The nihilist Nagarjuna will say things which the Buddha never said, for example, even liberation is like a dream which would be aburd since Gautama is Buddha, i.e., the awakened one.

“You have proclaimed that suffering born from desire and the other [poisons], as well as the klesas, the suffering of samsara, the completing of the [two] accumulations, and even liberation are like a dream” (Acintyastava, 27).

[You] have beaten the Dharma Drum [that resounds with deep] deep truth of shunyata.  [You] have blown the Dharma Conch, with the clear note of no own-being” (Acintyastava, 55) 

The Buddha’s drum is deathless (amatadundubhim, M. i. 171), not shunyata. In the Pali Nikayas the Buddha never once used the term sabhâva/svabhâva/own-being). 

The nihilist Nagarjuna at times appears to be asserting universal denial (sarva-abhâvât).  However, this is not emptiness—not the way the Buddha uses it.  Emptiness means that the empty thing like a jar, for example, must be present in order to assert that it is empty of some particular thing like dill pickles.  It would be the same with an empty wallet, a vacant lot, an empty class room, or Buddha-nature which is empty of conditionality.  If this is not the case then emptiness is meaningless.  It is only saying all is for nothing.  This leads me to say that before one gets too hooked on Nagarjunarism or even Dogenism, they first need to read the Nikayas to become thoroughly grounded in what the Buddha said and what the Buddha did not say. 

 

Comments

[Ataraxia]

Nagarjuna's MMK is based on the Kaccayanagotta sutta from the Samyutta Nikaya, one of the oldest Buddhist texts. How can you claim it is not Buddhism? It even has a chapter solely on the 12 links of dependent origination.

[J]

The liberation as a dream quote reminds me of a passage in The Platform Sutra of Hui Neng, where the duality of impurity and purity, is exposed. The communication seems to be that any pair of opposites, are conditioned and dependent on its antonym. Liberation and non-liberation/bondage are opposite and conditioned.