Nāgārjuna

c. 150-250 CE · Indian · Madhyamaka Buddhist Philosophy, Metaphysics, Philosophy of Language, Logic, Buddhist Soteriology

Dependent Origination is that which we call Voidness. It is a mere designation based on something, and it is the Middle way.

Around the second century CE, in south India under Sātavāhana patronage, a Buddhist monk composed philosophical treatises that would reshape every school of Mahāyāna thought. Nāgārjuna wrote against Abhidharma scholasticism, whose analysis of phenomena into elementary constituents reproduced the essentialism the Buddha meant to dismantle. His answer was the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā — verse-examinations of causation, motion, time, and nirvāṇa, each reaching the same conclusion: nothing possesses svabhāva, an intrinsic nature independent of conditions.

Topics Nāgārjuna addresses

• śūnyatā (emptiness)
• svabhāva (intrinsic nature)
• pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination)
• the middle way between essentialism and nihilism
• the two truths (paramārtha-satya and saṃvṛti-satya)
• catuṣkoṭi (the tetralemma)
• prasaṅga (reductio argument)
• the no-thesis view
• emptiness of emptiness
• the four-corner refutation of causation
• prapañca (conceptual proliferation)
• saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are not two
• the analysis of motion
• the analysis of time
• anātman (no-self)
• the catuṣkoṭi applied to the tathāgata
• the catuṣkoṭi applied to nirvāṇa
• prasajya versus paryudāsa negation
• critique of the Naiyāyika pramāṇas
• critique of Abhidharma essentialism
• the prāsaṅgika versus svātantrika distinction
• bodhicitta and the bodhisattva path
• the inseparability of prajñā and karuṇa
• dependent designation (prajñapti)

Questions to put to Nāgārjuna

Emptiness and Dependent Origination

• What do you mean by emptiness?
• How is emptiness different from nothingness?
• What is svabhāva, and why do you deny it?
• How does dependent origination relate to emptiness?
• Can you explain your statement that whatever is dependently arisen is emptiness?

The Two Truths and the Middle Way

• What's the difference between conventional truth and ultimate truth?
• Are there two realities, or two ways of looking at one reality?
• What do you mean by the middle way?
• How do you avoid both nihilism and essentialism?
• Why can't the ultimate be taught without the conventional?

The Tetralemma and Dialectical Method

• What is the tetralemma, and how does it work?
• When you reject all four corners, aren't you contradicting yourself?
• What do you mean when you say you have no thesis?
• How can you refute others without holding a position of your own?
• What's the difference between your method and the formal logic of the Nyāya school?

Causation, Motion, and Time

• When you reject all four theories of causation, are you denying that causes produce effects?
• How does your analysis of motion show that things lack intrinsic nature?
• What's wrong with saying things arise from themselves?
• What's wrong with saying things arise from something else?
• How should I understand causation if not through self or other?

Nirvāṇa, Saṃsāra, and the Buddhist Path

• How can nirvāṇa and saṃsāra be the same?
• What is conceptual proliferation, and why does it bind us?
• How does understanding emptiness lead to liberation?
• What's the relationship between wisdom and compassion?
• How does the bodhisattva path differ from earlier Buddhist practice?

Critique of Abhidharma and Brahmanical Philosophy

• What's at stake for you in the critique of Abhidharma essentialism?
• How do you respond to the Nyāya claim that we need valid means of knowledge?
• Why do you think the Sarvāstivāda position on dharmas goes wrong?
• How does your view relate to the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras?
• What does it mean that emptiness itself is empty?

Converse with Nāgārjuna on Simposeum. Replies are grounded in Nāgārjuna's own writing, cited to the page.