Nagarjuna’s Seventy Stanzas (Nagarjuna and David Ross Komito)
Down from Gautama, Down from Shankara
[My 2-star Amazon review (NDA) of Nagarjuna’s Seventy Stanzas: A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness: by Nagarjuna and David-Ross Komito.]
Nagarjuna is probably the most important thinker in Buddhism after Gautama himself. Many Buddhists, including Ken Wilber, consider him a genius for the ages, but I am not one of the many. In fact, I contend that Nagarjuna Middle Way does not represent a Greater Vehicle than Gautama’s, but in reality a lesser one.
This text, a translation and commentary on Nagarjuna’s “Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness,” provides a clear exposition of Nagarjuna’s essential philosophy, which can be summarized thus:
Everything—meaning all phenomena in all states—exists conventionally, or nominally, or provisionally, but not inherently. In other words, whatever exists, exists, or co-arises, interdependently with other phenomena. This dependent co-arising, or interconnected origination, is called “emptiness,” because it implies that whatever arises has no independent self-existence or self-nature; therefore its “essence” is emptiness. This further implies that nothing, in and of itself, is born or dies, or produced or annihilated. Hence the “extremes” of existence and non-existence are negated, and what’s left is the non-abiding Middle Way of emptiness, or thusness, the “ultimate reality” of things, according to Nagarjuna.
Beyond this simple, but profound to some, philosophy, Nagarjuna has little to say in the Seventy Stanzas. The stanzas simply apply this philosophical perspective to one aspect of reality after another, demonstrating the “emptiness” of all phenomena in all states.
The point of demonstrating this “emptiness” is to lead one to Nirvana. But Nagarjuna’s Nirvana is not Gautama’s. The authors explain:
“The emptiness of inherent existence of all phenomena is the naturally abiding nirvana which can be seen directly by a person on the Path of Seeing. Thus the term ‘naturally abiding nirvana’ and ‘emptiness’ are synonymous.”
Nagarjuna doesn’t have a clue what Nirvana is. Nirvana is not a matter of seeing all existents as empty, as free from the “extremes” of inherent existence and nihilistic non-existence. Moreover, Nirvana cannot be “seen” because It is not an object. Nirvana, as Gautama defines, it simply the drying up of the outflows, the defilements that perpetuate samsara (or becoming). Nirvana is the end of becoming; therefore it is Being, which, relative to a Bodhisattva, is awakened timeless, spaceless Awareness. The etymological definition of “Buddha” makes this clear. A Buddha is one who has awakened his Buddhi, or “intelligent awareness,” by permanently uniting it with Bodhi, Light-Energy. This union produces Bodhicitta--Buddhahood, or Nirvana. Nirvana is the timeless “State” of being unbrokenly Blessed by this Light-Energy (the Sambhogakaya), hence the Buddha is commonly referred to as “the Blessed One.” Because Nagarjuna was just a pointy-headed philosopher and not an awakened Buddha, he ignorantly reduces Nirvana to “emptiness,” an emptiness or voidness, which, unlike in the case of Zen and Dzogchen masters, is not synonymous with an Absolute, or Mind, or Dharmakya.
Nagarjuna is right when he says there has never been a single thing, but he is wrong in failing to identify all “pseudo-entities,” or conventional existents, as derivative modifications or permutations of single Great Existent, or all-subsuming Being, or Mind. Nagarjuna’s “emptiness” is not the Ultimate Reality of things; Consciousness-Energy, the Divine Being is. By failing to identify timeless Awareness as the Dharmadhatu, the all-pervading, spaceless Substratum underlying phenomenal existence, Nagarjuna is guilty of egregious “Context-dropping.”
In India, Shankara, figuratively speaking, “kicked Nagarjuna’s butt” in debates by making it clear that Brahman, not emptiness, is the Condition of all conditions, and that true Nirvana is Self-realization. And the development of Yogacara (or Mind-only) Buddhism in India also rejected Nagarjuna’s metaphysics by emphasizing Consciousness as the Essence of all phenomena.
But today, Nagarjuna’s nonsense lives on, as modern-day, pointy-headed Prasanga-Madhyamika Buddhism professors, such as Jeffrey Hopkins, Guy Newman, and Jay Garfield, continue to push his “Middle Way” as representing the apex of Buddhist thought.
In short, if you are interested in the most overrated Eastern philosopher in history, Nagarjuna, this book will serve as a satisfactory introduction to his Middle Way “Wisdom.”
[My 2-star Amazon review (NDA) of Nagarjuna’s Seventy Stanzas: A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness: by Nagarjuna and David-Ross Komito.]
Nagarjuna is probably the most important thinker in Buddhism after Gautama himself. Many Buddhists, including Ken Wilber, consider him a genius for the ages, but I am not one of the many. In fact, I contend that Nagarjuna Middle Way does not represent a Greater Vehicle than Gautama’s, but in reality a lesser one.
This text, a translation and commentary on Nagarjuna’s “Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness,” provides a clear exposition of Nagarjuna’s essential philosophy, which can be summarized thus:
Everything—meaning all phenomena in all states—exists conventionally, or nominally, or provisionally, but not inherently. In other words, whatever exists, exists, or co-arises, interdependently with other phenomena. This dependent co-arising, or interconnected origination, is called “emptiness,” because it implies that whatever arises has no independent self-existence or self-nature; therefore its “essence” is emptiness. This further implies that nothing, in and of itself, is born or dies, or produced or annihilated. Hence the “extremes” of existence and non-existence are negated, and what’s left is the non-abiding Middle Way of emptiness, or thusness, the “ultimate reality” of things, according to Nagarjuna.
Beyond this simple, but profound to some, philosophy, Nagarjuna has little to say in the Seventy Stanzas. The stanzas simply apply this philosophical perspective to one aspect of reality after another, demonstrating the “emptiness” of all phenomena in all states.
The point of demonstrating this “emptiness” is to lead one to Nirvana. But Nagarjuna’s Nirvana is not Gautama’s. The authors explain:
“The emptiness of inherent existence of all phenomena is the naturally abiding nirvana which can be seen directly by a person on the Path of Seeing. Thus the term ‘naturally abiding nirvana’ and ‘emptiness’ are synonymous.”
Nagarjuna doesn’t have a clue what Nirvana is. Nirvana is not a matter of seeing all existents as empty, as free from the “extremes” of inherent existence and nihilistic non-existence. Moreover, Nirvana cannot be “seen” because It is not an object. Nirvana, as Gautama defines, it simply the drying up of the outflows, the defilements that perpetuate samsara (or becoming). Nirvana is the end of becoming; therefore it is Being, which, relative to a Bodhisattva, is awakened timeless, spaceless Awareness. The etymological definition of “Buddha” makes this clear. A Buddha is one who has awakened his Buddhi, or “intelligent awareness,” by permanently uniting it with Bodhi, Light-Energy. This union produces Bodhicitta--Buddhahood, or Nirvana. Nirvana is the timeless “State” of being unbrokenly Blessed by this Light-Energy (the Sambhogakaya), hence the Buddha is commonly referred to as “the Blessed One.” Because Nagarjuna was just a pointy-headed philosopher and not an awakened Buddha, he ignorantly reduces Nirvana to “emptiness,” an emptiness or voidness, which, unlike in the case of Zen and Dzogchen masters, is not synonymous with an Absolute, or Mind, or Dharmakya.
Nagarjuna is right when he says there has never been a single thing, but he is wrong in failing to identify all “pseudo-entities,” or conventional existents, as derivative modifications or permutations of single Great Existent, or all-subsuming Being, or Mind. Nagarjuna’s “emptiness” is not the Ultimate Reality of things; Consciousness-Energy, the Divine Being is. By failing to identify timeless Awareness as the Dharmadhatu, the all-pervading, spaceless Substratum underlying phenomenal existence, Nagarjuna is guilty of egregious “Context-dropping.”
In India, Shankara, figuratively speaking, “kicked Nagarjuna’s butt” in debates by making it clear that Brahman, not emptiness, is the Condition of all conditions, and that true Nirvana is Self-realization. And the development of Yogacara (or Mind-only) Buddhism in India also rejected Nagarjuna’s metaphysics by emphasizing Consciousness as the Essence of all phenomena.
But today, Nagarjuna’s nonsense lives on, as modern-day, pointy-headed Prasanga-Madhyamika Buddhism professors, such as Jeffrey Hopkins, Guy Newman, and Jay Garfield, continue to push his “Middle Way” as representing the apex of Buddhist thought.
In short, if you are interested in the most overrated Eastern philosopher in history, Nagarjuna, this book will serve as a satisfactory introduction to his Middle Way “Wisdom.”
