Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārika’s

Translated from Sanskrit with commentary by Erik Hoogcarspel


0. Introduction______________________3
0.1. Nāgārjuna...............................3
0.2. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh. .4
0.3. The transcendental wisdom.....5
0.4. The kārikā’s............................7
1. Causality________________________10
2. Movement ______________________15
3. The senses______________________20
4. The components________________23
5. The elements____________________26
6. The emotions____________________28
7. Origination, duration and
disappearance_____________________30
8. Actor and act____________________35
9. Self-consciousness_____________37
10. Fire and Fuel _________________40
11. The cycle of existence________43
12. Suffering______________________45
13. The mental factors___________47
14. Cooperation___________________50
15. Substance_____________________52
16. Bondage and salvation ______55
17. Karma_________________________58
18. The Self________________________62
19. Time___________________________66
20. Conditions _____________________68
21. Disappearance and origination
72
22. The Buddha ___________________76
23. Wrong views___________________78
24. The Buddhist teaching________82
25. Nirvāņa_________________________87
26. The Twelve Chains____________90
27. Against the dogmatism_______92
Index_______________________________96
Literature__________________________97
2
Preface
Years have passed since I tried to translate
Nāgārjuna’s kārika’s together with a group of
fellow students and a buddhologist at Leiden
University. It wasn’t easy, but we had many
interesting and instructive discussions. I was to
write a dissertation comparing Nāgārjuna with
the German philosopher Martin Heidegger. The
project stranded because I was forced to find a
job outside university and Heidegger’s
revelational philosophy was gradually loosing
it’s grip on me. But I had this translation of the
kārika’s and so I decided to make this available
to the public. Reading the translations after all
these years, it seemed as though the text had
ripened in me. It was as though I could
understand some line better and after
repeated reading the Sanskrit seemed to
become more transparent.
I must admit that I had to give up some of the
academic precision, but it was not my intention
to write a text strictly within academic bounds.
This translation is what I expect Nāgārjuna
would have liked himself: accessible, in
contemporary language, provoking and as
clear as the subject allows. The original text is
written in a tight meter, and had to be adapted
to it. In the translation there’s no trace of the
meter left.
Along the translation I’ve tried to give some
indication of what the relevance might be of
Nāgārjuna’s philosophy for western thought
and the other way around. I didn’t because to
make a comparison, but it helped me to
understand Nāgārjuna better. Heidegger did
not believe in the possibility of Nonwestern
philosophy, because he saw philosophy as a
historical phenomenon, well here’s my answer.
The illusion of the exclusiveness of Western
philosophy might be a historical phenomenon,
caused by the influence of a Christian Church
who wanted nothing more than to be exclusive
and have a monopoly on the truth. Maybe it’s
now time to reconsider.
I feel like I’m a dwarf standing on the
shoulders of giants. I have to thank first of all
Professor Vetter without whose skill and
understanding this work wouldn't have ba
possible, but also many philosophers near and
far who's books taught and inspired me, and
my teachers at the universities of Groningen
and Leiden. Aside from this it is a honored
custom to thank the master Nāgārjuna himself
and his teacher the Buddha.
Rotterdam, august 2004
 birthday. They couldn’t bear to watch him die.
0. Introduction Along the road Nāgārjuna met a monk who
advised him to enroll at the university of
0.1. Nāgārjuna Nalanda or Nalendra3. There he learned a
ritual with which he could avert his
appraoching death and even extend his life
About Nāgārjuna’s life
many myths have been
told. Most of them we
find in Tibetan sources,
among others
Tāranātha’s ‘History of
Buddhism in India’, but
also in the travelogue
of the Chinese pilgrim
Hsüen-chuang:
‘Records of the
Western world’. A
number of myths try to
account for Nāgārjuna’s
alledged long life-span. The reason why
Nāgārjuna was thought to have lived for about
six centuries is peculiar. It was not unusual in
India for a writer to sign a text with the name
of a highly admired predecessor under whose
inpsiration the text had been composed. So
Nāgārjuna’s name was not only found on
second century philosophical texts but also on
texts about yoga from the seventh and texts
about alchemy from the ninth century. Tibetan
investigators concluded that those texts were
written by one and the same author, who must
have lived for more then 600 years.
indefenitely.
The name Nāgārjuna has also been an
So Nāgārjuna could have lived for ever, why
occasion for a lot of speculation. It can be
then did he nevertheless eventually die?
separated into two words: ‘Nāga’ and ‘Arjuna’.
According to another legend he was
‘Arjuna’ is the name of the main hero in the
befriended with a South-Indian king and had
Bhagavad Gīta, India’s most popular epic. The
promised this king not to outlive him. The son
word is the name of a tree as well and it
of this king however got tired of waiting for the
means ‘bright’ or ‘white’. In order to explain
throne and persuaded Nāgārjuna to give him
his name, Nāgārjuna is said to have been born
his head. Being a bodhisattva who was eager
under such a tree. Nāga’s are a kind of
to help his fellow beings, Nāgārjuna died. The
mythical water snakes akin to dragons, who
king died shortly afterwards and the son, who
are uspposed to live in cities on the bottom of
became the new king buried Nāgārjuna’s
the ocean1. So the name can be explained as
severed head far from his body. According to
‘The Bright One among the Dragons’ (nāga-
some versions of the tale Nāgārjuna’s head
arjuna). This etymology gave rise to stories
could only be chopped with a blade of grass.
wherein Nāgārjuna teaches the nāga’s his
Since that moment the head creeps every year
philosophy and cures their king of a bad
a few yards closer to the body and will reunite
disease. He even allegedly stayed a few
with it in due time.4
months at their king’s palace and received
treasures and holy books. All sources however
Kumarajīva (344-413) translated the
agree that Nāgārjuna was born somewhere
Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh and Nāgārjuna’s
halfway the second century in Vidarbha in
biography into Chinese. He was a scholar from
South-India2. His father was a rich brahman.
Kucha (a kingdom South of China), had been
According to a legend an astrologer predicted
abducted on the order of the Chinese emperor
at the birth of Nāgārjuna that he wouldn’t
and received the assignment to translate
grow older then seven years. Therefore the
Buddhist texts. In his translation we find
desperate parents sent the little Nāgārjuna
another biography. It describes Nāgārjuna as a
away with a servant just before his seventh
1
According to a documentary from National Geographic 3
see Walleser ’79 p. 8, probably not a large university at
fishermen at the East coast of India have caught the time, see p. 35 ibidem
occasionally fish which lives in very deep water and can 4
see the biography by Sera sMad Geshe Lobsang Tharchin
grow more then 10 meter in length . on
2
present Berar http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/4886/naga1.htm
talented student of the Veda’s5. On his 24th he
tried to become invisible by means of a
magical trick and sneak into the royal harem
together with three friends. They got caught
and only Nāgārjuna could escape, the others
were killed. After a crisis Nāgārjuna decides to
devote himself to Buddhist studies.
There are no biographical data in the kārika’s,
the only personal message Nāgārjuna gives is
that he is convinced to give a better ex-
planation and to have a better understanding
of the teaching of the Buddha then his
contemporaries. His references to the empti-
ness of all phenomena seem to come from
experience. He directs his critique mainly
against the ideas of other Buddhists. Later on
his pupil Aryadeva will criticize the ideas of
non-buddhist philosophies.
Apart from the Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh
eleven other texts are generally attributed to
Nāgārjuna6, although experts do not all agree.
Apart from these thirty-six other texts are
attributed to Nāgārjuna by different Buddhist
traditions. There is very little data to draw
conclusions from. There’s a text for instance,
the ‘Suhŗlleka’, which could qua date have be
written by Nāgārjuna, but the style and con-
tent is very different from the kārikā’s. It’s
generally a dull text addressed to a ruler,
numbering up all the Buddhist does and
don'ts. It is very traditional and it contains no
trace of what in the kārika’s appears to be
Nāgārjuna’s one and only message. So maybe
this could be something Nāgārjuna has written
while relatively young, even as a kind of
examination, before he started his career as a
philosopher and debater.
Nāgārjuna makes abundantly use of the
reductio ad absurdum (prasangah). He enjoys
showing all the absurd consequences of his
opponent’s point of view. A few centuries later
a discussion came up on the question whether
this is a decent and sound way of arguing.
According to the Indian logical conventions
every debater had to formulate his own point
of view. A certain Buddhapālita (470-540)
thought this rule should apply for the
madhyamaka philosophy as well. However in
the Vigrahavyāvartanī, a text very close to the
Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh, Nāgārjuna denies
categorically to have a point of view.
Buddhapālita’s folowers called themselves
‘svātantrika’s’ (svatantra means ones own
proposition). A contemporary scholar,
Bhāvaviveka (490-570), found this to be a
false deviation of Nāgārjuna’s method. His
followers called themselves ‘prāsangika’s’.
Nāgārjuna’s point of view is never totally
rejected by the subsequent Buddhist tradition.
It was more or less pushed aside by the
Yogācāra school of philosophy, which
emphasized more a mental training by which
5
oldest and most important texts of the brahmans
6
see Lindtner p. 10
the phenomena could be recognized as
modifications of being caused by the way we
are used to know the world. Later Buddhist
scholars like Śāntarakşita (8th century) unified
both philosophies into one system.
0.2. The
Mūlamadhyamakakārikāh
The text consists of 27 chapters with varying
numbers of verses of four lines each, kārika’s.
These are meant to be learned by heart in
order to provide a solid ground for ones own
meditation and debate with others. Meditation
on the verses is an important factor in the
development of insight in emptiness, which
leads to Buddhahood.
The Sanskrit text used here dates from the
10th century, Kumarajīva’s Chinese translation
from the 4th century. There are differences
between both, but these are not far reaching
enough to speak of conflicts.
Most chapters contain subjects which were hot
topics in discussions between various Buddhist
schools in Nāgārjuna’s days. They are also
discussed in a few other texts, for instance in
the Vasubhandu’s Abhidharmakośa7.
Nāgārjuna shows generally that all Buddhist
scholars of his time are just wrong because of
their stubborn belief that words refer to things
that exist independently. Chapters 17, 26 and
27 contain a a less critical attitude and it is
very likely that they were added later on. The
first 10 chapters are the oldest part and
probably were the whole text for some time.
The other chapters might have been written
later when Nāgārjuna became more famous
and had developed his technique and insight
in the main subjects of Buddha’s teaching.
Here Nāgārjuna is very confident and inserts
often positive notes abut the experience of
nirvāņa. We find some of those notes also in
the first ten chapters, but there they don't
seem to fit very well, so they might have been
added later. Chapter 25 is clearly the climax of
the text, 26 and 27 seem to be not more than
an appendix.
In the 7th century the Buddhist scholar
Candrakīrti wrote a famous comment on the
kārika’s by the name of ‘Prasannapadā’ (‘Clear
Words’). Although Candrakīrti is traditionally
considered to be an authority, there is also
unmistakably a distance between him and
Nāgārjuna. Candrakīrti mainly adds replies of a
virtual opponent and constructs a little theater
dialogue and the obligatory supporting quotes
of other Buddhist texts.
The text has been translated into English
several times, as is shown in the table
underneath.
7
Vert. into French by L. de la Vallée Poussin – Paris 1925
datu brontaal one, who has slain his passions) who is free
auteur titel
m from the worries of worldly existence, but a
Ausgewählte Kapitel Sanskrit Buddha: a teacher who delivers others. A
1931 Schayer aus der Buddha is not only awakened himself, but
Prasannapadā awakens others as well. Someone who is on
Jong, J.W. Cinq chapitres the la Sanskrit his or her way to become a Buddha is called a
1949 ‘bodhisattva’. Whether this new Buddhism is a
the Prasannapadā
heresy or already implicated by the Buddha
Candrakīrti Sanskrit
himself in his teachings, is of course a matter
1959 May, J. Prasannapadā Tibetan
of discussion.
Madhyamakavŗtti
Not long after the Buddha’s death (or
1967 Streng, F. Emptiness Sanskrit parinirvāņa as Buddhists call it) his main pupils
Mulamadhyamakak Chinese tried to bring all teachings they could re-
1970 Inada, K.
arika member into one system. The systemizations
Lucid exposition of Tibetan and commentaries were called ‘abhidharma’.
1979 Sprung M.
the Middle Way During the following centuries disagreement
Kalupahana The Philosophy of Sanskrit arose about the legitimacy of the abhidhama
1986
, D. J. the Middle Way and some decided to follow only what survived
The Fundamental Tibetan as the word of the master himself. Apart from
Garfield, J. these sautrāntika’s as they called themselves
1995 Wisdom of the
L. ‘(from the word ‘sūtra’, meaning the teaching
Middle Way
Batchelor, Verses from the Tibetan of the Buddha) several different abhidhar-
2000 maschools existed, each with their own view
S. Centre
on philosophical questions.
In circles of the mahāsanghika’s a new kind of
Why yet another translation? I hope this one literature started to be written during the first
will give the reader a better taste of century B.D. These texts were about what was
Nāgārjuna’s voice and what he has to say. I called the transcendent wisdom
have tried to stay close to the Sanskrit orginal, (prajñāpāramitā). Up until the 6th century
and I have also tried to understand the text as several prajñāpāramitāsūtra’s have been com-
a philosophical text and a historical one. In my posed, named by the number of verses, like
view Nāgārjuna didn’t write some words from the 8000 Verse Prajñāpāramitāsūtra, the
heaven just out of the blue. He had something 12000 Verse, etc. In the oldest one, the 8.000
to say in a particular time to a particular version (of which the first two chapters are the
audience. I think I found some traces of this oldest kernel) is told how the Buddha inspires
and it helped me to understand the text a pupil to teach a new kind of wisdom which is
better. a new way to awakening. The message is
however not for everyone’s ears, because it is
difficult to understand. Most people don’t and
0.3. The transcendental only get frightened. Those who are not
wisdom shocked however are qualified to hear this
teaching.
After the death of the Buddha different schools
This theme has been repeated and expanded
came into existence which all had different
several times in new prajñāpāramitāsūtra’s
opinions about all kinds of facets of Buddha’s
during the following centuries. The central
teaching. An important issue appeared to be
message is that only merit and discipline is not
the status of laypersons. According to some
enough to become a Buddha. A special kind of
schools only monks or nuns could make
wisdom is required: transcendent wisdom
substantial progress on the way to nirvāņa.
(prajñāpāramitā). An important aspect of this
Laymen and women couldn’t and shouldn’t do
is the insight that deliverance is not the result
more then just give alms to the monks and
of an accumulation of merit, virtues or self-
nuns in order to gain enough merit. This way
restraint; it’s an entirely different matter. This
they could hope to be reborn as a monk or a
is according to the followers of the new way
nun next life. The major division in the order
what the Buddha meant when he explained in
of followers of the Buddha was the one
his first teaching that neither harsh asceticism
between schools where the separation
nor lust will lead to awakening, because in
between monks and nuns on one side and
both cases concerns about the body get in the
laymen and women on the other was
way. The so-called ‘middle way’ means that all
unquestionable and the so-called
worldly concerns are irrelevant. One should
‘mahāsanghika’s’, where lay persons also took
just deal with the world in an efficient way so
part in religious meetings. Within this
that there’s ample opportunity to develop the
movement a new kind of Buddhism grew, the
transcendent wisdom. In a certain sense a
‘mahāyāna’ (large vehicle), where the goal is
monk, a nun, or a saint is not closer to the
not just to become an ‘arhant’ (a victorious
awakening than a lay person. The real
awakening is a leap into a new way of seeing
reality; one could call this a shift of ontological
paradigm or a radical change of language
game.8
The transcendent wisdom is a kind of
paradigm-shift, in two ways: it was a new way
of being a Buddhist and the actual break-
through of transcendent wisdom means a new
way of life. The ideal Buddhist is no longer a
monk who is meditating all day keeping his
discipline up in the strictest manner. The ideal
Buddhist is now someone who understands the
transcendent wisdom and that’s a wisdom that
looks upon all norms and facts of society as a
game which he plays knowingly. The old style
monk or nun is still part of this game, because
he or she still thinks in terms of good and bad,
reward and punishment, danger and safety.
For the one who understands transcendent
wisdom there is nothing more to gain or to
loose. Of course the lifestyle of a monk can
still be very useful if you want to develop
transcendent wisdom, because you have
plenty of time and teaching. But it’s no longer
required. In ‘The sūtra of Vimalakīrti9’s
teaching’, which has probably been composed
during the first century A.D. is a clear
example: a lay person even explains
transcendent wisdom to an audience of
monks.
Transcendent wisdom has a lot to do with the
understanding that the world is a game, made
by people acting according to rules, competing
for what’s at stake. The world doesn’t exist by
itself, but is being done. Any reward or quality
has no meaning outside the game. It is difficult
to to comprehend this because one has to cut
through the fascination of the game.
Awakening means that one is no longer
spellbound. The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu
called this fascination ‘illusio’. Let’s look at a
fragment of the Ratnagunasamcayagatha, a
text which is shorter and probably older the
oldest Prajñāpāramitāsūtra.10
We cannot find any wisdom, no highest
perfection, no bodhisattva, also no aspiration
for awakening (bodhicitta). Someone who’s
not shocked when he hears this and in no way
concerned whatsoever, this bodhisattva
abides in the Buddha’s wisdom. He doesn’t
find a resting-place anywhere, not in form, fee-
lings, perceptions or consciousness. He
8
Scientific paradigm shifts have occurred in the history of
science. At the beginning of the 20th century for instance
classical Newtonian physics was pushed aside by quantum
mechanics. Events which until then were supposed to be
impossible, like a particle behaving like a wave and the
other way around, became quite normal. It’s important to
see that this is not merely a theoretical shift, it entails
many new questions, new practices, new investigations,
new instruments, etc. It changes the way people think
about what good science is and what not. From one
moment to the other the old ways seem suddenly
hopelessly inadequate.
9
Vimalakīrtinirdeśasūtra
10
adapted from a translation by Edward Conze
wanders without a home, phenomena don’t
hold him and he doesn’t reach for them. He’s
on his way to obtain the body of a Victorious
One.
The wanderer Srenika could find no basis
because of his insight in truth, although the
components were not decomposed. In this
way a bodhisattva doesn’t retire into sacred
quietness, when he understands the
phenomena as they should be understood.
Then he abides in wisdom. ‘What is this
wisdom, from where and who does she come?’
he asks, and then he sees that all these
phenomena are completely empty.
If a person is not shocked when he’s
confronted with this discovery and stays
without fear, then he is not far from
deliverance. Those who dwell in the com-
ponents11 , in form, in feeling, in perception, in
will etc., who don’t succeed to see them from
the perspective of wisdom, or who imagine
these components as being empty, remain in
the sign and don’t know the path of non-
arising.
However he who doesn’t abide in form, in
feeling or perception, in will or consciousness,
but wanders without a home, remaining
constantly in wisdom and not aware of it, his
thoughts focused on non-arising – with him
stays the best of all absorptions (meditations).
Because of this the bodhisattva abides now
silently within, his Buddhahood in the future is
guaranteed by the Buddha’s from the past. He
doesn’t cling, whether or not he’s absorbed in
meditation. Because he knows things as they
are, he knows their essential original nature.
In this way he abides in the wisdom of the
Buddha’s and still he perceives no phenomena
wherein he abides. He knows this abiding
wisely as non-abiding. This is his practice of
wisdom, the highest perfection. The fools hold
the non-existing for existing. They imagine
nonexistence as well as existence, while
existence and nonexistence are both not real
phenomena. A bodhisattva leaves his home
when he understands this wisely. If he knows
the five components are an illusion, but
doesn’t make from illusion one thing and from
the components another, if he abides in
peace, liberated from the concept of multiple
things, than this is his practice of wisdom, the
highest perfection. Those who have good
teachers as well as deep understanding,
cannot be frightened if they hear the deep
principles of the mother, but those who have
bad teachers, who can be misled by others,
are destroyed by them, like an unbaked pot
that becomes wet.
So there’s a new kind of wisdom which
consists of understanding that things don’t
really exist, that they’re empty and that their
existence is an illusion. This is an ontological
understanding, an understanding in what it
11
composing parts of the person
means for a thing to exist. One who doesn’t
change his view on being but only thinks of
things with the index ‘emptiness’ or just sees
things as before and imagines them as being
empty, has missed the point. Opinions about
what’s real and what not and what does or
doesn’t exist change fundamentally. These
concepts are no longer opposites. It’s very
important to be able to accept this and not
become frightened, to trust being and not the
beings. Apparently this fundamental
acceptance of the relativity of reality is very
difficult to explain to certain people who are
naïve realists by nature. Who succeeds gets a
deep inner peace and is liberated of the
worries of life. But watch out, it’s a dangerous
path; any misunderstanding can destroy a
person.
0.4. The kārikā’s
Nāgārjuna has set himself to the task to build
a philosophical foundation for the
transcendent wisdom. This was apparently
necessary; the new way must have been
under fierce attack from the old school who
could quote the Buddha himself to support
themselves. The problem with the old school
as well as with the worldly view is that words
supposedly refer to substances, things which
exist out there in reality by themselves
independent of other things or what we think
of them. Transcendent wisdom begins when
someone stops seeing substances, or rather
starts seeing substances in an ironic manner.
Such a person knowingly sees substances,
with the awareness that they’re nothing but
effects of his or her habits. A substance is in
philosophical terms something that exists by
itself and it is itself the cause of its qualities.
Tale these characters for instance, they exist
whether you read them or not and their color
and form is also not dependent on who’s
reading, so they are substances all right.
We live in a world of substances. The train
doesn’t leave because we because it to, but
because of the timetable. The wind doesn’t
blow because we think so. There happens to
be a wind of 4 Beaufort out there, whether we
believe it or not. It’s no use to say that the
timetable is a convention and that this is also
the case with the expression ‘4 Beaufort’. Who
says so imagines the things as being empty,
but nothing changes because of this. There are
some empty things, but the contrast between
empty and not empty remains. We are still
involved in what Bourdieu calls ‘the social
game’.
‘If on the contrary you have a mind which is
formed in accordance with the structures of
the world in which you play, you find
everything obvious and even the question
whether you really know if the game is worth
playing doesn’t occur to you. In other words:
social games are games which hide itself, like
also the illusio, the magical bond with a game,
which is the consequence of a bond of
ontological complicity between the mental and
the objective structures of the social space.
This is what I meant with ‘interest’. You think
it’s important, interesting, the games matter
for you, because they’ve forced themselves to
you and they’ve entered into your head and
into your body in the form of what one calls
the meaning of the game.’12
Bourdieu is talking about a specific field, a
specific part of society, but Nāgārjuna is
talking about the world as such. This is a game
which is more difficult to step away from,
because the interest is stronger. It’s called
‘thirst’ by the Buddha. And becoming a
Buddha is not going to heaven. One stays in
the world and not all involvement is stopped,
that would be impossible. A world without
substances is unthinkable. We believe in
substances. Every noun, every substantive,
announces a substance. Our belief in
substances is confirmed all the time by our
language. Liberation therefore requires that
we free ourselves from the influence of
language. According to Nāgārjuna this
happens after due reflection and it is
confirmed by successful meditation.
Transcendent wisdom is a total reversal of our
way of thinking, after which we no longer take
the game of the world for absolute. From the
outside there may change little, but we see of
the world as a game and we see that all we
can win is game money. The illusio of the
world, the belief that there’s something
substantial to gain or loose has been broken.
Interest still exists, but it’s not coercion
anymore, it is esthetical fun. Everyday is a
holiday.
Nāgārjuna says on several places with
different words that the discipline of a monk
doesn’t help here and must be practiced as a
game, ‘ironically’ Richard Rorty would call it.
This is possible because it has become clear
that language never matches reality, it’s only
a model. All words are metaphors according to
Nietzsche, so every word is a model. A model
doesn’t have to have the same appearance as
what it represents. In other words it’s not an
icon, it doesn’t show it’s meaning by means of
resemblance. A map doesn’t have to have the
same color as the country is represents and
the word ‘blue’ has no color at all. So nouns
are called indenpendent, but they don’t
represent independently existing substances.
Nāgārjuna shows that the transcendent
wisdom also makes sense. It is substantialism
that’s illogical. We’re only so used to it that we
don’t see this. We’re locked within our own
perspective all the time because we take it for
absolute. These characters look like they exist
on their own behalf, but in reality they are only
12
Bourdieu 1994 p. 151 (my translation)
what they are for those who can read English
and even that might not always be the case.
Some may see it as absurd nonsense, but
others as a source of inspiration and new
thoughts. They even don’t exist at all for
somebody who has been born blind, and we’ll
never know what they are in the eyes of a fly.
If these characters don’t exist on their own
behalf, how do they exist? They must exist,
surely, how could you be reading otherwise?
They exist for someone who’s reading them,
who looks at them from a reading perspective.
Someone who reads doesn’t make the
characters to appear and the characters don’t
teach somebody how to read, both are factors
which implicate each other; if there’s the one
there the other. This is also the formula which
the Buddha used in the ‘Teaching to
Sakuludāyin’13:
if the one is there, the other is there
if the one arises, the other arises
if the one isn’t there anymore, the other isn’t
there anymore
if the one doesn’t arise, the other doesn’t
arise.
We usually never think about the mutual
implication. We believe that things are the
effects of causes and that there first has to be
a cause for an effect to exist. So the usual
point of view is that the world consists of
causes and effects, the enlightened point of
view that the world is structured by mutual
implication. It’s not surprising therefore that
Nāgārjuna starts with a critique of causality.
In almost all chapters Nāgārjuna shows over
and again that the concept of substance is not
tenable. The most vulnerable point is that
substances are supposed to be independent,
while it’s obvious that things are only what
they are from our point of view. A chair is a
chair for us, but not for a dog and it’s also
probably not what a chair used to be for
someone twenty centuries ago. Furthermore
relations or interactions with and between
substances are out of the question, because
the definition of a substance wouldn’t allow it:
they exist on their one behalf and are
immutable. Moreover a substance as such has
never been perceived, this is why European
empiricists like Hume didn’t want to hear of it.
Finally a substance has to get its name
because of an activity or a quality, but the
name then gets a double function: it mentions
both itself and the substance to which it
belongs. If we say that the walker walks, then
the activity of walking must be part of the
walker. As a substance the walker gets his
identity from the act that he walks, but
walking is also what he does. So there must be
two ‘walkings’: the activity and the identity. So
is ‘the rain rains’ double Dutch and also ‘the
fire burns’ and ‘the pain hurts’. Nāgārjuna
concludes that language is not a projection of
13
Madyamanikaya
reality, but a mentioning ‘as a figure of
speech’. What language calls doesn’t exist, it’s
an illusion. Reality is the playing field of
language and therefore empty of substances.
Nāgārjuna tries to show that the substantialist
view of the world is complete nonsense. This
opens the eye for the nonsubstantialist view
that is the view where substances are out of
the question. This means that even the
proposition ‘substances don’t exist’ is not
possible anymore. It would be the same as
saying that the present king of France is bold.
It’s impossible to say anything definite about a
something that absolutely doesn’t exist
because sentences are supposed to give
information about exisiting things.
Things are empty of substance, but that
doesn’t mean that there’s a substance
missing. The term ‘emptiness’ has become a
new kind of substance in the eyes of some
commentators. The commentators of the
Kyotoschool, among others have explained
emptiness as the Platonic nothingness, which
means so much as the absence of all
limitations. Some philosophers called it
‘being’, the absolute fullness, which
encompasses all other things14. This caused for
a great deal by the influence of the Reinland
School of mysticism and the negative
theology, which also had considerable
influence on Romantic German philosophers.
Nāgārjuna however doesn’t show any trace of
this kind of Romantism.
Finally there are some philosophers which
come close to Nāgārjuna’s point of view. We
have to mention the Chinese philosopher
Chuang Tse as first. In the antiquity the
skeptics in Europe sought happiness through
giving up any belief in dogmas. We cannot say
whether their experience of happiness was
akin to Nāgārjuna’s, but we find several
arguments of Nāgārjuna’s also in the writings
of the skeptic Sextus Empiricus.
In the modern days Nietzsche is undoubtedly
someone who has some affinity with
Nāgārjuna15. Nāgārjuna would certainly
appreciate Nietzsche’s points of view about
language and truth. Nāgārjuna is certainly a
postmodern philosopher, because he rejects
any claim on an independent truth. We must
also not forget Wittgenstein whose analysis of
language in the second period shows a lot of
affinity with Nāgārjuna.
Nāgārjuna’s philosophy and the school of
transcendent wisdom seems to be totally new,
but one could ask if the Buddha wasn’t on the
same track. After his awakening he walked
around for several days asking himself
whether there would be anybody who could
understand his new insights. The first teaching
14
as an ‘absolute transcending field’, Nishitani 1982
15
see Mistry 1981, p. 92 a.f.
which has been written down however doesn’t
seem difficult at all. The most readers
understand it in fifteen minutes, but the first
teaching went on for days. What would be so
hard to understand?
We read that the Buddha started with his
rejection of fierce asceticism as well as
bathing in luxury. Both are leading away from
awakening. The Buddha calls this the ‘middle
way’. It doesn’t mean off course to be
temperate or knowing ones limits just to avoid
sickness or a waste of time. If that would be
the deep wisdom which liberates men from all
worries of life then half of all people was
already spontaneously liberated. What’s more
likely is that the Buddha had found out after
years of strict asceticism that this doesn’t help
because it’s just irrelevant. The solution is not
to conquer worldly clingings, but to
understand them. Maybe this was the difficult
part because it’s a view from a totally different
angle. Nāgārjuna himself quotes another
teaching where the Buddha speaks of the
middle way as the rejection of being and non-
being of things. The Buddha mentions also
thirst for lust, thirst for being and thirst for
non-being as the main obstacles on the way to
awakening. So it could be that the view of
transcendent wisdom is closer to the teaching
of the Buddha then it would at first sight
appear.
Nāgārjuna speaks of a dangerous wisdom. If
transcendent wisdom is another cup of tea
indeed, than she has nothing to do with social
values and goods. The way to Buddhahood
then gets an element of coincidence. It
becomes impossible to coerce awakening by
good behavior. Good qualities like compassion,
energy and persistence are fine, they result in
Nobel prices and maybe holiness, they are a
blessing for all human beings, but they bring
nobody closer to awakening. Discipline is also
only a means to an end. So the wisdom could
turn into foolishness in a person who thinks of
himself as the only individual that matters. It’s
very important not to rid the world of
substances and forget oneself.
 Causality
1. Causality
1.
No thing ever has existed anywhere,
whatsoever, that has arisen without
cause, by itself, by something else or by
both.16
It seems an odd start. There is no introduction,
nothing17 to tell the reader what the subject is
and why it is interesting. This tells us that we
do’nt have a regular book here. These are
verses, meant to be learned by heart, an
introduction is not needed. But why would
Nāgārjuna begin with a critique on the concept
‘causality’ and not something else? Is it a
coïncidence? Have the pages been mixed up and
came these up front?
Appearantly Nāgārjuna doesn’t like to beat
about the bush, probably, as already said,
because it wouldn’t support the pragmatics of
the text. But then again: why causality and not
suffering or ignorance, which are usually a very
hot topics in Buddhism? Appearantly causality
was one of the most important topics in the
discussions between the schools of transcendent
wisdom and others.
It has been an important topic in India and the
West as well. We usually don’t think about it but
causality is a major factor in our daily life. If we
want to make sure that we’re not dreaming we
pinch our arm, in other words we check wether a
simple action has the consequences we expect
and which we consider specific for reality. If we
hear a sound and we are not sure whether we
actually heard it or it was our imagination, we
start looking for it’s cause. We’re only sure that
we really heard something only after we have
found the cause. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-
1860) wrote in his book ‘The World as Will and
Representation’ that something really exists only
if it’s an effect or a cause. Ghosts don’t exist,
because they cannot produce a lasting effect.
16
Kumarajīva has two introductory verses here.
I honour the Fully Awakened One, the supreme teacher, who
taught
dependent origination, the blissfull cessation of all
phenomena
without origination, extinction, impermanence and eternity
without identity and differentiation, without coming up,
without going down
17
The introductory verses are probably added later.
10 10
Something wihtout consequences makes no
difference, and therefore does belong in the
causal network we call reality. Without cause
and effect reality would be a dream, or a
nigthmare, becasue anything could happen and
there would be nothing we could do. Causality is
so obvious that we never think about it. We grew
up with it. Still it’s an unsolved philosophical
puzzle.
The philosopher David Hume (1711-1766) wrote
in his book ‘An enquiry Concerning Human
Understanding’: ‘It’s certain that the most
ignorant and stupid peasants, nay infants, nay
even brute beasts, improve by experience and
learn the qualities of natural objects by
observing hte effects which resukt from them.
When a child has felt the sensation of pain
touching the flame of a candle, he will be carefull
not to put his hand near any candle...’. 18
The question is how this child knows for sure
that it will have the same kind of experience as
before. It doesn’t expirence any causality, but
only one experience succeding another. It didn’t
conclude after serious reflexion about the past
twenty times when contact with fire ended with a
painfull sensation that fire must be the cause of
pain and that this is always the case because it
is part of the structure of this world. No, the child
knows it already after one single experience. It
doesn’t ask itself whether it’s a true causal
connexion or try to prove it is. It simply believes
that one phenomenon originates becasue of the
other. And not only a child, but every human
being believes in causality, often mistakenly.
Many believe that a person catches a cold
because of being exposed to draft and ignore
that it’s caused by a bacil. Many believe that
exrta vitamine C protects against colds, but
there’s no evidence it really does.
Advertisements exploite this mechanism. If we
see someone enjoying himself on the beach in
an advertisement for ensurance, we think that
the ensurance will make us rich and give us an
opportunity to go to the beach, allthough the
opposite is much more realistic. Nāgārjuna
seems to think that there is something wrong
with our everyday belief in causality. And he has
his arguments.
219.
Because there is no substance in the
causes of things and such, and if
something is not determined by itself ,
it’s also not determined by something
else.
18
Hume 1777/1978 p. 53
19
This verse is after next one in the original, the order is
changed because this gives a logical argument.
 Causality
The word ‘substance’ is a translation of the
Sanskrit word ‘svabhāva’, litterary ‘ownbeing’
.This is also the usual philosophical definition of
the concept ‘substance’, in the words of the
philosopher Baruch the Spinoza (1632 – 1677)
‘something that exists from itself and is known
from itself’. A substance is what it is and it has
it’s own unchanging essential qualities, whether
or not someone knows or percieves them. We
usually take for granted that this is the way
things exist. A chair exists to sit on and anyone
who doesn’t know this is a savage. The chair
isn’t supposed to be a chair because we think so.
The chair is a chair from itself it it shows itself by
itself as what it is. It doesn’t exist like a word,
like ‘substance’ for instance. A word doesn’t
exist from itself, it exists because of a
convention: the meaning we are used to give it
and this meaning doesn’t show itself, but has be
learned. It is a philosophical convention to define
the word ‘substance’ as ‘ independently existing
thing’, to define it as ‘stuff’ is another
convention.
3.
There are namely four kinds of causes:
the effective cause, the object-cause,
the precedent cause, and further the
indirect cause, there’s no fifth.
In most schools of Buddhism these four kinds of
causes are taken for granted and this goes also
for the sarvāstivādinschool, whose views are the
special target for Nāgārjuna.
The effective cause is the cause we’re familiar
with in daily life. It explains why things happen.
The other kinds of causes are typical Buddhist,
they are used to explain series of events in
consciousness.
The object-cause (literary ‘support´) consists of
the outward causes that determine
consciousness, so appearances, things as they
appear in perception. These determine what we
think, together with the mental factors. The
sarvāstivādins had a dualistic philosophy: they
looked upon mind and matter as absolutely
different things. Matter as such cannot therefore
cause mental effects. The influence things have
on our mind is therefore not a material causality,
but a kind of its own. The characters we’re
reading are in their material aspect just inkspots.
But characters have an influence on our mind,
because they mean something, as can be noted
when one observes a person reading a tax
assessment.
The third kind of causes, the precedent cause,
is the disappearance of the former thought or
moment of consciousness that makes the next
one possible. Thoughts appear and disappear all
the time and a thought is accordign to Buddhist
view already disappearing the moment it has
appeared. We cannot make or prevent a coming
thought by means of a present thought, like we
11 11
cannot chose what we’ll dream tonight either. A
present thought causes therefore not a coming
one like one biljartball causes the movement of
another. No, normally a thought comes
spontaneously as it were by the sucking
influence of the disappearing thought. The best
method to stop thoughts from appearing in order
to get inner silence is therefore according to the
sarvāstivādins holding on to a present thought.
The fourth kind of cause is literary called ‘the
highest lord’. It means the influence of
dominance. When it is beautifull weather and we
wreck our car the emotions about our car
determine our consciousness through dominance
over other emotions like being pleased with the
weather. When we fall in love our loved one
determines our emotions because of dominance
over other persons. The first example is
subjective dominance, the second one objective
dominance.
4.
An effect doesn’t have causes and isn’t
without cause. Causes are not without
effects but don’t contain them.
Let’s first look at the normal effective cause as
we know it from daily life. We drop a pen and the
fall of the pen causes a sound. The sound in itself
doesn’t contain a pen or a fall and also is not the
surface on which the pen lands, it exists
completely isolated by itself. It doesn’t sound
however without cause: we don’t hear it if we
don’t drop the pen. The dropping of the pen
doesn’t contain the sound, but this sounds
everytime the pen falls. So what have cause and
effect to do with each other?
5.
If one says that the socalled causes
originate dependend on others, how
could it be possible that these are not
causeless as long as those are not yet
there?
OK, let’s say that cause and effect depend on
each other and that we call some events or
things ‘causes’ and others ‘effects’. Then we’re
not off the hook. The peculiar fact occurs that
before we hear the sound, the fall of the pen is
just an event, and then magically and suddeny
bcsomes the cause of the sound afterwards. We
see this even more clearly in the case of
illnesses or accidents. If a plain has crashed we
because very much to know what the cause is,
because nobody likes to travel in plaines that fall
down spontaneously. If the cause would be a
crack in a bolt, then this crack is the cause of the
crash, but only after the crash not before, for
instance during the previous flight when
everything was normal. Still the crack didn’t
 Causality
change. By what kind of magic becomes the ‘just
a crack’ suddenly ‘crack-as-cause-for-crash’?
6.
A cause of something is nonsense,
whether it exists or not. Something that
exists doesn’t need a cause, so much
the less something that doesn’t exist.
Something that already exists, for example the
sound of a pen falling is an event by itself and
doesn’t need anyhting to sound. Just listen to the
sound, you just hear the sound, you don’t hear it
being caused. The sound is what it is. And it’s
even more absurd to look for a cause of an event
that doesn’t exist.
7 continuïtymodel, the ability or potentiality to be
If an existing phenomenon doesn’t
originate, nor a non-existing, nor one
that does and doesn’t exist, how can one
in all these cases speak of a cause?
A phenomenon or a thing that exists cannot
originate, as we’ve seen, because it’s already
there. It’s also impossible to originate for a
fenomenon or a thing that doesn’t exist, because
something doesn’t just come from nothing. A
pen that dosen’t fall makes no sound. And if we
combine both possiblities, we only double the
nonsense.
In India there were two models for causality: the
satkāryavāda, that means the model where the
effect is supposed to be already present in the
causes, and the asatkāryavāda, the model where
that’s not suppose to be the case. Both models
are here and in the last verse rejected: to say
that a thing originate as something totally new
and unrelated to anything else is nonsense, but
to say that a thing originates that’s allready
there even more.
The satkāryavāda focusses on the continuïty
between cause and effect, so the consequence is
that nothing disappears. Causality is nothing but
transformation. An apple originates from an
appletree and is a specific manifestation of it.
Later it will show itself again as appletree.
The asatkāryavāda on the other hand sees in
the effect a transgression of the cause, it’s
something complete new that couldn’t be found
in the cause. Causalitiy is here the
disappearence of causes in order to make place
for new effects. This model is called in buddhist
circles ‘the annihilationmodel’. When someone
knist a sweater, the sweater is something totally
new which couldn’t be found in the strings of
wool before.
The growth of plants and animals seems to be
an illustration for continuïty, for the
transformationmodel: one can see the plant
slowly grow from the seed and it looks as if the
plant is a manifestation of something that was
12 12
already present in the seed. Other phenomena of
nature like lightning or a rainbow, or thnings
made by human beings, seem to show more
discontinuïty, are better explained by the
transgressionmodel, because the effect seems to
be something totally new.
We find these models also in Western
philosophy, alltough they’re not mentioned
explicitely. Democritos (470-360 v. j.) would, if
asked, support the transgressionmodel. In his
view all phenomena orginate from the collision
and sticking together of atoms and the atoms
have no similarity with the things they form
together. Even now we find it not odd at all that
the atoms which make up this papier are not
white at all, but the paper is. Aristotle (384-322
v.j.) and with him most Medieval European
philosophers was a supporter of the
butter is already present in the milk.
8.
A phenomenon, so it’s said, is precisely
something that exists without an object.
If a phenomenon doesn’t have an object,
then what again is the use of the object?
Nāgārjuna turns now to the causeobject. When
we’re watching a movie we have a good
example of an object that’s an opportunity for
mental events. We feel exitement and pity or
sympathy for the main character and find it
difficult to concentrate on something else.
There’s however nothing in the film or in the
light or in the screen that causes our thoughts.
There isn’t a special object that provokes our
feelings. Besides the feelings and toughts are
different in every member of the audience,
because we all have our own preferences and
prejudices. If there’s no object that causes the
phenomenon, in this case the film as we see it,
what’s the use of speaking of a causeobject? The
phenomenon is there all right, but is not among
the things. So Nāgārjuna really tries to say: if
there’s nothing in the material process of the
show that can be pinpointed as the thing that
causes the public to evaluate the film in a
certain way, there’s no way you can present the
film as the cause of it’s evaluation and feelings.
9
If phenomena don’t originate, you
cannot say that they disappear; so a
(causing) previous moment is nonsense
and if they do disappear: which factors
are there?
This verse refers to the third kind of cause and
uses the conclusion of vers 7: phenomena
cannot originate. What doesn’t originate cannot
disappear either. As a consequence the theory
 Causality
that the disappearance of one phenomenon is
the cause of the appearance of the other,
doesn’t make any sense. Besides, they have to
bring something about by disappearing: the
appearance of a coming phenomenon and that
supposes therefore causal factors, but what kind
of causal factors are to be expected of
something that has already gone? There isn’t the
slightest moment that they are there at the
same time (see illustration).
10.
There’s no such thing as the existence
of non-substantial things, so if somebody
says that the one is contained in the
other, then this is totally impossible.
Is there something like a non-substantial car?
Some might say there is. One can dream of a car
and Donald Duck has a car. But a closer look
tells us that this is jumping ot conclusions,
because we’re used to call these kind of cars
nonexistent. No real person can steel Donald
Duck’s car or sell it. Something that doesn’t exist
cannot contain anything. So it’s completely
absurd to say that a thing contains a substance
of existence, because that would mean that it’s
there in the first place and contains substance or
existence on top of that .
11.
The effect exists not in the causes
eperately and also not in all together;
how can something originate from
causes if it’s not in any of them?
Now what about the general cause? If a general
cause were possible then there has to be at least
an effective cause as well. In that case where
can we find the effect: in the effective cause, in
the general, or in both, beit seperately or
together? The effect is not in these causes,
because it isn’t there yet. If it were, it would
have to be caused. If the effect would be really
something new that’s not in the causes, how can
it then suddenly appear? Something that really
exists, a substance, surely doesn’t come from
nothing! You need eggs to make an omelet.
Everybody can phantasize an omelet fantaseren,
but the funny thing about omelet is that it
doesn’t exist. If it would nobody would die from
starvation anymore!
12.
If there’s an effect that (first) didn’t
exist, but nevertheless later originates
from causes, why doesn’t it in that case
originate from the non-causes?
13 13
The next arguments are avlid for all kinds of
causes. Suppose that we have an effect that
earlier didn’t exist. We made an omelet, that
didn’t exist previously. The omelet is a
substance, it’s there by itself and shows itself as
omelet, regardless who’s looking. Being
substance it’s also something news, it wasn’t in
the eggs or in the frying pan or in the oil. So a
substance originates from substances it’s no part
of. In that case, can anybody explain why we
cannot make an omelet from a pack of yoghurt?
13.
The effect arises from the causes, but
the causes do not arise from themselves;
how could an effect arise from causes,
who’re incapable of making themselves
arise?
An answer to verse 12 could be that the
difference between the eggs, the oil, the cooking
fire and the frying pan on one hand and a pack
of yoghurt on the othe is that the first have the
power or potential to make that an omelet
arises. This applies for all kinds of causes, they
can be called a cause because they have the
ability to bring about that something arises. So
causes have a causal function that noncauses
are missing. The eggs, the oil, the frying pan,
etc. don’t contain an omelet, but they do have
the ability to make the origination of an omelet
and this happens to be absent in a pack of
yoghurt. See here the difference!
Nāgārjuna is not satisfied with this answer. How
obtain these causes their causal function? They
didn’t make themselves arise, so they cannot
have much causal functioning themselves. Has
this causal function entered before? Did the
chicken put in the eggs the ability for becoming
an omelet and were the factory the other
ingrediënts provided likewise? In that case is a
mystery why teh chicken didn’t lay omelets or
why the omelet wasn’t in the frying pan when we
bought it!
These arguments may look more forced in
English then in Sanskrit, although this shouldn’t
have any influence on their validity. The Sanskrit
word for cause is literary ‘root’ and the word for
effect is literary ‘fruit’ . A fruit arises from a
plant because of growing power. This also makes
the plant grow. In the case of a plant one could
say that the fruit is already contained in the
plant. The fruit is a kind of manifestation of the
plant and the plant is again a manifestation of a
previous fruit.
14.
So the effect isn’t arisen from causes
and (also) not from noncauses. How
could there be causes and noncauses, if
there’s no effect?
 Causality 14 14

Because something is a cause or isn’t, and it

has been proven that effects cannot originate
from one of them, the existence of causes has
become untenable. So if there are no effects,
there are no causes and also no noncauses. So if
there are no effects, there’s no question of there
being causes or noncauses. This seems to be
begging the question. Or not?
Nāgārjuna is discussing with several Buddhist
schools,among others the sarvāstvādins. Some
of their opinions are in gareement with common
sense, for instance the conception of an effective
cause. Nāgārjuna shows that these opinions are
not logically sound. Thisd doesn’t mean that he
denies the existence of cause and effect. Several
times he refers to daily life where causes and
effects are obvious. He reproaches his
oppponents however that they see cause and
effect as substances. This reproach doesn’t
apply only for all buddhist schools, because in
that cause this text wouldn’t be more then a

cause
effect
discussion between two buddhist ppoints of
view. Buddhist monks and nuns are not the only
ones who make cause and effect and a lot more
matters into substances: we all do! Moreover,
the surprising thing is that this opinion is very
short-sighted and that we understand much
more about the world around us if we surmount
this prejudice!
It’s curious that some of Nāgārjuna’s arguments
can also be found in the writings of Sextus
Empiricus, nota bene a contemperary. they
never met of course, because South-India and
Rome were absolutely seperate worlds at the
time. Sextus too notices that we only can think
of a cause if we know the effect and the other
way around20. He too thinks that we cannot deny
cause and effect . What however stands out
more in Sextus’ wrtings, is that cause and effect
are concpets that keep each other alive, like
‘day’ and ‘night’: if you think one, the other is
there as well, they implicate each other. The
concept of ‘substance’ is however not
mentioned.

20
SE 167-169
 Causality
2. Movement
1.
There’s no movement where something
has moved, neither where it has to
move. However nothing moves apart
from where it has moved or has to move.
Nāgārjuna is going to show that movement is
incomprehensible if one holds on to the concept
of substance and that our concept of movement
is not possible without substances. He directs his
critique most of all against the sarvāstivādins,
but they're certainly not the only ones who live
in a world of substances. It appears to be very
difficult to reconcile the concept of substance
with the concept of movement, but we cannot
imagine movement without something that
moves. Nevertheless there is movement, even
now. You’re reading and your gaze moves across
the characters.
In European philosophy this problem has also
been a hot topic. One of the oldest European
philosophical texts precisely tackles this
problem. It is the poem of Parmenides (530 - 455
v.j.), where he explains in the form of a
revelation that everything that exists has to be
what it is and how it is and what doesn't exist
cannot be there. Change is impossible because
for change to take place something that exists
has to vanish and something that doesn't exist
has to come into being. It’s impossible for
something that exists to have been non-existant.
This also applies to movement because it means
that something that used to be at one spot
appears at another one where it didn’t exist
before. Parmenides concludes that movement
doesn't exist. We see things move, but that is an
illusion. Perception must be an illusion according
to Parmenides. Truth is what can be proven. This
point of view has many similarities with that of
the sarvāstivādins. They too think of a
substance, as something that exists on its own
and cannot not be where and what it is.
A car driving by divides the road in two parts:
the part the car has passed and the part where
the car yet has to go. Where is the car moving at
the moment you see it? It's not on the part
where it comes from, but certainly not on the
part where it yet has to go. Nāgārjuna doesn't
deny that the car is moving, because otherwise
there wouldn't be a problem. Perhaps one could
15 15
say that the car moves where it is, but that's not
a place, it's noting but a rapidly changing
dividing line between where the car has gone
and where it still has to go. Some would say that
the car occupies a part of the road of at least
five yards, but that's not the point. We can also
discuss the place of a certain part of the car, say
the point exactly midway between front and
back and a point doesn't have length according
to geometrical definitions. If there is something
that moves, then it has to be somewhere. If you
want to understand the movement of the car,
you must be able to tell where it is and
thousands of traffic victims experience yearly
that cars certainly are somewhere when they're
moving.
2.
Because the movement21 is where the
mover is, precisely where it's going,
therefore the movement is in the going.
The mover is neither where it has moved
nor where has not moved.
One could say that the movement doesn't take
place on the road, but in what's moving. We see
the car move, so there's the movement and not
somewhere on the road.
3.
How could a mover be moving, if there
is no mover that doesn't move?
4.
If there would be a moving of a mover,
it would imply that there is a mover
apart from the moving. However it's the
mover who moves.
Saying of something that moves that it's
moving, suggests that there must be a thing, the
mover, that is involved in an activity called
'moving'. But that would be a very strange thing,
because it doesn't exist apart from what it does.
No one speaks about a mover that remains on
the spot.
5.
If there would be a moving of the mover
it would mean that there is a double
moving: apart from the moving that
21
Nāgārjuna uses two words which are almost synonymous:
the movement and the going. The movement refers to the
act of moving, the going to the fact that something is
moving, this difference in nuance doesn't have to mean
anything. One word may have been used instead of the other
in order to fit the meter (see May ’59 p. 57n)
 Causality
makes the mover a mover, there would
be the one that the mover moves.
If a driving car would really exist as a
substance, there has to be a moving that makes
the difference between the driving car and all
other non-moving objects. Apart from this there
has to be another moving, which is the activity of
the substance 'driving-car'. Without the first the
substance ‘driving-car’ would not emerge from
the background and the word ‘car’ in the
sentence ‘the car drives’ would have no
meaning. Without the second the word ‘drives’
would have no meaning.
The Greek philosopher Aristotle (384- 321B.D.)
divided the world in 8 or 10 categories, among
which substance, quality and activity, whereby
he assumed that this were separately existing
things. Something we call a car is a substance
called ‘car’, which possesses activities, qualities
etc. If language is a projection of reality, the
activity, in this case 'moving', has to exist by
itself, apart from the substance, the qualities,
etc. A car drives because the substance ‘car’
executes the activity called 'driving'.
The change that Gallileo Gallileï (1564 - 1624)
introduced didn’t make it easier to explain
movement. Movement in his view is relative, but
it exists apart from things.22 A spot on the tire of
a wheel moves in a circle with respect to the
center of the wheel, but it has another
movement with respect to the road. This means
that each moving thing executes an endless
amount of movements simultaneously, because
each perspective introduces another movement.
This is completely absurd of course. Movement is
even passed on to other things which start to
move in their turn. If the driving car hits a ball,
the ball gets a part of the movement of the car.
So in Gallileï's view movement has to be an
existing thing as well. Nāgārjuna would
undoubtedly ask how a mover could give his
movement to another thing, while it would cease
to exist without it and at what point: while
moving or after it's movement has stopped. In
the first case there wouldn't be any giving,
because the giver still has the gift in the second
case there would be no gift because the giver
doesn't possess what it is supposed to give.
6.
If there would be a double moving, then
it follows that there are two movers,
because there is no moving without a
mover.
Twice a driving of the car would mean that
there have to be actually two cars and if one
would consider each case again there would be
duplication, so it would be Liberty Hall.
22
see Feyerabend ‘76
16 16
7.
If moving can exist without a mover,
how could a mover exist in the absence
of moving?
So there's no driving car without the existence
of a movement. Nāgārjuna rejects the
rationalism of the Greek philosopher Parmenides
of Elea (540 – 480 B.D.) and his followers who
declared movement to be an illusion. His pupil
Zeno of Elea (490 – 430 B.D.) has become
famous for his paradoxes with which he tried to
prove his point. One of them is related to
Nāgārjuna's discussion on the relationship
between past, actual and future movement. If we
take a photo f a driving car there's no movement
to be seen. A movie consists of motionless
pictures which give the illusion of movement
because they are shown very quickly one after
another. Conclusion: movement is just an effect
of our sensory perception and therefore doesn't
exist. Nāgārjuna however doesn't draw this
conclusion, he doesn't reject the 'Lebenswelt',
the world of daily life as we experience it. He
even repeatedly refers to it, when he says time
and again: 'this is impossible' and 'this is
nonsense'. So on one hand he takes normality
for granted, but on the other hand he maintains
that we're mistaken about this normality. So he
maintains that movement and moving things
exist, be it not the way they're usually thought to
be.
8.
The mover doesn't move, neither does
the non-mover; which third is moving
then, apart from the mover and non-
mover?
The driving car doesn't move substantially
because that position leads to absurdities as we
have seen, nor does a parked car, being another
substance as the driving car. What else is there
in the domain of cars or things that could have
or exercise the activity of driving?
9.
How can one say that it's the mover
who moves, if there cannot be a mover
without moving?
10.
Those who maintain that a mover
moves must accept that there exists a
mover apart from moving. Such a person
wants a moving to exist which belongs to
a mover.
 Causality
If one wants to maintain that ‘the car drives’ is
a meaningful proposition which describes a state
of affairs accurately, one has to accept that
'car'(and intended is here ‘the driving-car’
because that's the perceived substance) and
'driving' are two separately existing things.
There are two kinds of propositions: analytical
ones and synthetical ones. The analytical
propositions are conventions, they are learned
and contain no information about the world we
live in, for example 5+6=11 or a bachelor is
unmarried. If we want to check them we must
reflect. Synthetical propositions contain
information about the world, for instance ‘the
sun is shining’ of ‘Paris is the capital of Italy’. We
have to rely on perceptions or on the perceptions
of others in order to check them. Nāgārjuna
criticizes those who think that ‘the car drives’ is
a synthetical proposition, which expresses that
there are two things: ‘the car’ and ‘drives’ and
that at a certain moment the last is an actual
activity of the first.
11.
Besides if the mover moves, it follows
that moving exists twice: as that by
which the mover is known as a mover
and that by which the mover is the one
who moves.
There is a driving that’s part of the substance
driving-car and driving that’s the activity
exercised by the substance. The activity can
stop, the substance cannot. If it's unthinkable
that the substance driving-car doesn't drive,
then the proposition ‘the car drives’ must be an
analytical one, but that means that nor driving
nor the driving car really exist, they're just a kind
of things we decided to agree on, like a
telephone number or the name of a street.
12.
Moving doesn't start where something
has moved, it doesn't start where it has
not moved yet, it (also) doesn't start
where it's moving, well then: where does
it start?
Just as we cannot show where the moving really
happens, we also cannot point out where the
beginning is of what has to be covered. We are
on our way to Moscow and we still have 400
miles to go. The stretch of 400 miles is
something that really exists, isn't it? We don't
make this up, do we? We have to see that we
have enough gas, do we? That's right, but where
do we begin driving the distance? Not
somewhere in the part that we have covered
already, but also not on the spot where we are
now, because that's where we are now and the
400 miles are ahead of us. Besides: if we’re not
17 17
yet moving, the moving, covered and to be
covered don't really exist by themselves, at that
time they only exist in our imagination. Or is this
all our imagination inspired by our insane whim
to go to Moscow?
13.
Before the moving has begun there is
no mover or covered part. Where would
the moving begin, how can that be in the
part not yet covered?
14.
How would one imagine covered part,
moving and not covered, if only but a
beginning of moving is nowhere to be
seen?
We might not be able point out where the
moving starts, but it should be clear anyway that
the moving ends. Nāgārjuna however doesn't
think so. If a substance moves, the moving
belongs to its very nature, so it cannot stop
moving in any way.
15.
The mover doesn't stop, nor does the
non-mover. Which third (substance)
stops if neither the mover nor the non-
mover?
16.
It's said that the mover stops, but how
is that possible if there cannot be any
mover at all without moving!
A substance which is moving on account of its
own nature cannot stop. A freezing mover is
nonsense. Something that doesn't move cannot
stop because that would mean a double
stopping: the stopping because of which the
stopper is different from the moving and apart
from that the stopping that the stopper
executes. This duplicity is apparently inherent in
the concept of a substance and is quite clearly
illustrated by the definition of a substance that
Spinoza gave: something that exists by itself
and is known by itself. A substance has to be
known by itself, because it has to have it's own
objective qualities. God can only be a substance
in circles where there's agreement about His
qualities.
17.
The mover doesn't stop in the state of
moving, in the state of being moved nor
in the state of not yet moved. The very
 Causality
same that applies for moving applies for
going, beginning and stopping.
So according to substantialism it's impossible to
stop. If one moves one doesn't stop and if one
stops, one isn't moving. So it's unthinkable that
someone who's driving a car actually stops. This
applies also for someone who has driven a car
for a while or has the intention to drive a car. It's
just the same we've seen with moving: the car
doesn't move on the part it has covered nor on
the part it still has to go. And when it moves one
needs two concepts of moving on order to
explain how a substantial car moves. This
applies also for movement that's witnessed from
outside and for the beginning or stopping of a
movement.
18.
To say that moving is nothing else than
the mover is nonsense. To say that the
mover is something totally different from
the moving is nonsense too.
19.
Because if that was the case, moving
would be the very same as the mover, it
would mean that actor and action would
be one and the same.
If driving and the movement are identical no
one is driving.
20.
However if the mover is represented as
something different from the movement,
then the movement would exist without
a mover and a mover without a
movement.
If one assumes that the driver and driving are
different things, how could they affect each
other? One would have to find each one in the
street without the other!
21.
How would it be possible to determine
of two things exist if it's impossible to
determine whether they’re identical or
different?
Isn’t it clear what the relationship is between
driver and driving since the driver shows herself
as such by driving a car? ‘No’, says Nāgārjuna,
’because there would have to be a driver first
which shows herself subsequently as such by
driving a car.’ But in that case there would be a
18 18
driver in the first place who's not driving. This is
clearly absurd. We call someone a driver only if
she’s driving, and in that case there's a double
activity of driving going on: one to make a driver
and one to describe what the driver does. (Of
course a cabdriver who’s having a day off is still
called ‘cabdriver’, but this is because the word
‘driver’ has for us other meanings which were
not intended by Nāgārjuna, like ‘being capable of
driving’ or ‘having driver as a profession’.)
This seems very logical, but maybe there's still
some feeling of discomfort because it's seems
also logical and obvious to say that a driver
drives. Nāgārjuna however doesn't want us to
believe that there's anything wrong with that. He
wants us to understand the absurdity of two
prejudices:
o words refer to actually existing things
o to exist means to be a substance.
22.
The mover doesn't execute the
movement by which he's known as a
mover, because there's no one who's
moving before the moving (takes place).
23.
The mover doesn't execute a different
movement than that by which he's
known as a mover: a double movement
is not possible, because there's only one
person who moves.
24.
A real mover doesn't execute the
movement in one of the three ways. An
unreal mover doesn't execute the
movement in one of the three ways.
Suppose we admit it: movement is an illusion,
do we have an agreement? 'No', says Nāgārjuna.
'Movement, be it real or illusory, or both (that
means according to one possible perspective
real an according to another unreal) is just
incomprehensible. There's no such a thing as a
mover who's moving anywhere, real, unreal or
both.
25.
Neither a real nor an unreal mover
executes the movement in one of the
three ways, so there doesn't exist a
(substantial) going, mover or movement.
This means that the words ‘mover’, ‘moving’
and ‘(stretch) to go’ don't refer to actual things
which exist independently and by themselves.
The discussions about movement in Western
philosophy are well known. Parmenides thought
 Causality 19 19
that being meant being a substance and
concluded that movement and change (in
Antique philosophy both were closely related) is
impossible. A substance is what it is and cannot
possibly ever stop being or become anything
else. To exist is to exist positively, when we say
that something is, we confirm it. The word ‘not’
belongs to human imagination and is no part of
reality. What is has no differences, because
being not something is a paradox. Parmenides'
pupil Zeno van Elea has become famous by his
the clever arguments against the existence of
movement. The most famous is the example of
Achilles (famous athlete in his time) and the
turtle. They run against each other 500 yards
and Achilles gives the turtle a head start of 100
yards. Achilles runs twice as fast as the turtle, so
when he's at 100 yards, the turtle is at 150.
When a little later Achilles is at 150 yards, the
turtle is at 175. Every time Achilles is at the
place where the turtle was, the turtle is just a
little further. A cannot win. The rationalist view is
that something only really exists if it can be
proven logically, so if Achilles and the turtle do
run and Achilles wins, it's a proof that movement
doesn't really exist.23
Sextus Empiricus also mentions the argument
of the impossibility to point out the place of the
movement24 and a refutation based on
causality25. A movement must have a cause and
that can only be another movement. This must
also have a cause and so on. So a first cause is
impossible, because an unmoving thing cannot
cause movement (if applied to the level of
primary particles this is still an interesting
argument, because all change is retraced to the
Big Bang, and the cause of this cannot be
explained).
The sophists also have criticised the view that
words refer to existing things. Gorgias of Leontini
(480 – 380 B.D.) has become famous by the
verdict that nothing can exist, because if so, it
has to be eternal or temporary. Eternal things
are impossible, because such a thing cannot fail
to be anywhere, so it also has to be endless and
endless things are impossible, because they
would have to contain themselves or be a part of
something else. Both possibilities are absurd for
a thing. Temporary things cannot exist because
they would originate from existing or not existing
things. The last possibility is absurd, the first
leads to an endless regression
Moreover if something would exist no one would
be able to know it, because it would have to
exist by itself. But if one would know something
existing, one wouldn't be able to describe it as it
is, because there's no natural and real
connection between words and things.26

23
see ook SE p. 181
24
SE p. 180
25
SE p. 179
26
Coplestone p. 113
 The senses
3. The senses
1 the real thing, we can see if the camera works
The six senses are: sight, hearing,
smell, taste, touch and the mind; the
domains of these are the visible etc.
After reading last chapter many will shake their
wise heads: how can one deny that something
like movement exists: everybody sees, hears,
and feels lots of things moving all the time?
True, but what does that prove? In other words
the question is: can we trust our senses?
Nāgārjuna thinks not.
Today it may be not obvious to call the mind a
sense, but in the past there have been
philosophers who saw the necessity of a inner
sense that composes the data of the different
outward directed senses into a complete picture
and informs us about our own state of mind. The
Sanskrit word for this sixth sense is ‘manas’ and
this is related to the root ‘man’, to think. The
word ‘thinking’ may give the false impression
that the mind is supposed to restrict itself to
calculation and logic. Any opposition between
reasoning and emotion is not at stake here.
Each sense has its own kind of sensation and its
own kind of objects. The eye sees forms and
colors, the nose smells scents, the ear hears
sounds, etc. Such a collection of sense objects or
sensedata is called a domain (literally pasture).
The domain of the nose consists for instance of
all smells.
2 it doesn't mention anything that's happening in
The sight doesn't even see itself. Well,
how could something that doesn't see
itself see something else?
This doesn't sound logical at first sight: a
camera doesn't take pictures of itself and still
there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with
the photographs it makes. There is however a
difference between a camera and our eyes: a
camera takes pictures, a videocamera even
moving images. We can see these images at the
same time at a screen or through the looking
glass and later on a monitor or on paper. A
camera produces nothing but images. How about
our eyes? Well, if our eyes would be producing
images, there would have to be somebody who’s
20
looking through them. Do we have a little person
in our head which looks at the pictures that
come from our eyes? Obviously not! Such a
homunculus was never found during
brainsurgery or x-ray photographs. We learn at
school that our eyes send impulses to our brain,
but our brain imagines the images. How our
brain does this we don't know. We cannot check
our eyes either. If we compare a photograph to
accurately, but how could we compare the
images our eyes give us with the real thing? Our
sight doesn't see itself, so it cannot control itself!
We know that our eyes and other senses are
different from those of other people and very
different from those of some animals. What we
see is strictly private. Who then sees the real
thing? What is the real thing?
3
The example of the fire doesn't apply to
the sight. Like the sight this has already
been refuted by the arguments against
going, the goer and the movement.
The objection that the eye works like the fire
that enlightens itself as well as other objects
doesn't apply here. If the fire would enlighten
itself, it would have to burn twice: once to be a
fire and once to enlighten things. In chapter 10
we will find a more elaborate refutation of this
argument.
4
If something that doesn't see isn't sight,
how can it make sense to say that the
sight sees?
Like the case of the going, the proposition ‘the
sight sees’ seems to be an analytical proposition,
reality. It is a convention and not referring to a
matter of fact. To ascertain whether or not the
sight sees, we must be able to determine under
which conditions the sight sees and under which
not. The sight is however always seeing, because
a sight that doesn't see is absurd. One cannot
call something a ‘sight’ if it's not seeing. It’s true
of course that we don't see many objects in the
dark or in dense fog, but in that case we see the
dark or the fog. Only a blind person has lost his
sight. Moreover without sight there is no one
who sees.
5
 The senses 21

It's not the sight that sees and nor we develop attachment step by step and get
something else than the sight. It's is involved in our day to day world of worry and
desire. Buddhism advises us to free ourselves
clear that with the sight also the seer from this world because it's also a world of
has been explained. suffering and sorrow. So Nāgārjuna concludes
that this world of worry and sorrow, this cycle of
6 suffering, doesn't exist, in other words there's
The seer doesn't exist dependent on nothing to free oneself from.
the sight nor apart from it. If the seer
doesn't exist, how in that case could the 8
visible exist and the sight? Together with the sight now also has
been clarified how hearing, smell, taste,
It's impossible that the seer exists dependent touch and the mind exist and also the
on the sight, because in that case she wouldn't hearer, the heard, etc.
be a substance. This would have peculiar
consequences. Someone would for instance
suddenly stop being a seer at the moment she
closes her eyes and pop up as a seer on the
moment she opens them again. Such a person
would be a seer according to one person and not
according to another, because she wouldn't be
herself objectively. If the seer would exist apart
from the sight, their relationship would become
in comprehensible. There would be a sight
without a seer and a seer without anybody
seeing anything. Now an argument of opponents
is presented without comment.

6a27
Consciousness originates because of
sight and the visible like a son is born
from a father and a mother.

This has already been refuted by the verse

before, because father, mother and son exist
independently. Each can disappear without
affecting the existence of the others. If we would
apply this to the present situation: if you still
would have an awareness of seeing these
characters after this book has been closed, it's
time to seek medical help.

7
If it’s accepted that the quadruplet of
consciousness etc. doesn't exist because
the visible and the sight don't; how could
the attachment and the rest in their turn
exist?

If there's no one who's seeing, there’s no

consciousness of images and therefore no
knowledge thereof, so no feeling of involvement
in images and no desire. Consciousness,
knowledge, feeling and desire form together the
quadruplet that's mentioned here. There's a well
known model, a circular chain of twelve links28
that describes how we get attached to things by
perceiving them first, liking them etc. In this way
27
this vers is missing in Kumārajiva's version
28
see chapter 26
The senses 22
 The components
4. The components
1 investigation: it's theory.
Matter is not perceived apart from the
cause of matter. The cause of matter is
also not perceived without matter.
This chapter has as subject the five components
which make up the person according to
Buddhism, literally the ‘ramifications’
(skandha’s). These are: matter, emotions,
perception, predisposition's (inclinations) and
consciousness. The discussion itself is related to
the discussion on cause and effect of chapter 1.
Nāgārjuna starts with a critique on the concept
of matter. According to Buddhist philosophy
matter consists of four elements: fire, water, air
and earth. These four elements are therefore the
four causes for the existence of matter. Common
sense tells us that if matter exists, the causes
also have to exist.
2 reality. Atoms don't exist, they are theoretical
If there would be matter without the
cause of matter, it would mean that
matter doesn't have a cause, but
something without a cause doesn’t exist
anywhere.
3
Well, if the cause of matter would exist
apart of matter, there would be a cause
apart of the effect, but a cause without
an effect doesn't exist.
4 should not make any representations
If matter exists, it’s impossible for a
cause of matter to exist. If matter
doesn't exist, it’s impossible for a cause
of matter to exist.
This verse uses the conclusions of chapter 1.
First of all it's obvious that if matter doesn’t
exist, there's no cause of matter either. On the
other hand if matter exists, there has to be a
cause for it, because everything has its causes.
In that case effect and cause would exist
simultaneously, so the cause would be
superfluous.
23
23
Common sense tells us there is a cause for
everything, but matter is not just a thing,it is the
way we exist, it is our world. A cause for matter
is altogether a different matter. The things we
percieve exist in a material way, they originate,
not matter.We even don’t know what matter
looks like and we certainly never saw it orignate.
So why would we need a cause? Matter as a
seperate existing stuff is an abstraction so it’s
cause is nothing but speculation or scientific
The theory of the four elements will not have
many supporters today in the West today (unlike
during the Middle Ages), but we still imagine a
cause of matter. We learned at high school or
from science pages of newspapers that matter is
made out of atoms or even quarks or strings, in
short elementary particles. But what difference
does this make for things? This book consists of
matter, one can grab it, throw it to a cat, burn it,
etc. These are facts, everyone can try. They
belong to the world and we take them for
granted. A cause for these facts is completely
unnecessary. Where does the story about the
elementary particles come in? We cannot grab
those or throw them anywhere. They're invisible.
Do they contribute to the readability of the book
or do they cost extra? Of course not, Nāgārjuna
looks at things from an phenomenological point
of view, for him reality is what reveals itself, the
rest is theory. Science makes theories about
terms, even if one can use them in a nuclear
plant. The book reveals itself to us. In dealing
with the book, the only thing that matters is the
book in front of us. Whether science tells us that
the book consists of four elements or quarks,
doesn't matter. A low quality or an expensive
book doesn't have low quality or expensive
quarks. We also fall in love or get angry with
another person, not with his or her cells or
quarks.
5
Again: without a cause it's impossible
that matter exists at all, therefore one
about matter.
We might have all kinds of theories about
matter, but we always need to have an idea
about a cause and also about the properties. Any
idea about causes is theory and speculation. The
only thing that reveals itself and matters to us is
the thing. The explanations of why matter has
weight or is impenetrable are interesting from a
scientific point of view, but not from a Buddhist
 The components
or existential or phenomenological point of
view29.
6 makes the rain fall.
One can't say the effect is similar to the
cause.
One can't say the effect is dissimilar to
the cause.
If the effect is similar to the cause, then is one
of them is superfluous. The effect is in that case
just a repetition or continuation of the cause and
everything there is to know about the effect was
already known from the cause. The effect
doesn't show anything that the cause didn't. In
fact they're indistinguishable. In the case of a
fire for instance the flames at one moment would
be the causes for the flames the next moment.
It's however impossible to say whether cause
and effect are different or just parts of the same
phenomenon: the fire. In fact flames never occur
apart from a fire.
If the cause is very different from the effect,
any relation between them is impossible and any
information about the cause is useless for
understanding the effect. If a fire were hot and
it’s flames cold, it couldn’t be the cause of it’s
flames.
Is this still a problem today in the West since
we've science and quantum mechanics and very
sophisticated labs and that kind of stuff? Well,
our representation of the cause of matter has
become very complicated and we even have
machines which show us the pictures we need to
to complete this representation, like for instance
the electron microscope. Great! But since more
then a century philosophers of science have tried
to fill up the gap between this representation
and the reality of our daily life, the 'lifeworld'. It
appears to be impossible. Scientific terms, like
‘atom’, ‘economical depression', ‘high pressure
area', ‘PH-number’, etc. cannot be reduced to
simple unbiased perceptions. One cannot
perceive them without the scientific theory and
instruments. Rain can be the effect of a low
pressure area (simply put). The concept ‘low
pressure area' is a theoretical concept, no one
can perceive it or understand what it means
without having some basic understanding of
meteorology. A low pressure area doesn't
resemble rain and the relation between both is
invisible. Usually no one thinks about it, but it
might become clear if one has to explain to a
child how a barometer works.
The cause explains the effect only on the basis
of a certain bias, if we understand the
explanation we unknowingly take certain
presumptions for granted. In fact a low pressure
29
The Buddha once said that if one is hit by an arrow one
doesn't ask what color it is or where it was made, the only
thing that matters is to get the arrow out. The arrow is a
metaphor here for the suffering of cyclic existence.
24
24
area causes rain because we've decided to say
so and not because our sense tell us so. We
could as well have decided that a rain god
7
What applies to matter, applies to
emotion, thinking, perception, the
inclinations and even to all things.
This concludes all there is to say about matter.
But it applies to other phenomena as well.
There's for instance no emotion without a cause,
etc.
The last two verses of the chapter that follow
here are rather different. They may have been
added later. They contain an advice on
discussions about emptiness and were probably
needed because the same mistake was
committed over and over again. Apparently the
discussion about the components often turned
into a discussion about emptiness in general.
If Nāgārjuna is right, matter doesn't exist, or
rather matter is not a substance. But this is the
very way we experience matter, as something
that exists on its own, independent of what we
think. Is the world we live in an illusion? Well, if
this is an illusion, what is real?
This book, you, dear reader, your body and all
you care about, exists only conventionally, the
same way as the characters these words are
made of, the same way as a traffic sign or a
mortgage. Everything exists because of
expectations and habits. There's nothing that
exists apart from our thoughts and expectations.
This world is just a window-dressing, behind the
phenomena there's openness. We speak of
emptiness when something that we’re expecting
to find misses. The glass is empty because it
could be full. What misses according to
Nāgārjuna, is a fixed structure, something that is
what it is, independent of what we think of it, a
rock-bottom of reality.
Could we get used to this emptiness? Is it
something that exists? We've seen that
emptiness is based on expectations. We
shouldn’t make the same mistake twice and take
emptiness as a substance or a phenomenon, for
instance as a higher world, heaven or God. One
might be tempted to use it to win a discussion,
saying ‘everything is emptiness’ and perhaps
even add this is ones very own (meditation)
experience. This however would be a huge
mistake. Emptiness doesn't exist apart from this
world. Emptiness is a question, not an answer
and certainly not an argument. If one makes
emptiness the object of expectations and
fantasy, one’s further away from understanding
life then ever.
8
The components
Who in a discussion answers with an
appeal to emptiness when an objection
is made, makes all his (points) that are
not disproved invalid with the proof.
So when somebody defends his point by saying
that everything is empty, there is nothing more
to defend and nothing more to prove or say and
has the discussion become useless. Emptiness is
25
25
the end of discussion and thought, never the
beginning. It is not a fact, but the transparency
of facts.
9
Who in a comment answers with an
appeal to emptiness when criticism is
made, makes all his (points) that are not
criticized invalid with the proof.
The elements
5. The elements
1 might be, that doesn't have its
Space doesn’t exist at all before the
characteristic of space, because in that
case space would initially exist without
characteristics and acquire them only
later.
According to abhidharma, the theoretical
elaboration and schematization of the teachings
of the Buddha, matter causes atoms, which
appear only a short moment and subsequently
vanish, not unlike the pixels on a TV-screen or a
computer monitor. These atoms consist of
elements. The primary elements are water,
earth, air and fire. Apart from these there are 24
secondary elements, one of them is space. Each
element has specific characteristics and
functions. The characteristic of space is that it
separates atoms.
In Europe there has been a lively
correspondence between Gottfried Wilhelm
Leibniz (1646 - 1716) and Isaac Newton (1642 -
1727) about the question whether space is
absolute or relative. Newton thought space to be
absolute; it is in his view something that
contains things. Take away the things and you
have pure space. Leibniz didn't agree, he saw
space as a relation between things. If you take
away the things the space is also gone.
The abhidharma agrees with Leibniz. Space is
something relative; it is the distance between
atoms. If one takes away the atoms there's no
space left. This view is one step away from
idealism, the philosophy that reality is a
projection of consciousness (be it one's own or a
shared one), because a relation exists only for
those who recognize it. Therefore relative space
is an interpretation, a concept. It was Immanuel
Kant (1724-1804) who finished this line of
thinking and redefined space and time, but also
cause and effect and a number other so called
‘facts’ forms of thought. Space and time exist for
us only because we think in terms of space and
time. Kant considered himself to be an idealist.
For him space and time don’t exist on their
own.30
Nāgārjuna shows that here too the concept of
substance doesn't work. He shows that space
doesn't exist as a substance and that there's no
30
Murti mistakenly (in my opninion) sees many similarities
between Kant's position van and Nāgārjuna's, see for
instance Murti p. 123
a primary or secondary element. All that can be
said about space also applies to the other
elements.
2
Not a single thing exists, what ever it
characteristics. If no thing exists without
characteristics, where could a
characteristic develop?
The discussion is about over specific
characteristics. If the specific characteristic of
space is to separate objects, then there's no
space without this specific characteristic. Such a
characteristic can therefore not originate as a
new quality of space; it has to exist
simultaneously with space. This calls for the
question what is first: the substrate (which is
said to carry or posses the quality) or the quality
and this is a chicken-and-egg question.
3
A characteristic doesn't appear on
something that has the characteristic
already, nor on something that doesn't
have the characteristic yet, neither on
something else than what does or
doesn't have the characteristic.
4
However if a characteristic doesn't
appear, then a substrate of the
characteristic is impossible. But if a
substrate of the characteristic is
impossible, then the origination of a
characteristic is impossible.
Each characteristic needs a substrate, for
instance a color like red needs a surface, it
cannot just float in space. The element space is
the substrate of the characteristic ‘separation of
objects’. This characteristic is specific for the
element space. Space originates and disappears,
together with the atoms, because it is an
element of the atoms. How can space arise if its
specific characteristic, the separation, cannot
arise? Conclusion there's no space and on
characteristic of space. The fact that you
nevertheless see a space between these
characters is not a serious objection. It simply
means that you see phenomena which don't
exist as a substance. Space exists for you and
exists in relation to the activity of reading.
The elements
5 imagine such a thing and no-thing,, it couldn't be
Therefore no characteristic exists nor a
substrate of characteristics. However not
a single thing exists without
characteristic and substrate.
We can distinguish the things by their specific
characteristics. It is impossible for two things to
be two things if are exactly alike, as Leibniz has
pointed out. They would be one and the same.
Even two chocolate bars of the same brand and
type are different because they're not on the
same spot. One bar is to the right of the other
and that characteristic is enough to distinguish
it. Is that characteristic a substance? Yes, says
the abhidharma, because we have a word for it
and each word that has a meaning refers to an
existing substance. OK, we have two bars, we
put the one at the right side of the other, so a
specific characteristic is suddenly there. How is it
possible for it to appear suddenly on this one
bar? The other one is different as well, how does
this acquire its characteristic?
6 stupid. The worst is that such a person misses
Which no-thing would exist if there
would be no thing at all and if a
phenomenon could be both a thing and a
no-thing? Who could know something
that's both a thing and no thing?
The thing that we call the right bar apparently
arises out of nothing, because its origination is
inexplicable. It disappears suddenly when we
move the bar. If it would really be a substance, a
real thing, then it couldn't just arise out of
nothing and later disappear. Is it maybe a no-
thing, or both thing and no-thing? How can one
an object of knowledge anyway.
7
Therefore no thing nor no-thing exists,
neither a substrate nor a quality. This
applies to space and the five elements of
the kind as space (earth, water, air, fire
and consciousness).
8
The simpletons however, who see
what's not there as what's there, don't
see what they should: the beneficial
appeasement of things.
This verse is kind of extra; it doesn't fit into the
line of reasoning. It can be applied to many
discussions. It looks like it has been added later
as a kind of stimulus. Who understands the
discussion would have to agree, because every
step is logical. Who doesn't agree is blind. Such a
person doesn't see what is obvious, he's even
something: he cannot let go of things and
doesn't experience the benefit that arises when
things subside in themselves. Nāgārjuna says
now for the first time that he's not only trying to
win a discussion. Understanding the emptiness
of phenomena opens the way to another kind of
experience of the world, which is beneficial and
peaceful,an amazing inner peace. Nāgārjuna has
a positive message and speaks apparently from
experience.
It's remarkable that according to Nāgārjuna
nirvāņa (because that's the state of inner peace)
is not for simple people. To get it one has to be
clever and think and investigate. It cannot be
reached by ritual, asceticism or devotion.
 The emotions
6. The emotions
1 person cannot become angry, because he would
If previous to the passion an
impassioned one without passion would
exist, then passion would arise
dependent on him, so the passion arises
when the impassioned one exists.
How about passions, the most dangerous
enemies of a monk? Nāgārjuna cannot deny the
passions because on the Buddhist path, which he
supports not less then his adversaries, the battle
against passions is top priority. Passions cause
wrong views, they make us see things which
aren't there and ignore other important things.
Passions make us look upon things which are
impermanent, like our children or our body or
reputation, as something everlasting. And that
causes worries and suffering when they change
or vanish. The goal of Buddhism, the state of
nirvāņa (which means literary 'blown out'), is the
state of mind where passions are extinguished.
Passions are a kind of inner afflictions or
mentaltorments (kleśa’s) which keep us away
from nirvāņa. What applies to passions, applies
to all mentaltorments. They are very real
because without them we all would be buddhas,
which we're clearly not.
Nāgārjuna first notes that passions and the
impassioned person cannot be separate
substances, but not one substance either. If they
are separate substances, they have to exist
independently, if not passion and impassioned
person must be two names of the same thing,
which is absurd.
It's often said a passion arises when someone's
moved or touched. That would mean that there
would have to be a person first who
subsequently changes into a moved person who
develops the passion. This is nonsense
obviously, because to what use is the passion if
the person is moved already? So we have to
saaume that the passion arises in an unmoved
person.
2 to take place when only one exists. If
On the other hand, where does the
passion arise if the impassioned one
28
doesn't exist yet? It would make no
difference for the impassioned one
whether the passion exists or not.
Where does the passion arise if not in an
impassioned person? If anger doesn’ arise in an
angry person, it may also be possible for cheerful
people or daffodils to become angry. On the
other hand anger becomes superfluous if a
person is angry already. An angry person cannot
become angry because he already is. A cheerful
first have to stop being cheerful in order to
become angry.
Only one alternative left seems to be: the
passion and the impassioned one arise
interdependently.
3
The interrelated origination of passion
and impassioned one is sheer nonsense,
because in that case the passion and the
impassioned one would have to exist
independently.
This alternative causes a new problem: two
things can only be called interrelated if they
exist separately. So an angry person and anger
have to exist first in order to be interrelated. It’s
impossible for anger and the angry person to be
the same thing because in that case there would
be no relation but identity.
What if anger and the angry person arise
separately and interdependently?
4
In case of a unity interdependent
origination is impossible; the one cannot
arise dependent on the other. If they
would exist independently, how could
they originate dependently in anyway?
If there is one substance, there's nothing to be
dependent on. If there are two substances, they
are necessarily independent and a relationship is
out of the question. Apparently the problem is
the concept of substance. This makes any
relationship incomprehensible.
5
If there would be dependent origination
in case of a unity, origination would have
there would be dependent origination in
 The emotions
case of separateness, origination would
have to take place when only one exists.
So it's impossible for anger and the angry
person to arise dependently on each other,
whether they are a unity or two separate
substances, because the concept of a substance
implies independence.
Anger would have to arise dependent on an
angry person even if he weren't there.
6
What does the dependent origination of
passion and impassioned one mean if
they exist independently? How would it
be possible for them to originate
dependently if it's a fact that they both
arise independently?
If the angry person and anger are two separate
substances, they cannot arise through
dependence on teach other. We say that a
person becomes angry. The person exists by
himself. This person feels his anger coming up,
there has to be anger as well. It's complete
nonsense to say that anger and the angry person
arise dependently.
7 accept the reality of Parmenides: one substance
On which grounds you imagine that
passion and the impassioned one arise
dependently? It is a fact that they each
originate separately!
8 the Phaedo, where Socrates explains that
You deny that separateness is a fact, so
you suppose dependency! And in order
to prove that they arise dependently,
you suppose even that they arise
separately.
If one denies that the angry person and the
anger exist independently because they depend
on each other, one has to accept separateness in
order to make a relation possible. If there's a
29
relation between anger and an angry person
both have to exist. But how is in that case
dependence possible?
9
If it's not possible to prove that they
arise separately then certainly not that
they arise dependently. How do you
imagine they arise dependently while
they arise separately?
10
Likewise there's s no proof that passion
exists, not with and not without an
impassioned person. In the same way as
for passion it has been proved for all
phenomena that they cannot exist
separately nor in dependence.
The theory of substances makes itself
impossible, it contradicts itself all the time. We
suppose a relation between substances, between
anger and the angry person, between a
strawberry and redness, between a wedding and
a groom, etc., but we cannot account for it. If we
suppose separate origination, we contradict
ourselves. If we suppose oneness we have to
without differences and change, a kind of
mystical timeless fog. A world without
substances however is equally impossibl: it
would be a world without things.
The problems of the dependence of things is
also a subject of discussion in Plato's dialogue
something can only be beautiful if it takes part in
the absolute form (idea) of beauty. (in the sense
that 4 and 22 both take part in the number 2,
because 2 is a factor of both). In the same way
Socrates tries to explain that 1+3 are 4,
although none of them take part in 4. So in the
discussion above Socrates would have said that
the angry person becomes angry by taking part
in the absolute form of anger. This wouldn't have
helped him very much because taking part is just
another way of dependence in separateness.
 Origination, duration and disappearance
30
7. Origination, duration and disappearance
1 have an endless series of originations and
If origination is caused, then it has
necessarily its triple characteristic. If
origination is not caused, how could it in
that case have the characteristics of
being caused?
According to Buddhism there's nothing that
lasts eternally. Everything is impermanent;
everything arises, lasts a moment and
disappears finally. Besides, things arise only if
the necessary conditions are present. If
something has been caused, it has to arise, last
a while and disappear. These are the three
characteristics. The abhidharma schools came to
the conclusion that these three characteristics
must exist really, so substantially. Arising,
lasting and disappearing are real in our world;
they exist on their own and are not dependent
on how we think about them.
2
The three actions of the characteristics,
like origination etc., are in itself
incapable to accomplish anything.
However if they were to act in
combination: how could they be present
at the same place and at the same time?
Origination only is possible if something arises,
but this must have the triple characteristic,
because everything has. Moreover if something
would arise that doesn't have the characteristics
of lasting and disappearing, it wouldn't be able
to last or disappear. The three actions however
cannot be present simultaneously, because they
rule each other out. Something that's lasting
isn't disappearing or arising.
3
If origination, lasting and disappearing
would have each for itself the
characteristics of being caused, then an
endless regression would be the result
and if not they wouldn't be caused.
Suppose that the origination of a rainstorm
would have in itself origination, lasting and
disappearing, this would also be the case with
the origination, lasting and disappearing of the
origination of the rainstorm and again with the
origination of the origination, etc. The
originations and the rest wouldn't come to an
end. If an origination would take time, how little
it would be, something couldn't possibly
originate, because each phenomenon would
nothing could exist because according to
Buddhist teaching everything that exists is
caused. If we therefore suppose that origination,
lasting and disappearance don't have each the
triple characteristic, then it follows that they're
not caused and therefore don't exist.
The opponent now invents a trick to avoid the
problem: circular causality. He distinguishes an
origination of the origination and a basic
origination. The basic origination causes the
phenomenon to appear. The origination of the
origination takes care of the basic origination
that in his turn also causes the origination of the
origination.
phenomenon
basic origination
origination of origination
4
The origination of the origination is just
the origination of the basic origination.
The basic origination causes in its turn
the origination of the origination.
Such a vicous circle is of course absurd:
something cannot cause its cause and cannot be
caused by its very own effect.
5
If, as you say, the origination of the
origination would be the origination of
the basic origination, how could that
 Origination, duration and disappearance
31
which has to be caused by the basic
origination cause it?
6
If, as you say, the basic origination
would cause that which is caused by the
basic origination, how could the basic
origination cause that by which it still
has to be originated?
The opponent still takes another shot. He says
that the basic origination causes the origination
of the origination while still in the process of
originating. That too is nonsense of course.
7 In other words one wouldn't be able to see
If you suppose that the one causes the
other while originating, then the other
must be able to cause the one while it
has not yet arisen.31
The opponent is not convinced and mentions a
counter example which should show that an
effect can produce its own cause.
8
The origination can cause itself and
other things, just like a lamp, which
enlightens itself and other things.
Nāgārjuna answers that the example doesn't
make sense: there's no causal relationship
between the lamp and its light.
9 an end, but a second part follows. How would it
There's no darkness in the lamp, nor on
the place where it is. What is it the lamp
enlightens: light only exists where
darkness has been dispelled, isn't it?
10
How is darkness dispelled by a lamp
which is switched on32? It doesn't touch
the darkness when it's switched on, does
it?
31
Kumārajiva has two verses here:
If the origination of the origination is able to cause the
opportunity of origination while the basic origination (and)
the origination of the origination don't exist just yet, how
could this cause the basic origination?
If the basic origination could cause the opportunity of
origination while the origination of the origination (and) the
basic origination don't exit just yet, how could it (then) cause
the origination of the origination?
32
literary: is arising, at the time a lamp was a kind of fire
The opponent admits that he never saw a lamp
having contact with the darkness. Is this really
necessary? Yes, because:
11
If darkness is dispelled without having
contact with a lamp, then this one here
would dispel all darkness in the world. 33
12
If a lamp would enlighten itself and
other things as well, darkness would
undoubtedly darken both itself and other
things.
darkness, because it would hide itself and other
things.
13
How can an origination cause itself if it
has not yet arisen? If it causes itself,
when takes the origination place and
what causes it, since it has already
arisen?
14
There's nothing at all that is arising,
arises, or yet has to arise. The issue of
what originates has already been dealt
with by the discussion about the going,
gone and not gone.
With this the discussion seems to have come to
be possible to imagine the origination of
something? How can we account for it to exist in
reality? Something has to arise because of
something else; it doesn't exist by chance.
15
At the moment the arising thing arises,
it doesn't proceed. How is it possible to
say that something is arising because of
the arising?
Origination, endurance and disappearing cannot
proceed from one to another; they cannot imply
each other, because they rule each other out.
Substantial origination is unthinkable. And if
arising arises by itself something would never
stop arising.
16
33
this verse misses in Kumārajiva's translation
 Origination, duration and disappearance
32
Al that originates dependently has been
cured of substance; therefore the arising
and even that which still has to arise
have been calmed down.
An example of something that we're used to
see as dependently arisen are the elements of a
game. The ace of spades is not substantially the
highest cart in the game, the winner is not
substantially better then the others. During the
game everything depends on rules, relations and
positions, everything is relative. If there is the
one, there is the other. Therefore one can see all
that's happening during the game and even the
game itself as transparent openness.
17 21
If there would be something somewhere A thing that's disappearing is cannot
that's not arisen, it would have to arise. arise, but it's impossible that a thing
But this doesn't exist: what could have exists that's not disappearing.
to arise?
The opponent brings up daily experience (in
utter despair): things are known to arise. How
would it be possible to deny that? The answer is
simple: show something that hasn't yet arisen.
The answer to such a question could only be an
expectation, not a real thing. When someone
says for example ‘some rain's gonna fall’, the
rain is just a thought in her mind. From this it
follows that real things cannot originate, only
imaginations. And this means that origination is
not real. There's an experience to support this.
When we see a painter at work, we sometimes
understand what he's painting and so we see
how the painting slowly arises. If however we're
unaware of what she's trying to paint, we don't
see anything but paint and we're very surprised
if she suddenly says 'it's finished, what do you
think?'
18
If the origination causes the originating
thing, which origination would cause in
its turn this origination?
The opponent still tries to prove that there's an
element in things that causes them. If there's a
headache coming up, there would be something
in the headache which makes it arise. In that
case however that which causes the headache
also has to arise and so on. So there's an endless
regression. If one would put an end to the
regression by supposing that there's an element
that's not caused by something else, there would
be something without cause, which arises
spontaneously. This violates Buddha's teaching
that all things are produced by conditions.
19
If another origination causes this
origination, there is an endless
regression; if there would be an
origination without origination,
everything could originate.
20
The impossibility already has been
proved of the origination firstly of an
existing thing, secondly of a non-existing
thing and of thirdly a thing that both
exists and doesn't exist.34
It's impossible for a thing to arise and disappear
simultaneously, because both processes rule
each other out. According to the Buddha's
teaching however everything is impermanent, so
disappearing. We like to think of ourselves that
we're born, grow up, stay the same for a while
and become old in the remote future, but we're
fooling ourselves. We're aging from the moment
we were born. And the car we bought yesterday
is not new anymore by now. Everyone and
everything is on its way out. This is not new or
specifically Buddhist. It has also been confirmed
by the atomic model of present day science and
it has frequently been declared by philosophers
in the Western tradition. The fragments of
Heracleitos of Milete (540 – 480 B.D.) are
famous. He taught that everything is
continuously changing; one cannot step into the
same river twice, because the second time the
river is not the same as the first time.
22
A thing that hasn't endured, doesn't
endure.
A thing that has endured, doesn't
endure.
Something that's enduring, doesn't
endure.
So which unoriginated thing endures?
Next characteristic to discuss is enduring.
According to abhidharma the world consists of
momentary atoms, dharmas. A dharma is
thought to arise, last and disappear. Arising and
disappearing is impossible, but how about
enduring? That's unthinkable too, according to
Nāgārjuna. A dharma or even a thing has to
34
see verse 1.6. and 1.7
 Origination, duration and disappearance
33
endure in order to exist, because if something
exists for 0 seconds it doesn't exist at all.
Well, if something hasn't lasted, it's not there,
maybe it's just appearing. It doesn't fit int the
causal network of our world. It's not perceived
and didn't have any effect on other things or
persons, because in order to do that it would
have to endure for some time. Something that
doesn't exist cannot endure. If something has
lasted, it's disappearing and therefore not lasting
anymore. Something that's enduring would have
to endure twice: as an identity and as an
activity.
Sextus Empiricus has a similar argument:
something exists or not. Origination and
disappearance are therefore impossible. An
existing thing cannot originate or disappear, let
alone a non-existing thing.35
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 –
1900) has noted that we have to ignore and
correct all our perceptions to convince ourselves
that we live in a stable world. At the very level of
perception everything changes all the time. The
best example is perhaps the so-called object-
permanence, this great ally of all magicians,
(seeing a single thing changing and moving, in
stead of a series of separate things) is the effect
of a very creative interpretation by our brain. It
takes a newborn baby a few months to learn it.
23
It’s impossible for a thing that's
disappearing to endure. However it’s
impossible for a thing that’s not
disappearing to exist.
It cannot exist because of the Buddhist ontology
of impermanence. The objection the opponent
answers with is obvious: if there would exist
nothing lasting, it would be senseless to talk
about the duration of a life and so the words 'old
age' and 'death' would be nonsense. The
teaching of the Buddha is however based on the
factual ailments of human existence, being old
age, sickness and death. True, answers
Nāgārjuna, but if something ages, it doesn't
remain the same, so it's not an enduring
substance.
24
Which things endure, in other words are
without aging and death? Isn't it true
that all things always are subjected to
the law of aging and death?
25
It's nonsense to say that the enduring
endures by itself or even by another
35
SE p. 187-188
enduring, because the origination
doesn't originate through itself nor
through something else either.
26
Something that hasn’t disappeared
doesn't disappear.
Something that has disappeared
doesn't disappear.
Something that's disappearing doesn't
disappear.
So which unoriginated thing is
disappearing?
The last characteristic to discuss is
disappearing. We've seen that things cannot
possibly arise. Would it be possible for them to
disappear? The answer is not different of course
from what we found to be the case with
enduring.
If something exists, then it's still there and
therefore not disappearing. If something doesn't
exist anymore, it's not possible that it disappears
again. If something disappearing would
disappear, it would have to disappear twice: as
identity and as activity.
Sunshine is blocked by a cloud, has the
sunshine disappeared? In the mind of the
observer concepts of difference between
sunshine and clouds arise, and then the sunshine
stops and the cloudy sky begins. Without these
concepts however there wouldn't be any
phenomenon and nothing would happen.
27
At one hand it's impossible that
something enduring disappears. At the
other hand it's impossible that
something not enduring disappears.
28
Because this very moment doesn't
disappear through this very same
moment, but this moment doesn't
disappear through another moment
either.
Does this moment of sunshine cause this
moment of sunshine to disappear? That’s
absurd, good for a Baron von Münchhausen
story. Does the moment of cloudiness cause the
moment of sunshine to disappear? Only if they
would meet, but then they would have to exist
simultaneously and that's impossible!
29
Origination, duration and disappearance
34
It's impossible for a phenomenon to
disappear, just as it's impossible for a
phenomenon to originate.
30
At one hand it's impossible for an
existing thing to disappear, but on the
other hand it's impossible for a thing
both to exist and not to exist, because
it's a unity.
31
It's impossible for a non-existing thing
to disappear; one cannot chop off a head
a second time.
32
Something doesn't disappear through
itself or something else, just like it
doesn't originate through itself or
something else.
33
Nothing exists that has been caused,
because origination, enduring and
disappearing are not established. If it
isn't established that anything has been
caused, how could the existence of
something be established that has not
been caused?
The things in our world, which in Buddhism
have the characteristics of being caused cannot
possibly exist as substances (and we' don't know
any other way to exist). But maybe something
else could substantially exist, something that
hasn't been caused, something like a thing that
exists in itself? Nāgārjuna rejects this, because
this uncaused thing only makes sense if it can
explain the things we experience, which have
been caused. In abhidharma philosophy some
elements are accepted as being not caused.
Most systems accept the absolute existence of
the elements earth, water, air, fire and
consciousness. These never appear in their pure
form, but are a part of the dharma's or
momentary atoms. Their existence is accepted in
order to explain the existence of these dharma's
and the things that exist through them. However
if the fenomena don’t exist, the uncaused
elements that cause them cannot exist either.
In Western philosophy there's also a famous
uncaused thing, the Thing in Itself, invented by
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804). When he
understood that causality doesn't exist in the
world, but is merely a human interpretation of
what happens, Kant thought that the mind
functions as an interface between the world as it
is in itself and the world as it is experienced.
You're reading words. These can be compared
with the world as it is experienced, the
phenomena. The words consist of characters
which are in fact inkspots. The inkspots stand for
the reality in itself. It is a little difficult to see the
characters not as characters but as inkspots,
because our mind is used to see the inspots as
characters and the characters as words. The
same happens according to Kant when we look
at things and events. We cannot perceive reality
in itself, because our mind interprets our
sensedata before we become aware of them.
Nāgārjuna would say that a thing in itself is
impossible if the phenomena don't exist,
because the thing in itself only makes sense in
relation with the phenomena. We’ll never find
the cause of a not existing fire.
34
Origination, enduring and
disappearance are like an illusion, like a
dream and like a mirage; so has been
declared.
Nāgārjuna quotes probably words of the Buddha
here, although he doesn't mention from where
he has the quote. It boils down to the point of
view that things don't exist, but appear like they
do. If we're under the influence of an illusion, a
dream or a mirage, we think that what we see
really exists, while in reality this is not the case.
In the very same way we think that things arise,
last and disappear, while in reality there's
nothing of the kind.
 Dader and daad
8. Actor and act
1 An unreal actor doesn't do anything, only a real
A really existing actor doesn't commit a
really existing act. A not really existing
actor however doesn't commit a not
really existing act either.
A real actor is only known as an actor because
he does something; otherwise he's not an actor.
Someone is a murderer for instance because he
has committed a murder. However if we say that
a murderer commits a murder, we need two
murders, the first one is necessary to identify the
person as a murderer and the second one to
know what he does. Someone who doesn't really
exist is incapable of doing anything, because to
do something one has to exist first. Nobody in
this world has ever been killed by Mickey Mouse,
even in the comics no real murder ever has been
committed. Mickey Mouse is not responsible for
any real or unreal murder. An atheist cannot
accuse God for having created a real or unreal
unjust world.
2
Something that really exists doesn't
have any effectiveness; an act should
exist without an actor. Something that
really exists doesn't have any
effectiveness; an actor should exist
without an act.
Something that really exists needs no
effectiveness in order to be what it is. A
murderer is what he is, whether he commits a
murder or not. A substance which exists and is
known by itself, needs to do nothing to prove
itself, otherwise it wouldn't be what it was if it
would remain inactive. Why would an act have to
be attributed to an actor? Does a rainstorm
become less wet because we know that nobody
is raining? A substantial killer doesn't have to do
anything in order to be what he is; he would be a
killer even without killing.
If that is true, apparently 'actor' and 'act' must
be seen as merely conventional concepts. So
they don't really exist. In effect there's
35
something to say for the view that a murderer
and a murder wouldn't exist without a judicial
system. But in that case: why are we afraid of a
murderer?
3
If an unreal actor would commit an
unreal act, then act and actor would
exist without causality.36
actor does. There's no reason to call such a
person an actor. An unreal murder is never really
committed, so no one has any responsibility for
it.
4
If there's no causality, there's no cause
and effect of an action either and if
those don't exist, effectiveness, actor
and means for action don't exist.
We cannot do anything if our actions have no
effect. We know how this feels: we're powerless.
If this would be our normal situation our life
would be a dream.
5
Without effectiveness etc., good and
evil wouldn't exist and without good and
evil, (ethical) results of action wouldn't
exist.
Why would anybody try to do his best? Every
action would be in vain. It wouldn't be possible to
reach nirväņa. A Buddha couldn't have existed
nor Buddhism.
6
Without effectiveness, a way to
deliverance and heaven wouldn't exist;
from this it would follow that every
activity would be pointless.
7
An actor which does and doesn't exist
doesn't execute an act that does and
doesn't exist, because how could
existence and nonexistence, which rule
each other out, be a unity?
8
36
Kumarajīva: ‘if an unreal actor would commit a real act’
Dader and daad
An act that doesn't exist isn't executed
by an existing actor and an act that
exists isn't executed by a non-existing
actor, because from this would follow the
same absurdities.
When we dream we don't act. Nobody can be
convicted for a murder committed in a dream.
Donald Duck cannot be charged for public
disorderly behavior. In the next verses
Nāgārjuna merely completes the series.
9 mutual relativity. This doesn't mean that things
A really existing actor doesn't commit
an act that doesn't really exist nor one
that both does and doesn't really exist,
for reasons already mentioned.
10
A not really existing actor doesn't
commit a really existing act, nor one that
both does and doesn't really exist, for
reasons already mentioned.
11
An actor which both does and doesn't
really exist doesn't commit an act which
both does and doesn't really exist, that's
clear for reasons already mentioned.
36
12
The actor originates dependent on his
act and this one originates dependent on
the actor, we don't see any other
grounds for their existence.
This is one of the few positive propositions in
this text. Nāgārjuna has extensively criticized
the philosophy of substances, because of its
concept of absolutely existing things. As an
alternative he offers relativity. Things exist in
create each other, because that would again
imply substances. Only a substance can be
created. It means that we make things to exist in
dependence of each other and in dependence on
our thoughts and emotions. A murder implies a
murderer and this implied again a whole network
of concepts and conventions. Without this
language game reality wouldn't exist and we
wouldn't live.
13
In this way one has to understand the
components: analogue to the refutation
of act and actor. One has to consider
other things like act and actor too.
In other words all other things don't exist as
substances either, but merely in mutual
dependence or implication.
 the zelf
9. Self-consciousness
1
1. Some assert that the subject arises
prior to the senses37 and also the
components38.
2
Because how could senses belong to
something that doesn't exist? Therefore
a separate being exists before they are
there.
Nāgārjuna refers to abhidharma schools like the
pudgalavādins of Vātsīputrīya’s and sāmmitīya’s
who accept the existence of a person (pudgala).
This is is in conflict with the teaching of no self
(anātmavāda), which is for most Buddhists a
cornerstone of Buddhism. These schools have
been popular some time but became later the
object of criticism and even prosecution.
Nāgārjuna directs his criticism at the philosophy
of these schools, because he considers the idea
of a self or a person an example of the belief in
substances.
The idea of a self is not a taboo in Hindu
philosophy or in European traditions. Plato
attributed an individual soul or psyche to each
living being. This soul even makes us into what
we are, it is our true identity. The body is a kind
of shadow and unimportant. Aristotle also thinks
that there's mental principle apart from the
material things, but he considers our identity to
be here on earth in the way we live our lives.
After death the soul merges into the universal
soul. Epicurus accepts a soul too, this one is
made out of atoms and falls apart at death.
Christendom makes the soul into the ultimate
object of worry and blackmail. The soul carries
the sins and goes to heaven or hell. Without the
soul Christendom wouldn't be possible. Only
during the Enlightenment doubts emerge again:
David Hume (1711 – 1776) notes that the
presence of a soul cannot be ascertained. So the
soul has to be a piece of fantasy. Kant objects
37
literary: sight, hearing and de rest
38
literary: the emotions and de rest. The five components of
a person are: body, emotions, perception, predispositions and
consciousness
37
that subjects remain the same during all actions
and that this principle of responsibility is hard to
deny. Otherwise nobody could be rewarded or
punished for past actions. The soul is in his view
a metaphysical entity, something that's not a
thing and no part of the material reality. With the
growth of suspicion against metaphysics in
general during the nineteenth and twentieth
century, the soul loses its popularity in Europe
too.
If there's no soul, the reincarnation model
becomes a lot more complicated: what is it that
reincarnates? The Buddhist solution is that
reincarnation isn't a journey of a soul, but a kind
of continuity of mental events. A wave moves in
a horizontal direction wile matter, in this case
water, only rises and falls. Likewise a person
consists of mental and material events which
make up the biography. After death a subtle
stream of consciousness remains and that
transfers the karma, the remaining impressions
and habits of past life, into next life.
3
In that case how is that separate being
discernible, that exists prior to the
senses and the components?
4
If this separate being exists apart from
the senses, then these must
undoubtedly exist without him too.
If the person, the senses and the components
are substances, then they all must exist on their
own, independent of each other.
5
Someone is discernible because of
something, something is discernible by
someone. How could someone exist
without something? How could
something exist without some one?
How do we know a person? Because we
perceive what she does and what her body looks
like. What we perceive are all material things
and events. The person or soul is not
perceptible, it´s metaphysical. It is powerless
without a body so it´s not possible for ghosts to
exist.
Things which cannot possibly be known by
anybody don´t exist. Otherwise the number of
existing things and possible causes for any event
would be endless. If there would be no restriction
on what exists, it wouldn't be possible to prove
that something doesn't exist and the word
 the zelf
‘existence’ wouldn't have any meaning.39 In
short: there's no matter or object without mind
or subject and no mind or subject without matter
or object.
6
Before all senses have come together,
no being exists. Isn't someone
discernible each time by another of her
senses?
Although there were no computers at the time
most abhidharma schools didn't believe in
multitasking. When we're watching a movie it
seems like we're hearing and seeing at the same
time, but in reality moments of hearing and sight
consciousness alternate very quickly.40 However
who is perceiving, which part of the process of
perception can be identified as the subject of
perception? What substance makes the
difference between a perception by a person and
a registration by a video camera? Would it be
possible that the person exists each moment as
a part of a different sense consciousness? How
could it be the same person? There must be
somebody who's looking and hearing! It's not
possible that this person appears only after the
looking and hearing have taken place. He
doesn't exist prior to the looking and hearing
separately or together either. The 'senses'are
not the organs here, because they exist all the
time, even when we're sleeping. They are the
perceptions, which are a cooperation between
organ, consciousness and object.
7 thinks that this is not an entity, but an effect of
If no one exists before the senses have
appeared, how could someone exist
before each different sense separately?
8 and no one else. Kant denies the objective
If the one who's seeing would be the
same as the one who's hearing and the
one who's feeling, he would have to exist
prior to each and that's nonsense.
For reasons mentioned above.
9 existence of a person doesn't appear tenable.
If on the contrary the one who's seeing
is someone else then the one who's
hearing and the one who's feeling, then
the one who's hearing would have to
exist simultaneously with the one who's
seeing and several subjects would arise.
39
So if God cannot be known, He doesn't exist.
40
This is what most computer designers today misleadingly
call multitasking.
38
The seeing soul would be another one then the
hearing soul, etc. That's absurd of course,
because when we're enjoying a show we don't
fall apart into different persons.
10
Moreover the subject doesn't exist in
the element from where the senses and
the mental factors originate.
The abhidharmaschools accepted (like other
philosophical traditions in India) that the senses
arise from the four elements: earth, water, air
and fire. In none of these elements a subject is
to be found.
11
If the one who owns the senses and
mental factors doesn't exist, then these
also don't exist.
12
The concepts ‘being’ and ‘non-being’
don’t apply here, because no one exists
prior to the senses, nor simultaneously
with them, nor after them.
Nāgārjuna is close to Kant's position here: the
transcendental ego. Kant distinguishes between
the transcendental ego and the empirical ego.
The last one is the object of care, can become
disoriented, mad, angry, etc. Like Hume Kant
several mental processes. The transcendental
ego is the ego-structure which every one has. It's
not a thing, but just the fact that our
consciousness has a center of responsibility. In
all our thinking and acting we know that we did it
existence of the ego at one side, but maintains
at the other side that we cannot understand
ourselves and others without accepting a
structural ego.
Nāgārjuna doesn't mean that there's not such a
thing as a person. It would be absurd to write a
book without assuming that there exist persons
who will read it. Nevertheless the substantial
There must be something wrong with traditional
ontology, the way we take the concepts ‘being’
and 'non-being' for granted. If the person doesn't
exist as something independent how does he?
What do we have to think of being and non-
being?
the zelf 39
 Fire and fuel
10. Fire and Fuel
1 started calling uranium and plutonium fuel not
If fuel and fire would be one and the
same, actor and act would be one and
the same as well. If a fire would be
something different from its fuel, then it
would also have to exist without fuel.
The pudgalavādins used the relation between
fire and fuel as a model for the relation between
the soul and the five components of a person
(body, emotions, perception, predisposition's and
consciousness). This is the reason why
Nāgārjuna discusses the relation between fuel
and fire following his refutation of the view that a
subject exists apart from perception.
It's clear to begin with that fire and fuel don't
exist apart. Daily experience shows that they
vanish when they're separated. Fire exists never
without fuel; if that would be the case fire could
just ignite anywhere any time.
2 6
Fire would ignite without causes and
even burn for ever41. Reignition would be
pointless, and in that case it wouldn't
have any effectiveness.
3 The opponent doesn't give up just yet. He
It wouldn't be dependent on something
else, so it would ignite without causes. It
would burn for ever and thus reignition
would be pointless.
4 in spite of fire and fuel being different things,
If anything that's burning somewhere
would be called fuel, how would it be
possible for this fuel to ignite? It has
been done already!
Fuel only exists if something is burning. Before
something is burning it's not fuel. Normally we're
used to call some material fuel if we mean that
it's potential fuel or meant to be used as fuel,
but that's not correct according to Nāgārjuna. A
piece of wood that initially is called ‘bookshelf’ is
thrown into a fire and suddenly becomes fuel.
Apparently things are what they are depending
on circumstances, but in that case they're not
41
literary: be always ignited
40
substances and that's just what they're
supposed to be! How is it possible to maintain
that one ignites fuel if something that doesn't
burn isn't fuel? It would be logical to accept that
fuel doesn't really exist and that something is
just fuel as far as we call it fuel. In fact we
until halfway the twentieth century. Before that
time anyone who would have done that would
have been called insane. In India dried cowdung
is called ‘fuel’ and in Europe one throws it the
under the roses. So fuel is not something
existing, it is a classification of things in view of
certain ways of doing things. If this is true the
relation between fuel and fire cannot be used as
a model for the relation between the
components of a person and a substantial soul.
5
If it's something different from fire, it
will not be able to approach it. That
which cannot be approached by fire, will
not burn either. It will not extinguish and
not being extinguished it will remain as it
is having its own characteristics.
Exactly if fire is something different
from fuel it can approach it, like a
woman approaches a man and a man a
woman.
rejects Nāgārjuna's conclusion of the difference
between fuel and fire. Interaction is very well
possible when two things are different. The
refutation is quoted in short here, but in formal
debate it would be a syllogism like this:
claim:
interaction is possible
reason, the general law from which the
claim follows:
between two different things interaction is
possible
example from the daily life (the lifeworld):
man and woman are different entities and
interaction exists
relevance of the example (does it prove the
law?):
man and woman are just as different as fuel and
fire
conclusion:
interaction between fuel and fire is possible
This Indian syllogism generally is refuted by
proving that the example is irrelevant. So
 Fire and fuel
Nāgārjuna will have to prove that what is
generally taken for granted in the relation
between man and woman doesn't apply to fuel
and fire.
7 independent.
Suppose that fire would approach fuel
exactly because of being something
different: fire and fuel would have to
exist separately!
We see men and women walking in the streets
by themselves without any interaction. So the
example is irrelevant and therefore the general
law not established and the conclusion not
proved.
If one cannot reach the other fire and fule have
to be interdependent. But which one comes first?
8
If fire would be dependent on fuel or
fuel dependent on fire: which of both
arises first, dependent on which there is
fire or fuel?
9
If fire would be dependent on fuel, then
fuel would have to exist before there is
fire. If that would be the case it would
also originate without fire.
What is fuel? Something burning at least. If it's
there fuel before there is fire, it would have to
burn without fire!
The opponent has to try the alternative: fire
before fuel. But this is absurd as well.
10
Something only arises because of that
on which it is dependent. If that on which
it has to be dependent still has to arise,
what would be dependent on what?
Fire only arises if there's fuel, so fire being there
before fuel is impossible. If that would be
possible a stove could burn spontaneously and
cars would start on by themselves.
11
How would it be possible for thing to
arise, if that on which it is dependent
hasn't arisen yet? Moreover dependency
is nonsense if the dependent thing has
already arisen.
How could there be fire without fuel? How could
there be fuel without fire? Moreover if the fire
41
already exists without fuel, on which could it be
dependent?
12
Fire isn't dependent on fuel nor
Fuel isn't dependent on fire nor
independent.
13
There's no fire in fuel and fire doesn't
come from somewhere else. The same
that has been said about the to go, the
gone and movement applies to fuel.
So it's impossible to determine when the fire
starts to burn, is burning or has burned. It's
impossible for fuel to exist as a substance.
14
Again: fuel isn't fire nor is fire
somewhere else then near the fuel. Fire
doesn't contain fuel, there are no fuels in
a fire, nor is there any fire in the fuels.
15
What has been explained by means of
fire and fuel, applies to the self and the
components as well.
Together with the explanation of the
existence of a pot, or a cloth etc. the
explanation is complete.
The self or the soul doesn't exist without the
components nor in relation with them. Each
attempt to represent an objective relation ends
in absurdities.
It's impossible to establish whether or not a pot
exists already in the clay from which the potter
is going to make it. To say therefore that the pot
exists apart from the clay is absurd. It's equally
absurd to maintain that a cloth exists apart from
the threads from which it has been woven
although the cloth isn't to be found in them.
These questions are related to the discussion
about the two models of causality: the
satkāryavāda and the asatkāryavāda42.
Soul and components are no substances and
they don't cause each other. When we talk about
a soul we take the components for granted and
the other way around. They implicate one
another.
The last sentence suggests that at a certain
stage the text ended here. And there's a
difference indeed between the subjects which
have been treated so far and those in the follow
42
see p. 2
 Fire and fuel
up. Up until here the existence of the elements
of daily life has been discussed, in what follows
the doctrinal subjects are treated.
Next verse probably has been added as well. It
already announces a topic that will be
emphasized again and again in next part: the
madhyamaka philosophy is the true meaning of
the teaching of the Buddha.
16
Those who proclaim the existence of a
self and things, show that they don't
42
understand anything about the meaning
of the teaching.
Something like a self doesn't exist, at least if
that self is considered to be something existing
on its own in stead of an implication of a
language game. This applies to the things
around us as well. Nāgārjuna thinks that this
understanding is a necessary condition for
understanding the meaning of the teaching of
the Buddha.
 The cycle of existence
11. The cycle of existence
How about the cycle of birth and death
(samsāra)? It's impossible to deny its existence
isn't it? Denying this means denying Buddhism,
because the buddhist path is at least a way,
according to most Buddhists even the only out of
the cycle. If there wouldn't be a cycle of birth
and death Buddhism would be a hoax.
1 things. It's clear that the past has influence on
‘The limit of the past is unknown’, the
Great Wise One43 said, ‘because the
cycle of existence is without limits,
nothing precedes nor succeeds it.’
Nāgārjuna begins with a quotation of the words
of the Buddha. He wants to make clean that his
views are in agreement with the teachings of the
Buddha.
2 entity. This is a point of view which is also
How could there be a middle of
something that hasn't a beginning and
no end as well? So sequences from
before to now and from now to later are
impossible.
An absolute middle point in an endless
continuum is impossible. Everyone can pick a
moment at will and call it the middle. If a middle
point doesn't exist, an absolute now (which
would be the middle between past and future) is
impossible. In that case before and afterwards
have to be relative as well. This means that they
don't exist substantially, but merely in the
speaker’s perspective. Future and past are words
that don't refer to existing things or conditions
but to other words. This is in contradiction with
the view on time of some abhidharma schools,
especially the sarvāstivādins. The name of the
school already says it: sarvāsti = sarva asti
=everything exists. Everything exists, the things
of past and future too. The Olympic Games
which took place in Athens in 2004, still exists. It
merely has changed aspects. In 2003 it had the
aspect of future, in august 2004 the aspect of
present and today the aspect past. The passing
of time means that the games and all other
43
Mahāmuni, traditional title for the Buddha
43
things continue to exist and merely change time
aspects. A peculiar point of view you might say
and many Western scholars could hardly
suppress their smiles at the sight of such a naïve
Asian thought. But make no mistake, it's exactly
the point of view taken for granted in all stories
about time traveling, like Orson Wells and the
creators of Star Trek who made Captain Kirk and
his spaceship enter into the next century via a
warphole. Even Albert Einstein considered he
space-time continuum to be a forth dimension of
things, which presupposes that time has at least
an aspect of presence.
Within the school of the sarvāstivādins different
views existed about the nature of the time
aspects. The reason for the theory is that it was
necessary to explain why something that doesn't
exist anymore still could have some influence on
the present, and it would be very difficult to
accept this when you're certain that the past
doesn't exist anymore. How could the present
have any influence on the future if the future
doesn't exist yet? It would also weaken the
theory of karma, which explains that actions
done in former lifes determine the quality of the
present one. The sarvāstivādins came upon
these questions because they assumed that
language is a projection of reality. So every word
which means anything has to refer to an existing
defended in the famous book ‘Tractatus Logico-
philosophicus44
In the following verse Nāgārjuna criticizes the
continuity between past, present and future,
which is taken for granted in daily life. Everybody
knows that one is born first, grows older and
finally dies.
3
If there were birth first and aging and
death later, birth would be without aging
and dying and one would be born an
immortal.
If birth exists the way the opponent thinks it
does, i.e. as a substance, something that is what
it is, it must be independent of death. This is
absurd of course; therefore it’s impossible for
birth, aging and death to be substances, because
otherwise continuity would be impossible.
The opponent has a solution: the sarvāstivādin
philosophy of time. When someone is born, he
has already the characteristics of aging and
death, but these aren't active or manifest yet.
Nāgārjuna is not impressed.
44
Ludwich Wittgenstein (1889 – 1951) published in 1922
The cycle of existence
4
If aging and dying would exist from the
beginning and birth only later, they
would be without a cause. Moreover how
could something that's not born yet
become older and die?
But what if dying and aging would be present at
birth?
5 limits also applies to the subjects already
To say that aging and dying are present
at birth is nonsense. That which is born
would die instantly and both would exist
without a cause.
6 the past of all beings, nor to effect or
How imagine people that one is born,
becomes older and dies, if no sequences
of preceding to succeeding (events)
exist?
44
What has been said of birth, aging and death
applies for many things because al phenomena
imply time. Everything that exists in time doesn't
exist in itself, apart from a beginning and an
end.Everything has a beginning and an end and
these depend on the perspective of the observer.
Nietzsche has analyzed the consequences of the
perspectivism in our understanding of the world
and found this to be an important reason to
declare the death of God.
Nāgārjuna finally notes that the impossibility of
discussed.
7–8
There's absolutely no limit to the past
of the cycle of existence and no limit to
cause nor to substrate and quality as
well as emotion and the one seized with
emotion and all things that exist
furthermore.
 Suffering
12. Suffering
1 the body. Suffering is connected to the
Some say that suffering causes itself,
others that it's caused by something
else, others again that it's caused by
both and others again that it doesn't
have a cause. However it's nonsense to
say that it's the effect of something.
2 will not lead him anywhere near a defendable
If it would be caused by itself, it would
exist independently because of this.
However these components arise
dependent on others.
The five components of a person (body,
emotions, perception, predisposition's and
consciousness) are called the five components of
attachment, because together they constitute a
normal person, who lives from an attitude of
attachment to the world, himself and his
possessions. This attachment unavoidably leads
to suffering, because the things of the world
cannot satisfy human desire permanently. The
components are sometimes identified with
suffering, because they're the cause as well as
the effect of suffering.45The present components
are the cause for the existence in the cycle of
birth and death. The future ones are the effect of
present actions which are motivated by
suffering.
The components don't exist apart from each
other, they're interdependent. Perceptions for
instance evoke feelings, which arise in relation to
other emotions and predispositions. If suffering
would cause itself, it would have to exist apart
from the person and that's impossible: where
would it have to be found? So there's no
alternative but to accept that suffering is caused
by something else.
3 another is passed on?
If these components would be different
from those in the past, or those different
again from others, then suffering would
be caused by someone else. These
45
See AK iv 185 and Ak vi 122
45
components of suffering would in that
case be caused by those other ones.
If the components would be independent
unchanging substances, then it's unavoidable
that one component now causes the suffering of
other ones in the future and those of other ones
again later. A component like emotion could also
cause the suffering of another component like
components. A component or a set of
components that are causing suffering would
produce suffering for other components. In that
case feedback is impossible. What do those
components have in common in that case? Why
would this component transmit suffering to this
very other one and that one? The origination of
suffering would be completely incomprehensible.
The opponent understands now that this way
position and tries something else: not the
components, but the person produces the
suffering, because he's responsible. The person
is the one who takes decisions in order to put an
end to suffering by becoming a Buddhist.
4
If suffering is produced by a person
himself, who is then this person who's
without suffering himself, but causes his
own suffering?
Someone who makes a mistake or an apple-pie
is not identical with the mistake or the apple-pie.
One is not what one makes or causes because
the substance and his activity are two different
things. If one causes ones own suffering, one has
to be without it and that's absurd. However some
maintain that suffering is caused by education or
mistakes made by someone else which have
unfortunate effects. It's possible for instance to
be seduced to commit a theft and end up in jail,
so that finally one becomes a professional
criminal.
5
If suffering is caused by another person,
how could there be someone without
suffering, to whom suffering caused by
The criticism of Nāgārjuna's is directed against
the views of suffering as a substance, something
that's made or caused (that in itself is an
absurdity) and subsequently passed on as a
thing. It's still quite common in Buddhist circles
that merit, the opposite of suffering, is specially
 Suffering
made and devoted and even transferred to
others. In Nāgārjuna's eyes that's complete
nonsense.
6 not a precise cause can be determined.
If suffering arises because of another
person, who is this other person without
suffering, who sends it to another after
having it caused?
7 without a cause, not caused by
The existence of self-inflicted suffering
hasn't been established. How could it
then be caused by others? The other,
who would cause the suffering, would
have to be someone with self-inflicted
suffering, would he?
Suffering cannot be passed on endlessly; it has
to be caused somewhere somehow by someone.
This doesn't apply only to persons, it applies to
causes too.
8
Suffering isn't caused by itself to begin
with, because one thing is necessarily
caused by something else. How would it
be possible that suffering is caused by
something else if that other one hasn't
caused it himself?
46
There are two options left: suffering arises by
the cooperation of more than one factor, or it
arises spontaneously, like some disease of which
9
If suffering would be caused by both it
would have to be caused by each
separately. How could suffering exist
something else and not by itself?
It's impossible that each factor causes a piece
of suffering, a case of suffering is an undivided
unity. Suffering without cause however cannot
be prevented and the Buddha maintains that he
has found a way to prevent suffering. That's why
he's called a Buddha!
10
Because not only suffering doesn't exist
in one of the four ways, of all external
things there's no existence in one of the
four ways.
In other words the four ways are:
• not caused by itself
• not caused by something else
• not caused by both itself and something else
• not without a cause.
 The mental factors
13. The mental factors
1 that Santa Claus has a daughter, but that's
The Exalted One has called false all
that's deceptive; all mental factors are
deceptive and therefore false.
Mental factors (samskāra’s) are the factors
which determine someone's personality. They
are the tendencies we find in the second chain of
the cycle of twelve in chapter 26. They are the
containers of karma formed by actions in the
past and in previous lives. They give us a false
self-image and distort our view of the world.
They block any progress when we try to
understand emptiness, because they suggest a
world full of substances. So they are deceit and
block salvation.
The Sanskrit word deceptive is ‘mŗşā
moşadharma’46, this is could be a pun because
it resembles the word ‘mokşadharma’ teaching
of salvation and an important chapter from the
Hindu epos ‘Mahābhārata’.
2 change, neither if there is one, because a
The Exalted One said: ‘If all what's
deceptive is false, what is it that's falsely
depicted’? He did this in order to explain
emptiness.
3 anything else for that matter, is
Seeing the change of things it follows
that things don't possess a substance,
but no thing exists without a substance,
that's why things are empty.
Things don't possess a substance, we can see
that when we watch something change very
carefully. Most things however change very
slowly, so it's not very obvious. Things don't
exist independently; they don't exist apart from
each other and not independent of what we think
of them. Things aren't substances, they seem to
be because we attribute them substantiality. So
substantially they're not substances. This non-
substantial substance is called emptiness. It's
false, it's a deceit, a wrong view produced by
subconscious tendencies, but something that's
falsely depicted doesn't exist. There's not
something that's not depicted as it is. This
resembles the problem of the definite
descriptions that made Bertrand Russell (1872 –
46
See Edgerton p. 441
47
1970) famous, but can also be found in the
Buddhist book 'Milinda Pañña' . If someone says
'The daughter of Santa Claus isn't pregnant', that
doesn't mean that Santa Claus has a daughter
who might expect a baby. If we would have to
answer with 'yes' or 'no' we would silently admit
wrong because the description ‘daughter of
Santa Claus’ doesn't refer to an existing person.
The proposition 'substances are false' doesn't
imply that there are true non-substantial things.
Even in Buddhist literature emptiness is
sometimes considered to be a kind of true or
higher reality. In China and Japan this was the
consequence of attempts to unify the concept of
emptiness with the concept of Tao.
Philosophers of all times all over the world have
noticed that things aren't what they seem to be.
Most of them tried to find the real thing, the true
state of things but Nāgārjuna denies that such a
thing or state exists.
4
Of what non-substantial thing could the
substance change? Of what substantial
thing could the substance change?
If no substance exists there's nothing to
substance is by definition something that doesn't
change.
5
The very change of such a thing, or of
nonsense. It would mean that a young
girl wouldn't grow older, nor an old man.
A young girl wouldn't grow older, because she
would stop being a young girl, which is her
substance. An old man wouldn't grow older
because he's old already.
6
Sweet milk would turn into sour milk if
change of milk would really exist. In that
case the nature of sour milk has to arise
out of something else.
Sour milk is something very different from
sweet milk; it's not the same thing. It has
different qualities, but where do these come
from? The substance sweet milk cannot possibly
turn into a different substance like sour milk, so
the sour milk-substance has to come from
somewhere, but where? Emptiness is not a
quality of a thing or substance. We find this kind
 The mental factors 48

of argument also in the writings of Sextus

Empiricus47.

7
If something not empty would exist,
then something empty would exist as
well. If however nothing exists that's not
empty, how could something empty
exist?

8
The Victorious Ones have declared
emptiness to be the transcendence of all
doctrines. They've said however that
those who adhere to a doctrine of
emptiness are incurable.

Emptiness isn't a doctrine; it doesn't have to

say anything about what's going on. Whether
things are empty or not, it makes no difference
for the things. Everyone needs money, but no
one gets rich or poor or solves his financial
problems through the insight that money is
nothing but digits in the computers of banks, or
that bank notes and coins are just conventional
signs. Someone who thinks that this has any
effect lives in a dream and will get into financial
problems probably very soon. But why would
Nāgārjuna write this book? Well, there are
people who expect that possession of large
amounts of money will make them happy and
therefore treat money very foolishly. They harm
others and commit crimes because of money.
They become depressed when they're in debts
and feel very confident when they're rich etc.
These people might change their life if they
would understand that money is empty. In the
same way most of us are very much attached to
things and persons because we expect too much
of them. It helps if we understand that we don't
see things and persons as they are, but that they
are as we see them. The worries we have about
ourselves in relation to things and persons
disappears if we understand that persons and
things are empty, in itself without an ‘in itself’.

47
see SE p. 496-502
The mental factors 49
50
14. Cooperation
An opponent objects to the interpretation of
emptiness. ‘What emptiness, I see there's a table
over here, don't you? What makes you think that
the table is empty, or doesn't exist as it reveals
itself to us?’
1
The seen, seeing and the seer, all three
of them each is different from both
others, it's impossible for them to get in
touch, let alone cooperate.
You see a word, both seeing and the word are
different things. The word also exists when
there's nobody to see it. It existed before you
opened the book. You exist whether or not
you're seeing the word, even when you're not
seeing anything at all. The word is what it is, it's
part of a book that's in front of you. You are what
you are. Seeing is an activity that doesn't need
you to exist. It's impossible to explain what
happens when we see something if we take the
words ‘the seen’, ‘seeing’ and ‘seer’ to refer to
substances which exist apart from us. Besides
the objections that are mentioned in chapter 2
apply here as well.
What applies to the trio of seer, seen and
seeing, applies of course to all trios of subject,
object and activity.
2 the other from which it's different, then
In this way passion, the passionate and
the object of passion have to be
understood, the other mentaltorments
and the other ranges are triple too.
The ranges are the different ranges of the
senses, like sounds, tastes, etc. In the case of a
mental torment48 there's the subject, the object
at which the mental torment is directed and the
mental torment itself, so in the case of pride
there's the proud person, the reason why the
person is proud and the pride itself.
3 perceived. Every interaction of two things or
48
my translation of ‘kleśa’
Contact between two different things
that exist separately doesn't exist.
Contact between the visible and the rest
doesn't exist, therefore there's no
contact from where they could operate.
4
No difference exists in case of the seen
etc. Moreover when the one gets into
contact with the other any difference is
impossible.
So there would be no difference between seen,
seer etc., because they apparently cooperate.
5
Everything that's dependent on
something else is not without any
difference. But it's impossible for
anything that's dependent on something
else to be different from it.
If two things are dependent on each other, they
must have something in common, but they have
to be different as well. This is clearly a
contradiction. If the seen depends on seeing,
they cannot be the same, but also not totally
different. And if one maintains that the one
depends a little bit or partially on the other and
that they are a little bit or partially alike, the
logic still applies to the part or the degree in
which the dependence or similarity exists.
6
If something that's different from
something else would exist also without
the other would not be different and
therefore wouldn't exist, because that
from which it's different doesn't exist.
If we attribute being different to a substance,
then being different is a quality of the substance
and it has to have this quality by itself so without
the other. But that's clearly nonsense. Difference
is not a quality it's a relation, it's an
interpretation, it's the result of a comparison
someone makes, which is however wrongly
attributed to things. If the difference between
two things doesn't exist, any contact is
impossible and it's impossible that anything is
more is an interpretation of observers and
doesn't exist on its own.
51

The not-other is all other things besides the

7 other thing.
The difference doesn't exist in the other
nor in the not-other. And if the difference 8
doesn't exist, then the other doesn't So the contact of two different things is
exist, nor even this one. nonsense, making contact doesn't exist,
nor contact nor anything that makes
contact.
 Substance
15. Substance
1 book you want to write you'll have to decide
That a substance originates through
causes and conditions is nonsense. A
substance which has been originated
through causes and conditions would
have been caused.
2 sees Santa Clause, who appears in fact to be the
On the other hand, how of all things
could a substance be caused? A
substance is something that's not
caused and independent of anything
else, isn’t it?
3 people only speak of the non-existence
If something isn't a substance through
its own support, how could it be a
substance through the support of
something else? What’s called a
substance from outside in that case, is
the own substance of that other thing.
4 Those who see a substance, be it by
On the other hand how could something
exist without being a substance by itself
or by something else? Only if it's a
substance by itself or by something else
is it possible to ascertain the existence
of something, isn’t it?
This book exists. How do we know? Let's
compare it with something that doesn't exist, the
big book of Santa Claus for instance. The main
difference is that this book can be read, what's
written in it is a fact, it cannot be different from
what it is. We cannot read the big book of Santa
Claus. Someone who's acting to be Santa Claus
reading his book has to create his own text. The
essential difference is not that this book exists
materially; a real book can be in a computer or in
someone's memory. The Buddhist texts have
been transmitted orally for centuries, but they
were a fact. Nobody in the world could decide
their content or whether they existed or not.
They existed on their own. The philosopher
52
Edmund Husserl (1859 – 1938) called this the
transcendence things. Something that exists is
always more then we know. It has a reality claim
on its own. This means that texts can be
interpreted differently by different readers and
that material things can be perceived differently
by different people. At this moment you don't
see the backside of this the book, but that
doesn't mean that you can decide how it will be
when you take a look. If you're thinking about a
what it's going to look like. But this book is a
substance, it exists on its own, whether we like it
or not and it is what it is, whatever we think of it.
So something doesn't exist if it isn't a substance
and if something could be a substance by
something else, then it's not what it is but that
very other thing. That would be the case if one
neighbour. The appearance ‘Santa Claus’ is in
that case a substance by the neighbour.
5
If a thing is not a fact, then its non-
existence is not a fact either, because
and change of things.
Like we've seen before, a discussion about
something that doesn't exist is pointless,
because nobody and everybody is right
simultaneously.
6
itself or by something else, a thing or a
non-thing, don't see the essential truth
in the teaching of the Buddha.
The abhidharma schools agree with Nāgārjuna
that things are not what they appear. Persons
and things don't exist, they say, because they
are formations of dharmas, momentary atoms.
Things owe their substances to these atoms.
Nāgārjuna doesn't see phenomena as being
formations of something else, but as what they
are in themselves: appearances. In Western
terms he would be called a phenomenologist. He
finds himself supported by other Buddhist texts.
7
The Exalted One, who understands the
significance of being and non-being, has
rejected in ‘the teaching to Kātyāyanā’49
49
samyutta-Nikaya (xxii. 90)
 Substance
both words ‘existence’ and ‘non-
existence.
8 to accepting it's existence, especially when God
If the existence of something would be
based on its own nature, it would be
impossible for it not to exist. Its own
nature certainly couldn't change!
If this book being a material thing would exist
because of itself, it couldn't be torn apart,
because its existence wouldn't depend on any
condition.
There's a proof of God that uses such a logic,
the proof of Anselmus of Canterbury (1033 –
1109). In this proof God is supposed to have a
nature and therefore has to exist, because
existence belongs to His nature.
o God is the most perfect being.
o it is more perfect to exist than not to
exist.
o God exist, because if not it would
contradict (1) and (2).
Most people, Kaccana, cherish belief in existence or belief in
non-existence. But who reflects in the light of highest
knowledge, Kaccana, how the world originates, loses the
belief in non-existence of the world. and who reflects in the
light of the highest knowledge, Kaccana, how the world
ceases, loses the belief in existence of the world. The world,
Kaccana, is mainly kept together through pursuit, attachment
and preferences, but a monk doesn't support this pursuit and
attachment nor dogmatism, preferences, or prejudices that
support a self. He has no doubts and doesn't ask whether
only evil arises or only evil disappears, and his opinion of
facts depends on no one but himself. This, Kaccana, is what
right opinion means.
That things exist, Kaccana, is one extreme of the teaching;
that things dont exist is another extreme. These extremes,
Kaccana, are rejected by the Tathagata, he has taught a
teaching of the center:
On ignorance depends karma ;
On karma depends consciousness;
On consciousness depend name and form;
On name and form depend the six senses;
On the six senses depends contact;
On contact depends emotion;
On emotion depends desire;
On desire depends attachment;
On attachment depends existence;
On existence depends birth;
On birth depend old age and death, sorrow, unhappiness,
misery, worries and despair.
Thus arises this whole complex of misery.
But through complete disappearance and stopping of
ignorance karma stops;
Through discontinuation of karma consciousness stops;
Through discontinuation of consciousness name and form
stop;
Through discontinuation of name and form the six senses
stop;
Through discontinuation of the six senses contact stops;
Through discontinuation of contact emotion stops;
Through discontinuation of emotion desire stops;
Through discontinuation of desire attachment stops;
Through discontinuation of attachment existence stops;
Through discontinuation of existence birth stops;
Through discontinuation of birth old age and death stop,
sorrow, unhappyness, misery, worries, and despair stop.
Thus stops this whole complex of misery.
53
This is begging the question of course, but
philosophers have been misled by it for
centuries. Like many an atheist already has
noticed, speaking about something is paramount
referred to by a definite description (the most
perfect Being). His existence is already implied.
Kant has revealed a second sophistry: existence
is not a quality and therefore doesn't make
anything better. A $100 doesn’t become a cent
more when I have it in my pocket instead of in
my dream.
9
Of what could a change occur if no
essence exists?
Of what could a change occur if an
essence exists?
The problem is language. We speak about
things as something fixed. That influences our
image of the world, because this is made up by
our expectations of how the things are and are
going to be. If things wouldn't be something
fixed, expectations would be impossible or at
least highly uncertain. Something fixed however
cannot change and something indefinite has no
fixed qualities and therefore cannot change
either.
10
The word ‘existence’ implies the dogma
of eternity and the word ‘non-existence’
the philosophy of annihilism, therefore a
wise person will not be mislead by
existence and non-existence.
These days a philosophy of eternity would have
been called a philosophy of spirituality. It means
to take eternal truths, values and norms for
granted. This makes it unavoidable to suppose a
higher unchanging world on top of this one. So
it's tied up with metaphysics as well. It's related
to the dogma that the effect is merely a different
appearance of the cause. The world always
deviates from this eternal norm and man is send
here to correct this. The soul never dies, but
ascends to the eternal world and is eventually
reincarnated. The present is a transformation of
the past and nothing really new ever happens.
The philosophy of annihilism maintains on the
contrary that the effect is something completely
new, not present in the cause in any way. It's the
philosophy of materialism. Everything is made
from atoms and the soul is a kind of ephemeral
phenomenon. When the body disintegrates, the
atoms and molecules make new combinations
which are not related to the old ones in any way.
Nāgārjuna thinks both to be misleading. The
third way can only be a new ontology, a
 Substance
relativistic ontology, whereby the concepts
‘existence’ and ‘non- existence’ no longer have
an absolute meaning. Does this book exist? From
our perspective it does, from the perspective of a
fly it doesn't.
54
11
Why? Because it's impossible to call
something non-existent if it exists
substantially. If something that existed
before is called non-existent now, it
follows that it's annihilated.
 Gebondenheid and verlossing
16. Bondage and salvation
1
If the tendencies are reborn, they're
not reborn in case they exist eternally,
and neither in case they're
impermanent. This applies to a being
too.
Something that exists eternally doesn't die
and therefore cannot be reborn. Something
impermanent dies all right, but if it's dead, it
cannot be reborn. This applies also to
persons. Substantial eternity means no
change at all. Substantial impermanence
means there's nothing to change.
2 5
If a person who's reborn in the
components, the sense ranges and
the elements, is searched in each of
the five ways, he isn't to be found.
Who is reborn then?
The five ways are:
1. Is the person to be found in the
components?
2. Are the ranges, components and
elements to be found in the person?
3. Is the persoon caused by the
components, ranges and elements?
4. Are they caused by the persoon?
5. Are both mutually caused by each other?
3
If a person would be reborn from one
set of components into another set of
components, he wouldn't be reborn
himself and who's not reborn doesn't
have components. Who is he? How is
he reborn?
The concept of rebirth is problematic in
itself. Most believers imagine it not unlike
buying a new car. The old one goes to the
junkyard and the new one gets a new owner.
55
The driver of the car and the car however are
two independent entities. One meets the
owner without car in the shopping mall and
the car is parked in the garage without owner.
In the case of a birth the components (body,
emotion, perception, tendencies and
consciousness) are born not the owner. He
cannot leave his old components and go to
the new ones, because he doesn't exist apart
from his components. Buddhism rejects the
existence of a soul, a personal metaphysical
identity, so the person is nothing but his
components.
4
In that case there's no way the
tendencies could possibly expire and
a being couldn't expire in any way.
The expiration (nirvāņa) occurs when the
tendencies and mentaltorments have
disappeared. If they would exist apart from
the owner, they would follow their own course
and therefore the owner can do nothing to
make them expire. And if they would it
wouldn't affect the owner.
In that case the tendencies are not
bound and not released because they
have the quality of arising and
disappearing. As already said, a being
is not bound nor released in that case.
The opponent defends himself by saying that
bondage is nothing but the components of
attachment.
6
If bondage is nothing but the set of
components, then its owner is not
bound. If someone without a set of
components isn't bound, in which
situation is the bound one then?
What is true for the car isn't necessarily true
for the owner; this one isn't for example four
meters long. If the components constitute the
bondage, then the owner must be free from
bondage, because being a substance he
exists apart from the components. Someone
who's released doesn't have any components
anymore, but what would be the difference
between who does and someone who doesn't
have components? Someone who brings his
 Gebondenheid and verlossing 56

car to the junkyard doesn't change himself,

does he?
Moreover the situation of bondage must
exist already. How could somenone be bound
from one moment to another?

7
If the bounding would exist first and
subsequently the bound one, it would
be able to bind. This is however not
the case. The rest has already been
said in the discussion about the to go,
the goer and the gone50.

8
Anyway the bound one is not
released and neither the released one.
If a bound one would be released,
bondage and salvation would have to
exist simultaneously.

If there's no salvation nobody is released, if

there's no bondage there's nobody to release.

9
‘When I'll be without attachment I'll
expire, the expiration will be mine’,
those who have this yearning, have a
strong yearning for the components of
attachment.

Who looks upon himself as being a

substance that is to change into another
substance, never escapes the rizome of
worldly desires. He even gets more involved.
Salvation has to be based on understanding
and letting go thoughts, impressions and
emotions, not on pursuit of substance and
holding on to something. Just let go.

10
Where no pattern of expectations
exists of expiration and removal of
rebirth, what rebirth is there? How can
expiration be imagined there?

50
see chapter 2
Gebondenheid and verlossing 57
 Karma
17. Karma
1 not just cause and effect. Ethics are at stake not
A self-restraining mind, which is
benevolent against others and kind: this
is the teaching, this is the seed that
bears fruits after death as well as in this
life.
In this chapter the discussion is less intense
than in the others. The opponent has more to
say and the criticism is shorter, even almost
restrained A lot of space is devoted to traditional
enumerations of the effects of karma. Actually
these effects have been refuted in previous
chapters, but any reference is missing. It looks
like someone else wrote this chapter or maybe
it’s an early piece that has been inserted later.
Moreover the style of writing is clearly different
from the other chapters. In verse 20 the style
changes and becomes more Nāgārjunian.
There is a reason to be careful with critique on
the concept of karma, because the Buddha
rejected any teaching that denies the effects of
karma. The main reason seems to be that he
didn't want his followers to go easy on discipline
and personal responsibility.
The author first gives his opponent ample time
to elaborate his theory before starting his
critique. The opponent merely states the
traditional Buddhist theory of karma.
2 part: the perceptible words and actions, caused
The Greatest Seer of all seers has said
that karma consists of the will and the
consequences of the will. He has
explained in different ways this
disctinction of karma.
So according to the teaching of the Buddha
there are two kinds of actions with two kinds of
ethical consequences: the will and the
consequences of the will, in other words
subjective and objective.
The teaching of karma is not about the ordinary
consequences of actions. Originally the word
‘karma’ was used to denote the Vedic sacrifice or
58
some ritual action. In a sacrifice there are two
kinds of causality: the usual practical causality,
which has been discussed in the first chapter,
and a metaphysical kind of causality, that's the
motive of the sacrifice. If mistakes are made at
the practical side, for instance the wood is to
wet, then the sacrificial fire will not burn and the
ritual will be stopped or delayed. If mistakes are
made at the supernatural side, for instance the
spells are wrongly pronounced; the ritual will not
work or even have contrary effects.
The word ‘karma’ refers to the ethical,
supernatural consequences of our actions. So it's
effectiveness and technique. In the karma of a
murder for instance it is not the act of killing that
matters the motive. A surgeon who makes a
mistake causes the same material effects as a
robber who stabs his victim to death, but the
karma is in both cases very different.
Nevertheless the model and terms of practical
causality are used in the karma theory to denote
ethical consequences.
The opponent continues.
Factors that cause karma
Will
Effects of the
will
Speach Actions
Disciplin Undiscip Disciplin Undiscip
ed lined ed lined
Endurence of
karma
Favoura Unfavou
ble rable
3
The karma that is called ‘will’ here; is
remembered by the mind. The karma
that's called ‘consequences of the will’ is
the physical and verbal.
The will is purely mental and subjective. The
consequences of the will constitute the objective
by the will.
4-5
The seven elements that are known to
cause the process of karma are: words
and movements that aren't consciously
recognised and without discipline, the
same but wit discipline, the endurance of
karma that's favourable or unfavourable
and the will.
 Karma
So according to the tradition of the abhidharma
school that's represented here, there're seven
elements that cause karma.
The author starts the discussion.
6 development indeed: the continuity between act
If karma is dormant until the time of
ripening, it has to stay blocked eternally.
How could it produce an effect when it's
blocked?
A serious problem of the karma theory is that it
explains consequences only in retrospect. It's
impossible to predict the effects of karma.
Nobody can predict a long life on the basis of
karma, but when someone dies at an early age,
there's always karma involved. Karma is a
justification for unexpected events and its main
function seems to be to deny fate and drama in
human life and provide an image of reassurance
and control. In many cases it gives the rich and
powerful an excuse not to help the pour.
What the theory cannot explain is the moment
of ripening. Why happens the ripening just now
and not last week or next month if the karma
existed already? The theory of karma cannot
answer this question, because it would evoke an
endless regression of karmas. Moreover since
others are involved too, the karma explanation
must be very complex. The only option is to call
upon material causality for help. With this
however every event can be completely
explained without karma. That the material
causality has its shortcomings too we know from
chapter 1.
The opponent tries to explain the ripening of
karma by comparing it with a seed (the action)
that develops into a fruit (karmic consequences),
but the author refutes the argument.
7 end of the discussion. Continuity exists and
When a sprout develops from a seed it's
growing; after this the fruit exists apart
from the seed so it doesn't develop.
So the author answers that the comparison
doesn't apply, because when the seed has
developed into a fruit, it stops growing. The
karma that arises after an action exists apart
from the act and wouldn't be able to develop any
further. How is it possible that the karma of an
act, a murder for instance, develops into the real
event of being killed? The karma has been lying
dormant for years. How could it have been
activated?
Is this not the eternalist model of causality,
where the result is just the cause in disguise?
8 developing insight. The five qualities of desire or
59
The result is the former seed, because
from the seed comes growth and from
the growth arises the result, therefore
this is neither momentary nor eternal.
The opponent tries to explain that there is a
and karma. This continuity is in agreement with
the teaching of the Buddha, who rejected
eternalism and annihilism. The Buddha rejected
the theory that the effect and the cause are
essentially identical, that there's never anything
new and everything exists for ever. The Buddha
rejected also the theory that the effect is totally
different from the cause and everything that
arises is totally new. The continuity of
consciousness is often compared to a stream.
The author replies.
9
Because the stream of consciousness is
the effect that develops from thought,
afterwards it exists apart from the mind
and doesn't develop.
If the stream of consciousness is the effect of
thought, it has to exist on its own after being
produced, how could it develop itself? How could
it preserve the karma and make it ripen?
10
Because the effect arises from the
stream of consciousness and the stream
of consciousness is produced by the
mind, therefore the consequences, which
are the karma of the past, are neither
destroyed nor eternal.
The opponent repeats his theory and it's the
there's neither eternalism nor momentariness.
It's remarkable that the objection is not refuted
by the author. The opponent even has the last
word here! He continues to declare how one can
cause good karma by following the teaching of
the Buddha.
11
The means to realize the teaching are
the ten ways of pure action. The result of
the teaching are the qualities of desire in
this life and afterwards.
The ten ways of pure action are: generosity,
discipline, meditation, respect, subservience,
transferring merit, rejoicing in another's merit,
listening to the leer, instructing the teaching and
 Karma
the five objects of the senses (impressions of
touch, taste, smell, sound and colored forms), an
older alternative is: songs, dances, spoken
words, music and women (things which are
forbidden to monks).
Another opponent objects and gives his own
point of view.
12
If this would be the right
representation, many small and big
misunderstandings would follow,
therefore this representation isn't
possible here.
13
I however will explain a theory, which
fits the real practice. It's followed by
Buddhas, Pratyekabuddha's and hearers.
There're three kinds holy persons in Buddhism.
The hearers have understood the teaching of the
Buddha, practiced it and overcome their desires.
The Buddhas have reached the final state, but
some don't teach. These last ones are called
Pratyekabuddha's, Buddhas for themselves.
14
Karma is indestructible, like a written
confession of guilt. It consists of the four
elements and it's neutral by nature.
The four elements are: water, air, earth and fire.
15
It's not gone after it has been released,
but only after having meditated on it. So
because it's not gone, an effect of karma
arises.
So according to this theory (which resembles
the Jain point of view) karma is a kind of matter.
Matter is not good or bad, it is like the ink of a
confession of guilt, which doesn't owe anything
to anybody. Karma is not taken away by good or
bad deeds but through meditation or perhaps
ritual.
16
If it would have disappeared after it has
been released or after rebirth, then
many misunderstandings would follow
like the disappearance of karma etc.
This opponent has found a reason for the
continuity, but this introduces a new problem. He
has defined karma as matter consisting of the
60
four material elements: fire, air, water and earth,
in other words: radiation, gas, liquid and solidity.
These elements are nowhere to be found in their
pure form, they are the elementary particles of
things. The adherents of this theory imagine
apparently that the elements carry the karma in
the form of formations, inscriptions or signs; this
would explain the comparison with a written
confession of guilt.
The author thinks the theory is absurd.
17
Only one kind of karma would be the
result, because all equal and unequal
karma's would merge in the same
element.
Al traces of karma which would be absorbed by
the element water for instance would mix and
become one karmaformation.
18
According to this theory only this one
phenomenon would be the result of all
different kinds of karma and it would
stay even if all kinds of karma have
ripened
Favourable and unfavourable karma would
neutralise each other and the result would be
one phenomenon. Because karma is permanent
like a written confession, it would never
disappear and make the phenomenon appear
again and again.
19
It would disappear through
transcendence of the consequences or
by death. It should be noticed that
there’s a difference between karma with
and without influx of worldly desire.
The effects of karma would stop only after
death or when becomes impossible for the
consequences to develop (for instance if one
would become a lonely hermit). In that case
nothing could be done to neutralize it. The
difference between karma that binds us to the
world and karma that doesn't is important here
because if someone would have world-binding
karma, it would only stop at death.
20
The doctrine that has been taught by
the Buddha is the emptiness and not the
extinction of the cycle of rebirth; neither
Karma
the eternity nor the disappearance of
karma.
So emptiness is the real teaching of the Buddha
and not the philosophy of substances that
involves problems about the whereabouts of
things and whether they are permanent or
impermanent.
21
Karma doesn't arise out of someone
because it's not a substance and it
doesn't vanish because it hasn't arisen.
22
If karma would be some substance, it
would undoubtedly exist for ever and it
wouldn't be caused, because what is
caused doesn't exist for ever.
23
If someone who didn't cause any karma
would be at risk to get what he didn't
make, the consequence would be
violations (of the rules of the order) and
life without a vow of chastity.
Nobody would care to follow rules because it
would make no difference.
24
Even all common sense notions will be
surely contradicted and the difference
between committing good and bad
deeds and gaining merit becomes
nonsense.
25
If karma would acutally be some
substance, the effect even if ripened,
would ripen again.
Causing consequences would be a fixed qualitiy
of karma it would always manifest.
26
Karma is basically the mentaltorments,
but this karma and these
mentaltorments don't really exist. How
could karma really exist, if the mental
torments don't really exist?
27
61
Karma and mental torments are called
the fundamental conditions for a body
(in a next life). If karma and mental
torments are empty, what about the
body?
The opponent tries another shot, the
pudgalaväda (personalist) point of view.
28
The one who endures karma is a being
who's a combination of desires and
didn’t overcome ignorance, and he's
neither different nor the same as the one
who makes the karma.
We're neither the same nor another then the
one who caused our karma in a previous life, but
there is continuity.
29
Because karma hasn't arisen neither
dependently nor independently here, the
actor hasn't either.
If karma would arise dependently it would have
to depend on a substance. If it would arise
independently it would have to be a substance
itself. The same goes for the actor.
30
There's no actor if karma doesn't exist.
In that case how could there be an effect
caused by karma? And if there's no
effect, how could there still be someone
who endures karma?
31 - 32
The actor who causes this karma is like
a master, a mastermagician, conjuring a
magical appearance and this conjured
one is conjuring again other magical
appearances. He is like a magical
appearance conjuring another magical
appearances.
33
Mental torments, karma's, bodies,
actors and consequences are like a city
of ghosts, a mirage or a dream.
 The self 62

18. The Self

In Western philosophy there's also been a
debate about the self. Hume examined his inner
life, but couldn't find anything like a self or a
soul. He only found thoughts. So the self is not a
thing, but the occasion of thoughts.

2
If the self doesn't exist how could
anything be mine? A person is without a
self or possessions because his self and
1 egoism have stopped.
If the self would consist of components,
it would be subject to origination and A saint has overcome his egoism, so he has no
self anymore according to tradition. Becoming a
decay. If it would be something other monk is traditionally an important training to
then the components, it wouldn't have become a saint.
the characteristics of the components.
3
From the beginning there has been a lively Nevertheless there's no one without
discussion in Buddhism about the status of the
self or the soul51. There're lectures of the Buddha
possessions or a self. Someone who sees
where he flatly denies the existence of a self, but someone who's without possessions or a
in other ones speaks about a self in a usual way. self doesn't see.
Those who denied the existence of a self,
maintained that the Buddha sometimes didn't Nāgārjuna uses the verb 'to see'here in the
want to confuse people with a theory of no self sense of seeing reality. So if one thinks to see
they wouldn't understand. Another tradition in someone who's without possessions or a self,
Buddhism, the pudgalavādins, maintained that a one doesn't see what is, but what one expects.
self exists indeed and that this one is not the
same as the components of a person, but not
different either. They were strongly criticized by
4
other schools. The discussion starts here with When outer and inner things aren't
the point of view that's most common in even called ‘mine’ and ‘I’ anymore, the
abhidharma schools. Two alternatives are attachment stops and when this is
excluded: the self doesn't consist of the five destroyed birth is destroyed
components: body, emotion, perception,
tendencies and consciousness, nor is it not
Birth is attachment to life, which gets its shape
something other. The self is a unity and cannot
in the five components of attachment. What
consist of more the one component
Nāgārjuna, wants to make clear is that the
simultaneously. We are not our body. If we would
attachment doesn't disappear through discipline
be our body we would stop feeling tired at the
or conditioning, but through understanding.
moment we wouldn't want to. If the self would
Nobody is without a self to begin with. When the
consist of emotion we could become angry and
Buddha after his salvation declares himself to be
happy at will. The same applies to the other
a Buddha, he uses the word ‘I’ and that's not just
components: we’re not our perceptions; we're
an empty word without meaning. Everyone
not our tendencies or consciousness. It's
refers to himself with ‘I’ and calls things 'his'.
impossible that the self would be something that
The Buddha talks also about ‘his teaching’ and
exist apart from the components, because in
not about ‘the’ or ‘a’ teaching. It's doesn't help
that case we could not be tired or angry etc.
to think 'this is my hand, but I shouldn't think of
What is the status of the self?
as my hand', but if one stops labeling things, as
Nāgārjuna has mentioned before, there is peace.
51
The relation between self and soul is also subject of debate.
The self may be defined as the capability of a person to refer
to himself and make himself a subject of discussion and 5
reflection. A person is able to look upon himself from the If one imagines ones karma and mental
point of view of anther because he's capable to imagine
himself to be another. A soul is that what makes a person torments, salvation must be achieved
what he is. It's a metaphysical element that is a guarantee through disappearance of karma and
for the absolute timeless identity and uniqueness of a person.
 The self
mental torments. These arise because of
the imagination, through emptiness
however discursiveness is stopped.
The concepts ‘karma’ and ‘mental torments’ are
part of a model that is meant to explain human
behavior. This is a foundation for methods that
help people to achieve nirvāņa by means of
different kinds of discipline. According to
Nāgārjuna these models exist dependent on the
discipline or method. He doesn't deny that
they're useful, he prefers another method: the
emptiness or the meditation on emptiness. This
leads to an experience without imagination.
Then the mental torments and karma are gone.
6
By the Buddhas has been taught at one
hand the existence of a self and at the
other hand the non-existence of a self. It
has also been taught that someone has
both a self and doesn't have a self.
Whether a self exists or not depends on the
angle with which one looks at it. The empirical
self, the self that can become stressed or
depressed doesn't exist substantially. Our mind
is a stream of thoughts and not a unity. The
empirical self does however exists
conventionally, otherwise no one could become
depressed. In fact according to abhidharma only
isolated moments of consciousness occur. They
succeed each other so quickly that we get the
impression of continuity. The transcendental
ego, the principle of responsibility, exists.
But even if that would be untrue, still our inner
life is mainly what we make ourselves believe.
The empirical ego is what we are for ourseslves.
Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) gives in his book
‘La transcendence de l'ego'52’ a description of
how this ego grows. We make a representation
of this ego on the basis of actions and thoughts
we recall to have done and what we expect and
like to do in the future. And we do this from the
point of view of others, so what we think others
think of us is essential.
There's also the transcendental ego, but that's
no thing or phenomenon. Kant called this the
transcendental unity of apperception (the unity
of conscious perception). Our thoughts imply a
unity, because we can realize with any thought
or perception that's our thought or perception
and no one else's. So they're our responsibility.
So this ego is an element of the structure of our
world and our thoughts. It's also a grammatical
form, the first person singular, which we learn at
school although were familiar with it many years
before. This ego exists be it not as a thing or a
phenomenon; it exists because we share with
others a language and a world.
52
Sartre 1965
63
7
The namable has been stopped; the
realm of thoughts has been stopped,
because reality is without arising and
decay, like nirvāņa.
Nirvāņa is the final stopping of attachment and
so of suffering. The experience of emptiness is
nirvāņa, because the real way things are, the
non-substantiality becomes real and is fully
understood. The imagination has stopped and
there's nothing to be attached to, no things, no
representations and no emptiness, because this
is no phenomenon.
8
Everything is real, but everything is not
real too, and everything is both real and
not real and also not real nor unreal,
thus is the teaching of the Buddha.
Everything is real as a phenomenon by showing
itself as it is, but everything is unreal as well
because it shows itself as what it's not: a
substance. Everything is real and unreal because
suffering is a real motive to strive for nirvāņa
and to realize the unreality of things. From the
point of view of a Buddha things are not real and
not unreal. The example give traditionally is that
it's impossible to tell whether the child of a
barren woman is a boy or a girl. A contemporary
example would be that it's impossible to tell
whether or not the sun shone in New York the
30th of February 2002.
9
Not dependent on something else,
silent, not manifested through
discursiveness, without representations,
without diversity, that are the
characteristics of reality.
10
Everything that exists is dependent,
because something isn't what it is, but
neither something else, therefore things
are neither momentary nor eternal.
Nāgārjuna's image of being here, reminds of the
one of the philosopher Baruch the Spinoza
(1632-1677). Everything is determined by
relations with other things. Things don't receive
their identity from themselves. A good example
is the fields of a chessboard. These are not just
locations where one can put a piece of chess; a
chess player knows that every field has its own
strategic possibilities. These possibilities change
 The self 64

during the game. These fields are real and

unreal, fixed and dynamic, not continuous nor
discontinuous, themselves and not themselves
etc.

11
No unity and no diversity, not
momentary and not eternal, thus is the
nectar of the teaching of the Buddhas,
the protectors of the people.

12
When Buddhas don't appear and also
the hearers disappear, understanding
without contact arises in the
Pratyekaboedda's.

This is an interesting verse. What is it that

Nāgārjuna wants to say? He appearantly
considers himself to be a Pratyekaboddha53, a
hidden Buddha. This is a Buddha who doesn't
travel through the land with a flock of followers
and founds a new tradition, a Buddha who has
the understanding but not the merit, recognition
and status. And apparently Nāgārjuna saw the
glory of the Buddhist community fade in his time
and thought it would be time for a new Buddha.

53
Opinion of Professor T. Vetter, oral communcation
The self 65
 Time
19. Time
1
If the present and the future would be
dependent on the past, then present and
future would have to exist during the
past.
The question what time really is, has always
occupied philosopher's minds. Augustine (354 –
430) wrote down: ‘What is time? When nobody
asks me I know, but when someone calls for an
explanation I don't know anymore!’ Most people
assume that the past still exists somewhere; the
idea of traveling through time has intrigued
many writers and filmmakers. Still it doesn't
match with daily experience. A broken vase
doesn't exist anymore, it has definitively gone.
There's no way that we can see it again there's
no machine that can make events undone. It's
only possible in our dreams, so time makes the
difference between reality and dream. But is
time real in itself? Augustine concludes that time
doesn't exist, except in our minds. The past is
what we remember and the future is what we
expect. Fourteen centuries later Schopenhauer
goes a step further and decides that the world
isn't out there, but merely our own
representation. The reason is that an existing
thing must have a cause and be a cause,
causality requires time and time only exists in
our minds. This conclusion would be very much
regretted by Augustine, because it would take
away a lot of the glory of God, whose main
achievement was the creation of the world.
Nāgārjuna would be quite happy with the
reasoning. In this verse he refutes the
sarvāstivādin point of view that past and future
objectively exist in a way. He doesn't need many
words because daily experience is clear enough.
2 single thing exists?
If on the contrary present and future
didn't exist then, how could present and
future still be dependent on it?
3 hands or a shadow, we've to read time. Reading
66
At the other hand no past exists that's
established independently. Therefore
neither a present nor a future exists.
4
In exactly the same way both other
time aspects have to be considered and
the upper, lower and middle part, etc.
and unity etc.
It will be clear the very same logic applies to
the present and the future. It applies also to
other interrelated conceptual trios, like for
instance upper, middle and lower part of a thing.
It applies as well to duos like unity and
multiplicity. There's no unity if there's no
multiplicity, but a multiplicity is a unity
consisting of many unities.
5
Time that halts doesn't exist. Time that
doesn't halt isn't perceived. How could
time make itself known by perception if
it's not perceived?
An obvious argument in support of the
existence of time is daily experience: we do
experience time going by, do we? But what does
this mean? One can only experience something
existing. Time doesn't exist, it goes by, if not it
wouldn't be time. Husserl will write later that
time's merely our looking back to the past and
anticipating the future, that's why it's determine
whether an hour lasts short or long. Reading is a
good example: every moment we read merely a
word or a part of a sentence and we wouldn't
comprehend anything at all of what we're
reading if we wouldn't be looking back to what
we've read and anticipating what we're going to
read. This is the driving force behind our
thoughts it has a lot to do with discursiveness,
the wild growth of thoughts.
6
If time would be dependent on things,
how could time exist without things? And
how could time exist, since not one
We can read the time from our watches or in
the old days from a sun-dial. We can even see
how much time goes by before a process has
completed. But do we see time? We see the
is different from seeing, it involves
interpretation. When we're reading the time
 Time
we're interpreting signs. So time is the meaning
of timesigns, and meaning doesn't exist
independent of our interpretation. One could
maintain that Nāgārjuna's showing in so many
words again and again that things are signs
instead of substances. When we succeed to
discontinue the ongoing chain of interpretations
that occupies us day and night, there will be
emptiness and inner peace.
67
Things, like digits of a shadow don't exist on
their own they're no substances, that's clear by
now. Does time exist? If so it would mean that
the hand of a clock shows us the time because of
its movement. Movement doesn't exist; we've
seen this in chapter 2. The hand isn't an object
by itself; it has to be recognised by us as such.
The hand isn't a timesign by itself; it has to be
read as such. So time doesn't exist.
 De voorwaarden 68

20. Conditions
2
An effect arises because of an
accumulation of causes and conditions,
how could the effect arise because of the
accumulation in case it doesn't exist
already in the accumulation?

3
If the effect exists in the accumulation
1 of the cause and conditions, it must at
An effect arises because of an least be perceptible in the accumulation;
accumulation of causes and conditions, it's not perceptible in the accumulation
how could the effect arise because of the however.
accumulation in case it exists already in
the accumulation? 4
In case the effect doesn't exist in the
It's remarkable that Nāgārjuna returns to the accumulation of the cause and
problem of causality again. That has been dealt conditions, then causes and conditions
with, hasn't it? Was it necessary to ad something wouldn't be different from something
to the existing part one: the first ten chapters? other then causes and effects.
What's new is that this time the subject is a
general view on causality and not the one of the
abhidharma. Maybe this is the consequence of 5
discussions with opponents who didn't support If a cause disappears after it has caused
the abhidharma, possibly not even the teaching an effect, there have to be two essences
of the Buddha. of the cause: the one that caused the
An effect is supposed to arise because of a
main cause in combination with conditions. Why
effect and the one that has disappeared.
are the streets wet? Because rain has fallen
(main cause) and there's no roof over the street, Obviously the essence of a cause is producing
nor a sheet of plastic and the temperature isn't an effect. This being the case a cause wouldn't
high enough to make it dry instantly (conditions). be capable to do anything else, so disappearing
. would be out of the question. It would continue
Anyway the line of argumentation should be producing its effect for ever like the sun that
clear: if the effect can be found in the cannot help shining. The cause would therefore
accumulation of causes and conditions, it exists need a second essence in order to disappear. So
already and cannot arise. So what if it isn't a part we would have a substance with two essences.
of the accumulation? Well in that case it couldn't Of course the effect cannot arise after the
arise either because there're so many things that cause has vanished, that would be complete
are not a part of the accumulation and they don't nonsense, because in that case the effect would
arise because of it. If anything that's not part of be produced by something that doesn't exist,
the accumulation could arise, anything could this would be like an immaculate conception.
arise! One can make an omelet from eggs, but if
nothing from the eggs can be found in the 6
omelet there's no reason to suppose that you In case the cause vanishes without
can make lots of things from eggs and omelets
of lots of things other than eggs (the
having caused an effect, the effect
foodindustry has showed a gamma of would be without cause. It would have to
possibilities). Moreover one would expect to find arise while the cause has disappeared
a trace of the effect in the accumulation because already.
if not why would it belong to just this effect?
There would be no reason to suppose a causal There's one option left: the causal complex and
relationship. If that were to be the case, any two the effect exist simultaneously. Could this be the
subsequent events could be called cause and case?
effect.

7
 De voorwaarden
If the effect would manifest itself
simultaneously with the accumulation of
cause and conditions, it would mean that
the procreator and the procreated would
exist simultaneously.
It's possible for a father and his son to exist
simultaneously; it’s even a normal situation. But
how often does it occur that the son exists
simultaneously with the spermatozoid or the
egg-cel he grew from? Moreover the cause
wouldn't be capable to stop producing effects
and would produce the same effect over and
again (like a computer that gets stuck), or an
endless series of effects (like a waterfall).
In what ever way one looks at it, the supposition
of independently existing causes and effects
leads into absurdity.
8 itself, the effect either has to exist or not. If it
If the effect would appear just before
the accumulation, an effect without
cause would have to exist apart from
cause and conditions.
9
If the effect would exist after the cause
has vanished being the continuation of
the cause, it would mean that the cause
would arise again, in spite of having
been arisen before.
A final attempt to explain causation: the milk
has vanished, but the butter which has com in its
place, is a kind of continuation of the milk. Well,
in that case there're two options: the milk is
either identical with or different from the butter.
If the milk is different from the butter, there's no
continuation. If it's the same, it vanishes only to
return a little bit later with another name.
Allthough it’s quite common in present day
businesslife, for milk it’s very odd.
10
How would it be possible that
something that has disappeared and
stopped would cause an effect that has
arisen already? How could a cause that
exists in the effect, but is hidden by it,
cause this effect?
We call the milk the cause of this butter only
when we see this butter. To call the milk a cause
for something that doesn't exist is nonsense,
because what doesn't exist needs no causes. The
milk, however has gone and it's impossible for it
to exist when it has turned into butter. Why call
the milk the cause of the butter? If the answer
69
would be that the milk exists, but is hidden in
the butter, it would be like a letter hidden in an
envelope. Do we call the letter the cause of the
envelope?
11
Which effect could it cause, if the cause
is not hidden by the effect, because the
cause doesn't cause the effect neither
before nor after it has been spotted?
Suppose the cause exists, but is not to be seen.
Well, if the cause produces the effect before it
shows itself, then it does its work before it exists,
because to exist is to be manifest (this point of
view shares Nāgārjuna with Husserl's
phenomenology). A good example is God
creating the world, this can never be proved.
If the cause produces an effect while it shows
does there's no need for a cause, if it doesn't
either.
If the cause has disappeared, it’s incapable to
produce anything and if someone says the cause
still exists, but is only hidden, any imperceptible
made up thing could be the cause.
12
Because an effect that hasn't gone
would exist simultaneously with a cause
that has gone. Whether the effect has
arisen or not, either way contact with the
cause is impossible.
When the effect exists, the cause doesn't and
the other way around.
13
Because when the effect has arisen,
contact with a cause is impossible
whether is hasn't arisen yet, has gone or
is arising.
The effect exists and being a substance it
doesn't need anything to be there. When the
effect doesn't exist yet, it doesn't need anything
either. Substances are what they are on their
own; they've no relation with other things.
14
And when the effect hasn't arisen,
contact with a cause is impossible
whether it has gone, is arising, hasn't
arisen yet.
15
 De voorwaarden
How could the cause the produce the
effect if no contact exists? How could the
cause produce the effect even if contact
would exist?
If there is contact, both exist; in that case what
can be produced by the cause?
16
How could a cause that's free54 of
effects produce an effect? How could a
cause that's not free55 of effects produce
an effect?
Again if the effect isn't in the causes everything
could produce anything. If the effect is in the
cause, nothing can be produced. Here the word
‘empty’ is used in the sense of something
missing that one expects to find. Sartre gives an
example in ‘l’Être et le Néant’56: when one has
an appointment with someone (John for instance)
in a bar at four o'clock and John's not there, the
bar is empty of John. In that case the emptiness
is a phenomenon. A week before when the
appointment didn't exist yet and John was not
present in the bar, the emptiness was not a
phenomenon, it was obvious.
17
An effect that's not empty couldn't arise
nor disappear. This non-empty effect
would exist as something eternal and
not originated.
The concept ‘empty’ doesn't mean here that
the cause doesn't exist in the effect, but that it
lacks any substance. Something that exists on its
own, a substance, doesn't need anything and is
therefore incapable to arise or disappear, not by
itself and not because of something else.
Emptiness is a manifest emptiness. One expects
a substance and no matter how one looks, it's
not to be found. The expectation of substances is
the effect of language or concepts. Words
suggest referring to substances, so do thoughts.
When thoughts have faded away and we’re
aware of it, there's peace.
18
How could an effect arise that's empty?
How could an effect disappear that's
empty? If an effect is empty it means,
that it's eternal and not arisen, as well.
54
literary: empty
55
literary: empty
56
p. 43 e.v.
70
So if one thinks that everything just becomes
clear if we take emptiness into account, there's
little disappointment here. Causality is
incomprehensible, even from the point of view of
emptiness. With or without substances, causality
is impossible. In a movie, on a TV-screen, things
are not what they are, they seem to cause each
other, but in fact they don't. Something without
substance is incapable of arising or disappearing,
because it is not something.
19
Because effect and cause cannot
possibly be identical and effect and
cause cannot possibly be different.
20
If the effect and the cause would be
identical, the procreator and the
procreated would be identical. If the
effect and the cause would exist
independently, a cause would be
identical with a non-cause.
21
How could a cause really produce an
effect if would really exist as a
substance? How could a cause really
produce an effect if would really exist as
a non-substance?
In the first case the effect doesn't need a cause
and in the second case causality is unnecessary
because nothing originates.
22
Causality of anything that's not
produced is certainly impossible and
from what would an effect arise in case
there's no causality?
Another argument is that something has to be
something in the first place to produce
something, but what kind of entity is a
combination of causal factors actually ? Is it
something? Is it not a fantasy and how could a
fantasy produce something that really exists?
And if there's no real cause, we couldn't expect a
real effect, could we? No cause without effect, no
effect without cause!
23
How could of all things this combination
of cause and conditions, that doesn't
produce itself by itself, produce an
effect?
De voorwaarden 71

neither by something else. How could a

24 combination of cause and conditions be
The effect isn't produced by the possible in any way without an effect?
combination of cause and conditions
 Disappearance and origination
21. Disappearance and origination
1 disappearance, because nothing exists
Disappearance doesn’t exist at all,
neither with origination nor without it.
Origination doesn’t exist at all, neither
with disappearance nor without it.
According ot the teaching of the Buddha
there're three essential characteristics of the
world: everything is impermanent, unsatisfactory
and non-substantial. No Buddhist in his right
mind should even think about denying this.
Nāgārjuna however flatly denies impermanence,
but he can provide arguments.
2
How could disappearance exist without
origination, there's no death without
birth and no disappearance at all without
origination.
Disappearance and origination imply each
other, so they cannot exist separately. No day
exist without a night and no cause exist without
an effect either. However they cannot exist
simultaneously. That make sense one might
think: something arises first, exists for a while
and finally disappears. This paper has ever
originated and will disappear again at a certain
moment. So this means that origination and
disappearance actually exist. Nevertheless, the
origination and disappearance of this paper is of
none importance at all when we read this book.
These two only matter if we look at the paper as
a temporary phenomenon, so if we want to know
how many years the book exists and when and
how it will disappear. And even then the
origination and disappearance cannot exist as
phenomena, we'll never perceive the paper
disappear and arise at the same time, it are only
our expectations. Origination and disappearance
are therefore no fixed qualities of a substance,
but concepts that function within a certain way
of speech, in a certain language game. If
origination and disappearance would be fixed
qualities of a substance, they would have to
exist simultaneously.
3 writing. The Indian texts were often long-winded and
72
How could disappearance exist
simultaneous with origination, because
death never occurs at the very moment
of birth?
4
How could origination exist without
ever without impermanence?
It's impossible for them to exist without each
other and since they rule each other out, they
cannot be qualities of a substance. In that case
it's out of the question that existing things
disappear.
5
Could origination exist simultaneously
with disappearance, because birth never
occurs at the very moment of death?57
6
How could the existence of two things
ever be established if it has been proved
that it's not possible for them to exist
together nor without one another?
Origination and disappearance, birth and death,
cannot exist apart, neither together at the same
time. Putting aside the impossibility of
origination and disappearance of a substance,
they're mixed up with contradictions.
Nevertheless things and persons do have a
beginning and an end. We can see a candle
burn down. The candle disappears and so does
the flame. However if we would take a film of the
candle and look at the pictures one by one, we
wouldn't see a candle disappear. We just would
see the candle in different sizes. The concept of
disappearance arises when we see the pictures
as images of a substance going through a
process. The nature of the process becomes
clear to us if we compare the different phases.
Seeing origination also involves a lot of thinking
and interpretation. If we see a painter at work it
may take some time before we see what she's
painting. Until that moment we see paint strokes
but nothing is arising If it's an abstract painting
we might not see anything coming up at all. And
57
This verse is missing Kumarajīva's translation, perhaps
because it's almost a repetitions. It often happened that
translations in Chinese were abbreviated. The Chinese
culture was at the time already a thousand years a culture of
contained many repetitions to facilitate the memory. Written
texts are always short because the reader can always turn
the pages back.
 Disappearance and origination
when we hear the painter say that the painting is
finished it may take quite a study before we see
why. So origination and disappearance are
products of the imagination.
What has this to do with Buddhist salvation?
Suppose we grow very attached the painting.
The Buddha advises us not to get attached
because we will worry about the safekeeping of
the painting and regret it if it gets damaged. We
can do this by reminding ourselves constantly
that all things are impermanent. ‘One merely
borrows ones possessions and loved ones, one
doesn't really own them ', would the Stoic
Epictetus say. Nāgārjuna prefers another
method. He says that we will not get attached if
we realize that everything is a product of our
imagination. Moreover he mentions again and
again that we can get to a stage where there's
just for a while no attachment at all and when
we've experienced this we realize that not being
attached gives happiness of a much higher
quality then getting what we want.
7 They're not identical, because they rule each
No origination exists of something
that's impermanent; no origination exists
of something that's eternal. No
disappearance exists of something that's
impermanent; no disappearance exists
of something that's eternal.
Something that's impermanent, that has the
inherent quality of disappearing, is always
disappearing. It couldn't stop it and couldn't do
something contrary to it like to originate. That
would be the same as going forward and
backward simultaneously. A substance that's
impermanent will always exist and cannot
possibly originate.
Something that's impermanent has the quality
of disappearance and cannot exercise this as an
activity, because that would require two
processes of disappearance. It doesn't make
sense to say that the rain rains (however in
some languages like Turkish it's the proper thing
to say).
8 that case the egg would never stop to produce
Origination or disappearance doesn’t
exist without a thing (that originates of
disappears). No thing exists without both
origination and disappearance.
The existence of things implicates origination
and disappearance. Origination and
disappearance implicate the existence of things.
This is just like the concept ‘checkmate’
implicates chess and the other way around and
we know that chess is not out there, but in
peoples minds.
73
9
Something that's empty cannot possibly
originate nor disappear. Something
that's not empty cannot possibly
originate nor disappear.
Something that's empty is not a thing, not a
substance and cannot have qualities or
activities. A shadow doesn't really move or
stand, arise or disappear (although it's not
unusual to say so, but that's merely a metaphor).
Something that's not empty is a substance and
will never change.
10
It's nonsense to say that origination and
disappearance are identical. It's
nonsense to say that origination and
disappearance are different things.
other out. They're not different things, because
they're dependent. Nothing exists that only just
originates and doesn't disappear or the other
way around.
11
Origination as well as disappearance
exist because they're perceived?
Origination as well as disappearance are
only perceived because of blindness!
12
A thing doesn't originate from a thing. A
thing doesn't originate from something
else than a thing. Something else than a
thing doesn't originate from something
else than a thing. Something else than a
thing doesn't originate from a thing.
There are two possibilities: something is a thing
or not. An egg is a thing, so is an omelet. An
omelet cannot originate from an egg, because in
omelets and the omelet could not stop
originating. The omelet doesn't arise from
something other than a thing, like an activity or
a pseudo-thing like a shadow, because in that
case something would come out of nothing. A
shadow doesn't originate from another shadow,
from light or from an egg, because a shadow
doesn't originate, but merely appears.
13
A thing doesn't originate from itself or
from another thing. It doesn't originate
 Disappearance and origination
from both itself and another thing. How
could it originate?
It's obvious that a thing doesn't originate from
itself nor from both itself and something else,
because it would have to exist before its
origination. It has been proved that a thing
doesn't originate from another thing. It's equally
impossible that a thing originates from a
combination of several things, because in that
case the things from where something originates
would or wouldn't have to merge with the new
thing. If they do they wouldn't exist any longer,
which is impossible. If they don't the origination
would never stop. t
14
To believe in (the existence of) a thing
means to believe in a doctrine of eternity
or momentariness, because in that case
a thing would have to be eternal or
impermanent.
An impermanent thing cannot possibly stay for
a second. The theory of the abhidharma: all
things consist of momentary atoms merely
moves the problem of substance further ahead
without confronting it. The alternative is the idea
that things exist eternally; in that case
origination is merely apparent change of an
eternal substance. Both have been rejected by
the Buddha. So Nāgārjuna shows that only his
view of emptiness of things suffices the demands
of the teaching of the Buddha. The opponent
objects.
15
To believe in (the existence of) a thing
doesn't mean to believe in a doctrine of
eternity or momentariness, because a
thing exists as a stream of origination
and disappearance of causes and
effects.
16
If a thing would be a stream of causes
and effects is, then it follows that the
cause is (continuously) disappearing
because something that disappears
doesn't arise again.
17
It is nonsense to say that a real thing,
that substantially exists, would (ever)
not really exist. During nirvāna however
the stream of existence is stopped by
inner peace.
74
18
If the last one has disappeared a next
thing is nonsense. If the last one hasn't
disappeared a next thing is nonsense.
The stream of existence is an illusion. It's the
model of the abhidharma: coming and going of
momentary atoms. However when an atom has
disappeared, no cause exists for a next atom. If
the atom still exists there's no place for a next
atom. There's probably also a pun here, ‘is
nonsense’ can also be translated as ‘not
connected’. A next atom cannot follow a
previous, because it's nonsense and because
there's no connection between both. Note that
verse 17 doesn't fit very well, because verse 18
follows logically verse 16. Maybe verse 17 has
been added later like possibly other verses that
state something positive about nirvāņa.
19
When a next one would originate while
last one is disappearing, another would
originate while the one is disappearing.
The model of a stream is based on sequence
and replacement. Sequence means that an atom
comes precisely on the spot of the last one.
Replacement means that the new atom takes
over the function the last one. In both cases
there has to be a border between last atom and
next one. At that border nothing exists. Overlap
between two atoms is absurd. So there has to be
discontinuity and we're back at momentariness.
20
To say that the disappearing one is the
same as the originating one is nonsense:
is one born too in the same components
in which one dies?
21
A stream of existence doesn't make
sense with any of the three aspects of
time. How could this stream of existence
exist if doesn't exist during one of the
three aspects of time?
The three aspects of time are of course past,
present and future. We have seen that the
connection between a last and the next atom is
incomprehensible and that therefore the whole
idea of a stream just doesn't make sense.
Also here ‘make sense’ could be translated as
‘is connected', which can be interpreted as a hint
at the fact that the connectio between two
following atoms is incomprehensible.
Disappearance and origination 75
The Buddha
76
22. The Buddha
1 another substance is said to be without a
The Buddha is not the components and
not something else. The components are
not in him, he’s not in the components
and he doesn’t owe any components.
Who’s the Buddha?
A Buddhist denying the Buddha, here called the
‘tathāgata’ (literary: he who has come to the
truth), it is getting better all the time! The
Buddha really exists, does he? The Buddha is
who he is, isn't he? Nāgārjuna doesn’t think so;
the Buddha is empty as well. There may be a
historical background to this discussion. During
the first century after the Buddha’s death, he
wasn't depicted. In pictures his presence was
symbolized by a parasol or a pair of sandals. In
Nāgārjuna's time the cults of devotion were
growing rapidly. Nāgārjuna might not have
applauded this.
A person consists of five components: body,
emotions, perception, tendencies and
consciousness. The Buddha is not the five
components together, because the five
components are each different and he is one
person, it's impossible that he's in all five
simultaneously. He's not to be found anywhere
else either. One doesn't have to find the Buddha
first in order to discover the five components of
the Buddha. Each component in itself doesn't
contain a Buddha. He's not the owner of his
components, because the owner and his
possessions exist independently. So nothing
exists anywhere that can be identified as being
the Buddha. But maybe the Buddha exists as a
person dependent on the components.
2 If the Buddha is somebody who exists
If the Buddha would be dependent on
the components, he wouldn't exist
substantially. How could something that
doesn't exist substantially consist of
another substance?
The alternative seems to be that the Buddha
doesn't exist somewhere, but manifests himself
dependent on his components. Like a written
word exists dependent on the characters. In that
case there's no disagreement. The Buddha is
empty, he doesn't exist substantially and it's not
possible to attribute him another substance, for
instance to say that the Buddha exists as his
teaching, or as a head of the order of monks.
3
Something that exists dependent on
self, so how could anything without a self
be the Buddha?
The Buddha himself taught that all things are
without a self. Things are without a self,
dependent and unsatisfactory. The abhidharma
explains this by means of the momentary atoms.
All things exist like the images on a monitor or a
Tv-screen they're flashing particles of different
kinds that exist for a moment and then
disappear. This paper is a phenomenon without
substrate, it consists of flashing atoms that give
the impression of paper, they are not paper. If
that's the case and the Buddha exists in the
same way, then there's no Buddha, there're only
atoms that give the impression of a Buddha.
4
How could he be the substance of
something else if he isn't a substance?
Who’s that Buddha, that exist apart of its
own substance or the substance of
something else?
It's impossible for something that isn't a
substance by itself, something that exist
independently, to exist independently on the
bases of something else. A written word is a
phenomenon that's dependent on its characters.
It isn't a substance, because it appears
dependent on someone reading it. It's impossible
for the word to exist independently even noot for
the reason that it has a substantial meaning.
5
independent of the components, then he
must have become dependent on them
later, because he's dependent on them
now.
There's however reincarnation, taken for
granted in Buddhist circles, certainly in India in
the second century. The Buddha has
reincarnated before his awakening and he had
The Buddha
77
the components by birth. The opponent
maintains that the Buddha was independent of
the components before he was born (like the
avatars of the Hindu god Kŗşņna, who chooses
freely to send an emanation the the earth). The
problem is in that case that something very
drastic has taken place: the Buddha has become
dependent on his components, because he lived
a normal life.
6
However there's no Buddha at all who
takes on the components, how can
something become dependent if it's not
independent?
Nobody's born without or independent from the
components, not even a Buddha, therefore it's
nonsense to say that the Buddha has become
dependent on his components, in that case he
would have to exist independently first.
7 The sentence ‘the Santa Claus has a beard’ also
It's impossible for an (a component) to
arise in any way without being
appropriated and no Buddha exists
without appropriated things
(components) is.
The components have to become someone's in
order to exist, but whose could they be? That
could only be a Buddha without components and
such a person cannot possibly exist.
8 is a contradiction and therefore cannot possibly
The Buddha is neither the one nor the
other, if he's examined in the five ways.
How could it be possible to describe him
by means of the appropriated
(components)?
It appears that the Buddha is not identical with
the components and not with something else, is
no part of them and doesn't exist independent of
them. The three relations: being part of,
containing, and owning, are not possible either.
So there's no way to get t know the Buddha by
means of the components. In other words: the
Buddha is not his physical appearance.
9 being, the real thing (whatever that may be). He
What's appropriated exists in its turn
not as a substance. How could
something that isn't a substance by
itself, be a substance by another?
What's appropriated exists in relation to an
appropriator and is therefore not independent.
Something that doesn't exist independently
cannot take over the independence from
somebody or something else, like the
appropriator.
10
In this way an appropriated thing
(component) and the appropriator are
completely empty. How could the
Buddha however be referred to as empty
if he is empty?
This looks very puzzling. Language refers to the
world. The world is ‘all that is the case’ like
Wittgenstein put it58. The sentence ‘the paper is
white’ mentions a kind of thing which is a part of
the world (‘paper’), it refers to a specific piece
which is supposed to be known to the addressee
(‘the’) and mentions a quality it possessees (‘is
white’). Not everything has to exist materially.
refers to a specific person and mentions one of
its qualities. The fact that Santa Claus is part of a
virtual world doesn't make any difference.
The sentence ‘the Buddha is empty’ looks the
same but there's a difference. It denies itself
because the quality (empty) denies the
existence of the subject that’s supposed to be
the substrate of the quality. The meaning f the
sentence is ‘actually there's nothing one could
call ‘the Buddha’', but since 'the Buddha' is the
subject of the sentence, the sentence denies
having a subject. The noun 'Buddha' suggests a
subject, if not it's meaningless. So the sentence
be a sentence, i.e. a meaningfull expression.
11
It's impossible to say that something
could exist that's ‘empty’ or ‘not empty’,
both or neither, it's only said as a figure
of speech.
Language is not a projection of the world. This
is not a handicap. No language is possible that
doesn't refer to substances. It’s pointless to try
to make an artificial ideal language, because
language is completely metaphorical it's only a
figure of speech. The philosopher Heidegger has
tried his whole life to express the essence of
failed. A critic, Jacques Derrida (1930-) called this
a kind of homesickness.
12
58
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, proposition 1
The Buddha
78
How could the quadruple of eternal,
temporary etc. apply, if there's inner
peace? How could the quadruple of
limited, endless etc. apply, if there's
inner peace?
The Buddha is completely free of all worldly
categories like eternal, temporary, both, neither,
or limited, endless, both, neither etc. He has
seen reality as it is, he has ‘came to the truth’
('tathāgata’). He knows there're no substances
with qualities and doesn't look upon himself that
way. When someone asked him ‘where's the
Buddha after his death?’ he remained silent. He
couldn't answer the question, because there is
no answer. Not every question has an answer.
Any answer to the question 'How many wheels
has the national anthem', would suggest that
national anthems are objects that can be riding
on wheels. This impossibility is even more
pressing for something or somebody that has no
qualities at all because it isn't something or
somebody. Not everybody accepts this at first
sight. Many Buddhists pray to the Buddha and
seek comfort, looking upon the Buddha as a kind
of supernatural father.
13
Because he who believes the superficial
supposition that the Buddha exists, has
to imagine too, because he imagines
this, that he doesn't exist (anymore)
after (his) nirvāņa.
Who considers the Buddha to be a person that
teaches and gives comfort, in short the hero of
everybody's dreams, has to accept that heroes
die. Even the Rambo and Rocky series are not
endless.
14
23. Wrong views
1.
Desire, aversion and ignorance are
said to arise because of the
imagination, because they arise under
the influence of wrong views about
good and evil.
The question however whether the
Buddha does or doesn't exist after the
final termination isn't even possible,
because he's empty of substance.
It's only possible for a substance to have
qualities. Nevertheless people imagine the
Buddha as a man with curly hair (due to Greek
influence on Indian sculpture), who sits a certain
position. Thus is the picture, but is this the
Buddha? Is a picture capable to teach nirvāņa?
15
Those who imagine that the Buddha is
eternal and transcends the imagination
are fooled by their own imagination.
None of them understands what the
Buddha really is.
16
The substance of the Buddha is the
substance of this world. The Buddha is
without substance, this world is without
substance.
If we describe the world as ‘all that's the case’
then it's not a thing. Like Kant showed, we have
the idea that everything that happens is
connected somehow. If there would be anything
that wouldn't have any influence on other things
at all, it wouldn't be part of the world. The world
is an imaginary unity, but we take it for granted
in all our thoughts and actions. The world is not
a substance, it doesn't have qualities. It's even
impossible to say that there's one world,
because there's nothing to count. The same
could be said of the Buddha after his earthly life.
That's why the Buddha is depicted in the oldest
pictures as a parasol or a pair of sandals.
The wrong views are a well known list in
Buddhist teaching:
• to consider the impermanent as
permanent,
• to consider the non-substantial as
substantial,
• to consider the impure as pure and
• to consider the unsatisfactory as
satisfactory.
Why do we find something attractive or
repulsive? Why do we stop in front of a
window fascinated by an elegant luxurious
armchair and even consider or a moment to
buy it? We see the armchair as something that
doesn't wear out . We imagine ourselves
The Buddha
79
sitting relaxed, reading the newspaper. What
we don't see is the worries to keep it nice, not
to damage it, to clean it, etc. We don't think of
the fact that the rest of our furniture will look
terrible and that we never take more then a
half hour each day to read the newspaper. We
see the repulsive as attractive and the
impermanent as something permanent. The
same applies to something we hate like a walk
in the rain. This doesn't last for ever and
besides it trains our body to warm itself.
2.
What arises under the influence of
wrong views about good and evil
doesn't exist substantially; therefore
the mentaltorments don't really exist.
The desire for a nice armchair is not a desire
for a real thing, but for an illusion. It's not the
thing itself we long for, but the representation
we make of it. Therefore as soon as we
understand that we desire something that
doesn't exist, the desire is gone without a
trace.
3.
Whether a self exists or not hasn't
been established in any way. How
indeed could this be the case with the
mentaltorments?
4.
Because the very existence of the one
who owns these negative emotions is
not established and if there's no one at
all, the negative emotions are
nobody's.
• the evil person is not in his mental
torments,
• mental torments are not in the evil
person and
• the evil person doesn't own the mental
torments.
In the second series the mentalt orments and
the evil person have changed place.
6.
Do mental torments originate under
the influence of wrong views about
good and evil? The influence of wrong
views about good and evil isn't a
substance.
Wrong views aren't things located
somewhere in our thoughts. They're mistakes,
misunderstandings, bad habits perhaps, but
the moment we understand we're wrong they
leave no trace, it’s as though they never
existed. How could they produce something?
We long for things or hate them while things
themselves even don't exist.
Because of this Nāgārjuna concludes that
discipline and obeying rules don't bring a
person closer to nirvāņa. Only understanding
does. Who follows rules still recognizes wrong
views as substantial. The best one can do is
chose the way of life which gives the best
opportunity to gain understanding in the
emptiness of phenomena the rest doesn't
matter.
7.
One imagines form, sound, taste,
touch, scent and phenomena to be the
six kinds of objects of desire, aversion
and ignorance.

The mental torments have to be somebody’s 8.

mental torments. I has however been proved
before that is’s impossible to decide whether
anybody exists or not. Is it possible for Santa
Claus to long for an armchair? How could we
prove this?
Form, sound, taste, touch, scent and
phenomena don’t exist in itself;
they’re merely vain speculation and
are similar to a mirage or a dream.

5. We desire or hate sense objects and

phenomena. These don't exist however by
According to the materialists
themselves; they exist in relation to our
mentaltorments are not in the evil perception and imagination.
person and the evil person is not in the
mentaltorments in one of the five 9.
ways. How could ever good or bad exist in
things that are like magically conjured
Not in one of the five ways means:
persons or reflections in a mirror?
• the evil person is not his mental
torments,
• the evil person is not something other 10.
than his mental torments,
The Buddha
80
What we call evil doesn't exist apart mock the theory of wrong views, which might
from the good. The evil cannot have been developed into a strict dogmatism.
possibly exist because it dependents
15.
on the good.
No belief exists because that which
So good and evil are relative, conventional someone believes in, the belief, the
concepts. This view is at the base of believer and what is believed, all this
Nietzsche’s book ‘Jenseits Gut und Böse59’. has been completely pacified.
Good is what's favorable to people and evil is
the opposite. There's no way to find out what's
absolutely good or evil and nobody who has 16.
the authority to do so. God is dead. If no belief exists, be it right or wrong,
who could see things the wrong way
11. and who couldn't?
What we call good doesn't exist apart
from evil. The good cannot possibly 17.
exist because it dependents on the At one hand no wrong views arise in
evil. someone who sees things the wrong
way. At the other hand no wrong views
12. arise in someone who doesn't see
If at one hand the good doesn't exist things the wrong way.
how could desire arise? If at other
hand the evil doesn't exist, how could Someone who sees things the wrong way has
wrong views, they cannot arise. Someone who
aversion arise? sees things the right way has certainly no
wrong views.
Good is not a metaphysical thing, or
something that has been given from above,
it’s merely desirable things and the evil is that 18.
which evokes repulsion. No wrong views arise in someone
who's getting a wrong view.
13. Investigate for yourself in whom wrong
To believe that something views arise!
impermanent is permanent is a wrong
view. In emptiness nothing is Suppose someone thinks that not everything
is impermanent and his fame as a sportsman
impermanent. How could one believe
will stay. If we want to establish whether or
in a wrong view? not wrong views arise in him, we first have to
know whether his views are right or wrong and
A wrong view, like believing that something that brings us back to the previous verse. If
impermanent is permanent is only possible if there's no person where wrong views arise, we
we take things to be substances. Something get the situation in next verse.
can only be permanent if it's something; this is
not the case if one sees the phenomena as
19.
empty. A shadow is not a lasting thing, but
neither an impermanent thing. The same How could unproduced wrong views
applies to both other wrong views. arise anyway? How could there be
anyone who sees things the wrong
14. way if wrong views have not arisen?
To believe that something
impermanent doesn't perish, is a 20.
wrong view. Why shouldn’t the belief A thing arises not by itself, also not
that something impermanent is empty through something else and not both
be a wrong view? by itself and through something else.
How could anyone get wrong views?
What's empty.like a shadow for instance,
doesn't perish does it? Nāgārjuna seems to This is a repetition of verse 1 from chapter 1
about causality and it has been discussed
before.
59
‘Beyond Good and Evil’
The Buddha
81
mental torments. Who could forsake
21. his substance?
If something with a self, something
pure, something eternal and 25.
something happy would exist in that Or, how would they be forsaken if
case the self, the pure, the eternal and someone would have any
the happiness are no wrong views. unsubstantially existing mental
torments, how could they ever be
22. forsaken? Who could forsake
If something with a self, something something that doesn't really exist?
pure, something eternal and
something happy doesn't exist in that
case something without a self,
something impure, something
impermanent or something unhappy
doesn't exist either.
There're two possibilities: it's possible the
qualities exist or it isn't. If it is, the
abhidharma schools are wrong. If it isn't, it's
equally impossible that the qualities are
absent, because there’s no substrate, no
possible place for the qualities. One can have
a cup of tea with or without sugar, but not with
or without crocodiles. So in that case the
abhidharma schools are equally wrong.
This seems to be just a logical trick, but
there's more to it. According to Nāgārjuna the
abhidharma explanation is naïve and abstract.
It's quite simple to say life stinks, but
everybody knows that it's not always like that.
Some things are good, some things are bad.
It's impossible to say 'everything is....',
because that would be an absolute judgment
and everything is relative. 'The pure doesn't
exist' is not a conclusion from a thorough
investigation nor a emotional cry, nor the
conclusion of logical reasoning (that's
impossible because it's a synthetical
proposition, nothing in the concept of pure
refers to existing things), it's just a prejudice,
a confession of faith or both. Many
philosophers would think such a proposition is
nonsense, because it contains no information,
it doesn't delimit what's the case and what's
not.

23.
In this way ignorance is dispelled by
dispelling the wrong views. If the
ignorance is dispelled, the
predispositions etc. are dispelled.

24.
Because how could mental torments
be forsaken in any way if someone
would have any substantially existing
 The self
24. The Buddhist teaching
1 the nonreturner (who's living his last life). If
If this all would be empty, no
origination would exist nor
disappearance, so according to you the
Four Noble Truths don't exist.
This chapter begins with a series of objections
against the philosophy of emptiness. They are
more or less the most serious objections which
are possible: Nāgārjuna is said to deny all of
Buddhist teaching categorically. If everything is
empty, the very foundation of the teaching, the
Four Noble (rather: existential) Truths don't
exist.
The first truth says that life is structurally
unsatisfactory and permeated with suffering.
Having read last chapter it seems clear that
Nāgārjuna is flatly denying this.
The second truth identifies the cause of this:
it's desire (literally 'thirst’) . Nāgārjuna denies
the existence of a desire, a desirous one and a
desired. Moreover he denies causality. So this
objection seems justified too.
The third truth presents a remedy: when desire
has been overcome, suffering is over. How could
anything be changed is causality doesn't exist?
The fourth truth gives the prescription of how
to overcome desire. Reflect on the Four Noble
Truths and follow the eightfold path which is the
discipline of a Buddhist monk. Nāgārjuna
doesn't support discipline, he thinks it leads us
nowhere.
The objections continue.
2 teaching doesn't exist nor the
If the Four Noble Truths don't exist,
understanding, giving up cultivation and
realization are impossible.
There would be nothing to understand, no
desire to give up, nothing could be done to build
good habits and behavior, and no one could
reach nirvāņa the extinction of desire.
3 6
If this doesn't exist, the Four Noble
Results don't exist. If the results don't'
exist, there're no people who follow the
path and reached the goal.
82
The results are obtained by practicing the
Buddhist discipline, it are the four steps on the
way to nirvāņa: the streamenterer (the person
who enters into the career or stream to
nirvāņa), the streamwinner, the oncereturner
(who has only one life to live after this one) and
these don't exist, no one has obtained them and
the existence of those who reached the goal,
the arhants (victorious ones) and even the
Buddha’s for that matter is impossible.
4
If the eight kinds of persons don't exist
the community of monks doesn't exist. If
the Four Noble Truths don't exist, no
True Teaching exists.
The eght kinds of persons are:
1. the one on his way to become a
streamenterer,
2. the streamenterer,
3. the one on his way to become a
streamwinner,
4. the streamwinner,
5. the one on his way to become a
oncereturner
6. the oncereturner
7. the one on his way to become a
nonreturner
8. the nonreturner.
These are of course impossible if results would
be impossible. The Buddhist community consists
of people who've come to one of these levels.
So if these people wouldn't exist, Buddhism as a
movement wouldn't exist. Moreover without the
Four Noble Truths there's no Buddhist teaching.
5
How could a Buddha exist if the
community? You deny the Three Jewels
by what you say!
A Buddha cannot exist if there's neither
Buddhist teaching nor a community. Nāgārjuna
denies the existence of the Three Jewels he took
refuge in when he became a Buddhist. What has
come over him, has he become insane?
In case of emptiness consequences
don't really exist, neither good nor bad.
By this you deny all common sense!
 The self
7 philosophy and philosophy is the fulfillment of
To this we say that you don't
understand the import of emptiness and
because of this you reject (the
philosophy) of emptiness and its
purpose.
The opponent is satisfied about his attack, but
Nāgārjuna stays calm. He even might have
smiled knowing he'll return the attack back to
sender. In the chapters beginning with chapter
22 Nāgārjuna gives the impression to have
become very confident. He plays with the
opponent, he treats him with irony. Perhaps he
wrote these chapters some time later when he
had won many debates and had many followers.
He starts with a quote the opponent
undoubtedly is familiar with: the Buddha has
been using two levels of truth in his teaching.
He didn't do this to make things more
complicated, but because that was the only way
to explain what he wanted to say. The Buddha
talked about karma and discipline as if a self
exists, but he explained as well that a person is
nothing more than five components working
together and nowhere a soul or self is t be
found. The Buddha also gave rules for when a
monk should have a meal but also said that no
one should be attached to rules. So the Buddha
taught on the level of daily life and common
sense, but also on a philosophical or
transcendent level. Nevertheless, this
transcendent level was probably not a
philosophy of emptiness, but Nāgārjuna doesn't
mention this.
8
The teaching of the doctrine of the
Buddhas is based on two levels of truth:
the common concealing one and the
absolute60 one.
9 teaching.
Those who don't know the difference
between those truths don't know the
profound truth in the teaching of the
Buddhas.
So the opponent doesn't get it, because he
mixes up the two levels of truth: common sense
and philosophy. Common sense is practical, it
has to work so it doesn't tell exactly what things
really are. Philosophy doesn't have to be
practical; it has to make sense, to reveal. When
one looks at a watch one knows the time, but
one doesn't know what time is. Both levels
however are related (except in bad academic
philosophy). Common sense is the subject of
60
Literally: thruth in absolute sense
83
common sense.
10
It's impossible to reach nirvāņa without
the absolute level of truth. It's
impossible to explain the absolute level
without using the concealing one.
That makes sense, the concealing level is the
level on which language works in everyday life,
where things are taken for granted. The
absolute level is the level on which language is
analyzed. Russell called the first ‘object
language’ and the second ‘meta language’. It's
impossible to analyze language without
understanding how it is used and the words that
are used in metalanguage are derived from the
practical level.
11
Emptiness that's misunderstood can
cause the down fall of an unintelligent
person, like a wrongly pronounced
magic spell or a snake grasped at the
wrong end.
A person who gets wrong ideas doesn't
understand the absolute level, or confuses both
levels. Some people might give up ethics, or
become indifferent to suffering of others. In this
way one gets into trouble. When one takes hold
of snake at its tail in stead of at its head, one
gets bitten. A mispronounced spell can harm in
stead of benefit its owner.
12
That's why the Wise One renounced his
intentions to teach the doctrine,
because he realized how difficult it is for
unintelligent persons to understand this
Nāgārjuna isn't a heretic, the opponent is just
stupid and therefore he understands nothing of
the Buddha's teaching. Actually in the biography
of the Buddha there is a moment just after his
awakening where he doubts whether anyone
would understand his new discovery. Only after
a few days he decides to try his former five
companion hermits. Nāgārjuna admits that his
teaching of emptiness is something new that's
not mentioned by the Buddha. He maintains
however that the Buddha would’ve taught the
doctrine if he would've had more intelligent
pupils. This is risky, because according to the
biography the Buddha showed just before his
death his open hand to his pupils saying that he
 The self
had taught everything he knew without holding
anything back.
13
The objection you raise against
emptiness, has an inadmissible
consequence which doesn't concern us:
it doesn't apply to anything that's
empty.
14
Everything is right of something of
which the emptiness is right. Everything
is wrong of something of which the
emptiness is wrong.
15
You attribute your own faults to us, like
you've forgotten the horse you've
mounted!
This refers to a well known story at the time.
Someone had to bring ten horses to the king,
but broke out into panic when he could only
count nine horses. He had forgotten that he was
sitting on a horse himself.
16
If you think things really exist because
of their substance, you must think that
they've originated without causes and
conditions.
17
In this way you deny cause and effect
and actor, activity and accomplishment,
origination, disappearance and effect.
18
All that's dependent origination we call
emptiness. This is a figure of speech.
This indeed is the middle way.
This is an important proposition. Emptiness is
not a higher substance, a kind of hidden reality
or a reality for clairvoyants or saints; it's just the
nonexistence of substances, the fact that
everything arises dependent on something else.
So what does this mean? Causal origination is
supposedly the origination of substances and it's
a one way process. Dependent origination is a
two way process, it is mutual implication: if
there's the one, there is the other as well. If
there's small, there's big. If there's high, there's
low. If there's a cause, there's an effect. Things
originate in other words from the difference we
84
make. We don't make these differences at will;
they're imbedded in our language and way of
life. Using language is a kind of game, it is
human behavior guided and bound by rules.
Wittgenstein came to a similar conclusion: the
meaning of the words doesn't consist of
substances, the just the way we use the word.
That way is bound by rules. Wittgenstein called
a set of rules a language game. A language
game is related to a ‘lifeform61. Wittgenstein
didn't found a new way to awakening, but he
asked himself different questions. Dependent
origination is a subject mentioned by The
Buddha but Nāgārjuna sees new implications. It
is a difficult concept however, probably because
it requires a high level of abstraction.
Nāgārjuna calls his doctrine the way of the
middle because the existence of things is
neither affirmed nor denied; things are neither
momentary nor eternal. The extremes are
rejected however not by a compromise (like in
Aritotles ehtiss), but by transcendence. Since
the Buddha in his first teaching said that his
teaching is the middle way between lust and
severe asceticism, because both don't lead to
the nirvāņa, the term ‘middle way’ has a
became a kind of trademark for Buddhism.
19
Not a single phenomenon exists that
hasn't originated dependently, because
not a single phenomenon exists that's
not empty.
Nāgārjuna repeats one after another all
reproaches the opponent made aginst him and
shows that they all exclusivevly apply to his
substantialism.
20
If this all wouldn't be empty, no
origination and no disappearance would
exist. Consequently according to you
the Four Noble Truths don't exist.
21
How could there be suffering that
hasn't dependently originated. Because
suffering is called impermanence and
this doesn't exist as a substance.
According to the Buddha's own words suffering
means being confronted with undesirable
things, the loss of desirable things and
uncomfortable experiences of the body. This is
only possible because of causes and conditions.
22
61
see for instance Kenny p. 158 ff.
 The self
How could on the other hand an
existing substance originate? Therefore
no origination exists if emptiness is
denied.
If suffering were a substance, it would exist and
couldn't arise. So if emptiness is denied,
suffering is denied.
23
No extinction of substantial suffering
exists; you deny the extinction of it
because of your substantialism.
If suffering is a substance, it is not dependent
on something else, so it would never disappear.
24
A method that's a substance cannot be
practiced. If practice exists after all,
then according to you there's no
substantial method.
A substantial method is not dependent on
practicing persons and couldn't therefore be
practiced by anyone. Persons wouldn't depend
on what they practice, so no practice would
have any effect.
25
If neither suffering exists nor it's
origination or extinction, what could be
achieved by a method designed to stop
the existence of suffering?
26
How could something that as a
substance hasn't been fully understood
be understood later as yet? How could
this later be possible after all? A
substance is understood to be
unchanging, isn't it?
A substance is what it is and shows itself as
what it is, without any interaction. It may be
understood or misunderstood, but it stays that
way. What ever someone would do nothing can
change a substance. What's not understood in
the beginning will be not understood for ever, so
no progress is possible.
27
So you think realization, giving up,
cultivation and understanding are
nonsense and also the Four Results.
85
28
Moreover how could a result be
achieved that substantially is not
achieved? Someone who could achieve
something would've achieved it already
because of his substance.
An unachieved substance will never become an
achieved substance. A substantial non-achiever
will never become a substantial achiever.
29
If no result exists, there're no persons
according to us who have achieved a
result or are on their way. So the eight
kinds of persons don't exist neither does
the community of Buddhist monks.
30
If the Four Noble Truths don't exist, no
True Teaching exists either and if
there's neither teaching nor a
community, how could a Buddha exist?
31
As a consequence the Buddha exists
according to you independent of the
awakening and the awakening
independent of the Buddha.
32
However it's impossible to achieve
awakening for someone who because of
his substance is not awakened, even if
he's on his way to awakening and
behaves like a bodhisattva.
Every effort to become a Buddha would be in
vain because nothing could ever change. Even
the most pure behavior of a bodhisattva, a
candidate-buddha, would be pointless.
33
No one would ever achieve any good or
evil. What kind of non-empty action
could be done? It's impossible to commit
substantial action, isn't it?
34
Because according to you a result
exists without there being good or evil.
So a result characterized by good or evil
doesn't exist.
 The self
35
If according to you a result
characterized by good or evil exists
after all, how could a result, that's
originated because of good or evil, be
not empty in you judgment?
If something possesses characteristics it is
impossible that it would arise without the
involvement of those characteristics. If someone
would kill a cat and there's no good or evil, the
killing cannot have the characteristic of being
good or evil. If the killing is evil, evil has to exist
at the time of the killing and be involved. That
means that the killing is dependent on evil, so
the killing must be empty.
36
It's you who denies all common sense.
You deny all that's dependently
originated and emptiness.
So emptiness is common sense. This doesn't
mean that anyone with common sense
understands emptiness. Insight in emptiness is
called excellent wisdom (prajñapāramitā).
Apparently emptiness is not mystical or secret,
but merely the fulfillment of common sense.
86
37
If emptiness is denied there would be
nothing that could be done. Work
wouldn't be taken up and an actor
wouldn't do anything.
38
If people would exist substantially they
would be without origination and
disappearance, unchangeable and
always in the same state because
they're substances.
39
If everything would be not empty, it
would be impossible to achieve
something that wasn't achieved, nothing
we could do would put an end to
suffering and no mental torment could
be given up.
40
One, who sees that everything is
dependently originated, sees things as
they are. This is the way of both the
origination and the extinction of
suffering.
Het nirvāņa
25. Nirvāņa
1 If nirvāņa would be a thing, how could it
If this all would be empty, neither
origination nor disappearance would
exist, in that case whose nirvāņa would
follow after the giving up and the
extinction?
Without substances, there would be no
substantial person achieving a substantial
nirvāņa. But what could a substantial person
achieve that he hasn't achieved already? And
how could a substantially non-achieved nirvāņa
ever be achieved?
2 things?
If this all wouldn't be empty, neither
origination nor disappearance would
exist, in that case whose nirvāņa would
follow after the giving up and extinction?
3
Nirvāņa is said to be neither lost nor
gained, to be neither temporary nor
eternal and to be neither impermanent
nor originated.
This is the abhidharmic definition of nirvāņa.
Nirvāņa is uncaused. It's a thing that cannot
possibly not exist, but is not an element in the
causal network of our world. In the Western
tradition it would be called a metaphysical
object. It comes suspiciously close to the Hindu
heaven. It is the substance by excellence.
4 experienced it in the flesh. But what is it? A
As long something isn't nirvāņa, it's
characterized by aging and death; if not
there would be something without aging
and death.
5 Nāgārjuna tells us that all this abhidharmic
But if nirvāņa would be a thing, nirvāņa
would have to be caused, because it's
87
impossible for anything uncaused to
exist anywhere.
If nirvāņa would be a thing, it would be an event
in this world of causation and nirvāņa would be
part of it. Since everything is caused, nirvāņa
would be caused as well.
6
exist without the components of
attachment? Because there's nothing
even not nirvāņa that exists without the
components of attachment.
Every being consist of the five components of
attachment: body, emotions, perception,
tendencies and consciousness. The body
constitutes our physical world, the emotions our
emotional world etc. Something that would be
out of the range of the components could not
exist. The only alternative left is that nirvāņa is
not a thing, so it must be a non-thing. But how
could a non-thing make a difference in a world of
7
If nirvāņa wouldn't be a thing, what kind
of non-thing would it be? If nirvāņa is not
a thing it's not a non-thing either.
8
If nirvāņa would be no thing, how could
it exist without the components of
attachment? Because nirvāņa is not a
non-thing that exists without the
components of attachment.
This seems to be merely playing with words.
The issue here is the abhidharma theory of
language that presupposes that every word
refers to an existing entity or thing. 'Nirvāņa' is a
word, so a nirvāņa has to exist. It has to be a
part of this world because the Buddha
thing? An entity that's not a thing? A state of
mind? Nāgārjuna brings forward a fact about
nirvāņa that has escaped the attention of the
abhidharma: as long as you don't experience it,
you don't know what it is, when you do there's
nothing to tell. So after a long discussion
theory is just chatter. Next verse is the
traditional definition of nirvāņa.
9
 Het nirvāņa
What's in the state of restless going
round has attachment and is dependent.
What's without attachment and
dependence, is called nirvāņa.
10
The Master has taught the abandoning
of (the concepts of) a thing and no thing,
therefore it is nonsense to say that
nirvāņa is a thing or a no thing.
It's not clear which words of the Buddha are
referred to here, but it might be the quote from
the Kātyāyanāsūtra62.
11
It's nonsense to say that nirvāņa is
both, because awakening would be both
a thing and no thing too.
12
If nirvāņa would be both a thing and
nothing, nirvāņa would have to be both
with and without the components of
attachment.
13
How could nirvāņa be both a thing and
no thing? Nirvāņa is not caused and
something that's both a thing and no
thing is!
14
How could nirvāņa be both a thing and
a no-thing? It's impossible for both to be
at the same place, just like light and
darkness!
This is not about nirvāņa, but about the point of
view that every word has to refer to something.
The opponents are even prepared to maintain
the existence of a thing-no thing thing and even
a thing-no thing no thing!
15
The tentative expression that nirvāņa is
neither a thing nor a no-thing, would
have been proved if only it has been
proved that neither a thing nor a no-
thing exists.
16
See footnote chapter 15
62
88
If nirvāņa would exist as something
other than a thing or a no-thing. How
would this so-called other then thing or
no-thing be known?
17
It's said that the Exalted One exists
after the pacification, but it doesn't
show. It's also said that he doesn't exist,
both and neither, but it doesn't show.
18
It's said that the Exalted One exists
changelessly, it doesn't show. It's also
said that he doesn't exist, both or
neither, but it doesn't show.
The Buddha is not a person, no substance that's
part of everyday life and exists or not. He is not a
saint rising up to heaven; nor a person who has
died. People who say so didn't understand
Buddhism. The Buddha is that which cures us
from the world and that's not the same as the
historical person who has been called by the
name of Buddha for a while. Anything that could
be said about the Buddha has be a fact, so it has
to show, it has to be evident. Nāgārjuna rejects
metaphysical speculation and if people can say
what they fancy about the existence of the
Buddha after his parinirvāņa, his death, this is
just that. Besides, nirvāņa is not a heaven, a
place Buddha’s go. It not any other place.
19
There's no difference between the cycle
of existence and nirvāņa. There's no
difference between nirvāņa and the
cycle of existence.
20
The limit of nirvāņa is the limit of the
cycle of existence as well; outside this
nothing exists how subtle it might be.
This doesn't mean that happiness is in the
simple things. That's just romanticism.
21
After the extinction the doctrines about
an end, eternity etc., and merge into
nirvāņa that's the end of the foregoing
as well as the hereafter.
Nirvāņa is a change of perspective and it is just
peace.
Het nirvāņa
22
If all phenomena are empty: what is
endless, what limited; what both endless
and limited, what neither endless nor
limited?
23
What is just this, what is different, what
is eternal, what is temporary, what is
89
both eternal and temporary or even
neither?
24
The pacification of all objects is the
wholesome pacification of the
multiplication of thoughts. The Buddha
never taught any teaching about
anything anywhere.
 De kringloop van wedergeboorte 90

26. The Twelve Chains

This chapter has undoubtedly been added later. 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
This is not Nāgārjuna speaking, nothing is 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
refuted, and substances are taken for granted. 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
This is merely a standard abstract of the 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
teaching of the nidhāna’s, the twelve chains of 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5 6
dependent arising which explain the origination 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4 5
of our life of suffering, sickness and old age. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3 4
Perhaps this text became part of a monk's 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2 3
standard equipment and was the subject found 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1 2
to important to be missing. Besides dependent 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1
origination (pratītyasamutpāda) is an important
part of Nāgārjuna's philosophy. 1. ignorance
The list of twelve chains can be found in many 2. tendencies
other Buddhist texts. Its importance is open to 3. (rebirth)consciousness
doubt. The Buddha has mentioned in his 4. body-mind (person)
teaching different sets consisting of different 5. six senses
numbers of chains. The set of twelve is a kind of 6. contact
summary of all other sets. Dependent arising 7. emotions
however, which connects the chains, seems to 8. desire
be more important then the actual number of 9. attachment
chains. 10. becoming (future)
The chains originate each other in mutual 11. birth
dependence, so they implicate each other. If 12. aging sickness and death
ignorance exists, worldly consciousness exists
and the other way around. The twelfth chain and
the first one implicate each other too. By taking
away one chain, all disappear.
The interpretation of the model is still a matter
of debate. The traditional diachronic and
abhidharmic one is without doubt a pseudo-
causal cycle that extends itself over three
lifetimes. The first two chains: are placed in the
previous life, the following eight in this life and
the last two in the future life. The cycle can be
broken be means of discipline (preventing nr. 7)
and meditation (preventing nr. 1).
Philosophically this interpretation is untenable.
Mutual implication has nothing to do with time or
history; it is not diachronical, but synchronical,
not ontological but logical. One chain implicates
another like the day implicates the night and
1
checkmate chess. It is nonsense to try to prevent He who's blinded by ignorance causes
the night if there's a day, or to do away with the three predispositions for rebirth, by
words if you have a sentence. If the fascination the activity of which he enters a form of
of substances is broken, the world has been life.
pacified. Nāgārjuna says it over and over again.
Another point is that a being without ignorance
should have reached nirvāņa. In the usual The three predispositions are desire, aversion
interpretation ignorance is a part of last life and and ignorance. These come from a previous life.
if that's the case ignorance couldn't be overcome
in this life, because it's over and everybody 2
would have been awakened for the same reason. Dependent on the predispositions the
In order to make sense one had to combine the consciousness enters a form of life.
diachronical and the synchronical, which resulted
in twelve chains going on simultaneously so that
When the consciousness has entered,
each of the twelve chains exists each moment name-and-form is generated.
(see table). This certainly not what the Buddha
had in mind. Name and form is a technical term for the split
unity of mind and matter which constitute the
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 body as a symbol of the person. Two chains from
12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 the traditional set are skipped here: the
 De kringloop van wedergeboorte
tendencies and (rebirth) consciousness. They are
however mentioned at the end. Nevertheless it's
a puzzling omission. Perhaps there used to be a
version based on a cycle with fewer chains.
3 causes us to take so much interest in what
After name-and-form has been
generated, the origination of the six
sense-ranges takes place. When the six
sense-ranges have arisen; contact with
sense-objects takes place.
The origination of the body is followed by the
senses and their objects: odors, touch, sounds,
tastes, colors and concepts. The concepts are
the objects of the mind which receives the
sense-data and organizes them to compose the
objects we perceive. When we’re reading our
eyes register different inkspots and our mind
turns them into characters and words.
4 and birth arises because of life. The
Consciousness arises dependent on the
complex of name-and-form, like the eye
dependents on the form and the
attention.
One sees something only if there's something to distress arise, thus is the origination of
be seen and one pays attention to it, the
consciousness dependents on the bodyin the
this whole accumulation of suffering.
same way.
5 In this way the ignorant, which is the
Contact is the coincidence of the trio of
form, consciousness and eye and
because of contact emotion arises.
Perceptions cause the impression that there're
perceived things out there and from this
impression a relation arises between us and the
things, because of which some things present
themselves as attractive and others as repulsive
or unimportant.
6
Desire arises dependent on the
emotion, because one desires with
respect to the emotion. He who desires
grasps a quadruple attachment.
91
When we've determined that there's something
nice, tedious or unimportant out there, we want
to continue the contact or we don’t; that’s the
predisposition of attachment or repulsion that
happens around us. It consists of four factors:
the actor, the one who gets attached, the object
of attachment and the attachment itself.
Because we don't have much influence on what
happens around us this attachment unavoidably
results in worries, sorrow and misery.
7
When the attachment has arisen the life
of an attached one arises, because if one
would be without attachment, one would
be awakened and no life would exist.
8
A life is formed by the five components
suffering etc. of aging and death is
sorrow accompanied by desire.
9
Because of the birth depression and
10
cause of the cycle of existence, causes
the tendencies, therefore the ignorant is
someone who acts. The wise ones aren't
because they see the truth.
11
If ignorance has been eradicated then
arising of dispositions stops and the
eradication of ignorance is the effect of
the cultivation of understanding.
12
When all has been eradicated of one
none of the others will arise, in this way
this whole accumulation of suffering is
completely eradicated.
 Tegen de dogmatiek
27. Against the dogmatism
This chapter might not be a work of
Nāgārjuna's63. Its style is not really Nāgārjunian,
just like chapter 26 and the first 20 verses of
chapter 17. It's not very consistent and contains
a number of older grammatical forms and
expressions. These might be quotes. The whole
chapter could even be an adaptation of an older
text. We find very little new here, even some
repetitions, so it cannot be ruled out that this
chapter has been written by someone else like a
pupil of Nāgārjuna's. The subject seems to be
the same as that of chapter 23: Wrong View.
The arguments however touch the more general
Buddhist idea of reïncarnation and not just
abhidharma and the style of a running dialogue
has been dropped.
1 to be young and strong. Daily life proves
Saying one existed before or didn't
exist once presupposes a doctrine of
eternity that's based on the past.
2 components. Besides one stays the same as a
Saying one will not exist or become
someone else in the future presupposes
a doctrine of eternity that's based on
the future.
3 could the owner of the components be
It’s impossible to tell if one existed
before or didn't exist at all, because one
is not the same as one used to be in
former existences.
The philosophy of the middle rejects all
extremes: both the dogma of eternal existence
and the dogma momentary existence. Both are
forms of substantialism. The doctrine of
eternity, which implies transformative causality,
is attributed to Hindu philosophies. The doctrine
of momentariness, which implies transgressive
causality, is attributed to abhidharmaschools
and non-Hindu philosophies, like the Jains. The
author reproaches them that they all emphasize
future or past, and take time for granted. Time
must be both continuity and change.
63
Oral communication of Professor T. Vetter
92
4
The so-called self would be something
else than the components. How do you
think a self could exist apart from the
components?
That this is untenable has been proved in
chapter 18.
5
If you say that the self doesn't exist
apart from the components, it means
that the components would have to be
the self, but you reject the existence of
a self!
A well known saying of the Buddha is that the
body, the emotions, the perceptions, the
tendencies and the consciousness cannot
possibly be the self, because they don't obey
the will. If one's body would be oneself one
would be young and strong just through willing
otherwise. Even the most advanced plastic
surgery doesn't make a person young. This
proves that the body is a part of the world of
things, which is a source of worries and distress
for the self. The same applies to the other
subject one's whole life, but this is not the case
with the components.
6
The components disappear and arise
and are not identical to the self. How
the very same as the components?
7
On the other hand it is impossible for
the self to be totally different from the
components. If it were something else it
would have to be perceived without
components, but it hasn't.
8
So the conclusion is that the self is not
something else and not the same as the
components. The self neither exists with
nor without the components.
9
 Tegen de dogmatiek
One cannot say that one didn't exist in
the past, because someone is not
someone else than one used to be
during former existences.
If that were the case, then a former and future
existence would be impossible and that's
unacceptable for a Buddhist.64 This would mean
that a bad guy who gets away with his crimes in
the present existence wouldn't be punished at
all, because karma would be limited to this life.
Such a limitation of the principle of justice and
responsibility was unacceptable for the Buddha.
His solution is that there's continuity between
two existences but not identity. The flame of
the lighter isn't the same as the flame in the
cigaret, but a continuation of it.
10
If one would be someone else, one
would exist apart of the other. This one
would remain exactly the same as he
was born and would be immortal.
The same continuity exists within one life as
well: an elderly person is not the same as she
used to be when she was a child. If so they
would each have their own karma and the very
concept would be useless. In other words the
karma of the child wouldn't be the one of the
old person or the old person would endure
karma he's not responsible for himself.
11
It would mean that karma disappears
or that not the one who made it, but
someone else would endure it etc.
12
It's also not the case that the self
originates without having existed
before. This would introduce the
misconception that the self would have
been caused, or originate without a
cause.
If someone first doesn't exist but later does, he
has to have been caused or originated
64
These days some Western Buddhists consider former
existences a myth, but this doesn't have to mean the end of
the doctrine of karma. One could assume that one lives on
in ones children and friends. They will reap the
consequences of what ne has done. This would however
require a less individualistic image of mankind than is taken
for granted within traditional Buddhism and modern
philosophy.
93
spontaneously. A subject, a consciousness
always has a past or a history. It's not a thing. It
doesn't exist causally or causeless.
13
So it's nonsense to say that one did or
didn't exist in the past, both or neither.
14
Doctrines that implicate that one ever
will exist in the future, or will not exist,
can be dealt with the same way as has
been done with the past.
15
If man has a soul65 he will live for ever.
It's impossible for a soul to be born,
because it's impossible to be born for
something that exists eternally.
16
If man doesn't have a soul, he will not
live for ever. If man doesn't have a soul,
a continuity of rebirths is impossible.
The author defends in fact the pudgalavādin
point of view, or even a Hindu one. This has
been rejected by Nāgārjuna in chapter 18.
There the question was whether a self exists or
not. Nāgārjuna's answer is that it depends on
one's point of view. Here the question is about a
substrate or carrier of the identity. Merely
arguments pro and contra are presented here
without a clear answer.
When one looks at the history of a country, it
becomes clear that no carrier is needed.
Different governments succeed each other, but
the continuation isn't lost. This is due to mutual
implication. This makes that karma or
responsibility is shared by all governments,
without the need of things being handed over
from one government to the next. The same
model could apply to an individual. The karma
could pass from one existence to another
without a carrier or a 'deva' or soul. Next
argument is sloppy, because it's not clear why
the outcome is nonsense. Apparently the author
takes it for granted that the soul is a unity. This
is not evident. Aristotle thought there to be
three souls in a human being and to day there’s
an illness called the ‘multiple personality
disorder’.
17
65
‘Deva’, an old word, which in later speech usually
meant ‘a god’.
 Tegen de dogmatiek
If one would be partly soul and partly
human one would have to live partly for
ever and partly be impermanent and
that is nonsense.
18
If (the impossibility of) both eternal and
impermanent has been proved, this is
eventually also proved for not eternal
neither impermanent.
19
For the cycle of existence to be without
a beginning there has to be something
that's coming from somewhere and
going somewhere. However such a
thing doesn't exist.
20
If nothing's eternal what could be non-
eternal, or both eternal and non-eternal,
or neither?
It looks like a copycat is writing here. The
arguments don't make a consistent
conversation, and the relativity of things is not
mentioned. Next verse presupposes the belief in
India and ancient Greece that different worlds
and world-periods succeed each other. Between
two worlds there's a cosmic fire.
21
How could a next world exist if the
world would be impermanent? How for
that matter could a next world exist if
the world would be eternal?
22
Because the stream of components is
like the flames of a fire, therefore it's
nonsense to speak of eternity and
impermanence.
23
Because the world would have an end
if first these components would get
exhausted and also dependent on those
no components would arise anymore.
If all beings would die and none would be
reborn, the world would stop. The author
doesn't believe that matter can exist
independent of the mind.
94
24
The world wouldn't have an end if
these components wouldn't get
exhausted and also dependent on those
no components would arise anymore
then.66
25
That the world would be partly
impermanent and partly eternal, or both
eternal and impermanent is nonsense.
26
How, to begin with, could a part of the
one attached to the components decay
and a part not; this is impossible.
It's not possible for the components to exist if
there's not someone who gets attached to them
and identifies with them.
27
How could ever a part of the
components decay and a part not, this
is impossible too.
28
If (the impossibility of) the limited and
limitless has been proved, then is this
eventually also proved for both the
unlimited and not limitless.
Now the author goes even further then before:
if everything is empty, no misconceptions or
false doctrines exist, because there's no one
who could believe in them
29
Where, of whom, how and why would
the doctrines about eternity etc. have to
originate, since things are empty?
30
I honor you, Gautama, who out of
compassion taught the holy teaching
that conquers all doctrines.67
66
Kumārajīva has an extra verse here:
Because the true teaching, the true speech and hearing it is
rare, the cycle of existence is not impermanent and not
impermanent.
67
Kumārajīva has two more verses:
 Tegen de dogmatiek 95

Not distroyed not originated, not impermanent and not

eternal, not with one and not with different meaning, not
come and not gone.

The Buddha has explained cause and effect and put an end
to all fantasy, therefore I acknowledge with reverence him
to be my teacher who has explained the superior teaching of
the middle.
index 96
Index
 literature 97

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Titel Auteur Uitgever Plaats Jaart
al
Raisons Pratiques Bourdieu Pierre Éditions the Seuil Parijs 1994
Digha-Nikaya Breet & Jan the & Asoka Rotterdam 2001
Janssen Rob
Het Boeddhisme Conze Edward the Spectrum Antwerpen 1970
The Bodhisattvadoctrine in Dayal Har Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1978
Buddhist Sanskrit Literature
Buddhist sects in India Dutt Nalinaksh Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1978
a
Jñānagarbha on the two truths Eckel Malcolm Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1992
David
Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Edgerton Franklin Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1985
Grammar and Dictionary
Grondslagen van the skepticisme Ferwerda Rein Ambo Baarn 1996
David Hume on Human nature Flew Anthony Macmillan Pub. London 1978
and the understanding
The emptiness of emptiness Huntingto C.W. Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1992
n Jr.
Nāgārjuna Inada Kenneth St. Univ. New York Buffalo 1970
K.
Cinq chapitres the la Jong J.W. the E.J. Brill Leiden 1949
Prasannapadā
Wittgenstein Kenny Anthony the Spectrum Antwerpen 1974
Nagarjuniana Lindtner Chr. Akademisk Forlag Copenhag 1982
en
The Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutrta Luk Charles Shambala Berkeley 1972
Candrakīrti Prasannapadā May Jacques Adrien Maisonneuve Parijs 1959
Madhymakavŗtti
The central philosophy of Murti T.R.V. Allen & Unwin Ltd. London 1980
Buddhism
Nietzsche and Buddhism Mistry Freny Walter the Gruyter New York 1981
A Manual of Abhidhamma Nārada Buddhist Pub. Soc. Kandy 1980
Religion and Nothingness Nishitani Keji Univ. of California Berkeley 1982
Press
Guide through the Abhidhamma- Nyanatilok Bauddha Sāhitya Colombo 1957
piţaka a Sabhā
Nāgārjuna’s philosophy Ramanan K.Venkata Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1987
Early madhyamika in India and Robinson Richard Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1978
China H.
Het ik is een ding Sartre Jean-Paul Boom Amsterda 1978
m
l’Être et le Néant Sartre Jean-Paul Gallimard Parijs 1943
Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung Schopenh Arthur Reclam Stuttgart 1978
auer
Les Stoïciens Schuhl Pierre- Gallimard Parijs 1962
Maxime
An introduction to madhyamaka Singh Jayadev Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1968
philosophy
Emptiness Streng Frederick Nashville 1967
The history of Buddhist thought Thomas Edward J. Routledge & Kegan London 1951
Paul
l’Abhidharmakośa the Vallée Louis the Paul Guethner Parijs 1925
Vasubandhu Poussin la
Prajñāpāramitā Walleser Max VandenHowck & Göttingen 1914
Ruprecht
The life of Nāgārjuna Walleser Max Nag Publishers Delhi 1979
 literature 98
Indian Buddhism Warder A.K. Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1970
Indian Buddhism Nakamura Haime Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1989
Philosophy and its development in Watanabe Fuminaro Motilal Banarsidas Delhi 1983
the Nikāyas and Abhidhamma