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Nagarjuna’s Game
Nagarjuna writes: “If I had a thesis of my own to advance, you could find fault with
it. Since I have no thesis to advance, the question of disproving it does not
arise.” In other words, “If I took a position, you
could disprove (of) it (thereby causing me distress). Since I take no
position, the question of disproof (and the distress that causes) does
not arise.” The mental
attitude of not taking (= attaching to) a position, later applied to the ‘aggregates’
and lived out by wandering about as a homeless beggar, is the core or ‘heart’ of the Buddha dharma (of distress
elimination). It’s applied fully, as dialectic, in the Diamond Sutra, then
condensed into the Heart (or Core) Sutra, the latter being compressed into the simple mantra:
“Awakening, gone, gone to the other shore, gone beyond the other shore, Svāhā
(= Amen!)” Nagarjuna deconstructs
the positions taken by a variety of Buddhist sects on each and every
significant topic of Buddhist discourse. He simply reduces to the absurd (= zero = emptiness, Sanskrit: sunya)
the entirety of Buddhist (and, by implication of non-Buddhist) meta-physical,
physical and psychological speculation. For instance: “Neither from itself nor from another, Nor from both, Nor without cause, Does anything whatever, anywhere arise.” So, how, or
from where or from what does anything arise (indeed, ‘emerge’), apart from
karmic residue? Or does anything, anywhere arise (emerge) at all. Nagarjuna doesn’t
say. The Buddha also didn’t say. The Tathagata did produce a 12 phase list of
‘emerged (or compounded) phenomenon’ origination, starting with ignorance as
primary driver. However, he did not comment how ignorance arises in the first
place and from or in relation to what. Nagarjuna
calls his method of deconstruction of position (or view = dharma) Madhayma pratipad, quite obviously wrongly
translated as ‘The Middle Way’. Taking no position, that is to say, hovering amidst
all positions (i.e. off and in-between extremes, i.e. this shore ><the
other shore) without alighting on (i.e. attaching to) any one of them can
hardly be called ‘middle’, specifically if one interprets ‘middle’ to mean
‘half way’, as in the Golden Mean concept. But there
was extremely clever Buddhist method to his seeming madness. Since all thesis
(read: dharmas = positions and so on) are impermanent and, because happening
as ‘emerged phenomena’, not (because ‘not proper to’
= or owned, hence controlled) atta (the meaning of atta
remains elusive) hence causing distress (Pali: dukkha), detaching from
a position (thereafter all positions) eliminates distress (completely), the
latter being the stated purpose of Buddhist endeavour. In short, Nagarjuna, like the Tathagata Sakyamuni (i.e. the Buddha) before him, takes the Zero (read: emptiness) Space (= no stand), the internal and external expression thereof being silence (= non-birth). By not taking a stand, distress does not arise (i.e. because all stands are temporary and beyond one’s control. See the 3 characteristics sutta). And that’s the whole Buddhist message and the rationale of Buddhist practice, to wit, “Take no stand anywhere, but if you have to, don’t respond.” The entire edifice of Buddhist physical and metaphysical, and derived from the latter, moral speculation rests upon the empty (because meaningless) metaphor atta (usually wrongly translated as ‘self’), empty because the Buddha never produced a positive unambiguous description or definition of it. No one knows what the Buddha meant when he used. Until atta is defined (i.e. a positive position is taken), all Buddhist reasoning (but not practice) remains spurious. Giving negative (to wit, neti-neti) definitions to atta leads (and probably is intended to lead) nowhere, hence to emptiness. Understanding the genesis of metaphors Buddhism is a game, like
football
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