Nagarjuna's Letter to a Friend by Kyabje Kangyur Rinpoche & Nagarjuna & Padmakara Translation Group

Author:Kyabje Kangyur Rinpoche & Nagarjuna & Padmakara Translation Group
Language: eng
Format: azw3, mobi
Publisher: Snow Lion Publications
Published: 2006-01-18T00:00:00+00:00

(ii) Investigating the aggregates that are the support of the self

The aggregates are not a simple whim, From neither time nor nature do they come, Nor by themselves, from God, or without cause; Their source, you ought to know, is ignorance, From karmic deeds and craving have they come. (50)

Form and the other aggregates do not happen adventitiously, merely out of wishful thinking, with no dependence on other conditions: the aggregates are not a result of one's own fanciful thinking, because they arise from individual causes and conditions. Neither do they arise from something eternal in time, as the Eternalists would claim, since there is no time that is independent of causes and conditions. Since a result cannot be produced from a permanent entity, they do not happen from transformation by a single permanent nature, the prakriti ("primal substance"), in which rajas, tamas, and sattva are in equilibrium, as the Samkhyas claim. And since a fruit cannot be produced from a seed without the seed being altered and without depending on conditions, they do not happen by themselves, as the Mimamsakas hold. They do not come from the Naiyayika School's Ishvara,4A because a result comes from a cause that has to precede it. Neither do they come into being without a cause: if they arose without a cause, they would either have had to have been there all the time or never ever be!49

Then what cause do they come from? To take an example, just as a shoot is produced by watering a healthy seed covered with manure, know that the aggregates come from powerful karmic actions covered by unknowing-that is to say, ignorance-and, as it were, moistened by craving.

(b) The actual path

(i) The three fetters, which are incompatible with the path

To feel that one is ethically superior, To view one's body wrongly, and to doubtWith these three fetters, you should understand, The way through freedom's city gates is blocked. (51)

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