The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way:Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika by Nagarjuna & Jay L. Garfield

Author:Nagarjuna & Jay L. Garfield [Garfield, Jay L.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 1995-11-09T02:00:00+00:00

One would be nonexistent.

Neither existent nor grasping,

Who could this transmigrator be?

“Grasping” here refers primarily to grasping the aggregates as one’s self. Transmigration—or for that matter continuation within one life, which from the Mdhyamika perspective is exactly the same kind of process—involves moving from grasping one set of phenomena as one’s self to grasping another in the same way. That is one of the most fundamental delusions from a Buddhist standpoint. But grasping can also be the grasping of an object as an object, or the clinging to possessions. Life in sasra, Ngrjuna would insist, can equally well be characterized in any of these ways. But if in order to exist as an individual one would have to retain one’s identity over time since on this view it is of the very nature of cyclic existence that one constantly changes from one moment to another, then it would follow that no subject exists. But if there is no subject of grasping, there can be no grasping. So, on the supposition that to exist and to transmigrate is to exist as a continuing entity, there is no way to make sense of the phenomenal world. So an inherently existent grasper, posited in order to guarantee the reality of cyclic existence, in fact makes the reality of cyclic existence incoherent.

4. How could compounded phenomena pass into nirva?

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.