by Nagarjuna
Possibly arise?
10
The attractive so-called is imputed
Based upon the unattractive,
Which from the attractive is not independent.
Therefore the attractive is not tenable.
11
The so-called unattractive is imputed
Based on the attractive,
Which from the unattractive is not independent.
Thus the unattractive is not tenable.
12
If the attractive is not found,
How can there be desire?
If the unattractive is not found,
How can there be aversion?
13
Suppose it’s wrong to apprehend
That “the impermanent is permanent.”
But since there’s no impermanence in what is empty,
How is such an apprehension incorrect?
14
Suppose it’s wrong to apprehend
That “the impermanent is permanent”;
How is it not wrong to apprehend and say
That “what is empty is impermanent”?
15
The apprehension and the mode thereof,
The apprehender and the apprehended
All subside
And thus there is no apprehension.
16
If there is no apprehension,
Whether wrong or right,
Who will have mistaken concepts?
Who will then be unmistaken?
17
In one who is mistaken
Mistakes cannot occur,
In one who’s unmistaken
Mistakes cannot occur.
18
In one who’s making a mistake
Mistakes cannot occur.
Who therefore can be mistaken?
That you should examine for yourself.
19
If mistakes have not arisen,
How can they exist?
If mistakes do not arise,
How can there be someone who’s mistaken?
20
Real existent [errors] are not self-produced,
And they are not produced from something else.
Since they are not produced from self, nor from another,
How can there be someone who’s mistaken?
21
If the self, the pure,
The permanent, the happy all exist,
The self, the pure, the permanent,
The happy—none of these are errors.
22
If the self, the pure,
The permanent, the happy don’t exist,
The no-self, the impure, the impermanent,
The unhappy—these do not exist.
23
Thus by halting these mistakes,
Ignorance is likewise halted.
And if ignorance is halted,
Actions and the rest are also halted.16
24
If an individual’s defilements
Exist by their intrinsic being,
How indeed can they be banished?
Who can banish what exists?
25
If an individual’s defilements
Don’t exist by their intrinsic being,
How indeed can they be banished,
Who can banish what does not exist?
24
An Examination of the Truths of the Aryas
“If all phenomena are empty [it is argued]
They do not arise nor do they cease to be.
It follows that for you [Madhyamikas]
The four truths of the Aryas do not exist.17
2
“And since the four truths of the Aryas do not exist,
Perfect understanding and relinquishing,
Meditation and attainment18—
None of these is tenable.
3
“If these do not exist, the four results also do not exist,
And if the four results do not exist,
There are no ‘beings who abide by the result,’
There are no ‘candidates for the result.’
4
“If these eight kinds of person don’t exist,19
It follows that there is no Sangha.
Since the four truths of the Aryas do not exist,
The supreme Dharma, too, does not exist.
5
“If there is no Dharma and no Sangha,
How can Buddha come to be?
If thus you speak of emptiness,
You have impugned the Triple Gem—
6
“And likewise the existence of results [of actions],
Virtue and nonvirtue.
And the world’s conventions—
All these things you have impugned as well.”
7
To you who thus object, I say:
You have no understanding of the need of emptiness,
Of emptiness itself, and of the sense of emptiness.
And therefore it is you who have impugned these things!
8
The Dharma that the buddhas teach
Is wholly founded on two truths:
The “all-concealing” truth of mundane beings
And the truth of ultimate reality.
9
Whoever fails to understand
How the two truths are distinguished
Also fails to understand
The profound suchness taught by the enlightened ones.
10
Without recourse to the conventional,
The ultimate cannot be shown.
Without the realization of the ultimate,
There is no gaining of nirvana.
11
Because their view of voidness is inept,
Those with little wisdom are brought low.
It is as if they grasped a snake ineptly
Or ineptly cast a magic spell.
12
Knowing thus how hard it is
For feeble minds to sound its depths,
The Buddha’s heart did utterly draw back
From setting forth the Dharma.
13
Falsely do you draw your consequences.
With regard to emptiness, they are not valid.
Your denial of emptiness
For me has no validity.
14
Where emptiness is granted,
Everything is likewise granted.
Where emptiness is unacceptable,
All is likewise unacceptable.
15
You charge me with a fault
That is your very own.
You’re like the mounted man
Who overlooks the horse on which he rides!
16
If you think phenomena exist
By virtue of their own intrinsic being,
Your view must be that, this being so,
All things are without causes and conditions.
17
Thus results, together with their causes,
Agents, tools, and objects of activity,
Production and cessation and results:
All this you have disproved by such a ploy!
18
Whatever is dependently arisen
This has been explained as empty.
In dependence upon something else it is imputed [as existent].
This is the Middle Way indeed.
19
Because there’s nothing that is not
Dependently arisen,
There is nothing
That’s not empty.
20
And if they were not empty, all these things
Could not arise, nor could they cease.
For you it therefore follows
That the four truths of the Aryas do not exist.
21
How can suffering come to pass
If it does not dependently arise?
Impermanence, it has been taught,
is suffering.
It cannot therefore have intrinsic being.
22
If it has intrinsic being
How can it have origins?
For those therefore who impugn emptiness,
There is no [truth of] origin.
23
If suffering has intrinsic being,
No cessation can it have.
By nature it will utterly remain.
Cessation therefore is refuted.
24
If the path possesses an intrinsic being,
Its cultivation is untenable.
If the path is something we must cultivate,
It does not have the being you ascribe to it.
25
If suffering, origin, cessation,
All are inexistent,
What end of sorrow, through the path,
Do you believe can be attained?
26
If the lack of perfect understanding
Has itself intrinsic being,
How can perfect understanding come?
Do not intrinsically existent things remain?
27
Likewise, what you call
Relinquishing, attainment, meditation,
Together with the four results,
These will, like perfect understanding, be impossible.
28
For those who cling to an intrinsic being,
How can the result be gained,
When, through its own intrinsic being,
Nonachievement also has existence?
29
If the result does not exist, there’s no one who abides by the result,
Nor are there candidates for it.
Since these eight beings have no existence,
It follows that there is no Sangha.
30
And since there are no Noble Truths,
Neither is there sacred Dharma.
And if there is no Dharma and no Sangha,
How could Buddha come to be?
31
It follows that the Buddha, in your view,
Does not depend upon enlightenment.
And, in your view, enlightenment
Does not depend upon the Buddha.
32
Those who are not buddhas (in your view intrinsically)
Although they strive in bodhisattva deeds
That they may gain enlightenment,
Enlightenment they cannot gain.
33
No one ever practices
Virtue or nonvirtue.
For what is to be done with what’s not empty?
There is no activity in that which has intrinsic being.
34
And even when there is no right or wrong,
Their fruits, in your view, must exist.
Results that come from right or wrong,
According to your view, do not exist.
35
If, in your view, results exist,
And come from good or ill,
Results like these—how could they not be empty,
Coming as they do from right or wrong?
36
Those who have rejected emptiness
Of that which is dependently arisen
Have rejected likewise
All the common practices of worldly beings.
37
If you do away with emptiness,
There’s no activity at all.
For there would be activity without its being started,
And agents there would be who do not act!
38
If beings have intrinsic being,
They are unborn, and they can never cease.
They abide forever,
Free of any change of situation.
39
If there is no emptiness,
No attainment can there be of what is unattained,
No ending can there be of sorrow,
No relinquishing of karma and defilements.
40
But those who understand that things arise dependently
See likewise [the four truths]
Of Suffering and Origin,
Cessation and the Path.
25
An Examination of Nirvana
“If all these things are empty [you object]
There’s no arising and there’s no cessation.
What has been relinquished and what ceases
Whereby nirvana, as you claim, occurs?”
2
If all these are not empty
There is no arising, and there is no cessation.
What has been relinquished and what ceases
Whereby nirvana, as you claim, occurs?
3
No relinquishment and no attainment,
No permanence and no annihilation,
No cessation, no arising—
In these terms has nirvana been described.
4
Indeed nirvana cannot be a real existent thing,
For this would mean it’s marked by both decay and death.
For there is no existent thing
Exempt from both decay and death.
5
If nirvana is a thing,
It is in consequence compounded
For nowhere is there found
A thing that’s uncompounded.
6
If nirvana is a thing,
How is nirvana not dependent?
A thing that’s not dependent
Has no existence anywhere.
7
If nirvana’s not a real existent thing,
How can it be something that does not exist?
For those for whom nirvana’s not a real existent thing,
It cannot be a nonexistent thing.
8
If nirvana’s not a real existent thing,
How is it independent?
For there is no “nonexistent thing”
That’s not dependent [on its contrary].
9
Things that come and then depart—
That are dependent things or active causes—
Are not dependent things or active causes:
This is taught to be nirvana.
10
Our Teacher has instructed us
That we should leave aside all notions of arising and cessation.
Therefore of nirvana it is rightly said
That it is neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing.
11
If nirvana is concurrently
An existent and a nonexistent thing,
A thing that both exists and yet does not exist is liberation.
This, however, makes no sense.
12
If nirvana were concurrently
An existent and a nonexistent thing,
Nirvana is not independent
For both depend upon each other.
13
How can nirvana be concurrently
An existent and a nonexistent thing?
Nirvana is an uncompounded state,
While both existent things and nonexistent things are composite.
14
How could nirvana be concurrently
An existent and a nonexistent thing?
For these two cannot coincide;
They are like light and dark.
15
The statement that nirvana’s neither
An existent nor a nonexistent thing
Would be established only if
The existent and the nonexistent were established.
16
If nirvana’s neither an existent
Nor a nonexistent thing,
Who is it who knows this saying:
“It is neither an existent nor a nonexistent thing”?
17
Now that the Lord has passed into nirvana,
We cannot say that he exists.
Likewise “he does not exist” we cannot say.
And neither both nor neit
her can we say of him.
18
And when the Lord was still alive,
We cannot say that he existed.
Likewise “he did not exist” we cannot say.
And neither both nor neither can we say of him.
19
Samsara does not differ
Even slightly from nirvana.
Nirvana does not differ
Even slightly from samsara.
20
The ultimate nature of nirvana
Is the ultimate nature of samsara;
And between these two, the slightest difference,
Even the most subtle, is not found.
21
Views concerning what occurs beyond cessation,
The universe’s end, its permanence, and all the rest,
Are based upon [the notion of] nirvana,
On a later and an earlier limit.
22
Since all existent things are empty,
What is finite; what is infinite?
What’s both infinite and finite?
What is neither infinite nor finite?
23
What’s identical and what is different?
What is permanent and what is impermanent?
What is both impermanent and permanent?
And what indeed is neither of these two?
24
Every point of reference subsides;
All conceptual constructs utterly subside.
At no time, nowhere, and to no one
Did the Buddha any Dharma teach.
26
An Examination of the Twelve Links of Existence
Enveloped in the dark of Ignorance,
Beings perform three kinds of Action20
That their existence might continue,
Proceeding by such actions to their destiny.
2
Conditioned by such actions,
Consciousness arises in the various worlds.
When consciousness has thus migrated,
