Nagarjuna Quotes

All philosophies are mental fabrications. There has never been a single doctrine by which one could enter the true essence of things.

Just as it is known That an image of one's face is seen Depending on a mirror But does not really exist as a face, So the conception of "I" exists Dependent on mind and body, But like the image of a face The "I" does not at all exist as its own reality.

Since all is empty, all is possible.

Although you may spend your life killing, you will not exhaust all your foes. But if you quell your own anger, your real enemy will be slain.

All philosophies are mental fabrications.

All the dogmatists have been terrified by the lion’s roar of shunyata. Wherever they may reside, shunyata lies in wait! Nagarjuna: Master of Wisdom: Writitngs of the Buddhist Mastar Nagarjuna

Covered by the web of disturbing emotions, One is a sentient being. Freed from disturbing emotions, One is called a buddha. – Nagarjuna

the whole world is cause and effect; excluding this, there is no sentient being. from factors which are empty, empty factors originate. those who impute origination to even very subtle entities are unwise and have not seen the meaning of conditioned origination. there is nothing to be denied and nothing to be affirmed. see the real correctly, for he who sees the real correctly is released

With all its many risks, this life endures No more than windblown bubbles in a stream. How marvelous to breathe in and out again, To fall asleep and then awake refreshed.

if an astronomer calculates from the sky he will ascertain the paths of the moon and the stars; but in his house the womenfolk are at variance, and he does not perceive their various misconduct.

The great ideal of Mahayana Buddhism is to remain in this world, so tempting and full of snares, but at the same time attain this awareness of the Absolute which underlies it, thus remaining free while helping others to free themselves. Nagarjuna captures the essence of this state when he proclaims, There is no difference at all between samsara and nirvana;

We must not despair the evanescent nature of time or our brief existence; we must embrace our delectable moment on earth. Life is a fantastic dream where we rejoice in the incomparable beauty of this misty world of ethereal sensations and sentiments. Buddha said, “It is better to travel well than to arrive.” We must swim with the tide and rejoice in life of memory, dreams, and the beauty that is transpiring before our very eyes. Indian Buddhist teacher and philosopher Nagarjuna advises in “The Diamond Sutra,” to enjoy the dream world, “Thus shall you think of this fleeting world: A star at dawn, a bubble in the stream; a flash of lightening in a summer cloud; a flickering lamp, a phantom, and a dream.

To say 'I want to have sex with this person' is to express a desire which is not intellectually directed in the way that 'I want to eradicate poverty in the world' is an intellectually directed desire. Furthernore, the gratification of sexual desire can only ever give temporary satisfaction. Thus as Nagarjuna, the great Indian scholar said: 'When you have an itch, you scratch. But not to itch at all is better than any amount of scratching.

To a Mahayana Buddhist exposed to Nagarjuna’s thought, there is an unmistakable resonance between the notion of emptiness and the new physics.

Nagarjuna says: For those for whom emptiness is possible, Everything is possible. For those for whom emptiness is not possible, Nothing is possible.

10. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, Liberation is not achieved. 11. By a misperception of emptiness A person of little intelligence is destroyed. Like a snake incorrectly seized Or like a spell incorrectly cast. 12. For that reason—that the Dharma is Deep and difficult to understand and to learn— The Buddha’s mind despaired of Being able to teach it.

Existence” and “nonexistence” are both extremes, “Pure” and “impure” are the same. Therefore, abandoning all extremes, The wise do not even abide in the middle.

I pay homage to Gautama who, out of compassionate mind, has taught the noble Dharma in order to relinquish all views.

17. Error does not develop In one who is in error. Error does not develop In one who is not in error. 18. Error does not develop In one in whom error is arising. In whom does error develop? Examine this on your own!

The whole history of India and Hinduism. First comes Krishna. Seeing his charisma, the whole country follows him. Then comes Buddha who is completely opposite ideology. But seeing his charisma and ability to lead people into enlightenment experience, the whole country followed him. Then came Shankara. Just his ability to lead people into experience, simply the whole country followed him. Then came Nagarjuna who is completely opposite to Shankara. But his ability to lead people to experience, the whole country followed him. So, we never followed any infrastructure, organization. We followed the beings’ ability to lead us into the next level.

In other words, in their own ways, both systems basically attempt to follow the Buddha in addressing the same fundamental problem of clinging to reference points or extremes. They just tackle this issue from different angles, with different terminologies and methods. As Harris says: Nagarjuna and Asanga ... have set themselves the common task of rendering traditional Buddhist doctrine in such a way that it can be used to tackle particular problems. Furthermore it is pointless categorizing them as nihilists or idealists or anything else of the kind. They should be seen as expositors, adapting traditional doctrine to meet the needs of particular tasks while at the same time leaving the body of the doctrine fundamentally unchanged and unquestioned.

In summary, prior to Bhavaviveka, the Yogacaras sought to assimilate rather than to oppose Centrism. A particularly striking example of this is Kambala's (early sixth century) Garland ofLight,1212 which displays a most remarkable early synthesis of Yogacara and Madhyamaka. After Bhavaviveka's critique, however, though never rejecting Nagarjuna and Aryadeva, on certain points the later Yogacaras seemed to be at odds with the later Centrists,"" mainly accusing each other of reification or nihilism respectively. However, what often happened in these controversies was the general problem of one philosophical system attacking the other with its own terminology and systemic framework and not on the grounds of the terminology and the context of that other system. In particular, Bhavaviveka's interpretation of Yogacara is a perfect example of an extremely literal reading without considering the meaning in terms of the Yogacara system's own grounds, instead exclusively treating it on Centrist grounds. Thus, when abstracted from the obvious polemical elements and out-of-context misinterpretations of what the opponents actually meant by certain terms, not much is left in terms of fundamental differences between the later Centrists and Yogacaras,'''" which basically boil down to two issues: (i) whether there is an ultimately real mind (no matter whether this is called other-dependent nature, self-awareness, ground consciousness, or nondual wisdom) and (2) whether any epistemology is possible at all.

There appears to have been institutionalized bias against women right from the earliest times. I don’t think anybody sat down and thought, “Oh, let us be biased.” It’s just that it was part of the prevailing social scene. As the years passed, everything was recited and recorded from the male point of view. I am sure this was not intentional, it was just how it happened. Because most of the texts and the commentaries were written from the male point of view—that is, by monks—women increasingly began to be seen as dangerous and threatening. For example, when the Buddha talked about desire, he gave a meditation on the thirty-two parts of the body. You start with the hair on the top of the head and then go all the way down to the soles of the feet, imagining what you would find underneath if you took the skin off each part; the kidneys, the heart, the guts, the blood, the lymph and all that sort of thing. The practitioner dissects his body in order to cut through the enormous attachment to physical form and see it as it really is. Of course, in losing attachment to our own bodies, we also lose attachment to the bodies of others. But nonetheless, the meditation that the Buddha taught was primarily directed towards oneself. It was designed to cut off attachment to one’s own physical form and to achieve a measure of detachment from it; to break through any preoccupation the meditator might have about the attractiveness of his own body. However, when we look at what was being taught later, in the writings of Nagarjuna in the first century, or Shantideva in the seventh, we see that this same meditation is directed outwards, towards the bodies of women. It is the woman one sees as a bag of guts, lungs, kidneys, and blood. It is the woman who is impure and disgusting. There is no mention of the impurity of the monk who is meditating. This change occurred because this tradition of meditation was carried on by much less enlightened minds than that of the Buddha. So instead of just using the visualization as a meditation to break through attachment to the physical, it was used as a way of keeping the monks celibate. It was no longer simply a means of seeing things as they really are, but instead, as a means of cultivating aversion towards women. Instead of monks saying to themselves, “Women are impure and so am I and so are all the other monks around me,” it developed into “Women are impure.” As a consequence, women began to be viewed as a danger to monks, and this developed into a kind of monastic misogynism. Obviously, if women had written these texts, there would have been a very different perspective. But women did not write the texts. Even if they had been able to write some works from the female point of view, these still would have been imbued with the flavor and ideas of the texts and teachings designed for males. As a result of this pronounced bias, an imbalance developed in the teachings.

This philosophical nihilism did not lead Nagarjuna and his followers to scepticism or agnosticism. Though nothing but the Void was wholly real, the world and all that it contained, from Amitabha downwards, had a qualified practical reality; and the great Void underlying all the universe was, in fact, the Body of Essence itself, the Primeval Buddha, Nirvana. Final immeasurable bliss was here and now for all who would perceive it — not something remote and cold, but the very breath of life, nearer and more real than one's own heart. “The life of the world is the same as Nirvana . . said the Madhyamikas,“ and really there is no difference between them at all".

Einstein’s theory of relativity, with its vivid thought experiments, has given an empirically tested texture to my grasp of Nagarjuna’s theory of the relativity of time.

Tud ön a rossz elragadtatásában követni? Vérfagyasztó tévedés áldozatai vagyunk. Ó, boldogtalan Mirabel! Mind azt hiszik, hogy a rossz hasznosabb, mint a jó, erre mind rosszak lesznek. De ez nem elég. Mind azt hiszik, hogy a rossz érdekesebb, mint a jó, erre mind a rosszra rendezkednek be, sőt büszkék rá. De még ez sem elég. Mind azt hiszik, hogy a rossz a realitás, erre a jót elnevezik idealizmusnak, és elméletet csinálnak. Ez a hármas borzalom. Érti? Mert én nem értem. Tudja mi ez? Ellenállás nélkül minden megy tovább. Mintha semmi sem történt volna. Mintha Lao-ce és Hérakleitosz, Buddha és Szókratész, Nagarjuna és Shankaracharya és rabbi Hillél és Plótinosz és Bruno és Ramakrishna szájukat se nyitották volna ki soha. Ami van, az a zsarnokok és az őrültek és a gazfickók, a forradalmak és a háborúk és a börtönök és a munkatáborok. Ami ezen kívül van, az idealizmus. Nem történt semmi. Sem Echnaton, sem Saint-Exupéry nem szólt egy szót sem. Minden megy tovább az atombomba útján. Nincs ellenállás. Mintha semmi sem történt volna, és ezt a valamit hívják realitásnak, ezt a minden megrázkódtatásnál erősebbet és hatalmasabbat és következetesebbet hívják realitásnak, minden elvnél és áldozatnál és hajmeresztőnél és Golgotánál hatalmasabbat hívják realitásnak, ezt a széptől és nagytól és igazságtól és békétől való elhagyatottságot hívják realitásnak, azt a sötét gödröt amelybe minden keservesen kiküzdött világosság elmerül, amelybe senkinek sincs betekintése, amit senki nem ismer, ezt hívják realitásnak, amely túl van minden emberin, nem könyörületes, nem könyörtelen, nem jó és nem rossz, nem közömbös és nem résztvevő, ezt hívják realitásnak, térdre, gyarló Mirabel, hiába imádkozol, ez a realitás és ez marad. Álmaim végén vagyok.

And so-in what amounts to a deeply ironic twist of fate-Candrakirti was posthumously awarded highest honors from an orthodox scholarly tradition that could sustain its authority only by refusing to take seriously what he had himself insisted upon: Nagarjuna is not in the business of providing rational arguments designed to substantiate, prove, establish, or make certain anything.NN

The nihilistic doctrine is stated not only in the various Prajnya-sutras (the books having Prajnya-paramita in their titles), but also in almost all Mahayana sutras. The above-mentioned three doctrines were preached (by the Buddha) in the three successive periods. But this doctrine was not preached at any particular period; it was intended to destroy at any time the attachment to the phenomenal objects. Therefore Nagarjuna tells us that there are two sorts of Prajnyas, the Common and the Special. The Çravakas (lit., hearers) and the Pratyekabuddhas (lit., singly enlightened ones), or the Hinayanists, could hear and believe in, with the Bodhisattvas or the Mahayanists, the Common Prajnya, as it was intended to destroy their attachment to the external objects. Bodhisattvas alone could understand the Special Prajnya, as it secretly revealed the Buddha nature, or the Absolute. Each of the two great Indian teachers, Çilabhadra and Jnyanaprabha, divided the whole teachings of the Buddha into three periods. (According to Çilabhadra, A.D. 625, teacher of Hiuen Tsang, the Buddha first preached the doctrine of 'existence' to the effect that every living being is unreal, but things are real. All the Hinayana sutras belong to this period. Next the Buddha preached the doctrine of the middle path, in Samdhi-nirmocana-sutra and others, to the effect that all the phenomenal universe is unreal, but that the mental substance is real. According to Jnyanaprabha, the Buddha first preached the doctrine of existence, next that of the existence of mental substance, and lastly that of unreality.) One says the doctrine of unreality was preached before that of Dharma-laksana, while the others say it was preached after. Here I adopt the latters' opinion." If

For Centrists, it is inappropriate to make any autonomous inferences on their own account, because they do not accept any other theses either. In other words, Centrists do not posit any unmistaken consciousness that realizes something to be inferred that is established through some valid cognition in their own system. For they also do not accept any other thesis different from such unmistakenness, that is, something established as mistaken through some valid cognition in their own system. Centrists do not find anything that they feel could be presented as an inference that is thoroughly grounded in their own system. Rather, instead of seeing a need to present some-anyway nonexistent-thoroughly established inferences of the systems of others merely in order to find something that they could present as an established inference, Centrists always say that presenting such is categorically to be avoided. As Aryadeva's Four Hundred Verses explains: Against someone who has no thesis Of "existence, nonexistence, or [both] existence and nonexistence," It is not possible to level a charge, Even if [such is tried] for a long time."" Nagarjuna's Rebuttal of Objections says: If I had any position, I thereby would be at fault. Since I have no position, I am not at fault at all. If there were anything to be observed 'T'hrough direct perception and the other instances [of valid cognition], It would be something to be established or rejected. However, since no such thing exists, I cannot be criticized."'2 In other words, if Centrists had any position of the nature of an existing or nonexistent entity being established through valid cognition on either level of the two realities in their own system, they would thereby incur the two faults of (i) not formulating a reason and an example and (z) failing to eliminate the possible flaws that may be adduced by others against them. However, for Centrists, the ultimate means freedom from all discursiveness and the seeming means mere appearances that are presented in contingency. Apart from this, on any level of the two realities, they do not have any position that is established through valid cognition in their own system as such and such. Therefore they are not at fault in not formulating a reason and an example for entities not arising from themselves. If, through the four kinds of valid cognition, there were any phenomenal entity to be observed as being established, there would be something to be established or rejected in their own system. However, since no such thing exists, Centrists cannot be criticized for incurring the above flaws.

Thus, Pawo Rinpoche says, both Nagarjuna's and Asanga's traditions agree that the unity of perfect meditative stability and knowledge is to rest right within the seeing through profound knowledge that is without seeing anything and to do so in a way that is without someone who rests and something to be rested in.

Friendly Letter Nagarjuna says: If anyone who has previously been extremely reckless, Later practises conscientiousness sincerely, That person will become pure like a stainless moon. If we do powerful purification every day we can completely purify all our negative karma; if we do middling purification we can reduce our negative karma; and if we do a little purification we can prevent our negative karma from increasing. If we do no purification our negative karma will increase as time goes by and we will definitely experience its painful results. The degree of purification we attain depends upon the strength of the four opponent powers: (1) The power of regret (2) The power of reliance (3) The power of the opponent force (4) The power of promise For

Just as one comes to ruin Through wrong eating but obtains Long life, freedom from disease, Strength, and pleasures through right eating, So one comes to ruin Through wrong understanding But attains happiness and highest enlightenment Through right understanding. —NAGARJUNA’S PRECIOUS GARLAND OF ADVICE

Even the pleasant things in life are grasped after with an unwarranted desire which overestimates the pleasure they will give, and is accompanied by a constant fear of their loss.

Beyond each mountain pass is a different religious sect with thousands of scholars and fools who follow it, saying, “Only this is true; this will not deceive you.” This self-authorization of one’s own truth delights a group of similar beings: when told to a group that does not agree, they are scornful.” Gendun Chopel “An Adornment for Nagarjuna’s Thought

The distinction (bheda) between truth and reality is solely a question of whether the medium of language is present or not. One can speak the truth, but one cannot possibly speak the reality. At the best one can, as Nagarjuna points out, "suggest," or "allude" to reality by means of prajnapti, or indications.

The audience watching a magic show or a movie may experience one illusory being killing another. However, both the being that appears to be the killer and the one that is killed are empty; they are not really existent. Likewise, in the context of seeming reality, it is justified that the empty and illusory words of Nagarjuna's negations can negate or cancel out an illusory assumed nature of all things, thus arriving at the conclusion that all things are empty. Therefore, Centrists employ reasoning and such as expedient tools in their discourses only inasmuch as these tools have a certain effectiveness as illusory remedies against illusory fixed ideas. In other words, an illusionlike thesis may be deconstructed by an illusionlike refutation, since the latter has some conventional remedial power within the framework of seeming reality that appears due to fundamental ignorance.

As Nagarjuna begins his Praise to the Vajra of Mind: I prostrate to my own mind That eliminates mind's ignorance By dispelling the web of mental events Through this very mind.

It needs only to be pointed out that religious speculation could be nothing alien to a country that has produced the Buddha, Vardharmana Mahavira, Nagarjuna, Kabir and Ramakrishna Paramhamsa, to name but the best known of the spiritual figures. The Hindu world with all its rigid taboos was strangely flexible. It was in part this heritage of flexibility which enabled the Indian Renaissance thinkers to meet the challenge of British rule in intellectual and philosophical terms. Nirad

For Buddhapalita's consequences are clearly nonimplicative negations, which is underlined by the fact that he-just like Nagarjuna-exhaustively negates all four possibilities of arising. Moreover, when commenting on Nagarjuna's own consequences in The Fundamental Verses, Bhavaviveka explicitly regards them as negating one alternative without implying any other or committing Nagarjuna to their reversed meaning."" But when he turns to Buddhapalita's consequences, as we have seen, he takes the exact opposite stance. That Bhavaviveka so obviously changes his way of evaluating consequences, depending on whether they were put forward by Nagarjuna or Buddhapalita, is hard to interpret as anything other than Bhavaviveka simply treating Buddhapalita unfairly here.

For Candrakirti, Bhavaviveka definitely stepped over the demarcation line of the pedagogically unavoidable use of discursiveness and reference points that is necessary for guiding others to utter freedom from such discursiveness. In a way, for Candrakirti (and certainly for Nagarjuna too), Bhavaviveka tried to lock up the wild bird of emptiness in the cage of conventional reference points, such as formal arguments. A bird may touch the earth once in a while, but its actual nature is to roam in the sky without restrictions and independent of the earth. Thus, if one is to experience the free flight of a bird, it does not help to make it sit still by trapping it in a cage and then counting its feathers.

Nagarjuna's Rebuttal ofObjec- tions says: If there were anything to be observed Through direct perception and the other instances [of valid cognition], It would be something to be established or rejected. However, since no such thing exists, I cannot be criticized.

Buddhism in general and Centrism in particular is not meant as a philosophical edifice but as a set of tools for experientially attaining an irreversible state of freedom from suffering for both oneself and others. From the point of view of the Buddha, Nagarjuna, and Candrakirti, it is not at all the point to be eloquent and erect an impressive monument of brilliant ideas and concepts. If anything, this is the complete antithesis (if there is such a thing) of what Buddhism and Centrism are about and just turns the whole project of striving for the freedom from reference points upside down. Particularly in Centrism, we are not talking about philosophical elegance, systemic coherence, or the need to make perfect sense on the level of conceptual conventions, but about the liberation of our mind, which is a different ball game altogether. Setting up some philosophy is simply not the same as striving for all beings' freedom from suffering. 1131

what Nagarjuna and Candrakirti demonstrated so extensively is precisely that nothing makes sense when it is analyzed, not even such ordinary, everyday things as going. In this sense, the fact that nothing really makes sense is called samsara. Experientially, as long as nobody analyzes ordinary appearances, they just appear and function. From this perspective, the question of whether they make sense or not does not even arise. This is merely a matter of questioning what appears to us and trying to make sense of it. Nirvana then does not mean the grand idea that suddenly everything makes sense or that one realizes the true meaning of life. From the perspective of attaining nisprapanca, it just means letting go of trying to make sense of all these things that cannot make sense. Thus, the decisive criterion for any presentation of the heart of Centrism is not whether it makes good sense (which does not, of course, mean that, conventionally, it should not make sense) but whether what is presented serves as a means for ending ignorance and afflictions and thus leading to Buddhahood.

Nagarjuna's verse 46]-is extensively taught. [Madhyamaka or emptiness] means being without characteristics that define true reality. It [means] to be unarisen, since it is neither existent nor nonexistent. It is neither something existent that has already arisen nor something nonexistent that is not suitable to arise. It is free from being demonstrable through words and expressions by the [various] ways of speech. This [emptiness] has the characteristic that space as its suitable example, nonconceptual wisdom (the mind of enlightenment), and enlightenment that clearly realizes all phenomena in an unmistaken way are not two [that is, not different]. The meaning of this is as follows: Conventionally, space exists, but ultimately it is unobservable. Likewise, enlightenment exists on the seeming level, but ultimately it does not exist. Also the nonconceptual mind of enlightenment can be expressed in conventional terms, but it is without nature when analyzed. Therefore, the characteristics of these [three] are not different.

In Precious Garland Nagarjuna says:

Emptiness is the deepest and most subtle topic one could ever attempt to understand, so it is never enough to hear or read teachings on emptiness just once. Rather, we must analyze them again and again, apply them again and again, and continually cultivate familiarity with their profound meaning.

Things derive their being and nature from mutual dependence and are nothing by themselves. — Nagarjuna

Investigate, for example, a tree. Just as "tree" is a mere mental label that is Known as neither one with nor separate from its parts, Like it's leaves and branches, similarly all things are Mere imputation of names and mental labels Nagarjuna and his disciples taught in this way.

Understanding the conventional meaning of the bodhisattva precepts is absolutely necessary, but it is not sufficient for realizing the ultimate goal of the bodhisattva. As Nagarjuna says, Without a foundation in the conventional truth, The significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, Liberation is not achieved.1 With a thorough understanding of the literal and conventional import of these great precepts as our point of departure, we must step forth and enter the realm of their ultimate meaning.

Now, we come to the heart of the Buddhadharma, to compassion. If you wanted to say in one word what is the essence of Buddha‘s teaching, of the enlightenment teaching, it would be compassion. The statement of Nagarjuna, the great master of two thousand years ago in India, crystallized this. He said, „Voidness is the womb of compassion.“ In Sanskrit this reads, shunyata karuna garbham; in Tibetan, tong nyid nying jey nying po jen, which may be the most beautiful phrase ever in Tibetan […] when we discover our freedom, this discovery flows immediately into universal compassion for all beings. (p. 111)

Don’t you mind dying, sir?” the consul asked. “Forgive me a little lofty talk,” van Gulik said, “but all movement is illusory. From Seoul to Kobe. From life to death.

the Mahāyāna Buddhists came to see emptiness as signifying a deep, second dimension of the earlier doctrine of dependent arising. It is not just the dependent arising of suffering and pain. It is the dependent arising of all that is, of the passing beauty and the painful history of all of our lives. The Middle Path, then, is the practice of holding the two—negative emptiness and positive dependent arising—in healthy and dynamic tension.

Deep, unmediated, and inexpressible experiences do occur.12 All the traditions agree that in moments of grace, moments perhaps almost unnoticed, a person may move apart from all mediated meanings. No language. No culture. No words. No images. For those moments, one abides in simple and pure consciousness, sharply aware of the mystery surrounding us all.

for no viewpoint has a vantage point (an advantage) from which it can experience all the traditions or gain true insight into the doctrine and practice of other peoples’ faiths. No single perspective is ever capable of rendering judgment about other religions. A Mahāyāna philosophy of religions is a no-philosophy. It is a philosophy that empties philosophy.4

Meditation on the “seal,” that is, the “immobilization” of all dependent things, is for the purpose of liberation from the cycle of existence. The notion of “empti- ness” (Tibetan: stong pa nid) is central to Vajrayana Buddhism (as indeed it is to many schools of Buddhist thought) and is derived from Nagarjuna’s teaching that the essential nature of all dharmas (phenomenal existents) is sunyata, void or empty. As Tibetan scholar Herbert V. Guenther translates the term, sunyata or stong pa nid means “no-thing-ness,” all existents being inherently insubstantial.⁴⁵ The sense of “seal” (mudra) in Gyatso’s commentary is clearly the sense of being sealed in to this state of inherent “no-thing-ness.