Fundamentally, our experience as experienced is not different from the Zen master's. Where we differ is that we place a fog, a particular kind of conceptual overlay onto that experience and then proceed to make an emotional investment in that overlay, taking it to be "real" in and of itself.


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SECTIONS VIII THROUGH XI

The Ontological Status of the Individual

Having discussed the elements both singly and in combination, Nagarjuna briefly looks at the agent which appears to underlie or precede these phenomena. He does this with the next four sections, in which he first examines There are two primary ways that philosophers have tended to approach the subject of the self:
  • The empirical approach is famously expressed by the Cartesian dictum "I think, therefore I am." Nagarjuna analyzes this approach with the example of "I act, therefore I am" in section eight, ``Examination of Action and Actor.'' It could be said that the agent actor must exist, for it is apparent that activity exists. In section two Nagarjuna removed the substantial basis for activity and change, but it is not denied that both are still perceived by the ignorant and the enlightened alike. The crux is what is the proper way to regard, or believe in, this activity and change. It is not possible to say that there is a really existent agent who performs a really existent action. Real existence implies immutability, for if the entity's essence changed then it would no longer be the same entity. However, this immutability would require an impassable dichotomy between the ground of being and the sphere of activity. Neither is it possible to say that the agent who acts is in some abstract way "non-existent." If this were so, then change and activity would be effected without having been existentially caused. Despite the above problems, Nagarjuna does not deny the occurrence of activity. A flat denial of activity would undercut the entire foundation of the Buddha's teachings on morality and, by extension, the Noble Path leading to enlightenment would be lost.

    • FOOTNOTE: karika VIII.5 The proper relation between agent and action is once again nothing more than dependent arising, for neither of the two can have either a real or an unreal status. "We do not perceive any other way of establishing [them]," he concludes.

    FOOTNOTE: karika VIII.12
     
     

  • The speculative approach to establishing the reality of the agent is logical induction. Nagarjuna examines and refutes this approach in the next section, "Examination of the Prior [Entity]." If there is the fact of perception, then there is the entity of a perceiver, this approach would hold. "Therefore, it is determined that, prior to [perceptions], such an existent is," asserts the opponent.

    • FOOTNOTE: karika IX.1-2 This could be expressed by slightly rephrasing the Cartesian dictum to "How could I think were there not a thinker?" The immediate problem with this is that such a "prior subject" could be nothing more than a speculative abstraction. If the subject is said to exist prior to perception, then "by what means is it made known?"

    FOOTNOTE: karika IX.3 There is no way to be aware of or even to posit the existence of a subject prior to and thus intrinsically devoid of its characteristic functioning. Further, if such a prior entity were posited, then perceptions would exist independent of the perceiver, which is absurd. The analysis of perception undertaken above in section three of the karika focused on the impossibility of independence specifically of perceiver and perceiving. This section, though, is slightly different in scope---it analyzes the impossibility of the subject's existence independent of any of its experiences by virtue of existing prior to them. The consequence of this is broad. "Someone prior to, simultaneous with, or posterior to [perception] is not evident," and therefore neither are the experiences themselves evident. The upshot is that "thoughts of existence and non-existence are also renounced."

    FOOTNOTE: karika IX.11-12
     
     
    Section ten is, prima facie, an examination of one dualism: fire and the fuel which it burns. Actually, though, Nagarjuna was using this example to discuss from yet another angle the issue of the essence and temporal manifestation of the self. One school of Personalism asserted that there is a person who is neither identical with nor different from its constituent aggregates, skandhas. Adherents of this school used the metaphor of fire and fuel to explain their position. Fire is not identical to its fuel, for then that which is burned would be the same as the process of burning. Nor is fire different from fuel, for then they could not be explained in the same terms; for example, that which is burning would not be hot.

    FOOTNOTE: Lamotte, 608 Notwithstanding the fact that the individual cannot be explained ontologically, the Personalists held, it was still necessary to assert its reality, for otherwise karma could not appertain and rebirth would not occur.

    FOOTNOTE: Kohn, 243 It was this doctrine which Nagarjuna criticized through his analysis of fire and fuel.

    Nagarjuna agrees that fire and fuel cannot be identical, for then there would be only one entity, and he agrees that they cannot be separate, for then there could be heat and flame but nothing burning. While the Personalists were maintaining that fire and fuel were neither identical nor different, they were still admitting the reality of both. Their agenda would then have been to deconstruct the ontological independence of the two for the sake of arriving at a higher synthesis midway between the two halves of the dualism.

    FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1986, 197 It is difficult to explain what Nagarjuna's position is in this section, for he seems to say two different things. One verse especially makes it unclear what exactly Nagarjuna's stance on the identity/difference was. "If fire is different from fuel it would reach the fuel, just as a woman would reach for a man and a man for a woman," he says.

    FOOTNOTE: karika X.6 He follows this with a statement that fire and fuel could reach for each other in the same way as do the man and the woman "only if fire and fuel were to exist mutually separated."

    FOOTNOTE: karika X.7 On the one hand, he denied difference in the first verse of this section by pointing out that if they are different then each would exist on its own, an absurd conclusion. On the other, the fact that woman and man interact is empirically validated and indisputable. One interpretation of this disparity is based on the fact that there are numerous instances in the Mulamadhyamakakarika in which Nagarjuna quotes an opponent's position and refutes it in the next verse. Some commentators have interpreted the first verse of these two as the opponent's wrong view, followed by Nagarjuna's assertion of the correct view.

    FOOTNOTE: Cf. the translation of the karika verses X.8-9 in Frederick Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1967). (It has been claimed that this translation is not by Streng, as claimed, but by J. A. B. van Buitenen. Cf. Kees W. Bolle, review of A History of Buddhist Philosophy, by David J. Kalupahana, in Journal of Oriental Studies (1994, page number unknown). However, since it is Streng's name only listed in Emptiness and cross-references are to Streng, this translation will be referred to here as his.) This interpretation would have Nagarjuna say that, while fire and fuel are not the same, they are not really different, either. Man and woman, though, are non-dependent and hence different.

    Another interpretation does not disagree with the above, but lends it a slightly different character. One could interpret both verses as Nagarjuna's, from which it would follow that he is recognizing there to be different types of complementary relationships. While on the one hand fire and fuel are mutually dependent for their very definition, on the other the human genders are observed to be complementary but separate. This would declare there to exist dualisms the individual elements of which are dependently arisen, not contingent on the other half of the pair, but merely contingent upon internal factors. The perception and conceptual differentiation of each half of the duality would of course be dependent on the other half---one could not define "woman" without defining "man"---but the ontic status of the entity would not be dependent on the other half. While it is not certain which of the above two interpretations is the better, an example Nagarjuna used in section six, i.e. that of lust and the lustful one, may provide a clue. There, he made it clear that, though lust and the lustful one are differentiable, neither can exist without the other. Not only are their identities mutually contingent, but further they cannot be found in separate temporal or spatial locations. Likewise, fire and fuel are ultimately inseparable. Man and woman, though, are obviously separate. If nothing else, the two genders can be seen to exist when in separate spatial locations, when not "reaching for" each other. Nagarjuna is thus demonstrating that complementary relationships can take different forms, which relationships allow varying degrees of independence of each half of the pair.
     
     
    Section eleven, "Examination of the Prior and Posterior Extremities," is devoted to an address of one last element of the belief in the soul, namely the eternalism it implies. The Buddha spurned discussions of etiology and teleology both because the only important things to worry about are those in the present, and also because ultimate beginnings and ends can only be speculative. Nagarjuna here examines the meaning and relevance of the latter, the ultimate prior and posterior ends. The Buddha clearly stated that the ultimate ends of the universe are not evident and hence inconceivable.

    FOOTNOTE: Kalupahana 1986, 206 Furthermore, it is not even appropriate to speak of the ultimate ends of an individual life-span, for they cannot be "real." If birth were real, then three undesirable options would arise. If birth preceded the entity of death, then there would be a birth without old age and death, and all arisen things would be immortal. If death is inherent in birth, then something will be dying at the same moment it is being born. Finally, if it is flatly stated that birth and death are separate, then no born things will die and the things that die will never have been born. The only correct way to view birth-and-death is that, if something is born, then it will die. This is not merely a slightly different way to phrase the relationship between the two, but rather a whole different way of viewing the nature of birth and death: they do not exist on their own, and therefore one can in no way speak of origins or ends. Of effect and cause, characterized and characteristic, "of the entire life process as well as of all existents, the prior [and posterior] ends [are] not evident."

    FOOTNOTE: karika XI.7-8. (The addendum "[and posterior]" is mine. It was left out of the sentence most likely only to preserve the meter, so its inclusion is justified.)


    GO TO:
    SECTION XII through SECTION XV

    Suffering and its Cause

    IDENTITY/DIFFERENCE: Self-Nature vs. Association of Distinct Elements


    AWAKENING 101

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