Nagarjuna was an Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher who lived around the period of 150 – c. 250 CE. He is known for his unique elaborations on the middle path, emptiness and whether there is a “self” or not. He is also an ancestor in the Soto Zen lineage. This mystic has told his teacher that Nagarjuna gives him a head ache. Why? Because absolute truth in words is only a pointer and can often lead to excessive thinking and mental agitation. Nevertheless, we must study and inquire. It is what humans do. The Master’s verse-comment from Tozan’s five ranks comes to mind in this regard:
How many times has Tokuun, the idle old gimlet, Not come down from the Marvelous Peak! He hires foolish wise men to bring snow, And he and they together fill up the well.
Here there is reference to an enlightened being living beyond duality, who by “not-coming-down” from a state of enlightenment and then performing silly deeds, demonstrates the paradox and dissonance of such a “teaching” endeavor. Maybe that is why we have so much spiritual and religious literature, hundreds of thousands of different books, perhaps millions. And to think, maybe getting wacked in the head by one of them might be more effective than reading them all!
Actually, Nagarjuna seems more helpful than old Tokuun, or at least more logical. He was a smart man. At some point advanced meditators, perhaps after experiencing an initial Kensho, i.e., seeing one’s true nature, have a natural propensity to fear losing their identity. It might not be different than the fear of physically dying or the fear of losing one’s mental capacity – basically an existential threat. Nagarjuna has something to say about that.
On the Middle Path: “The middle path is that while there is no self, there is a causal series of skandhas that is conveniently designated as a person.” Skandhas are the basic building blocks of our experience, namely form, sensation, perception, formation and consciousness. See Wiki for a detailed explanation of the skandhas. Nagarjuna further fleshed out the idea of a relative reality of these “persons” that cling to the causal series or patterns of the skandhas, and an absolute, much vaster reality. There are many names for this “pair”, including Relative/Absolute, Form/Emptiness and Apparent/Real – with the pairs having slightly different “flavors” depending on context. He argued that the two realities are inseparable, which only makes sense because, well, here we are. From AI (Gemini): “Absolute truth is realizing [there you have it folks, we are mixing nouns and verbs] the empty [nothing has a sole separate self, rather it is only “present” because of everything else] ungraspable nature of the relative world.” Of course, most of us are not aware that our “reality” is based on clinging to a causal series of patterns. If we can only just pry open the door a crack… Perhaps that is why we have spiritual study and spiritual readings, as “conventional reality” is pretty convincing and functions well, that is until we suffer, get sick or die. Then as they say in Spanish, “no bueno.”
Nagarjuna takes emptiness a little further by saying that “emptiness is itself empty. Emptiness is not an ultimately real entity nor a property of ultimately real entities. Emptiness is not more than a useful way of conceptualizing experience.” One might say emptiness is simply a description (from a dual point of view) of the mechanics of how things actually are, whereas the term, “suchness,” might be used in the context of the Buddhist describers of dependent origination or interdependent co-arising, where due to ever-changing causes and conditions everything occurs and happens in relation to everything else, i.e., how things work. This kind of softens the line between emptiness and form. We, beings are caught in the middle. A line in the Heart Sutra states, “All dharmas are marked by emptiness…” It does not say that nothing exists, it just does not elaborate on what dharmas truly are. Yes, again the ungraspable nature of the relative world. This mystic is convinced that the mystery of the path of awakening includes fully integrating form and emptiness, or as Eihei Dogen put it, dropping mind and body and being actualized by the myriad things. It’s all about experience and awareness without bias of a conceptualized self!
The above descriptions of form, emptiness and suchness of course are simply provisional describers pointing towards something that goes beyond words and consciousness itself. Suzuki Roshi brings up the word “nothingness.” He writes: “I discovered that it is necessary, absolutely necessary, to believe in nothing. That is, we have to believe in something that has no form and no color — something which exists before all forms and colors appear.” He goes on to say: “… if we are always prepared to accept everything we see as something appearing from nothing, knowing that there is some reason why a phenomenal existence of such form and such color appears, then at that moment you will have perfect composure.” This is why sometimes we use the word, “transcendent,” in spiritual contexts referring to outside and beyond the physical universe and time. And yes, composure is a good thing to relieve suffering especially if you allow yourself to believe in nothingness, which after all is just another word that the roshi brought down for us from the Marvelous Peak.
There are different takes on what Nirvana means. According to authors in the wiki, Nirvana is the blowing out” or “quenching” of the activity of the grasping mind and its related suffering, stresses, and unease. Nagarjuna has an interesting write-up with respect to Nirvana. Quote: “Final Nirvana amounts to utter annihilation, that the liberated one does not exist after death… The response would be mistaken. Since there is no owner of the elements making up the causal series, it would be inappropriate to describe the ceasing of the causal series as ‘I will not exist.’ Hence, neither ‘exists” nor ‘does not exist’ can be said.” This is about as far as language can take us. You have to laugh a little about this and the cosmic absurdity. In the meanwhile this mystic will go with the Love and Joy, the present moment and the potential for cessation of suffering. We know that the world, including our empty selves, at times IS a beautiful place and a mind-blowing complex and curious one at that.
Little Known Mystic 