Nagarjuna's Rules
Nagarjuna's Rules: Or, Nagarjuna Rules (On Emptiness)
The three dominant theories of causality are:
1. Causation as self-causation. This is something arising from itself, like a seed that rises to become a sprout. Nagarjuna refers in his "Dedicating Verses" to "Whatever is dependently arisen." I imagine that causation as self-causation refers to that which is independently arisen.
2. Causation from another, as in one object arising from another object. According to this theory, parents may be the cause of the effect of children, since children arise from parents but are separate from them.
3. Causation from both. The effect arises from the cause but the cause is somehow separate from the effect. The sprout does arise from itself, in a sense, because the seed may have the potential to sprout. But the sun and the earth, distinct from and other than the seed, must provide their seemingly separate and disinterested light and nutrients, respectively.
I believe that these three theories correspond to Nagarjuna's first three logics. He did not introduce these theories, but he does reference and rename them. He calls the first theory "efficient," the second "percep-object," and the third "immediate."
Nagarjuna's fourth step is the "dominant" one. He introduces the idea that things do not arise from a specific cause and that events are not linked to each other.
According to Nagarjuna-s four steps, using the sprouting as an example, I think he would say that the seed may not exist independently because if it did, there would have to have been a first seed, which also implies a final seed. If there is no seed before the first seed, how did it come to be? What gave rise to it? Since we can't explain this but fall instead into insupportable arguments such as "the first seed appeared spontaneously," or into infinite regression, saying that there was a seed prior to the first seed, and one prior to that one, and one prior to that one, infinitely, the seed may not exist independently.
The second logic would address the existence of the sprout that must come from the seed. If the sprout preceded the seed, there must have been some other seed or cause before it. Imagining a cause for the sprout that is not a seed just brings up all the problems we have with the existence of the seed. The sprout can't come from a seed; the sprout can't come from something else that is not a seed. In fact, the existence of the sprout presupposes the seed that does not exist independently, so the sprout also may not independently exist.
Nagarjuna's third logic, his immediate condition, would suggest that perhaps both seed and sprout exist simultaneously. It would then destroy the notion that both can exist simultaneously because if they are both, seed/sprout, then they are one--they are some other single thing and no longer distinct from each other.
In this way, it becomes clear that the seed and the sprout may not both exist simultaneously.
Here is the crux; Nagarjuna's fourth step. Could it be possible that the seed does not arise from a previous seed nor does it arise from a not-seed? If so, there are no sprouts. How then, can there be anything that is a sprout or anything that is not a sprout? How can we discuss the seed or the sprout if they do not exist? In fact, it is not true that neither the seed nor the sprout exist.
In this way, Nagarjuna's four-step logic annihilates any causal explanation.
How do the four steps apply to action? From Nagarjuna, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Chapter 8, stanza 1:
This existent agent
Does not perform an existent action.
Why not? If I exist, surely I may act, as I do now, typing this essay with my fingers upon a keyboard. But for me to perform an action, that action must exist. It does not spring from me, from somebody doing something, for where is the essence of the action in me?
Instead, I know that for me to perform an action I must have the power to act. In Chapter 1 of the same text, stanza 4, I have already learned that
Power to act does not have conditions.
There is no power to act without conditions.
There are no conditions without power to act.
Nor do any have the power to act.
It really does not matter if I am somebody, nobody, or anybody, because as an agent of action, or as a nonagent, I have already been denied the power to act. I cannot assert that my power is in my being or in my nonbeing, since the first of these may have no conditions and the second is simply an assertion of that which is not.
Further, from Nagarjuna, 8.1:
Nor does some nonexistent agent
Perform some nonexistent action.
Since the existent agent may not perform an action and the nonexistent agent and action do not exist . . . poof! Agent and action, as distinct ideas or things, are gone.
The second step regarding agent and action (Nagarjuna, 8.2) further annihilates action. It asserts that "An existent entity has no activity." This logic follows the previous statement asserting that, for an agent to act, the action must precede the agent. Now an entity, having no power to act, is fixed. An activity, on the other hand, is moving. This entity imposing action becomes a paradox: how may nonaction join action?
Further (Nagarjuna, 8.2, continued): "There would also be action with no agent."
How can this be? It can't, as Nagarjuna asserts (same stanza): "An existent entity has no action." Thus, if I am the agent, I may not move. Movement, presupposing an agent, may not exist independently.
At this point it is quite clear that the action and the agent do not exist separately.
Third step: May the agent and action both exist, perhaps, simultaneously? After all, the agent may desire to perform the action and the action requires an agent to perform it.
Unfortunately (stanza 7 of the same chapter):
An existent and nonexistent agent
Does not perform an existent and nonexistent action.
Existence and nonexistence cannot pertain to the same thing.
For how could they exist together?
Right (especially since they cannot exist apart). I know that the agent and the action cannot exist apart, yet I wish that they could exist together, at least. Unfortunately, when the agent and action, either existing or nonexisting, attempt to join together and become both agent and action simultaneously, they cancel each other out. They become the same thing, indistinct, and therefore cannot exist simultaneously.
This rupture leads me again to ask: May we ascertain that the agent does not exist; neither does the action exist? This is the impossible fourth step in the logic, my last chance to extricate something from nothing, or at least nothing from nothing. But, no (stanza 11 from the same chapter):
An existent and nonexistent agent
does not perform an action that
Is unreal or both real and unreal
As we have agreed.
I may not wish to agree but then, how may I object? I may take no action, agreeable or nonagreeable. So why not agree, Nagarjuna, and say that I as an agent may not exist, I may not not-exist, and that I may neither perform an action nor not perform an action?
The rest is emptiness. No matter what argument I support or oppose, no matter what object I examine, emptiness results. When I approach this emptiness that has resulted from the obliteration of action, for example, via Nagarjuna's four-step logic, it empties itself out again. Why? Because the emptiness is not an emptiness that suggests its opposite, or a fullness. If this emptiness suggests a fullness, I must apply the four steps to the question of emptiness again. And again. And again and again, infinitely.
Emptiness and its emptiness infinitely regress into emptiness--the emptiness of the emptiness of the emptiness, forever.
Nagarjuna, Chapter 25, stanza 22:
Since all existents are empty,
What is finite or infinite?
What is finite and infinite?
What is neither finite nor infinite?
In emptiness, what is left? Nothing dies, nothing lasts forever--these ideas do not exist together nor do they not exist. Instead, phenomenal objects are not necessarily related to anything else; they arise dependently, dependent in fact upon everything else.
Every object is empty, it does not exist independently, nor does it not exist. Ethics, for example, as brought up in class today, would arise dependently. I would like to say that ethics will not arise dependent upon dogma, but they will. In fact, ethics will arise dependent upon everything else in a massive network of dependence--ethics depending upon the situation, depending upon the agent and action, depending upon the history, etc. Ethics: the one thing that, like any other thing, cannot be a single thing, arising dependently and without error.
For, as Nagarjuna wrote in his "Examination of Errors" (Chapter 23, stanza 20):
Since an entity does not arise from itself,
Nor from another,
Nor from another and from itself,
How could one be in error?
If there is no error in the emptiness of emptiness, there is also no perfection, no satisfaction, no grasping, and no attainment.
My initial sense of nihilism is also empty, though, since Nagarjuna's four steps result in the possibility of anything arising dependently "And free," as in the "Dedicatory Verses," "from conceptual construction."
So freed, in the emptiness of emptiness, all things are possible precisely because possibility itself is emptied, emptied, emptied.
Thank you, Nagarjuna.
The three dominant theories of causality are:
1. Causation as self-causation. This is something arising from itself, like a seed that rises to become a sprout. Nagarjuna refers in his "Dedicating Verses" to "Whatever is dependently arisen." I imagine that causation as self-causation refers to that which is independently arisen.
2. Causation from another, as in one object arising from another object. According to this theory, parents may be the cause of the effect of children, since children arise from parents but are separate from them.
3. Causation from both. The effect arises from the cause but the cause is somehow separate from the effect. The sprout does arise from itself, in a sense, because the seed may have the potential to sprout. But the sun and the earth, distinct from and other than the seed, must provide their seemingly separate and disinterested light and nutrients, respectively.
I believe that these three theories correspond to Nagarjuna's first three logics. He did not introduce these theories, but he does reference and rename them. He calls the first theory "efficient," the second "percep-object," and the third "immediate."
Nagarjuna's fourth step is the "dominant" one. He introduces the idea that things do not arise from a specific cause and that events are not linked to each other.
According to Nagarjuna-s four steps, using the sprouting as an example, I think he would say that the seed may not exist independently because if it did, there would have to have been a first seed, which also implies a final seed. If there is no seed before the first seed, how did it come to be? What gave rise to it? Since we can't explain this but fall instead into insupportable arguments such as "the first seed appeared spontaneously," or into infinite regression, saying that there was a seed prior to the first seed, and one prior to that one, and one prior to that one, infinitely, the seed may not exist independently.
The second logic would address the existence of the sprout that must come from the seed. If the sprout preceded the seed, there must have been some other seed or cause before it. Imagining a cause for the sprout that is not a seed just brings up all the problems we have with the existence of the seed. The sprout can't come from a seed; the sprout can't come from something else that is not a seed. In fact, the existence of the sprout presupposes the seed that does not exist independently, so the sprout also may not independently exist.
Nagarjuna's third logic, his immediate condition, would suggest that perhaps both seed and sprout exist simultaneously. It would then destroy the notion that both can exist simultaneously because if they are both, seed/sprout, then they are one--they are some other single thing and no longer distinct from each other.
In this way, it becomes clear that the seed and the sprout may not both exist simultaneously.
Here is the crux; Nagarjuna's fourth step. Could it be possible that the seed does not arise from a previous seed nor does it arise from a not-seed? If so, there are no sprouts. How then, can there be anything that is a sprout or anything that is not a sprout? How can we discuss the seed or the sprout if they do not exist? In fact, it is not true that neither the seed nor the sprout exist.
In this way, Nagarjuna's four-step logic annihilates any causal explanation.
How do the four steps apply to action? From Nagarjuna, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Chapter 8, stanza 1:
This existent agent
Does not perform an existent action.
Why not? If I exist, surely I may act, as I do now, typing this essay with my fingers upon a keyboard. But for me to perform an action, that action must exist. It does not spring from me, from somebody doing something, for where is the essence of the action in me?
Instead, I know that for me to perform an action I must have the power to act. In Chapter 1 of the same text, stanza 4, I have already learned that
Power to act does not have conditions.
There is no power to act without conditions.
There are no conditions without power to act.
Nor do any have the power to act.
It really does not matter if I am somebody, nobody, or anybody, because as an agent of action, or as a nonagent, I have already been denied the power to act. I cannot assert that my power is in my being or in my nonbeing, since the first of these may have no conditions and the second is simply an assertion of that which is not.
Further, from Nagarjuna, 8.1:
Nor does some nonexistent agent
Perform some nonexistent action.
Since the existent agent may not perform an action and the nonexistent agent and action do not exist . . . poof! Agent and action, as distinct ideas or things, are gone.
The second step regarding agent and action (Nagarjuna, 8.2) further annihilates action. It asserts that "An existent entity has no activity." This logic follows the previous statement asserting that, for an agent to act, the action must precede the agent. Now an entity, having no power to act, is fixed. An activity, on the other hand, is moving. This entity imposing action becomes a paradox: how may nonaction join action?
Further (Nagarjuna, 8.2, continued): "There would also be action with no agent."
How can this be? It can't, as Nagarjuna asserts (same stanza): "An existent entity has no action." Thus, if I am the agent, I may not move. Movement, presupposing an agent, may not exist independently.
At this point it is quite clear that the action and the agent do not exist separately.
Third step: May the agent and action both exist, perhaps, simultaneously? After all, the agent may desire to perform the action and the action requires an agent to perform it.
Unfortunately (stanza 7 of the same chapter):
An existent and nonexistent agent
Does not perform an existent and nonexistent action.
Existence and nonexistence cannot pertain to the same thing.
For how could they exist together?
Right (especially since they cannot exist apart). I know that the agent and the action cannot exist apart, yet I wish that they could exist together, at least. Unfortunately, when the agent and action, either existing or nonexisting, attempt to join together and become both agent and action simultaneously, they cancel each other out. They become the same thing, indistinct, and therefore cannot exist simultaneously.
This rupture leads me again to ask: May we ascertain that the agent does not exist; neither does the action exist? This is the impossible fourth step in the logic, my last chance to extricate something from nothing, or at least nothing from nothing. But, no (stanza 11 from the same chapter):
An existent and nonexistent agent
does not perform an action that
Is unreal or both real and unreal
As we have agreed.
I may not wish to agree but then, how may I object? I may take no action, agreeable or nonagreeable. So why not agree, Nagarjuna, and say that I as an agent may not exist, I may not not-exist, and that I may neither perform an action nor not perform an action?
The rest is emptiness. No matter what argument I support or oppose, no matter what object I examine, emptiness results. When I approach this emptiness that has resulted from the obliteration of action, for example, via Nagarjuna's four-step logic, it empties itself out again. Why? Because the emptiness is not an emptiness that suggests its opposite, or a fullness. If this emptiness suggests a fullness, I must apply the four steps to the question of emptiness again. And again. And again and again, infinitely.
Emptiness and its emptiness infinitely regress into emptiness--the emptiness of the emptiness of the emptiness, forever.
Nagarjuna, Chapter 25, stanza 22:
Since all existents are empty,
What is finite or infinite?
What is finite and infinite?
What is neither finite nor infinite?
In emptiness, what is left? Nothing dies, nothing lasts forever--these ideas do not exist together nor do they not exist. Instead, phenomenal objects are not necessarily related to anything else; they arise dependently, dependent in fact upon everything else.
Every object is empty, it does not exist independently, nor does it not exist. Ethics, for example, as brought up in class today, would arise dependently. I would like to say that ethics will not arise dependent upon dogma, but they will. In fact, ethics will arise dependent upon everything else in a massive network of dependence--ethics depending upon the situation, depending upon the agent and action, depending upon the history, etc. Ethics: the one thing that, like any other thing, cannot be a single thing, arising dependently and without error.
For, as Nagarjuna wrote in his "Examination of Errors" (Chapter 23, stanza 20):
Since an entity does not arise from itself,
Nor from another,
Nor from another and from itself,
How could one be in error?
If there is no error in the emptiness of emptiness, there is also no perfection, no satisfaction, no grasping, and no attainment.
My initial sense of nihilism is also empty, though, since Nagarjuna's four steps result in the possibility of anything arising dependently "And free," as in the "Dedicatory Verses," "from conceptual construction."
So freed, in the emptiness of emptiness, all things are possible precisely because possibility itself is emptied, emptied, emptied.
Thank you, Nagarjuna.