[I]In seeing things[/I]
[I]To be or not to be [/I]
[I]Fools fail to see[/I]
[I]A world at ease.[/I]
From Stephen Batchelor’s translation of Nagarjuna’s MulaMadhyamakaKarika - [I]Verses from the Center - A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime[/I], Riverhead, NY 2000, p. 90.
so true! thank you for quote.
Hi Willem,
I’m not quite sure if I get this, does it say that fools fail to see that it’s all good or does it say that fools fail to see that it’s not all bad? All good it cannot be, as if it was, then “good” wasn’t reckognizable. Same counts for the opposite of course.
Pretending, though, that it’s all good is a neat method to stop worrying, and stopping to worry is something one would want if they want to meditate, as worrying is very distracting. Therefore, some teach false truth and say it’s all good.
This is difficult to explain, since Nagajuna is hinting at the unspeakable. You might say that we fools divide the world into categories (of being and not being) thus missing the point entirely. Our lives are inherently ambiguous and uncertain. Neither “to be”, nor “not to be”. How can we live ethically and with compassion in this flowing, miraculous world?
Nagarjuna says in his dedication:
[I]I bow to buddhas[/I]
[I]Who teach contingency[/I]
[I](No death, no birth,[/I]
[I]No nothing, no eternity,[/I]
[I]No arrival, no departure,[/I]
[I]No identity, no difference)[/I]
[I]And ease fixations.[/I]
[LEFT]And Stephen Batchelor in his introduction (p. 72):[/LEFT]
[LEFT]“Not only is the subjective experience one of ease, but ease is revealed as a feature of the sublime itself. For not only do fixations generate conflict and anguish, they also obscure a natural world that endlessly unfolds and vanishes, untroubled by desires and fears of humankind. Although we may take our fixations with utmost seriousness, that about which we are fixated is utterly unaffected by them. For life is incapable of ever being tied down.”[/LEFT]
P.S. Contingency is the word Stephen Batchelor uses for “dependent co-arising” or “interdependence”.
Hi Willem,
I might be getting it now, the term “world” seemed so wordly to me and that worldly world, as we, don’t we?, all see, is not at ease at all. Here, though, the term, as it seems, can be substituted with “existence”? “Foundation of existance”, “deepest core of existence”? Or, as I personally prefer it, “the Dao”? Which is, in some non-static way, unchanging and unaffected by what is going on among and between the (so called) “tenthousand things”, that spring off of it?
Tao Te Ching, chapter 25
There was something undefined and complete,
coming into existence before Heaven and Earth.
How still it was and formless, standing alone, and undergoing no change,
reaching everywhere and in no danger (of being exhausted)!
It may be regarded as the Mother of all things.I do not know its name, and I give it the designation of the Tao (the Way or Course).
Making an effort (further) to give it a name I call it The Great.Great, it passes on (in constant flow).
Passing on, it becomes remote.
Having become remote, it returns.
Therefore the Tao is great;
Heaven is great; Earth is great;
and the (sage) king is also great.
In the universe there are four that are great,
and the (sage) king is one of them.Man takes his law from the Earth;
the Earth takes its law from Heaven;
Heaven takes its law from the Tao.
The law of the Tao is its being what it is.
And to which anything that goes on in the world of things is of no relevance? To which beings, for example human - , are only “straw dogs”?
Tao Te Ching, chapter 5
Heaven and earth do not act from (the impulse of) any wish to be benevolent;
they deal with all things as the dogs of grass are dealt with.
The sages do not act from (any wish to be) benevolent;
they deal with the people as the dogs of grass are dealt with.May not the space between heaven and earth be compared to a bellows?
'Tis emptied, yet it loses not its power;
'Tis moved again, and sends forth air the more.
Much speech to swift exhaustion lead we see;
Your inner being guard, and keep it free.
Why wish to be benevolent? Could you explain that, Willem? I cannot, from a… let’s say absolute or higher philosophical/spiritual perspective. Sure, on a worldly level it secures an undisturbed process of the regular activity on that level, but of what relevance is that activity “after all”? If, for example, a comet came along and hit earth. And earth would explode and every lifeform on earth died. Would that be bad? From another perspective than that of those lifeforms? Would it make a difference to the universe? Or the innermost core of existence (aka “Dao”)?
It is a good thing to bring up the Dao, because there are some parallels to Mahayana Buddhism, which Nagajuna is speaking from.
The Dao = The absolute, the sacred, nirvana
The ten thousand things = The relative, the profane, the phenomenal world, samsara
I will continue in Buddhist vocabulary just because I am more familiar with it. First, your question about the world:
The “point” is that the phenomenal word (samsara) and the world of our deepest spiritual realization (nirvana) are not separate worlds. There is no hell or heaven “out there”. [U]There is only one world.[/U] Our everyday, profane, and common experience of matter, thoughts, feelings and suffering coincides in a mysterious way with the ineffable, unspeakable, and the sacred: [I]Samsara = nirvana[/I]. This statement is common to Mahayana buddhism and tantric yoga. The Dao presents a similar message. And Upanishadic yoga will say: [I]Aham brahmasi[/I] (I am the absolute), not unlike the mantra [I]Soham[/I] (I am That).
Secondly, about benevolence: This insight about the world comes about by a cultivation of mind and heart (bhavana, sadhana). As the small self loses its grip and one’s clinging to viewpoints etc. diminishes, one naturally becomes more aware of the suffering of all sentient beings. And feels the need to alleviate it. Compassion is not a philosophical viewpoint, it is a heart-felt mission that one takes on and that grows with practice.
I hope this helps.
The poem for Tao
How can you know it, friend?
It comes into being when you are not
No measures you take to reach it
Avail aught
when will you trick, friend?
with all your cunning antics?
when you are, it is not.