22. Vedantasara | Shunyavada Buddhism | Swami Sarvapriyananda

[Music] [Music] i take refuge in the self the indivisible the existence consciousness bliss absolute beyond the reach of words and thought and the substratum of all for the attainment of my cherished desire so in vedanta sarah we were on text number one hundred and thirty one this is the school of the school of buddhists remember the context where the question was who am i and using that question using the sort of the pretext using it as a pretext we are taking a quick survey of different schools of indian philosophy what are their views on the self and remember each one of them is presenting um an argument for their view what is the view of the self what is the self an argument for this uh for their view an experience which shows that we experience the self in the way they are seeing it and finally uh some relevant support from the upanishads so this we have seen for all the different schools and finally before we come to the advaita vedanta the hero of the whole drama we have got the the last one is the s the emptiness people the uh the buddhist school of nevada and as i had said just like it did for the mind only school i'll stop here and take a little uh detour and go into some depth and explode the school a little bit because it's very fascinating and in some ways it's um like a mirror image like a twin of advaita vedant in some ways so it's good to take a look and i also have a personal fascination for it but by the way you don't need to do this actually when you teach this text one does not go into such depth if you did do that you could have done that for every school each one of the schools which we um happily swept past they have very ancient histories a huge amount of literature a lot of interactions with other schools many masters so we just overlooked all of that but this time stopping uh personal fascination but also because many people who know a little bit about this school they find it very intriguing how similar it is to advaita vedanta that's why we are stopping for a while um today also i have prepared a short presentation for which i shall share the screen and i'll talk for a while present information dump whatever i wanted i want to say i'll say to you and then you can ask questions and as i go on saying in fact that will be a good idea as i go on saying these things do keep writing comments observations uh questions in the chat um so let me start let me share the screen the name is buddhism means empty or in sanskrit just means zero or nihil nothing and vada is a view or a school a school of emptiness one of the schools of mahayana buddhism it is a philosophical school and we know from last time the four major schools were the satrantika vaibhashika the yoga chart of gyanawada which we did two classes back and the madhyamakashu nevada which we are going to do take a look at today so the central figure here is nagarjuna who lived in the region of andhra in india he lived about 2000 years ago in the first century ce about 500 years after the buddha himself is so important in this philosophy at least that he's called the second buddha his main texts his main works here many works attributed to him but mainly there is the moola madhyamaka karika which is very very important it is probably the central work of mahayana buddhist philosophy in fact all of i can say that that all of tibetan buddhism the central philosophical world there are other works there are tantric works and many other kinds of works but the central philosophical work is the moola madhyama kakarika of nagarjuna most of the tradition of tibetan buddhism is philosophically speaking a development of the mullah madhyamaka karika so this is one of the texts this is the central text i'll talk about today and in fact this is also why the school is also known as a school the moolah madhyama karkarika in english would translate into the root verses of the middle way mula root karika versus the middle bay root verses of the middle bay this is also why the school itself is known as school is called madhyamaka and the followers are called madhyamika another text which is important is a much shorter text by nagarjuna called vigraha vyavarthini the vigraha vyavarthini here it it translates as the dispeller of disputes dispeller of disputes the mullah democracy is is basically an attack on all other buddhist schools in fact in one sense it's an attack on all philosophies the vigraha vyavarthini is a shorter text and it's an attack on the niya school of hinduism the suhir laker this is a shorter text which is it translates as letter from a velvety so it's basically about ethics it's a council to a king and there's another text called ratnavali which is a mixture of ethics and philosophy anyway we will concentrate on the two main texts which is and the shorter vigraha bhartini to get an idea of what nagarjuna was and what he did um okay so little personal introduction here about um 20 years ago i was a novice in the training center for monastic novices in bellurmut and browsing through the library i came across nagarjuna i'd never heard of him earlier i had no idea about what he was or what he had done and i came across the moola madhyamaka karika with an english translation and the vigraha viavarthini with an english also with an english translation and i was fascinated and i thought this is this seems so similar to advaitha vedanta but what does it mean it's also very difficult as we shall see today after going through all of it we'll still be puzzled about what nagarjuna wanted to say so i was puzzled and i didn't know whom to turn to so there was this one monk in belur mutt one of the wisest people i have known and one of the few people i personally considered to know who i personally met to be enlightened so this is a very old swami his name was swami moksha nandaji ram maharaj he passed away several years ago he was not only spiritually very advanced but he was very well trained in traditional knowledge in philosophy so i thought i'll ask him i used to turn to him with all the what i thought were the most difficult questions you know in my um in my immaturity i thought nobody else can answer these questions so i should go to him only so i went to him and he was you can picture him he looked a little bit like einstein you know with frizzy white hair and with twinkling eyes he was ill most of the time in those days i mean he used to take oxygen about seven eight hours in a day but i never saw him complain never saw him in a bad mood he was always with twinkling eye and a smile and very affectionate very profound i mean the few things he has ever said to me i'll i remember till today so i went to him with this question this is one of the times i went to him with a question the question about what did nagarjuna mean and how is it similar to advaita vedanta or is it different so i went and asked him and with him you had to ask the question then he would think and you have to keep quiet not interrupt him he would give you an answer which probably nobody else will be able to give you so he said that many many years ago i was in brindavan he he was in virgin now once i was in vendavan and in our ashram there and we used to study under a scholar and there was a young man who was doing his phd in the university of alabad used to come also and this young man he his phd thesis was this subject you are asking about the relationship between advaita vedanta and sunnyvale so and finally it was published i think from the university of kalavad and this young man's name was chandradhar sharma so that's all he told me and then i went on a search chandra the sharmai turned out became a major philosopher of post-independence india later on and i found text books on indian philosophy by chandra sharma including the chapters on nagarjuna where i think he had incorporated what he had written in the thesis which he was writing when rama maharaj met him so that was 70 years ago 70 75 years ago and thanks to modern technology and internet archive i actually found the thesis yesterday the original thesis i mean the contents of that are already available in the textbooks with textbooks written by chandra sharma later on but the original thesis of chandra the sharma it's available on the net so i found it yesterday and i will quote to you a few portions from it where he nicely summarizes naga arjuna's mullah democracy and then we'll take a quick look at vikram abarthini i had no idea that this thing which i found so fascinating 20 years ago 20 years later in america and harvard university i would be studying the same texts we did a full course on the commentaries the sanskrit and tibetan commentaries to the democracy and i myself have four or five translations of the makarika right now and also the vigraha vipartini so i did two courses on this one by professor garfield on indo-tibet in madhyamaka and another by professor parimal patil on classical buddhist philosophy classical indian buddhist philosophy so here we go nagarjuna so this is one of the translations of the mullava devaka kadika the most modern one but there are others also so it's called nagarjuna's middleweight now let me start with nagarjuna's invocative reverse just like we did now a condom satchitananda so listen to what nagar you know how he starts this book remember his central philosophy of buddhism this one he starts the book by mangalacharam [Music] anagam [Music] i salute the buddha the greatest of teachers who has taught this then he gives what he has taught if you listen carefully you will hear mandu ki upanishad prapanjo pashamam shivam the seventh mantra of the mandukyo panishad this exact language is there that shivam advaitham and not only that if you see nagarjuna again go to father you will be reminded of god or father actually if you read god apart you'll be reminded of nagarjuna because nagarjuna came about five hundred years before god father um look at the first words that neither cessation nor creation and again it reminds you of god of others most stunning verse in the whole mandukka karaka god upon this most stunning verse exactly same language what does he say here in this this invocatory verse nagarjun has given the famous eight negations eight things he has denied the ultimate truth taught by buddha what is that ultimate truth is negative language he's uh expressing there is neither any cessation nor creation the two negations the ultimate truth is not something that can ever come to an end not something that ever begins uh just like god of other said na niro dhamna then he says um it is not nothing nor is it an eternal thing the ultimate reality and then is it one reality is it is a singular he says this uh it's not one so is it many he says no it is not many also and then is it something that comes and goes he says no it is not something that it comes it is there is no coming or no going ultimately ultimately speaking so from the ultimate point of view which buddha has taught these eight negations they characterize the ultimate teaching of the buddha anirudham ashashwatham prabhupad shivam the the cessation of the universe or the falsity of the universe which is auspicious shivam this has been taught by buddha the greatest of teachers this is what nagarjuna says in the introduction to his um democracy and what is the mullah what does it consist of he uses his formidable logic to demolish all these concepts there are 27 chapters and in these 27 chapters in this book what nagarjuna has done is he has destroyed the concepts of causality cause and effect that there is an external reality no that there are divas sentient beings like us no that there is something called matter itself no even something as simple as motion movement no time space they're all all empty all right fine but at least you're a buddhist so what about buddha buddha is also there's no such thing as a buddha what about the four noble truths you know dukkha and nirvana no there that's also india what about nirvana the goal of buddhism what about bondage and liberation bandha and moksha or your freedom from suffering karma that the most central thing to all indian philosophies that's also shown here empty now what is this emptiness i will quote from the thesis of chandra dhara sharma to show how he attacks these concepts all these concepts how they are attacked and demolished very quick summary i'll quickly read through certain portions and explain as i go along so you can keep seeing this i will just read out nagarjuna opens his work by boldly proclaiming the doctrine of no origination never and nowhere can anything be produced stunning claims nothing can ever be produced a thing can originate neither out of itself nor out of a not self nor out of both nor out of neither this you'll again keep coming again and again in our arjuna his arguments have a structure structure is called tetralemma the fourfold chatuspa that means the four options there are four options in every problem and it denies all four for example is there atma suppose you say so what are the four options possible yes there is an atma or there is no atma nasty or it is both there and not there in some somehow atma is there and it's not there and the fourth one is dogma is neither there nor not there so is is not both is and is not neither is nor is not so these are the four options and nagarjuna denies all four is it true that the atm is there he will say no is it true that atma is not there then he will say no is it true that then atma is both there and not there no then it is neither there neither not there no not even that then what is what are you teaching this is teaching you the truth which is three of the four alternatives these four alternatives are called tetralemma so again you can see right here when he says a thing can neither originate from itself nor from a not-self nor out of both nor out of neither why not i mean you're making all these big claims can you give some reasoning so a thing cannot arise out of itself cause from the cause comes the effect cause means like seed effect means like plant now is the plant going to come out of what will the plant come out of will it come out of itself a thing cannot come out of itself because if the effect is already existing in its cause it is already an existing fact does not require any production thing cannot come out of itself means a plant cannot come out of the plant itself because then what what would come out it's already there but if the effect does not exist in its cause if the effect on the cows are totally different then what will relate them as effective cause if the effect does not exist in its cause nothing can produce it so if the mango plant does not come out of a mango seed there is no connection then it can come out of an apple seed also no there must be some connection between cause and effect and yet the cause and effect cannot be the same thing this is again and again nagarjuna will use this this technique is a thing can either be identical to itself not distinct totally distinct from itself this argument he will use if a thing cannot arise out of itself how can it arise out of a not self again if you say thing can arise out of both itself and not self is to maintain that light and darkness can remain together impossible and nothing can arise at random and be uncaused so these are four alternatives and he dismisses them what is he dismissing here the whole concept of causality very important concept to make sense of the world all reasoning all signs it all depends on causal arguments this causes that this is the effect and that is the cause he says it cannot happen um let me give another uh example which from nagarjuna in the second chapter he talks about motion is impossible by this i mean something very simple we are walking along a path nagarjuna says that is impossible how motion is impossible we are we cannot travel a path which has already been traveled nor can we travel a path which is not yet travelled and a path which has neither been traveled nor yet to be travelled is also not being travelled the mover does not move the non-mover of course does not move what is the third then which is neither a mover nor a non-mover which can move hence mover motion and destination all are unreal what does he mean by this um you have to think about it in terms of for example the way the philosophers thought in those days so movement walking suppose something as simple as walking walking it's an action so the action must be happening somewhere there must be a location for it there must be somebody who is doing the moving and somewhere the moving is happening so for example there's a man who is walking on a path that's a simple idea nagarjuna attacks this very simple idea itself he says you're saying that action the walking is happening on the path on which path is the walking happening it cannot be the path which has already been walked over so now walking is going on so the walk the path which has already been covered on that walking is not happening because that's done the path which is yet to be covered on that walking is not happening because that has not yet started and then what about there's no path right now in this particular instant in one instant there can be no walking there because the entire path is divided into what is gone and what is yet to come similarly he says where is that activity of of moving um who is moving if you ask then nagarjuna is saying or let's let's use the word walking who is walking is the walker walking or is the non-walker walking the one who is not non-worker means the one who is not walking is that one walking you cannot call it that because that person is a non-walker he is not walking will reply obviously the walker is walking but remember the way the nayakas for example understood these things what is walking walking is an activity it must stay in a substance in a karma must be in so there must be an some kind of real entity which is performing that activity so there is an activity there is an entity who is the walker and the activity is walking so the walking is in the walker but nagarjuna says what is a walker walker is a person with the quality of walking according to your definition you define a walker as a man who is walking now if you say the walker is walking is he walking two times is it a very interesting thing he's doing walker means man with the quality of walking now if you add one more that the walker is walking then one more activity of walking comes to be attributed to that man who's already got the quality of walking so nagarjuna says you have to walk twice then and he says apart from the walker and apart from the non-walker there is no third one who will be walking so neither walking no not neither the walker nor the non-worker is walking there is no third person apart from the walker there is which where is the walking going on not in the path which has already been walked upon not in the path which is yet to be worked upon there is no other alternative hence this whole question of motion does not make sense similarly seer scene and sight are also unreal body mind around so el ninos remember he uses the buddhist terms kanda panchayat so rupas kanda means physical body is unreal if if the body exists it can have no cause because it's already existing and if it does not exist then to it can have no cause because a non-entity non-existent thing does not require a cause an uncaused matter is impossible so matter or body is impossible similarly vedanas kanda the feelings um conception sanghas kanda the past impression samskaras kanda and the individual awareness which we have began as ascant they are all unreal the elements which constitute the body earth water fire air and space they are all unreal and he goes on individual self is also unreal the jiva which we are it is neither identical with not different from the five skandas what he means here is body mind now if you say i am an individual being jiva nagarjuna is asking you which one are you are you this body mind complex if you say i am the body mind complex then by jiva you mean bodybuilding complex why don't you say i am a body why are you saying i am a jiva it is like saying buy cycle yeah there is a bicycle now which is the bicycle is it the parts or is it something apart from the parts if you see the parts of the bicycle there's no bicycle in the parts there is an axle there is a wheel there is a handle there is a seat but there is no bicycle there and if you say no no its not the parts then apart from the parts is there a bicycle of course not similarly the body mind complex where is the jiva here is the belli rajiva the head of the jiva are all the parts put together is it the jiva apart from the body mind can you find ajiva no so there is no such jiva at all if the ego ankara be the same as the body-mind the need to like them will be subject to birth and death if the ego is different from the body-mind it cannot be known where is the ego apart from body-mind when the eye and mind cease to function the entire structure of the universe subjective as well as objective crumbles to the ground the skandas or body mind no more operate buddha said universe is beginningless and endless and it is an accepted principle of logic nagarjuna says that if a thing does not exist in the beginning and in the end it cannot exist in the middle also hence beginning middle and end birth persistence and death srishti sriti pralaya are all equally shunya empty unreal not only the universe is beginningless but all the objects which we experience are equally beginningless and hence middle-less and endless change two is impossible same logic you can apply which is changing is the change less changing impossible because the bike the very nature of the changeless is not changing if the or is the changing thing changing then it will be changing twice and apart from the unchanging and the changing there is no third thing what is changing then if the change list does not exist then what is it that changes and if a thing is changeless how can it change and if reality does not exist then what is it that appears and if it is reality then how can it be an appearance you say then are you saying it there is no reality at all nagojano says i am not saying that look something is appearing here is this world then you see so the reality is appearing but then if it is reality how can it appear appearance means not real then he says the subject an object and the subject object relation are unreal action and its result are also unreal if action really exists it will be eternal and action less unchanging then all the phenomenal practices will collapse suffering action bodies doers and results that means karma are all unreal they are like an illusion a magic city a dream a mirage time is also unreal because past present and future are all relative even the buddha is only an illusion is neither identical with nor different from the body mind of the buddha buddha is also we cannot say whether the buddha exists or does not exist or does both or neither either after nirvana or before nirvana during his lifetime the four noble truths are also unreal there is neither suffering nor its cause nor accession nor the way towards the official session you know dukkha krishna nirvana and then the dharma all of them he says they are all empty the three dwells in buddhism buddha namga ramamam sarnam gatyami sangam sharinam gatsami i take refuge in the buddha in the dharma and in the uh the monastic order of the buddha three jewels he said the three jewels are also empty there is neither the sangha nor the dhamma not the buddha nirvana itself is an illusion bunda and moksha are relative and therefore unreal neither the samskaras nor the ego can either be bound or liberated see the mind atma even in vedanta if you did nagarjuna will ask does the atma require liberation no can the atma actually ultimately be in bondage no can the mind be liberated no the mind is just an appearance within maya it can never be liberated can the body be liberated no if the body and mind cannot be liberated what is the point of saying that they are in bondage and they are just you know appearances in maya so there is really no bondage really no liberation neither is there this body mind nor that which is not the body mind that can be bound or liberated neither that which is bound not that which is unbound not that which is both not that which is neither can be either bound or liberated he who thinks nagarjuna says he who thinks transcending the body mind i shall obtain liberation is still entangled in the terrible clutches of the body mind there is no bondage and no liberation both are relative and hence unreal when samsara is not destroyed nirvana is not attained why should samsara and nirvana be at all imagined so he goes on like this if nirvana can be cannot be exist cannot be existing because then like all other existing things it will be subject to birth and death nirvana cannot begin and end if nirvana starts then something that starts will end then what is the point of that nirvana moksha we always say moksha is eternal but then if mokasha is eternal it cannot start also if it starts it will come to an end if it does not start then you have to admit that moksha is either always there or never there and then it will also have moksha or nirvana will have a cause and it will be based on the body and mind like all other things nirvana cannot be non-existent too for then it will not be independent as non-existence necessarily depends on existence nirvana cannot be both existence and non-existence together because the very concept is absurd and self-contradictory existence and non-existence are absolutely opposed like light and darkness how can they simultaneously exist together and the fourth alternative nirvana cannot be neither existence nor non-existence for it is inconceivable you cannot think of such a thing so um if so nirvana is only an appearance not a reality and so on it goes on like this this is a quick survey of nagarjuna's democracy where the central thesis is everything is empty everything is empty salvam shunyam nothing has intrinsic existence now in the other small book nagarjuna trains his logic on the naya school which was the other big school in his time which is a hindu school one of the six schools of hindu philosophy wait let me see so the nayakas they attack nagarjuna they are saying sarvam shunyam everything is empty how do you know that is their question see the the india school is a school based on pramana pramaya pramana pramaya means that to claim anything you must show how it is established pramana what is the pramana for it means things to be known so atma brahma samsara rupa rasa gandha all of these things are pramaya things to be known and you must say how you know these things so how you know is called pramana and i have translated this as epistemic instrument a fancy term for pramana pramana means like eyes are pramana this is a protection direct perception ears are ramadan by which we sound eyes are pramana by which we experience form tongue is pramana by which we experience taste the skin is pramana we experience touch and there are other pramanas anumana which is inference the hindus accept the shruti the upanishads so there are different kinds of pramanas now the nayakas say that to make any claim you must say how you know this if you say atma exists brahma exists we can we can prove it i say that upanishad says so i can give you some argument for it notice all these different schools which we are discussing all of them they gave some argument they gave some anubhava experience then they gave some quotation from the shruti so now the nayaka is asking nagarjuna wait a minute all these crazy things you are saying how do you know all things are empty by what pramana if you say that i know it without any pramana then you can we will not take you seriously without any pramana one can say anything and if you say i know it by a pramana then at least one thing you have to say is non-empty that is the pramana itself by which pramana did you know that everything is shunyam if you say that i know by some pramana i know that everything is then that pramana cannot be shown if that pramana also is shunyum then what it reveals is also is worthless so if that epistemic instrument exists then you have to admit oh nagarjuna there is at least one thing which is not shunya and that is that pramana and then your claim everything is shunya becomes false so this is the counter-attack against nagarjuna the basic question is how do you know everything is shunyam how do you know that by which you know must be not must not be shunning then your claim is that all things are shunyam is not to be accepted nagarjuna's counter-attack this is you see in vigraha via bhartini these texts were originally lost in india actually after the destruction of nalanda university but they were all preserved in tibet and they were translated by tibetan llamas from sanskrit into tibetan language and later they were translated back the original sanskrit was reconstructed and translated into english and other languages i saw uh in the first book i came across vigraha bhavarthini in the training center in bellurmat was published from you know vidu shekhar bhattacharya the great scholar rabindranath tagore he saw the importance of this so he established the institute for tibetan buddhist studies in santiniketa and he got some top scholars there to to learn tibetan and translate from tibetan back into sanskrit into english into bengali so one of those books it's very interesting when you see these books the first part is the english translation then they will give you the sanskrit then they'll give you behind that is the tibetan from the original sanskrit of course is now lost now nagarjuna counterattacks remember the nayaka attack by what pramana do you know o nagarjuna everything is shunya nagarjuna's counter-attack is this nagarjuna attacks the entire niyah philosophy what is the philosophy the basic idea is you know things only by pramada ramana pramaya by the instrument of knowledge by epistemic instruments you know the things about the world nagarjuna asks so by pramana you know things right the nayaka says yes how do you know the pramanas themselves very interesting attack he says all things are known by pramana very good how are the pramanas known now what are the alternative answers the nayakas can give one answer is the pramanas are established by themselves one brahmana establishes the other or the pronoun of pramanas are self-established these are different alternatives i i will uh uh show you how it does not work nagarjuna's answer to that if one pramana is established by another pramana you can immediately see what will be nagarjuna's answer to that if pramana x is established by pramana why then he will ask what is pramada why established by did you require one more pramana and for that you require one more pramana this is called infinite regress in sanskrit anawa's tha dosha you will never get to an answer an end to this chain so that is not possible that pramana is established by another pramada then the nayaka changes the track says no no pramanas are established by themselves how well like fire fire shines and it reveals the pot which was in darkness but the fire reveals itself also the fire illuminates the pot and the fire illuminates itself notice this is similar to the consciousness um arguments which we later advaita vedantists will use nagarjuna rejects it completely what is what is the naik answer that pramanas established themselves like fire illumines a part and fire does not require one more fire to illuminate fire illumines itself also nagarjuna says no illumining something what is illumination prakasha what is illumination something was in darkness then you bought the fire and the fire removed the darkness and illumined the pot was the fire ever in darkness fire illumines the pot correct but the fire itself was it ever in darkness this destruction of darkness removal of darkness is called illumination so if the fire was itself never in darkness how can you say the fire illumined itself do you see the the the subtle point lag arjuna is making another thing nagarjuna says this this is called self reflexivity a thing will operate upon itself this is it is impossible knife cannot cut itself fire cannot burn itself you're saying the fire operates upon itself the fire illumines other things and fire illuminates itself the property of the fire is a function of the fire is to illumine but fire also has another property burning so does the fire burn itself that can burn other things it does not burn itself similarly fire illumines other things it does not illumine itself at least not in the way it illuminates everything else um so self-reflexivity rejected by nagarjuna then the nayaka uses another approach he says the epistemic instruments pramanas are established in relation to their objects our knowledge of the pramanas and our knowledge of the objects are mutually dependent so the eyes reveal the objects and the objects reveal the eyes nayaka trying to wriggle out of a difficult situation so um the pramanas will reveal their objects and the objects by that the promoters themselves are also revealed because of the objects so nagarjuna he says that this is absolutely silly he says if the pramanas are the are self-revealing or they did you know the if the epistemic instruments need epistemic objects then they are not self-established if um uh you know fire reveals the pot the pot needs the fire to reveal the pot and if the fire needs the pot to reveal itself then they are not self established if there is it leads to a serious complication for nyaya because if the pramanas are anyway dependent on their objects then how can they establish their objects the brahmanas which are supposed to establish others have now become objects which are the ones to be established and the objects have become instruments what nagarjuna is saying here is this now you are trying to say that the instrument of knowledge establishes its object and by that the object also establishes the instrumental knowledge mutually but remember how you had started earlier you had started that the instrument of knowledge pramana is necessary to establish pramaya but if ramana is establishing pramaya and the pramaya is establishing then which is the pramadan which is the pramaya now you have mixed up the definitions the whole pramana pramiya system will collapse if you say that you know the father-son nagarjuna says that when father produces a son and like that you are saying the pramana will produce knowledge nagarjuna asks sun is produced by father but isn't it also true that the father is produced by the son because the father becomes a father when the son is born before that he cannot be called a father so he says if the um so for someone is a father only with respect to their children in that case who is producing whom further both being producers father produces son and the son makes the father a father then both are fathers and both being produced both are sons epis this brahmana and their objects become like this which is the pramana which is the pramaya which is the instrument which is the object which one is the pramana which one is the vishaya if both are complicit in the mutual status as instrument and object so what nagarajun is doing he is not actually denying that fathers have sons or the fires illumining a part but he's attacking the picture the realist picture of of the world the philosophy of he's attacking he says your picture does not make sense this is all philosophies are empty and so on now basically what are narajana's methods very quickly we will see if you see mullah democracy if you see vigraha vyavarthini he uses the range of subtle logical techniques to demolish the views of others basically the techniques are like this five basic techniques are there one is infinite regress which we just saw brahmanas established the pramayas nagarjuna asks what establishes the pramanas another pramana is required to establish this pramana then you go further and further back an infinite regress happens this is illogical then you'll never get an explanation this is one technique second technique is neither identical nor distinct remember how we attack the idea of cause and effect so is the cause is the effect different from the cause or same as the cause is the plant different from the seed or the same as the seed if the plant and the seed are completely distinct then the seed of um of an apple could produce an orange tree but if they're not distinct if they are in some way the same then why should the seed produce the plant the plant is already existing then because if they are identical not only that more deadly logical consequence will they will be there if cause and effect are identical then the cause becomes the effect and the cause becomes its own effect and effect becomes its own cause then if they are one in the same thing another logical technique um nagarjuna uses three times past present and future so he shows something is not possible in the past something is not possible in the in the future and the present he says it's the vanishing instant one um you know like one instant of time so that it's not possible in the present like walking he is the example of walking where is the walking going on it cannot be in the path which has been traversed in the past because that's already gone it cannot be on the path which is yet to be covered but that has not started yet and this instant there can be no walking this is one instant in the present so walking is not going on in past present and future where is walking going on similarly uses the same thing for different kinds of activity of different cases so uses time to attack uh various concepts then irreflexivity like we saw the fire illumination so when advaitan says consciousness illumines itself no not at all you see the subtle logic it says nagarjuna uses um consciousness reveals the world you are saying um but the existence of consciousness is revealed by itself not really it's only when the consciousness shines on the mind and activities of the mind that not only the mind is known the consciousness itself is also known so both are rising and falling together in deep sleep there is no consciousness no matter how much you advaitans may argue after waking up i was in deep sleep i slept happily all those things you are giving now after the mind is working it's when the mind is not working there is no proof of consciousness and there is no proof of the mind also both rise and fall together then non-reciprocity so mutual dependence like we saw in the father and son case it means the thing is false brahmana produces pramaya the source of knowledge produces knowledge if you think it's like a father and son but they become mutually dependent and his commentator nagarjuna's commentator chandra kit uses a nice example which you don't find in vedanta bales of hay which are tied together sheaves of hay they are leaning on each other they are not dependent on one thing they are not leaning on the ground they are all lean on mutually on each other they are supporting each other so they are mutually supporting and if you remove one the other also falls so similarly consciousness and the world mutually supporting subject and object mutually supporting you cannot say subject is the ultimate reality consciousness is the ultimate reality they arise and fall together ramayana pramaya they rise and fall together so this was these are his techniques final word now stop what does it all mean all of this so this emptiness what does it mean first option nihilism shunya means nothing nothing exists who says this most of nagarjuna's opponents they say it so even the vedantist we are studying they'll say that means atma does not exist shunya means non-existence now most of the advaitains most of the hindu philosophers like the nayakas and the meemam suckers who engaged with the buddhists they interpreted the sunnavada as meaning as nihilism as nothing exists now this is a little unfair because nagarjuna has himself clearly denied that we are not saying that nothing exists so what according to nagarjuna he says shunyata means pratik the dependent originations things originate together and fall together this happening that happens this is not happening that will not happen this is the meaning of shunyata it's not nothing then if it's not nothing then what does it mean i also feel it's unfair to dismiss nagarjuna saying that nothing exists it's a very i would say it's not it's a superficial position though though we cannot outright deny that they were all wrong by saying that now should nevada means nothing because how is it that all of them make the same mistake umar ilabhatta shankaracharya the great nayakas niya philosophers all of them are saying nagarjuna is saying that nothing exists not only that even more damaging the great buddhist philosopher vasubandhu whom we came across mind only school he also takes nagarjuna as saying that nothing exists nihilist so it is not entirely unfair to say that sunnyvale means nothingness but let us see the other interpretation is shunya means brahman swami sarudanji says what we call purna they call shunya what we call full they call empty how is that possible um the gold and ornament example i gave just think about it gold in itself is empty of all ornaments what does it mean if you think about just think about gold itself is there a necklace in it is there a bracelet in it is there a ring or a tiara in it no if i ask you in which part of the which part of gold is a necklace which portion of the gold is tiara nothing you cannot say that those are names and forms they are they are not parts whatever you touch will be gold itself it is not an uh as such you know this part of the go of the gold is a necklace that part of the gold is a ring you cannot say that's silly so gold in itself is empty of all ornaments so shunya in that sense but does that mean gold is nothing not at all gold is the only reality in all the ornaments the only reality is gold so gold is poor now in that sense any other option here is one option which is unfortunately full of very fancy terms so this is professor garfield whose class i took in uh at harvard his view and he is a leading scholar of madhyama kasu nevada in the world today his view is what is it it's not nothing he says no that's absolutely not true and he'll say swami it is not your brahman also succeeding it's not that also then what is nagarjuna trying to say what are the sunnah is trying to say his answer is epistemic coherentism and ontological anti-foundationalism what does that mean it means epistemic means pramana pramaya the sources of knowledge they all work together they establish things together ultimately they are not real so eyes will establish the form and um the with your hands you can touch that far with your nose you can smell the for the that rose with your tongue you can taste the rose water all the sense organs and their objects they give you a coherent view of reality but um there is no underlying reality to any of it that's what he calls anti-foundationalism that there is an underlying reality which is appearing to you in this way no it all comes for example he gave two examples he gave money and harvard university he said here is harvard university which is the harvard university here this building that building other buildings the harvard university is the website de harvard university are the students the harvard university of professor harvard university is the syllabus harvard university is the endowment harvard university is it all together at harvard university he said no harvard university is just a uh what he calls a conceptual imputation our turn which is put here and it's only in our minds that we frame we see reality at this this harvard university and apart from these things also there is no harvard university these things taken together they are not harvard university individually also they are not harvard university and apart from that of them also there's no harvard university that's what he calls coherentism together you they form a picture practically it works another example he gave is money so the dollars and the coins and the dimes and the quarters is that money so first there were dollars and quarters and times and then money came not at all so is the first there was money and then the dollars and not at all they depend on each other like the sheaves of hay of um chandra kitty they hang on each other but there is no underlying reality to it so what are you ultimately saying he says it's like a bottomless well you're thrown into it and this nativity goes on endlessly you might say that's not a very satisfactory answer ultimately is it nothing or something that you will not say so that's one option slightly unsatisfied factory if you ask me what is your take on it conclusion i'll conclude here my take on it is that both have been misunderstood and both are good correctives to each other both means advaita vedanta and the madhyamaka nevada the advaita vedanta is misunderstood when it talks about brahman atman sachidananda we get the feeling that there is some such thing some ultimate reality called saccidananda most of us we get that feeling of course there is no that's a wrong way of understanding it it's like saying that um here are all these ornaments and gold is the ultimate reality so we if somebody thinks that gold is a very nice type of argument no wrong the opposite mistake is made when you attack sunderwada by saying it means nothing when they are denying it is neither this nor not this not a combination of this and not this nor a denial of both the chatushkotis so does it mean nothing no not nothing it's not nihilism then what what are they both pointing towards advaita vedanta and madhyamakasa they're pointing towards the ultimate reality which is what i like to call no thing it's not nothing nothing exists no it's not a thing also so it's nothing thing you just imagine ornament necklace so if you're asking if you're told gold is the ultimate reality now somebody says so gold must be a very nice type of ornament there is necklace ring there is a bracelet and there is one more fourth type of ornament called gold which is really great type of argument so no it's not a type of ornament it is not not so then if somebody says then gold is not there the only reality is ornament if you're saying gold is not an ornament then there is no no such thing as go um gold said no no that is also not true it's not that gold is not there in fact gold is the only thing that is there so it is not a thing it is not nothing it is no thing what is that what nagarjuna calls shunya what we call brahman and both of us we call prapancho pasham shivam okay i'm done so this is just a little detour and we are back i promise i won't subject you to these things uh after later on uh we will stick to the text from here onwards next advaita vedanta the hero of the play will come in and demolish all these objections and establish atman brahman as the ultimate reality and so on let's look at the activities going on on the chat rick says last week you said the proponents of contradictory understandings yourself could all have been unless could all have been enlightened i understand how enlightened people could disagree about politics or not know much quantum mechanics but isn't enlightenment synonymous with self-realization direct experience and intellectual understanding of the self shouldn't self realize people agree about what they have realized again yes and no yes and no um take a bracelet or take a nice necklace and there is somebody who loves it as a necklace and there is the goldsmith who doesn't couldn't care less about the necklace who just cares about the gold and he insists it's gold and the other person who understands that it's gold but who loves gold as the necklace insists that it's a necklace but both of them if they're truly understood they know the gold nature of that so by this time what i'm saying is somebody knows the ultimate reality to be saccidananda and another person also knows that but knows it as vishnu or narayana or my mother kali now it might seem that the person who says it is existence absolute and consciousness absolute infinite bliss that guy is realized and this guy who's saying it is my divine mother kali with four arms this guy has not realized it no it could be exactly they are talking about exactly the same thing could be punitaji is asking who is negating ah here is one argument which will come next time i remember when i was studying all these things 20 years ago our professor of indian philosophy nirod baran chaklavati whom i mentioned i think in my talk in on sunday he was a disciple of swami abraham and he used to teach us western philosophy but he was a master of advaita vedanta also so i took my newfound enthusiasm for nagarjuna by the way one of my masters in teachers in that training period this swami who was teaching us niyah philosophy he nicknamed me the shunyavadi the emptiness guy sort of sarcastically because i always had emptiness arguments and i was a nagarjuna enthusiast imagine in the middle of a hindu monastery anyway so i took up took this enthusiasm to professor nirodharan chakravati he was retired professor of philosophy so i said see this is how you established emptiness and your so-called consciousness that only arises with the activity of the mind so nagarjuna's argumentary anti-self-reflexive argument it arises with the mind and disappears with the mind no amount of telling me that no it is just the mind which is gone and consciousness keeps on shining like the sun in in deep darkness of space this blank the darkness because there's nothing to reflect consciousness all of those are you just arguing like that but experience shows that whenever there is the mind there is consciousness whenever there's an object there's a subject without the object no subject without the subject no object and they arise and fall so nagarjuna's dialectic is devastating to your advaita what would you say void is the ultimate reality i still remember till today 21 years ago the old gentleman is shorter than me because he had big eyes he glared at me and he says who sees the sunnyam who is the witness of the shunya what does that mean this void this emptiness is revealed to what or whom what is the what is the pramana for the emptiness immediately our answer the nagar junior answer will be that why can it not be that the the one who realizes the emptiness is also empty you see the subject object thing the empty subject realizes in the empty object realizes the emptiness of the object and realizes the emptiness of the subject but there is a fatal mistake here if you push further you realize the emptiness of the world fine advaita vedanta is fine with it you realize the emptiness of the self ah but what do you mean by the self if you say i realize the emptiness of body fine i realize the emptiness of mind fine i realize my own emptiness i the witnessing consciousness realize my own emptiness you are violating nagarjuna's own principle of self anti-self reflexivity nagarjuna is finally caught the um the most evasive and subtlest of philosophers is finally caught in his own trap and it's not a trap he would want to avoid i have a feeling he was pointing at this all along that's what some of the some of the tibetan llamas would say not all they would say nagarjuna is actually pointing at this this ultimate reality they call it the clear light of the void the witness of emptiness consciousness which illumines the emptiness of the universe even the apparent self also the jiva jiva is also empty advaita agrees geo is also empty sentient being is also empty only thing is the at the same the tibetan buddhists would not want you to say it the moment you say they say the moment you put it into language consciousness illuminating the emptiness you're already making a mistake and that language can be cut down again by nagarjuna's dialectic so don't say it realize it fine we are fine with that vidyar nyaswami in panchadashi he attacks the the emptiness people sharply the usual thing that the emptiness means nothingness and finally he says but if you say by emptiness you mean the witness of this emptiness welcome to our camp that's what we are saying also you're saying if emptiness is another name for maya there is no objective reality uh and you're talking about the absolute that's exactly what we are saying and the vidyan swami panchayati is also humorous in one place he says a debate requires two positions siddhanta and purva paksha the debater and the the you know the one who's attacking now i'm here i'm championing advaita but you are empty by your own philosophy you don't exist so i don't i can't debate you so he's just being sort of tongue in cheek there then so punitaji subtle and direct point very good we'll see more of that next time if everything is shown here does it not create a feeling of non repercussion of any good or bad deeds how does the regular individual process it they will say just the opposite they will say karma works because everything is shown here if you had been on they will see exactly the opposite about this they do that if you say good and bad karma how will karma work if everything is empty you say karma works only because things are empty if if you were a permanent unchanging self then karma couldn't affect you they will say exactly the same thing how will karma work if you are a permanent unchanging self bad karma will not give you suffering good karma will not give you happiness karma will not work if you don't change so karma works only if emptiness is work is true but one big point i must mention nagarjuna was very big on the two truths the two truths there are two levels of truth nagarjuna says in the moon of madame the buddha taught two truths samrity satyam which is transactional the the relative truth the world yes there are fathers and sons yes fire illumines support yes people walk i'm not denying any of that and ultimately no none of it is real so ultimate truth um relative truth exactly like advaita vedanta um godhapada 500 to explain any kind of absolutistic philosophy like this you need two levels of truth so karma karma will be samaritan and nagarjuna will insist it's my theory of emptiness alone which makes karma possible dimitri says is this a way to show that maya's illusion brahman cannot be described by words exactly exactly if you want to reduce all of which we talked today with easy talking about maya you'd say yes that would be my answer to that yes they don't use that word but that's what they're talking about i asked professor garfield that the sense i'm getting is what i am receiving today as a finished product from advaita vedanta what we are reading here fourteen hundred fifteen hundred years ago two thousand years ago three four centuries before gorda pada it's like visiting the construction site you are living in this fantastic comfortable apartment but when you see this you see the huge mess that's all around and enormous activity that's going on the change which is happening day after day so it's the construction site of the finished philosophy which we see as advaita vedanta today and the tibetan buddhist synthesis of mind only and emptiness today and president garfield said yeah you could look at it that way all these things which are going on this all these fights that was the construction taking place today what we are reading as you know like a finished text like this or similar text tibetan llamas would be reading today they are like the finished product the comfortable apartment you get to live in after all these fights have been gone through uh vishwanath is asking if he denies everything then how is this philosophy beneficial to aspirants if an aspirant accepts the claim that nirvana is shunyam then is there any hope of transcending suffering he would say exactly the opposite is only when you accept that there's no ultimate reality called nirvana then there is no ultimate reality called samsara there's no ultimate reality called um suffering and that will be the escape from suffering otherwise if nirvana is a real thing which is going to start will he come to an end if it's a real thing then your suffering was also real then samsara was also real and they're from a real there is no escape so he will say that and similar arguments you find 500 years later in godopathic does the consciousness of charma's heart problem correspond more to ahamkar rather than pure consciousness atman the heart problem what it feels like from within has two aspects as girish has noted carefully the two aspects fields first person is consciousness it's a reflected consciousness in the hank but feels like feels like something already the object is present so in first person experience both are there together and guard up other uh nagarjuna would immediately he's an expert at finding tension he knows if wherever there is tension he knows he can break it he will use it his this four-fold logic the tetralemma chatushkoti to attack it kiran says shunia the same as mithya or vedanta both it is the same according to nagarjuna it is the same as what vedanta later or nagarjuna never said that but it is the same as what vedanta later calls mithya it's also the same as what vedanta calls brahman satyam that's a very interesting thing for nagarjuna is the ultimate reality and the world is shunda in the sense of empty unreal mithya the ultimate reality is shunyam because it is empty of the world the gold example i gave notice gold is shunya of all ornaments gold in itself does not have any ornaments but it is not unreal it is not um it is the only reality in fact now he warns that shunyata do not misunderstand shunyata's nothingness he says if you misunderstand shunyata he says the solution for the sufferings of the world is shunyata emptiness but those who take the shunyata itself to be a reality for them there is no help you are trapped in samsara you can be rescued by shunyata but if you catch on to shunyata itself as a reality for you there is no help you are finished he says this and then he goes on and gives an example catching a snake at the wrong end misunderstanding shunyata is like that misunderstanding emptiness is like catching a poisonous snake at the wrong end you're going to get bitten and they'll be the end of your spiritual life alpana uh says all this makes sense after self-realization but what does it suggest us to do or think you know this is what i thought i still remember in balloon mate as a novice very excited about nagarjuna telling another novice we're sitting for dinner at night and i was i'm sure i made uh like a noises of myself going on and on about nagarjuna and i was talking about nagarjuna and this other brahmachary novice very perceptive he said it sounds like a madman who is climbed to the top of the house and then he tosses away the ladder and he says come jump come up here so yes that's what i it feels like he has attained the reality and he's telling you as it is but how do you go up there but if you actually go to tibetan buddhism they have a wealth of techniques if you take up the techniques you will come to this realization but the techniques are all repetition of mantra of meditation of mindfulness yantras are there endless rituals are there it's just like devotional hinduism in many ways it's just like patanjali yoga all of those things are there the techniques but it will go to that level um the sharvani says reminds me of yet they are not the same it reminds you of ajatabhat it reminds me of ajakawad also and many many great philosophers it reminds them of ajata like vidushekar um whom i mentioned is notorious for saying that godapadha borrowed everything from nagarjuna so nikhilananderjee in his translation of the manduka karika he spends a lot of energy in refuting that but there's no reason to refute a great teacher in india wrote to me last year saying that they're running into a trouble that clearly advaita seems to have borrowed a lot from the the srinivada now it's a problem only if you think it's a problem in those days all these schools interacted intensely with each other and they absorbed each other's dna and so the ultimate system which you get in advaitadant is fully based on upanishads it's an open isha dixit conclusion of the upanishadic teachings but a lot of terminology a lot of argumentation lot of techniques many of the techniques which nagarajuna used to defeat the niya school in vigraha bhartini almost verbatim shankara uses to attack the niyah school so it is it is part of it is part of the dna of advaitha now what is the purpose of southern according to naga arjuna it has removed the error just like advaita vedanta maya the term they don't use but they they accept the same concept um subrata is saying looks like god upon the incorporated buddhas karika that's a view of many scholars uh at least the approach the methodology terminology and logic very buddhistic if you read madhyama kakarika and manduka karika together you cannot escape the the echoes they're clearly different one is upanishad they can talk about an ultimate reality the other one denies but the the terms the techniques the logical arguments they seem like mirror images of each other rama says very similar to god or father no bondage no liberation no karma no causality absolutely nyan says do advaitan should never agree on neither annihilation nor eternal sins both say the truth is beyond time correct one might think advaita vedanta is talking about an eternal reality something that persists through time not really advaita vedanta says brahman is eternal vermont is all pervading but that's only it's all pervading when you accept space then raman is all pervading brahman is eternal only when you accept time then it's all perfect and then it's eternal but both space and time are maya apart from space and time what is the meaning of saying all pervading and eternal not at all it does not mean anything that's really nagarjuna's right a right is third going any positive statement you make about the ultimate reality will be taking some support of something false something within maya otherwise language cannot work shiva prayer is saying goal is to separate mind from atman yes but that is a sankhya idea separation of the mind and the atman that approach um sunivada does not use krishnamurti says ultimate origination of pramana can't shruti be cited knowledge oriented from brahman itself yes there's a dualistic hindu view shruti is cited but that then it will not work with the buddhists they don't accept the shruti um epistemic orientation sounds like sat asad anirachanyam yes correct again all right peter says correct very beautiful s where is this from peter uh yeah i know i'm sorry it's uh it's quoted by vietnam and he he says it's from majama kavrti by chandra i think in a book from the 19th century right right but i believe it's quite a famous uh in in tibetan buddhism itself because i heard it from i heard it from the tibetan buddhist also all right right because there is a corresponding verse in manduka karika yeah and that's exactly when he quotes it right so in in in his uh book on on garupada he gives it in a footnote you know it's at the end of the second or third chapter right the last verse right so in fact it's fascinating not just the mullah democracy but some others like the lanka tara sutra and others if you read some of the the mahayana texts along with the manduka karika it's it's an eerie feeling like you're seeing a ghost double just one word changed here and there but it's almost like an echo of the same verse swami vivekananda he said buddha was a sannyasi of the vedanta which sounds absolutely contrary and counter-intuitive but when you come to something like this it doesn't sound so counterintuitive at all all right i'm glad i hope you liked it i enjoyed myself so next time we'll be back on course and we'll see what the advaitan has to say to all of this [Music] [Music] foreign

Channel: Vedanta New York

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Id: lUzaGydvjto

Length: 80min 17sec (4817 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 21 2021