Are all things empty? - Nagarjuna & The Buddhist Middle Way

i think it's high time we start exploring some buddhism on this channel as many of you in the audience have already pointed out it is after all one of the largest religions in the world and one that has a lot to offer when it comes to history beliefs and practices as is always the case of course buddhism is incredibly diverse with many different schools and ideas and ways of understanding certain teachings much of which can take years and years of study to understand just like with hinduism we're not going to be making some grand video called what is buddhism not only because it's so incredibly broad and complicated but also because several other people have already done that made really great videos that you can advise if you're interested in that instead what we're going to do here is we're going to dive straight into some buddhist philosophy some very significant schools of thought and thinkers within that tradition and try to understand what those schools and those thinkers are saying how they understand buddhism and through that we can gradually get an understanding of this vast and incredibly rich religious and spiritual tradition and there are few ideas associated with buddhism as famous as the idea of emptiness or shunyata most associated with the incredibly important buddhist philosopher nagarjuna who teaches that all things in existence are empty this is an idea that became very influential in buddhism especially in the branch known as mahayana but a lot of people also tend to misunderstand it or have trouble grasping what it is actually saying is it a kind of existential nihilism claiming that nothing in reality exists or is it more complicated than that today we're going to explore the teachings of nagarjuna and try to understand his school of thought [Music] when people think of buddhism they tend to picture things like ascetic monks sitting in meditation often completely detached from the world in a zen-like state but what many tend to forget is that buddhism has one of the most rigorous philosophical or intellectual traditions in the world which has contributed immensely to philosophy in general across history the various buddhist philosophers have written some of the most profound stuff and one of the most famous if not the most famous of these figures is the 3rd century thinker nagarjuna he is often considered the founder of a school known as madhyamaka or the middle way as well as the most important systematizer for the idea of shunyata or emptiness and through this he was one of the most central figures in the development of mahayana buddhism in particular again buddhism is divided into various schools and branches and while these are many it is generally thought that there are two or three main overarching branches of the religion there is theravada which means something like the school of the elders and is the dominant form of buddhism in places like cambodia thailand myanmar and sri lanka then there is mahayana which means the great vehicle and is the largest branch of buddhism being the dominant form in places like china japan vietnam nepal malaysia and many other places sometimes vajrayana or tantric buddhism is considered its own third major branch while at other times it is seen as a sort of part of mahayana buddhism but in any case this school is most popular in tibet and is the same as what is often known as tibetan buddhism as well all of these branches especially the first two have various schools and movements within themselves of course but this is considered the most broad and general division of the religion the differences between the branches are too many to cover here and it will hopefully become more clear over time but in short they tend to accept different collections of texts as authoritative have different monastic rules as well as significant doctrinal and practical differences and the subject of today's episode nagarjuna serves as one of the most important figures in the development of mahayana buddhism in particular and his ideas became the foundation for much of that school and the basis on which many later movements were formed nagarjuna himself is an elusive figure he's generally thought to have lived between the second and third centuries and in india there are many different accounts of exactly when and where he lived but of this general outline we can be relatively certain hagiography state that he came from a brahmana family the highest caste in the hindu tradition and that he at some point in his life became a buddhist in particular he eventually became affiliated with the mahayana branch which was a minority in the region at the time and would indeed become one of the key figures in the development and later popularity of that tradition other than this we can't say much at all about his life other than that he was obviously a very gifted thinker who wrote works that would become classics in the history of philosophy and religion his most famous work in which he argues for some of the most central ideas associated with him is the mullah madhyamaka karika a real mouthful of a word that means something like root verses on the middle way this work was so influential that a whole new school of thought within mahayana buddhism appeared around his teachings which became known precisely as madhyamaka or the middle way and we will see what this is referring to in due time we will explore this work and the thought of nagarjuna through two major themes in his writings the idea of shunyata or emptiness probably the most famous idea he is associated with as well as the doctrine of the two truths which is another central teaching in buddhism so let's get to it in short the teachings of shunyata or emptiness is kind of exactly what it sounds like it states that all things in the world are empty that is they are empty of intrinsic nature or existence there's nothing in the world that exists intrinsically but everything is as i said empty now you may be thinking to yourself is this just existential nihilism is nagarjuna saying that nothing at all exists many later non-buddhist commentators and critics of buddhism and nagajona have often interpreted his teachings in this exact way but this is actually not the case this is a misunderstanding most most of the time and what nagarjuna is saying is actually a lot more complicated than this but to understand this fully we kind of need a crash course in some basic buddhist teachings i'm sure many of you know some of the basics of the religion like the four noble truths for example that teach that life includes suffering or life is suffering that there's a reason behind suffering and that suffering can end and then the path or way to end that suffering the idea of emptiness is part of a discussion involving primarily two key aspects of buddhism the doctrine of no self or anata and the doctrine of dependent arising the buddha taught that there is no self that the thing we think is ourselves the thing we refer to when we say i is actually an illusion there is no enduring core or self in any human being but only a collection of different skandas or aggregates such as consciousness mind and sensations that we sort of put together into this idea of a unified self that actually isn't really there this is a very important feature of buddhism that essentially all schools agree on and realizing it is considered to be a central factor to reaching enlightenment and nirvana connected to this is the idea of dependent arising this is essentially the idea that all things in the world are dependent in their existence on other things everything is temporary and exists only in dependence on everything else the famous buddhist teacher tik nathan once explained it beautifully through a flower you may look at a flower and think that it exists in itself and independently but this is not true try to think of that flower without the soil from which it grows without the sunlight that helps it grow and illuminates it without the very space in which it stands or without the particular time in which it is there suddenly you no longer have a flower at all and this is true of all things in the world there is nothing that exists independently all things are constantly dependent on everything else for its existence even the parts that make up a specific thing are in themselves dependent on other things and the parts of those parts are just the same this leads to the conclusion that there kind of aren't any things at all because all quote unquote things we conceive in the world are only a collection of various other things that make it appear a certain way at a particular time and it is us who conceptualize that thing into a false entity there is a famous thought experiment or story in buddhism that explores this question and that is the story about the chariot in what is known as king malinda's questions in this story the king milinda is having a discussion with a buddhist sage called nagasena the king asks the sage about the doctrine of no self how it can be that there is no such thing as the personal self when that seems like a such an apparent reality to everyone nagasena points to a chariot and asks what is a chariot is the chariot in the wheels the king answers no is the chariot in the axles again he answers no is it in the reins still no is it in the seat the king answers in negative to all questions regarding the parts of the chariot including if the chariot is simply the combination of all parts well the buddhist stage says if the chariot cannot be found in any of the parts then there is no chariot the designation chariot is dependent on all these various parts but in reality quote-unquote chariot is only a concept a name that is applied to something that doesn't actually have independent existence of its own the self is the same way we say that there is a self we talk about ourselves using words like i even the buddha did so because it is convenient and useful in the everyday world but in reality there is no such thing since it is only a name that we give to a collection of temporary aggregates so these are some of the central features of buddhism and which become very important for the continued discussion that we're having here today basically all buddhists agree on the basics of of these teachings but they can disagree on some of the details and interpretations so for example how deep does the teaching of no self go does this simply mean that there is no self and basic things in the world have no existence as such or is it even more radical than that one collection of buddhist schools that existed in antiquity were known as the abhidharma these were different groups that often used philosophical speculation to fill out some of the metaphysical questions and details of the buddha's teachings and these abi dharmikas are important not only for the general history of buddhist thought but also for understanding nagarjuna and the madhyamaka school indeed in his most central work the mulamadhyamaka karika nagajna essentially spends the majority of the text responding to ideas put forth by the abhidharmakas and bases his arguments often on refuting them the abhidharma schools are varied and can hold different ideas but in general they believe that there is no enduring self and that reality is characterized by impermanence and dependent arisings just like all buddhists the conventional reality that we experience consisting of things and events are only conventional constructions and not ultimately real there is no chariot as we saw just as there is no individual self anything that we experience is only a conceptual construct of a variety of factors and temporary happenings none of these things are ultimately real but according to the abhidharmakas there is something called darmas which are the ultimate constituents of reality the dharmas are factors or phenomena that make up all things and events they are ultimately real although still dependent on each other the dharmas are never experienced as individual things but arise through dependence on each other and in constant flux but it is these fluctuating dharmas that make up all of reality as we experience it and we conceptualize all these temporary happenings as individual things like the self for example or the chariots but what is important here is that the dharmas are real for something to be counted as real according to buddhist philosophy in this case one must be able to say something ultimately true about them they need to have an intrinsic nature something that is inherently true about it in itself independently and the dharmas are that according to the abhidharmakas the dharmas have intrinsic natures and only one intrinsic nature per dharma and all these factors when interacting with each other create the temporary happenings that make up our this is the general outlook that nagarjuna is responding to in his great work and he argues very forcefully that this perspective is mistaken and actually fails to uphold the principles of the buddha he instead takes a stand that appears at first glance to be even more extreme but which actually claims to avoid extremity he argues that there are no dharmas at all there are no things that are ultimately real at all not even these fluctuating basic components there is nothing that can have intrinsic nature and therefore be categorized as real everything is empty this is what is referred to when we talk about the teaching of emptiness or shunyata to nagajona reality is characterized entirely by emptiness all things are empty of intrinsic nature and are only conveniently conceptualized to be real there can be no darmas or ultimately real things and he argues in the text for how these dharmas would in themselves have to be empty and thus that would mean that they lose their status as dharmas to begin with so there can't be any dharmas because dharmas are empty just like all other things quote there being no dharma whatsoever that is not dependently originated it follows that there is also no dharma whatsoever that is non-empty now as stated before many have taken this to mean that nagarjuna affirmed a kind of existential nihilism many of his later critics like the famous vedantic scholar sage shankara who writes a couple of centuries later is one example of that he often accuses buddhists of being nihilists but this is actually a misunderstanding of what nagarjuna is saying here what he and the madhyamakas are saying is not that nothing exists at all but rather that there is nothing that has an intrinsic or inherent nature or essence right there's nothing that has an independent existence everything is empty everything is dependent on everything else and nothing has an intrinsic nature to it so in that sense it's kind of true that nothing exists because there are no things to exist in the world there is only the constantly changing dependent arisings which in themselves are empty but that doesn't mean that what we experience isn't there at all on an ontological level as we normally understand it it's not complete nothingness right emptiness does not mean nothingness that's a very important distinction indeed this teaching of emptiness is a natural extension of the buddha's teaching on no self and dependent arising there is no self no inherent essence to anything because all things are dependent on everything else for its very existence nagarjuna argues that this precisely avoids nihilism and extremism as the name of yamaka suggests it is a middle path between annihilationism that things don't exist or can go out of existence entirely on the one hand and permanence on the other hand that there is anything at all that has permanence or is independence in its existence and in the mulan yamaka karika he argues for this position in a very systematic way through tackling the topic from every conceivable angle using logical deduction nagarjuna makes it clear that according to him the teachings of the buddha when one considers them properly must lead to the conclusion of emptiness but one needs to be careful here not to consider it a statement of ultimate reality in itself either shunyata is a useful tool to collapse all ideas about objects with inherent natures but it is not an ultimate truth about reality in itself emptiness is not the quote-unquote nature of things in that way quote emptiness is not some kind of primordial reality but a corrective to a mistaken view of how the world exists to nagarjuna there are no ultimate truths at all or rather there is no ultimate reality not even emptiness indeed emptiness itself is empty quote dependent origination we declare to be emptiness it that is emptiness is a dependent concept just that is the middle path after all for emptiness to be a thing there needs to be things that we deem to be empty but as we saw there are no such things because everything is empty and without intrinsic nature which means in the final analysis that emptiness itself is empty because it itself is dependent on things which in themselves are empty does your head hurt yet it's some trippy stuff that can be hard to wrap your head around but to understand mahayana buddhism in general and all of the later movements that came after nagarjuna we kind of need to at least somewhat understand what he is trying to say if you are an inquisitive person you may have started asking yourself questions like what does this mean for some of the basic principles of buddhism like for example nirvana or samsara and reincarnation or karma and all these different things are these things empty and ultimately not real too the answer is yes indeed they are but here it is important to introduce another one of the key features of nagajuna's thoughts and that of a lot of buddhism generally which is the doctrine of the two truths in simple terms this is the idea that there are two essential ways of approaching reality conventional truth and ultimate truth just like a lot of other buddhist principles this has been interpreted in different ways by different schools but to nagajona it is connected to the idea of emptiness we can either look at the world through conventional truth that is through the concepts and constructs that we apply to it that there are things in the world that i am a human being that there are things like nirvana and reincarnation these conventional truths are accepted because they are useful in life it is useful that i consider you and me to be different on some level for a fruitful interaction and it is useful for me to see myself as distinct from a lion or i'm probably going to be dead because i'm not careful in the same way the teachings of samsara karma and nirvana are useful for the individual to travel on the path to enlightenment so to say in a way we need conventional truth to help us reach ultimate truth and what is that ultimate truth then well at least to nagarjuna it is that all things are empty this idea of the two truths theory as argued for in nagashuna's writings would continue to be influential on later thinkers in mahayana buddhism for example it is on this basis that the later figures yi founded the tiantai school of buddhism based on the idea of a three truths doctrine that's sort of extension of what nagarjuna is arguing for here something that we will definitely dedicate a future episode to as you might imagine this has only been a very simple and surface level introduction to the ideas of nagarjuna and the madhyamika school but as i said they are very important for understanding mahayana buddhism understanding a lot of the later traditions in that in that branch in that school and for understanding some of the basics of buddhism and its teachings and history in general in the future we will explore more thinkers and movements some that follow in the footsteps of nagajana and but also others that are completely not connected to that tradition at all we're finally doing some buddhism content here which is really exciting i know a lot of you have been asking for some buddhism here and we're finally doing it which is so much fun i've been looking forward to this for a long time as i said in the beginning buddhism is incredibly diverse it's complicated and it's something that we will try to tackle from many different angles and the strategy the idea is that by understanding major movements and thinkers within buddhism we will gradually start to get a broader picture of what that religion is as a whole buddhism has an incredibly rich philosophical and spiritual tradition that is just an ocean of interesting stuff to explore which i am very much looking forward to doing and i hope you are as excited as i am to continue this journey of exploring buddhism as well as all other religions that we're dealing with here on let's talk religion so thank you so much for watching thank you to all of my patrons who support this channel and keep things rolling i would not be able to do this without any of you guys thank you so much and a special shout out to two of my new saints fraterji and ahmed thank you both so much if you want to become a patron yourself then i will leave links to that in the description it is of course really helpful for me to continue bringing you free educational content here on youtube about the world's different religions and i highly appreciate all the support i can get but also feel free of course to like the video leave a comment or subscribe to the channel and i will see you next time [Music] foreign

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 559,485

Keywords: Nagarjuna, Nagarjuna Emptiness, Buddhism, Buddhism emptiness, Sunyata, Sunyata explained, Buddhism explained, Buddhist philosophy, Mahayana Buddhism, Mahayana philosophy, Indian philosophy, Two truths, two truths theory, emptiness, the world is empty, nihilism, existential nihilism, Buddhist religion, religion, let's talk religion, eastern philosophy, eastern religion, eastern spirituality

Id: gWZ-OnmKl70

Length: 23min 36sec (1416 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 26 2022