Guest guest Posted August 8, 2001 Report Share Posted August 8, 2001 - john metzger NDS Tuesday, August 07, 2001 7:24 PM [NDS] Nagarjuna The following is from Verses From The Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime, by Stephen Batchelor, The Berkley Publishing Group, 2000. from the Preface I have written this book in order to elucidate the vision of the great Buddhist teacher Nagarjuna. Although Nagarjuna is arguably the most important figure in Buddhism after the Buddha himself, very little is known about him. All that can be said with any certainty is that he lived at some time around the second century C.E. in India and is the author of a Sanskrit work of 448 verses, divided into twenty-seven chapters, entitled Verses From The Center (Mulamadhyamakakarika). Yet while Nagarjuna continues to be revered today as a founding figure of many living Buddhist traditions, his seminal work is almost entirely ignored. I have sought to translate Verses From The Center in such a way as to make Nagarjuna's insights come alive for anyone concerned with the question of what it means to live a free and awake life today. Instead of regarding the text as a work of Buddhist doctrine or philosophy--as is generally the case in studies of Nagarjuna--I treat it in the spirit of a Zen koan, which provokes intuitions of the sublime by forcibly challenging entrenched opinions about ourselves and the world. Life Is life what drives me? Whether constant or fleeting, Drives are not alive like life. How am I alive? When I cannot be found Inside this mind or body, Who is there to be alive? If I survived by clinging on To thoughts and feelings, How could I evolve? Without clinging or evolving, Who can be alive? If I came and went, How could I be freed? If clinging binds, I who cling would be unbound Like those who do not cling. How is it I am trapped? Neither bound nor unbound are free-- Were the bound to be freed, Freedom and bondage Would be simultaneous. " I am free! I cling no more! Liberation is mine!"-- The greatest clinging Is to cling like this. What do you think Of a freedom that never happens? What do you make Of a life that won't go away? Hello saloners, maybe I can manage to post a verse a day for a while since I finally finished the muffler and wheel bearing work on my mazda 323, class of '88. What do you make of a car that won't go away? Some of the verses sound to me like Dan B. wrote/translated them. John To from this mailing list, send email to:<NondualitySalon>Leave body of message blank. Terms of Service. Attachment: (image/gif) Blank Bkgrd.gif [not stored] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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