Mahayanavimsaka of Nagarjuna

[Guest guest]

Hi ,

 

A recent dialogue else where may have hold some interest for you.

 

Cheers

 

Sandeep

 

-----------------------

Hi Linda,

 

If the thirst is real in you Linda, have a look....

 

This prattling took place in a List where there are number of German origin people, discussing their sense of shame for the World War II and the holocausts, and the role of their parents in all that.

And then somebody brought up the saying of a great mystic Nagarjuna and since the language used was relatively difficult, wanted a more easier to understand commentary.

 

Also if you feel like, send it to Joanne and whoever else who you feel, felt "benefited" from Sandeep's prattlings on the ACIM List.

 

Cheers

 

Sandeep

-----

 

Sandeep:

Somebody (Victor???) wanted this in plain English or something to thatextent.A conceptual two bit attempt.........

This is a rarely seen text of extreme nondualism: -----------------------Mahayanavimsaka of NagarjunaADORATION TO THE THREE TREASURES

1I make my obeisance to the Buddha who is wise, free fromall attachment, and whose powers are beyond conception, andwho has kindly taught the truth which cannot be expressedby words.

A painting of the sky, even if the painter is Leonardo da Vinci, is neverTHE sky.It is "about" the sky, a version.And all versions are bound, limited, "dead".And yet it is only the conceptual, phenomenal context that communication(with words or otherwise) is possible, ergo, the communication itself isconceptual, no matter who the communicator is.2

In the transcendental truth there is no origination(utpada), and in fact, there is no destruction (nirodha).Nothing has ever happened, existentially speaking.In a dream, there is origination, there is destruction, there is movement,there is change, there is becoming and there is unbecoming.There is chaos and out of chaos, stars are born, black holes formed.There are World Wars, there are holocausts, there is shame of thevanquished, there is pride of the victor, there are Mother Theresas and thepride of charity.All nuances of the dream.Wake up in the morning sipping a cup of tea, the issues of the dream, thegreat ethos and pathos, are they of any import?Did they really occur?The Buddha is like the sky (which has neither originationnor cessation), and the beings are like him, and thereforethey are of the same nature.That from which the dream manifested can neither originate or cease.From a conceptual, phenomenal context any reference to that, any attempt todepict that, can only be a painting of the sky, hence conceptual.And yet the "wave" as an symbol of the illusory phenomenal world, when youpick up a wave in your hand, all you get is water.The illusory mirage is nothing but the sun's rays.This illusory phenomenal world is not different or apart to that whichmanifests it.It is an objective expression of what can be called as pure subjectivity.Potentiality actualizing it's potentiality.They are not two and are thus of the same nature, same essence.3

There is no birth either on this or the other side (of the world).

When nothing has ever happened, what birth, what death.A compound thing (samskrta) originates from itsconditions.A dance.The dance is a dance, because a dancer is dancing.The dancer is a dancer because a dance has come to be.Where is the separation between the two?Potentiality actualizing it's innate potentiality, not as something separateto it, but itself appears to itself, without any change to itself.Therefore it is sunya by its nature.The term "sunya" has been much mis-understood to mean "dead nothingness"Since nothing has ever happened, a conceptual terminology used is sunyatta,but a sunyatta of total potentiality.This factcomes into the range of knowledge of an omniscient one.In a conceptual entity, the apperception of the true identity may "occur".Not as an act of will, but through pure non-volitionality on part of theconceptual entity.4 All things by nature are regarded as reflections.

As appearances in Consciousness.They arepure and naturally quiescent, devoid of any duality, equal,and remain always and in all circumstances in the same way(tathata).Tathata means "Isness".There is an "isness" in all things, to all objects within a dream.An object in a dream cannot follow any other allotted role except it's"isness".Like wise the conceptual entity which has assumed on itself the mantle ofbeing a subject to all the object he/she observes, is itself an object whichcan do nothing but follow it's "isness".A conceptual entity, a biological computer that we are, has no volition butto follow the program of it's isness.So if shame is arising at this moment, if great profound thoughts ofnon-duality are arising at this moment, or you are busy cutting the throatof an innocent bystander, the conceptual entity is just following it's"isness".The consequences of the enactment of the "isness", faced by that conceptualentity is also entirely as per the "isness" of what it is to be.5In fact, worldings attribute atman to what is not atman,Atman or soul, is just the ego's attempts to perpetuate itself.Seeing the temporal nature of the current identity, the body-mind complex,it latches on to a more permanent option, Atman , which it expects to lastfew lifetimes.,<s>and in the same way they imagine happiness, misery,indifference, passions and liberation.The need to be, by the conceptual entity, thereby establishing that it issomething apart from a mere cognized object, is just the "me-entity" or"personal doership" in operation.With this "entitification", the pandora Box of happiness (which immediatelygives birth to what misery is supposed to be), indifference (whichimmediately gives birth to what passion is supposed to be), liberation(which immediately gives birth to what bondage is supposed to be), thePandora Box is open.And thus the "me-entity" suffers or is happy, for it sees that sometimes theactions which it believes it is taking, gets it what it hoped to get in thefirst place (and hence it is happy) and sometimes it doesn't (and hence itsuffers).The "me-entity" further realizes that there is no guarantee as to which ofit's actions will produce what and that the Life it knows is totallyuncertain, death may occur for no reason or rhyme.And thus is born the sense of "insecurity" which in turn drives it's seekingof solace, consolations or icons of security like ACIM, Meditation, the HolyBible/Gita/Koran, or a Guru, or in today's times, Web based Lists whichdiscusses/debates such spiritual matters.It seeks to dis-identify with the body because it sees the temporal frailtyand looks for more permanent solutions, like identifying with the HolySpirit, Consciousness, God, whatever.Anything which can assuage the insecurity.And the joke is that when and if the recognition takes place, occurs, thereis no recognizer left, to affirm, confirm or validate.That is why statements like the I am the Holy Spirit, Consciousness, etc areoxymoron statements.The question then that arises is why does this me-entity come to be in thefirst place.First of all, it does not come to be, it appears to be in operation, like amirage.It appears to be, so that a "me and 'you" appears to come to be and Life ,which is only a complex of multitude relationships between a "me" and "you",Life comes to be.Without the "me and the 'you, the duality of this me/you, Life cannot be aswe know it.For this dialogue which is part of Life, there has to be a "Sandeep" andanother who is not-Sandeep and then the game of dialogue can merrily carryon.Whereas the truth is that it is really Consciousness dialoguing thisparticular EMail based conversation with Consciousness.6 - 7Birth in the six realms of existence in the world, highesthappiness in the heaven, great pain in the hell,--these donot come within the perview of truth (i.e. cannot beaccepted as true); nor do the notions that unmeritoriousactions lead to the extreme misery, old age, disease, anddeath, and meritorious actions surely bring about goodresults.Good actions, bad actions, doing, not-doing, believing, not believing, allissues of the dream.Waking up, sip the cup of tea.It is owing to false notions that beings are consumed byfire of passions even as a forest is burnt by forestconflagration and fall into the hells, etc.A conceptual entity, a dreamed character, has the false notion that he orshe IS, to feel shame, or that it was my Dad's doing so what the hell, andhence is subject to Heaven and Hell, both states being part of the dream.As illusionprevails so do beings make their appearance. The world isillusory and it exists only on account of its cause andconditions.The world (cognized) exists because an illusory congnizer is around tocognize it.If nobody heard, did the tree fall in the forest goes a famous Zen kaon.8As a painter is frightened by the terrible figure of aYaksa which he himself has drawn, so is a fool frightenedin the world (by his own false notions).The cognized and the cognizer are both illusions, hence can there be anycognition whether of fear or joy?9

Even as a fool going himself to a quagmire is drownedtherein, so are beings drowned in the quagmire of falsenotions and are unable to come out thereof.So long there is a seeking for liberation, a doing towards seeking, theseeker fundamentally pre-supposes that he or she is bound.The seeking and the pre-supposition are two sides of the same coin.Can't have one without the other.Like a shadow.And thus all seeking is trying to stamp out your own shadow.10 The feeling of misery is experienced by imagining a thing where in fact it has no existence. Beings are tortured by the poison of false notions regarding the object and its knowledge.Objects in a dream, with it great ethos and pathos.Waking up in the morning, sip your cup of tea.11

Seeing these helpless beings with a compassionate heart oneshould perform the practices of the highest knowledge(bodhicarya) for the benefit of them.That is why speech takes place by the ones who know, knowing that any speechis a corruption, falsity.12Having acquired requisites thereby and gettingunsurpassable bodhi one should become a Buddha, the friendof the world, being freed from the bondage of falsenotions.Phenomena is just the objective expression of that which IS.Knowing it is a illusion, fully participate in it, if that is what comes up,fully withdraw, when that comes up and vice-versa.No rejection, no acceptance.13He who realizes the transcendental truth knowing thepratityasamutpada (or the manifestation of entitiesdepending on their causes and conditions), knows the worldto be sunya and devoid of beginning, middle or end.Nothing ever happened.14The samsara and nirvana are mere appearances; the truth isstainless, changeless, and quiescent from the beginning andillumined.Nothing ever happened, yet that which-is, IS.15

The object of knowledge in dream is not seen when oneawakes.Because the one who wakes up, does not consider himself/herself to be merelyanother object.Thus while the sleep-dream is understood, but not this waking dream.Similarly the world disappears to him who isawakened from the darkness of ignorance.In deep sleep, all your profanities and all your profoundities, all yourrelationships and all your ethos and pathos, all are no more, as temporarilyyou the "me-entity" are no more.The creation of illusion is nothing but illusion. Wheneverything is compound there is nothing which can beregarded as a real thing. Such is the nature of all things.Nothing has ever happened.Happenings are only with the conceptual context of space and time, whichthemselves are conceptual constructs.16One having origination (jati) does not originate himself.Origination is a false conception of the people. Suchconceptions and (conceived) beings, these two are notreasonable.When nothing has happened, there is no origination, there is no cessation.17All this is nothing but mind (citta) and exists just likean illusion. Hence originate good and evil actions and fromthem good and evil birth.Good, Bad, Evil, all dynamics of the dream, within a dream18When the wheel of the mind is suppressed, all things aresuppressed. Therefore all things are devoid of atman(independent nature), and consequently they are pure.No conceptual entity has volition.19It is due to thinking the things which have no independentnature as eternal, atman, and pleasant that this ocean ofexistence (bhava) appears to one who is enveloped by thedarkness of attachment and ignorance.To a "me-entity", with a sense of personal doership, hence having the issueto become something , enlightened or a buffoon, for this "me-entity" it issubject to the rise and crash of the "wave".20Who can reach the other side of the great ocean of samsarawhich is full of water of false notions without gettinginto the great vehicle (i.e., Mahayana) ?Without apperception of the truth, all doing is round and round the mulberrybush.After apperception, who is to do what?

There is no coming and going, no flip-flopHow can these false notions arise in a man who thoroughlyknows this world which has originated from ignorance?Once the apperception "occurs", where is the "me-entity" left to have anynotions, right or wrong?Dobeee Dobeee DoooooSandeep