The Expression of Cyclical-Universal Understanding Inherent in the Mlamadhyamakikrik by Ngrjuna - Essay Example

Prof’s The Expression of Cyclical-Universal Understanding Inherent in the Mulamadhyamakikarika by Nagarjuna Every philosophy is in some way indebted to or tied to the basic understandings of the universe that it or its culture understands. Essentially, basic knowledge is something that is nearly impossible to get, so every world view relies on a series of premises without which that philosophy will not make sense. For instance, Western scientific philosophy relies on the idea that the universe is governed by rational laws that can be categorized and understood, or, put another way, that in the exact same circumstance two different things will never happen. The philosophers who ascribe to this position do so without having real proof: certainly in many cases it seems to be true that the same thing will always happen in identical conditions, say, a sound will always travel at the speed of sound through a certain medium. On the other hand, there are documented limitations to this understanding: in quantum mechanics, scientists can have exactly the same circumstances, and only predict a probability of results. They argue this away by indicating that there was probably something different in the circumstances that cannot be effectively observed, but the bottom line is that this philosophy inherently rests on an unproven assumption, without which it cannot stand. It is thus always interesting to analyze the fundamental premises on which a major work of thought is based. Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakikarik, the foundational text of “Middle Way” Buddhism, demonstrates all the hallmarks of the best Buddhist thinking: a unique combination of logic and spirituality, a peace with subjectivity and so on. But it, like every work of philosophy, rests on an un-provable premise, without which its arguments largely fail. IN the case of Mulamadhyamakikarik, one such fundamental premise is that the universe is cyclical in nature. One of the central arguments of this text is that nothing has its own nature, or essence, that derives from circumstance, something that obviously everything must do to exist (Nagarjuna). Nagarjuna begins establishing this argument from the very opening lines of his text: that “for neither an existent nor a non-existant thing / is a condition appropriate. If a thing is non-existent, how could it have a condition? / if a thing is already existent, what would a condition do?” (Nagarjuna 1.6). This is essentially a play on the idea of conditional existence: obviously everything has a conditional existence (a bird would not exist if its mother did not lay an egg, for instance), and yet that conditional existence implies the possibility of the non-existence of the thing, which obviously cannot be, because the thing is. Similarly, the condition of a non-extant thing’s existence is obviously of no importance, as the thing does not exist. He then uses this comfort in comparing the conditionality of existent and non-existent things to describe how the conditionality of existence essentially negates a thing having its own essence, separate from another thing – so everything can exist, but everything that exists is essentially the same (Nagarjuna). This philosophy thus earns the name “The Middle Way” because it forges a practical middle road between the two extremes of Buddhist thought: that everything exists, or that nothing does. Nagarjuna’s argument that nothing has its own separate, distinct essence serves as the central argument of this work. But this essential argument rests fundamentally on the idea of a cyclical universe, something inherent to all Buddhist thinking. Nagarjuna expresses this Buddhist idea of the infinity in the opening lines of his text: “Neither from itself, nor from another, / Nor from both, / nor without a cause, / does anything whatever, anywhere arise” (Nagarjuna 1.1). This demonstrates the idea of the infinite being a circle, as opposed to an expanse as imagined in Western thought. That is, obviously things are – or at least, according to the Middle Way system of thought, they probably are. But nothing can arise from itself, nor from something else entirely, without some kind of creation-type energy that does not seem to exist. Thus, obviously the nature of the universe has always been of an infinite loop, without original cause or cessation necessarily. It is within this school of thought that Nagarjuna’s theory of essences inherently relies. In the understanding of everything coming from something else, and causing something else, in an infinite loop, then the nature of all things, that is the essence of all things, is inherently interrelated. The essence of one thing must thus come from the essence of another, and so on, without being able to be separated in its entirety, because in a closed system there is no opportunity for a change in essence. Different understandings of the universe, however, would lead to very different understandings of essence. For instance, if one imagines the universe in a linear way, with a creation and an end, then there is room for essence to change. This type of thinking is exemplified by Western scientific thought. The big bang is the moment when nothing began to become something. Inorganic chemicals became organic chemicals, which became life, and so on, and eventually the universe may lose all of its energy, and collapse again, representing another essence. A linear-universe allows for essence change. Similarly, followers of western religious philosophy, who believe in creationism, for instance, imagine an active creating force (God), who has creates perpetual essence changes – first creating something from nothing, then creating humans, and other animals, leading to very real essence changes from his creative ability. Thus Nagarjuna’s arguments about essences only function in an infinite-cyclic understanding of the universe, functioning much more poorly in a linear universe, or a universe with perpetual creative ability. One of the beautiful things about philosophy is that there is not ever truly a right or wrong – there are things that are internally consistent, ideas that stand up better to criticism and so on, but nothing can be definitively said to be true. Each philosophy thus relies on a series of premises that are assumed by their creator – this is not a flaw, simply the nature of the argument. And it is clear that Nagarjuna relies on a cyclical universe. Works Cited Nagarjuna. Mulamadhyamakikarika. Jay L. Garfield, Trans. Read More