Mon, 17 Aug 2009
Why We Need Nagarjuna
I've been debating the merits of a new translation of Nagarjuna's Fundamental Treatise on the Middle Way and some people asked why it was imprtant. Why isn't it enough to just meditate. If you only want to meditate, that's fine as far as it goes. But the problem is that you are practicing with a selfish motivation. The cause of our problems is our afflictive emotions and sitting with a selfish cannot transform it, because it falls into the same pattern as the rest of our lives. So Buddhism teaches cutting off what is unhelpful and cultivating what is helpful. We learn to distinguish the two through the dharma. It is the study and contemplation of the dharma which makes one a Buddhist and not only the practice of meditation. The understanding that samsara and nirvana are not two is essential to the bodhisattva's path, so that htey neither cling to or reject phenomena. As Gampopa explains in the Jewel Ornament, if one clings, one falls to the side of samsara and if one rejects, one falls into the one sided nirvana of extinction. This is expressed in the Heart Sutra when it says, "form is emptiness and emptiness is form." But the Heart Sutra simply asserts this and does not explain why it is so. Nagarjuna explains how samsara and nirvana, apparently opposites, are by nature the same, it's his purpose in writing the Fundamental Treatise. And understanding this on the intellectual level keeps you from deviating in your meditation practice, so that eventually you see it in your practice.
