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The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika
 
 
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The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika (Paperback)

by Nagarjuna (Author), Jay L. Garfield (Translator) "1. Neither from itself nor from another, Nor from both, Nor without a cause, Does anything whatever, anywhere arise ..." (more)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: OUP USA (18 Jan 1996)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0195093364
  • ISBN-13: 978-0195093360
  • Product Dimensions: 19.8 x 13.5 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 133,549 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #99 in  Books > Religion & Spirituality > Other Religions > Eastern Mystical Philosophy

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Product Description

Review

A brilliant translation and commentary on the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna.

Garfield's work is a major contribution that will be of benefit to students and scholars of philosophy interested in Buddhist thought. (Transcendent Philosophy )


Product Description

* A new translation from the Tibetan, with a verse-by-verse philosophical commentary in English Mulamadhyamakakarika is the foundational text for all Mahayana Buddhism and is one of the most influential works in the history of Indian philosophy.
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1. Neither from itself nor from another, Nor from both, Nor without a cause, Does anything whatever, anywhere arise. Read the first page
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24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Thorough and Thoughtful Commentary of Iconic Work, 25 Feb 2006
The book's title begins with the word "Fundamental", and for Tibetan Buddhism or the related forms of buddhism such as Zen, it certainly is. The book was written by tibetan monk Nagarjuna over 1000 years ago on the buddhist idea of "emptiness" or emptiness of inherent existence, which reaches to the top and bottom of buddhist philosophy.

The book is split into 2 halves - the first is the translation in full, the second is the translation plus commentary by Garfield at the end of each chapter. Unless you have an IQ reaching into the upper reaches of the galaxy, then like me you will only be able to read this book via the commentary. It is an extremely difficult book and subject to get your head around (initially), but I really need to qualify that with a few things.

1. The main reason it is so difficult is the main reason for the book existing, or buddhism existing. The whole idea behind buddhism is that we are mistaken in our views of the world and reality, and all the training is to lead us to give up these mistaken views. Imagine trying to get a very stubborn and unreasonable person who believes their head has fallen off to see that it hasn't. The book contains the arguments that the head hasn't fallen off, which obviously is tough for the headless one to understand!

2. This book is dealing with the 3rd and final stage of mental training in buddhism, understanding reality, therefore it is not for novices, and you need to be concentrated and determined as well as have a good grounding in the general ideas of buddhism and meditation.

That is not to say it's not a good book, or that it's not worth the effort! It is one of my favourites, but I started off reading a page at a time and sometimes thinking for days over a paragraph and it's meaning before I could venture onwards.

Garfield's commentary is helpful (without it Nagarjuna's writings would be impenetrable), he has obviously worked hard to make the subject's writing lucid but made his own commentary more difficult by using
philisophical jargon and obscure (to me) words. Having to use an encyclopaedia to understand the commentary with an already difficult subject was irritating. This is where it loses a star.

In my view, Nagarjuna must have been an intellectual collossus. The arguments within the book are so deeply thought out, every twist and turn, argument and counter argument has been covered, that I really am simply amazed when I read it or even think about it. Think Einstein and beyond. Physicists would certainly do well to read the chapter on Motion (I studied physics at university so it was of much interest).

Overall, this is a book for study and thought, and is really only for more advanced practitioners but will bring rewards for anyone who puts in the effort.

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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Well worth the time ... but may not always seem so, 10 Nov 2007
By calmly - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
Before you stare at a wall to practice suchness, you may want to spend some time acquainting yourself with this philosophical presentation that justifies your practice.

It will be no easy task. Both Nagarjuna's text and Garfield's commentary are challenging: I'm sure that would be true for the Western philosophers Garfield's commentary is targeted to and it certainly was for me as a lay person. But I persisted in what often seemed repetitious and tedious to find enough interspersed wisdom to make my patient reading worthwhile. This is not a book I could comfortably have browsed. Without Garfield's commentary, I might have quickly read over Nagarjuna's verses and believed I had understood much of it. Despite much that seemed cryptic, I'd have thought myself well educated in dependent origination, impermanence, emptiness, the self and other key Buddhist concepts. But, if I did that, I may have missed about 99% of what Garfield found therein.

A Sanskrit text by Nagarjuna translated into Tibetan and then into English by Garfield. A commentary informed by a tradition of Tibetan teachings. Understandings which may enrich one's meditation ... on emptiness. It is humbling to consider that Nagarjuna composed his verses in India about the 2nd century A.D. Such a thorough and penetrating analysis must have resulted from many challenges from others. That it holds up is something worth ... experiencing as one reads Nagarjuna and Garfield.

Nagarjuna's text is presented by itself, then again interspersed wihin Garfield's commentary. Garfield proceeds very precisely, keeping his interpretations closely tied to the verses at hand. Together they offer a tour de force in Buddhist philosophy. If you read this book and later hear someone say, as if it were a complete thought, that the self is an illusion, you should understand much better what the too often unstated context for such a statement is.

There are many valuable lessons: about the lack of inherent existence, interdependence, conventional and ultimate truth, dependent origination of all phenomena, the emptiness of even emptiness, even dependent origination as dependently originated, reification, of the self as a conventional designation. There are conclusions I found profound such as that "the conventional nature of conventional entities and their emptiness are one and the same". That "to say of a thing that is dependently arisen is to say that its identity as a single entity is nothing more than being the reference of a word", i.e. that its identity "depends upon verbal convention". Do I follow that? One problem may be that at the time I read such lines I may think I do but a short while later, I've lost it. This is not a book I would want to be tested on anytime soon after finishing it. I don't know when I will be ready for such a test. The answers may not be found through further study of the text and commentary but through meditation ... or perhaps some of both.

I recommend going back over after a first reading and making notes. Even then, it may take ... years ... lifetimes? ... for everything taught in here to sink in, but the intent is to enable you to internalize the teachings presented here through meditation so that it becomes more than philosophy but a way to live. A tall order but that is what Buddhist meditative practice, properly understand, seems to be.

I do feel I understand better from this reading, if only a little better, why meditation seems warranted. Being a less confused about that seems worthwhile.
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0 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Reading booking, 18 April 2008
This book tells you everything you have to forget if you want to "get anywhere" in meditation. That's the fundamental wisdom of the middle way. Read it if you don't believe it.
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