/lit/ - Literature

>Nagarjuna's claim that emptiness does not entail nihilism, because emptiness means simply that entities lack independent existence, is untenable. Nagarjuna's superficially convincing argument completely fails to address the real criticism which his opponents are making of his philosophy. Nagarjuna does not in fact deny only that there are independently existing entities. Nagarjuna denies also that there are any entities which arise independently of conceptual construction. Nagarjuna's opponents do not think that the universal dependent origination of entities would result in nihilism. But they do consider that, if all entities were to have, as Nagarjuna contends, conceptually constructed existence, then nihilism would indeed be entailed.

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>But it is not just that the notion that all entities are conceptual constructs precludes the possibility of a public world, and hence of compassionate activity. In addition, it would appear that Nagarjuna's opponents are right, after all, to accuse Nagarjuna of nihilism. For Nagarjuna is not merely saying- despite his apparent claims to the contrary- that entities are dependently originating, but further that all entities are entirely conceptually constructed. But if all entities are entirely conceptually constructed, then there can be nothing unconstructed out of which conceptually constructed entities can be constructed. And if there is nothing unconstructed out of which the conceptually constructed entities are constructed, then these conceptually constructed entities cannot exist. Conceptually constructed entity z might be constructed on the basis of y. Y might also be constructed on the basis of x. And so on. But at some point this regress must stop. Not everything can be a product of conceptual construction, because 'conceptual construction' requires a basis or material which is not itself conceptually constructed. To claim otherwise would be to advocate that the entire world is created ex nihilo!

I really love reading about eastern religion, admitedly more for the aesthetics of it. I've already read "The Way and the Mountain" by Marco Pallis but I want to start reading more primary source stuff. The problem is that so much of the philosophy feels very obscure and difficult like pic related and I'm not familiar enough with all the Buddhist tradition to just jump in randomly to some modern thinker. I've read parts of the Pali canon but nothing in the period when the Mahayana sect (for lack of a better term) began to fully take shape.

What should I read as a result?