/lit/ - Literature

Christ is king

>>22121535
>Christ
Literally who?

>>22121433
>In fact you find the exact same tetralemma/catuskoti used in the Pali canon by the Buddha himself (fire analogy of nirvana sutta and malunkya sutta).
that's false. Logic is useless in buddhism and the tetralemma is only in hinduism, jainism and whatever garbage mahayana is. Using logic prevents those people to get fully enlightened by the way.

>>22121433
>Nagarjuna's mulamadhyamakakarika, Vigrahavyavartani and sunyatasaptati are closer to early Buddhist teachings eg atthakavagga or than any Theravada additions like that of Buddhaghosa or the Abhidhamma OR any mahayanist additions like dharmakaya or bodhisattva vows.
Again false, Nagarjuna claims that arahants are not fully enlightened, whereas the Buddha claims that arahants are fully enlightened.
And the Buddha says he is an arahant himself by the way.
Nagarjuna's diarrhea claims that karma is not born from condition, whereas the Buddha claims that karma is born from conditions.

>>22121645
>Nagarjuna claims that arahants are not fully enlightened, whereas the Buddha claims that arahants are fully enlightened.
You're confusing Nagarjuna for Mahayana Sutras. Nagarjuna doesn't talk about this and Kalupahana even believes he was probably a theravadan

>>22121645
>that's false
Check the sutta then you'll see Buddha using it

>>22121433
i was wondering where this shitposter went

>>22122160
How is he doing lately? Has his channel grown? I am not much into youtubers or streamers but I liked his stuff

>>22122214
Not a refutation
>>22122160
He's based for some of his doctrinal takes re: the atthakavagga but I think he's also evidence that being a chud won't lead to enlightenment

>>22122269
He seemed to be doing well enough last time I talked to him.

>>22122289
>I think he's also evidence that being a chud won't lead to enlightenment
lol
that's true though, caring about society and views about mundaneness is a major obstacle to develop sila, and that's just the first step on the path.
Atheists have hyped so much the infatuation of the plebs with politics, that people can't even think it's possible, let alone okay, not to care about that

>>22122289
>Not a refutation
If you are looking for a refutation of Nagarjuna's philosophical method (ie his attacks on other views), it has already been done conclusively by Richard Robinson in his article "Did Nagarjuna Really Refute all Views?"

>>22122901
I'm looking for a refutation for 'Nagarjuna's work being in line with canon'

>>22123116
>I'm looking for a refutation for 'Nagarjuna's work being in line with canon'
Robinson doesn't find Nagarjuna's usage of Sunyata to match up with Buddha's usage of it in the Pali Canon, where it's used to refer either a state of mind or of something lacking a self, but is not used in the sense of something lacking svabhava or its own unique nature or own-being (which is not automatically synonymous with lacking a self unless one is question-begging), he says that the Nagarjunian concept was partially influenced by the Hindu Grammarian Panini's invention on 0 (shunya) in 400 BC but this influence wasn't present for Buddha who used Shunyata differently.

>Sunyata is a concept that appears in the Sutra Pitaka but that was generally ignored by the Abhidharma systematizers. In the Sutra it meant two things:
(1) a mode of perception in which nothing is added to or subtracted from the actual data perceived, the highest form of sunyata being nirvana as experienced in the present life (M.121); and (2) the lack of self or anything pertaining to a self in the six senses and their objects (S.XXXV.85). In other words, sunyata was both a mode of perception and an attribute of the objects perceived. The early Mahayana texts adopted both aspects of the concept but combined it with changes in the concept of sunya (empty) that had occurred since the Parinirvana. In the fourth century B.C.E., the grammarian Panini had developed the concept of zero (also sunya) to symbolize empty but functioning positions in his analysis of Sanskrit grammar (he proposed that every word was composed of a root and a suffix, so that words without suffixes actually had the zero suffix). Mathematicians eventually borrowed the concept to supply an essential principle of the decimal notation we use today: that a place in a system may be empty (such as the zeros in 10,000) but can still function in relationship to the rest of the system. Early Mahayana thinkers combined the linguistic and early Buddhist concepts of sunya to attack the notion, maintained by the Sthaviravadin and Sarvastivadin Abhidharmists, among others, that the irreducible dharmas forming the ultimate building blocks of experience were each endowed with svabhava: their own particular being or nature. Actually, the Mahayanists claimed, dharmas were empty of svabhava.

That's more of a critique against the normative reading of Nagarjuna as being representative of Buddha's teaching. A critique of the normative reading of Nagarjuna itself as being not actually reflective of Nagarjuna's intent is found in Dolpopa's work 'Mountain Doctrine' that was translated by Hopkins where Dolpopa uses scriptural quotations and prasangika to argue that "Thusness" has to be understood as supramundane other-emptiness and not as all phenomena's emptiness of their own entities, because if it is understood as referring to all phenomena's emptiness of their own entities then too many absurd and illogical consequences follows.

What is the best translation/edition of the Madhyamayakakarotparappatherappa?

>>22123116
David Reynolds, who was a Mahathera and as such literally an authority on the subject, has gone over this. The tl;dr is that the MMK as a tool ("Nagarjuna is a man who wants silence and thus says 'shhhh'") is in line with the Pali Canon where the Buddha himself uses stuff like the tetralemma. This makes sense as Nagarjuna would have been aware of many of the texts in the Pali Canon.

great thread. I thought of sunyata this way: the core concept can be found in the Pali Canon, while Nagarjuna adds something, that maybe was part of some oral tradition of Early Buddhism.

>>22122901
>by Richard Robinson
he died in 1970, his views on Nagarjuna are outdated and already refuted by Westerhoff

>>22121433
Can anyone comment on the muhatabarayahta? After reading the buddhabarmadin it sparked my interest

>>22123940

>he died in 1970, his views on Nagarjuna are outdated and already refuted by Westerhoff
I have seen Westerhoff write absurd and illogical things in other contexts and am highly doubtful of that claim. Are you claiming that Westerhoff refuted Robinson's specific article debunking some of Nagarjuna's arguments or his overall view on Nagarjuna's philosophy? "Refuting" the latter doesn't refute Robinson's specific debunking of Nagarjuna's arguments since in that paper it just examines the bare logical structure of the argument themselves without imputing any greater philosophical project or thesis to Nagarjuna. It exposes the arguments themselves as being fundamentally fallacious and sophistic.

>>22123116
>I'm looking for a refutation for 'Nagarjuna's work
refuting Nagarjuna would imply proving that an essence exist outside of reality, and that's pretty much impossible without begging the question, since you're inside reality and all you can do is speculate about essences and uncaused causes but never arive to a conclusive proof or argument in favour of those things

>>22123309
you’ll want swami churundipanishadmayarama, he’s got the best translation of the Madhyamayakakarotparappatherappa

>>22123296
>Robinson doesn't find Nagarjuna's usage of Sunyata to match up with Buddha's usage of it in the Pali Canon, where it's used to refer either a state of mind or of something lacking a self, but is not used in the sense of something lacking svabhava or its own unique nature or own-being (which is not automatically synonymous with lacking a self unless one is question-begging), he says that the Nagarjunian concept was partially influenced by the Hindu Grammarian Panini's invention on 0 (shunya) in 400 BC but this influence wasn't present for Buddha who used Shunyata differently.
that doesn't refute Nagarjuna's system tho, we all know Nagarjuna expanded the notion of anatta, but that doesn't mean that Budhha's anatta can't be applied to metaphysical objects since Buddha never refuted that notion, only the Abidarmakas decided that a substratum to reality should exist as a dhamma, svabahava or sunyata both are notions articulated centuries after buddhas death since Buddha himself didn't care all that much about metaphysics

>>22123983
>that doesn't refute Nagarjuna's system tho
I didn't say that it refuted Nagarjuna's system, that quote is from another book by Robinson called "The Buddhist Religion" and it isn't from the article where Robinson refutes Nagarjuna's arguments (which isn't the same as refuting his system unless you believe that these same arguments establish or prove his system by implication in which case fault in the arguments transfers over to the system being faulty).

>>22123983
>we all know Nagarjuna expanded the notion of anatta, but that doesn't mean that Budhha's anatta can't be applied to metaphysical objects since Buddha never refuted that notion,
Whether or not Buddha saw anatta as having the consequence that things lack svabhava is what is actually in question (he may not have), since Buddha doesn't use sunyata in this latter sense of "lacking svabhava" that later became popular with Madhyamaka. Abhidharmins would disagree that applying anatta to objects negates their svabhava or demonstrates their lack of it.

>>22123998
again Buddha never said that anatta couldn't be applied to metaphysical entities, so just saying that sunyata has multiple meanings dont' do much to refute any of Nagarjuna's arguments, buddha itself use polysemic word on his rethoric all the time, dhamma being a perfect example

>>22124019
>again Buddha never said that anatta couldn't be applied to metaphysical entities, so just saying that sunyata has multiple meanings dont' do much to refute any of Nagarjuna's arguments
I didn't say that this refuted Nagarjuna's arguments. As I have already explained once already in this thread, Richard Robinson refutes Nagarjuna's arguments directly in his article "Did Nagarjuna Really Refute All Views?", Robinson does this by directly showing how the logical structures of a number of Nagarjuna's arguments involve easily-identifiable logical fallacies.

This has nothing to do with Robinson's separate observations, published in another text entirely, that Nagarjuna uses "shunyata" differently than Buddha. Robinson's refutations of Nagarjuna's arguments are entirely independent of disputation over the meaning and usage of "shunyata". I already explained this yet you appear confused and seem to think that arguing about the usage of the word is meant to refute his arguments.

>>22123296
>is found in Dolpopa's work
Dolpopa is Shentong bullshit tho, you can't expect a unbiased analysis of Madhyamaka from a Shentong crypto-essentialist
>because if it is understood as referring to all phenomena's emptiness of their own entities then too many absurd and illogical consequences follows.
only if you already take for granted a essentialist framework as true, which Nagarjuna refutes, so all those "critics" are full of petitio principii fallacies and a dogmatic view of "logic"

>>22124042
>, Robinson does this by directly showing how the logical structures of a number of Nagarjuna's arguments involve easily-identifiable logical fallacies.

yeah but all of those are just missreadings of the arguments, most of the times he (and everyone who thinks Nagarjuna is doing a logical fallacy)just thinks Nagarjuna is refering to the same object when in reality he's showing how what we belive is the same object in reality are different logical formulations, and the rare exception is just a mistake in logical analisis, tryign to use propositional logic instead of many-valued or other logical systems to understand Nagarjuna's arguments

I don't understand why so many people who proclaim to be Dharma brothers and sisters quarrel with each other based on their lineage. Buddhavaccana doesn't mean literally spoken by the Buddha, it means anything that accords with the Dharma and is conductive towards enlightenment.

>>22124188
>Dharma brothers and sisters quarrel with each other based on their lineage
easy answer, they're not, they're Guenonfags that are triggered by Nagarjuna's anti-essentialist philosophy because it goes against their advanta paradigm(ironic since advaita itself is in many ways an offspring of madhyamaka thanks to gaudapada) i know this because guenonfags always cite the same 3 authors and the same 3 papers

>>22124188
>Buddhavaccana doesn't mean literally spoken by the Buddha, it means anything that accords with the Dharma and is conductive towards enlightenment.
that's exactly the mahayana propaganda to pass as truth that
-the buddha lied in the suttas
(then the mahayanists also want the very few suttas allegedly agreeing with them to be true lol)
- rejecting the claims of the buddha as smart
-shitting on arahants all the time as some super virtue
-embracing their destruction of buddhism as the only way

And by the way you can ask why mahayanists can't be honest intellectually.
Why do they need to cling to t their vicious narrative, self aggrandizing, and narcissistic.
Why can't they acknowledge that their preaching is just not the one of the buddha?
Why do they crave for passing as buddhists and seethe as soon they are told they are full of it and they were even kicked out of Sri lanka thousands of years ago exactly for this?

>>22124210
Guenonclowns are always on the ropes once Madhyamakachads start posting

>>22121535
There can be multiple kings.
:)

>>22124240
>embracing their destruction of buddhism as the only way
You're right of course, the whole point of "Buddhism" is to cling to "Buddhism" and the Mahayanists have no point whatsoever in their polemic

>>22124066
You are just giving vague half-excuses while not actually engaging with any of the arguments Robinson makes and not actually showing how anything he said is wrong. Robinson clearly identifies logical fallacies in Nagarjuna’s arguments, no amount of desperate coping by you can change this. The mature response is to not be in denial over this but to accept it (because its true), but this doesn’t mean you have to give up on Madhyamaka, only that those specific arguments should be recognized as fallacious because they are.

>>22124378
Lol, why would that be the case when most of the time they post nonsensical copes?

how you handle buddhism's decline?

>>22124953
>not actually engaging with any of the arguments Robinson makes
i already did, he thinks only in terms of propositional logic ignoring things like many-values logic or paraconsitent logic, not to mention confusing terms and thinking nagarjuna is adressing one thing or mode when in reality he's adressing multiple interdependent modes of reality at the same time, or ignoring when Nagarjuna is doing metalogic instead of logic
the fact that you can't actually engage in my arguments makes me think you're the one who's actually coping

>>22123959
>>22123998
>>22124042
>showing how the logical structures of a number of Nagarjuna's arguments involve easily-identifiable logical fallacies.
this is literally impossible since Nagarjuna didn't create any logical structures on his book, the mulamadhyamakakarika is a "karika" a book of poetic aphorism, they don't posses logical value, they're designed as a memory tool for disciples of the doctrine, his logical system is learn trought the oral tradition, so the only logical arguments you can "refute" are those of his commentators that actually tried to transalte the MMK into logical arguments
>Buddha who used Shunyata differently.
Sunyata can be used in multiple different ways, buddha himself coined 3 different meaning for the term:1) as a meditative dwelling, (2) as an attribute of objects, and (3) as a type of awareness-release.there's no one "true meaning" of the word

>>22124953
>logical fallacies in Nagarjuna’s arguments
Oh boy, I sure hope we consider Nagarjuna's opponents under the same rigor. Logic surely has no premises or goals of its own to advance, it's merely an agnostic analysis of other possible positions. Right? Wait that sounds like...

>>22126390
>i already did, he thinks only in terms of propositional logic ignoring things like many-values logic or paraconsitent logic, not to mention confusing terms and thinking nagarjuna is adressing one thing or mode when in reality he's adressing multiple interdependent modes of reality at the same time, or ignoring when Nagarjuna is doing metalogic instead of logic
You have not given a single example of Robinson doing this. Until you have this is all worthless and insubstantial cope. Do you have any actual real examples that you can cite of him doing this with the exact sentence and page number?

>>22126747
you think i'm gonna waste my time deconstructing an outdated buddhist study from the 60's? there's plenty of literature showing how the approach of Robinson is hermeneutically flawed, you can read Garfield or Westerhoff a continental and a analitical philosopher both specialising in logic, deconstruct Robincosn and most aveage critics of Madhyamaka
and you didn't no example either, the only argument against madhyamaka you mustered is saying that sunyata historically went trought different meanings, which every philosophycal term more or less do

Should I read the Garfield or Siderits translation of Nagarjuna's Maccalaccahaymaccaheinieho? Garfield's is from the Tibetan instead of the Sanskrit but he has more information and interpretation. Should I read Westerhoff first

>>22127282
Garfield is okay but his running commentary is mostly aligned with the Tibetan Gelug and making some labored comparisons to Western ideas. Siderits and Katsura in their much more brief running commentary rely specifically Indian commentaries including Candrakirti (which Gelug school also uses) and Bhaviveka (who the Gelug do not use). Some of that is going to be meaningless to you without further knowledge of Tibetan doxography. Personally I prefer Siderits and Katsura as their running commentary is supplemental rather than nearly its own dissertation. Both are worth reading for completeness, though maybe not consecutively. You should also check out Aryadeva (tr. Sonam)

>>22121433
I feel like I’m in some in between reality where in one hand the books in this thread are made up and on the other hand they are real. It’s disconcerting

It's all suffering isn't it?

>>22124042
>Robinson does this by directly showing how the logical structures of a number of Nagarjuna's arguments involve easily-identifiable logical fallacies.
point out one of the fallacies

>>22127350
There are a number of posters making up names of books but everything in the op are actual Buddhist books in their Sanskrit and Pali names.

Mulamadhyamakakarika: fundamental verses on the middle way
Sunyatasaptati: 70 stanzas on emptiness
Vigrahavyavartani: dispeller of disputation
atthakavagga: chapter of 8s
Malunkya: name of a monk who asked a series of unanswerable questions

>>22124210
>advaita itself is in many ways an offspring of madhyamaka thanks to gaudapada

"Gaudapada here affirms the possibility of intuiting reality beyond all veiling and thus attain an all comprehensive vision in contrast with the self-stultifying desperate negation of all things by means of the critical intellect.
[...]

In a word, his is a supra-mental philosophy failing to see anything positive, negative or even neutral which can be rightly characterized as the essence of things. He considers it only proper to suspend his judgement in the matter. The means of approach, as I have said before, is reason (yukti) aided by intuition (anubhava) of the three states (avasthatraya) on the one side (Vedanta), and critical reason restricted to the waking state on the other (Madhyamaka)." - Mandukya Rahasya Vivrt, SSS

https://archive.org/details/Sachidanandendra_Swamiji_-_Maandukya_Rahasya_Vivrutti/page/n13/mode/2up

I can't follow this conversation. Can I have a list of what to read to understand?

Zen is all you truly need. Practice Zazen instead of attaching to words.

>>22127268
>you think i'm gonna waste my time deconstructing an outdated buddhist study from the 60's? there's plenty of literature showing how the approach of Robinson is hermeneutically flawed
>Robinson's refutation of Nagarjuna's arguments are wrong, and I'm going to make 4 or 5 posts complaining about them, but uhh.. no I dont have any specific examples I can point to where he makes any mistake or gets anything wrong
hilarious cope

>>22121433
asfhaskdjfhjkfasdf fasjkdfaksjdfh asdkjfhaskjdfhkajsdhf in conclusion, asdklfjaskldfjaskldf

>>22128211

>start
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/MN/MN19.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN6_63.html
>middle
https://suttacentral.net/mn148/en/sujato
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN12_51.html
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/AN/AN11_1.html
>finish
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN54_8.html

hey Buddhabros, which one of these two would you recommend as a good primer/intro to Buddhism?

>>22128695
i already explained Robinson's problems with his interpretationof Madhyamaka, just read any segment of the text and apply what i just say, it's not so hard, you'll find that he's aplying only aristotelian logic or he's thinking multiple terms are one and the same, this is specially true on his analisis of how Nagarjuna see svabhava and causality, Westerhoff did a whole lecture on how Robinson and Hayes confuse metalogical with logical ones

>>22130216
>i already explained Robinson's problems
More cope without any specific examples, you are utterly unable to debunk Robinson's refutation of Nagarjuna because you are not citing the specific mistake in any of the actual points Robinson makes; all you are doing is making vague unsourced claims about his analysis or logic without being able to point to any actual sentence or point in his article that demonstrates the fault you are alleging is present.

>yea this guy is wrong and I'm going to write 6 posts saying he's wrong while being too afraid to directly challenge any of his points by actually citing any sentence written by him, you should just trust me that he's wrong despite that I haven't been able to substantiate ONE (1) instance of this
hilarious

what is the link between druidry and buddhism

>>22121433
>makin threads like this
>probably hasn’t even read the Tsong Khapa commentary on Mulamadhyamakakarika
Please tell me this isn’t you OP

>>22130412
>any of the actual points Robinson makes;
okey, give me one of Robinson's point and i'll show you how to apply the logical analysis

>>22130478
anal
—t. buddhist.

>>22130645
>okey, give me one of Robinson's point and i'll show you how to apply the logical analysis

Does Nagarjuna succeed in refuting all views without making any assumptions that are not conceded by the adherents of the particular view under
attack? We can list some axioms upon which his arguments depend, and then go on to inquire how widely others accepted them.

(1) Whatever has extension is divisible, hence is composite, not permanent
and not real.
(la) Corollary: An indivisible, infinitesimal thing could have no extension.

Axiom 1 disagrees with the consensus of all schools, including the sunyavada of the sutras, that akasa is ubiquitous and indivisible. Thus there is at least one entity that is not composite, has extension, and is permanent. Nagarjuna's attempt to demolish the concept of akasa (MK chap. 8) selects the relation of akasa to its laksana as the vulnerable point. But as we will see later, his denial of the entity-attribute relation presupposes his denial of extension and is not admissible until after he has disproved the commonly accepted thesis that akasa is extended and indivisible. If it is admitted that there is one extended, permanent and noncomposite entity, then it is not absurd to hold that there are others. And if extension is admitted, then duration must be admitted, too, since the arguments against duration involve the same operations of segmentation as those against extension.


>B-b-but you just don't understand, when you use retard cope made-up """meta""" logic it's okay to use circular arguments where your attack on akasha via the entity-attribute relation presupposes the refutation of extension, which itself presupposes that akasha has already been refuted as an example of an entity with extension, prior to you trying to refute akasha via the entity-attribute relation

>>22124188
Hello I just want a Sri Lankan wife sir please
Namo avuso namaste bakayaro
Konoyaro

>>22130119
The latter since it's translated by a monk

>>22130725
>not permanent
>and not real.
this is the first mistake, when Nagarjuan say something is "not real" he's not saying it doesn't exist, but that it exist in emptiness, so he's not negating the existence of space, but the existence of our conceptualisationof space, tihs already pretty much disprove the rest of the argument, since it relies on a false idea of Nagarjuna articulating some ontological argument about space
>that akasa is ubiquitous and indivisible.
this is an idea from the Vaibhasika, so abidharma, not buddha himself, Nagarjuna was against the Abidhrama, so trying to use that to refute Nagarjuna is begging the question
>one entity that is not composite, has extension, and is permanent.
this was also refuted by Kant, since space is a mental category and not a thing on itself, both philosophers agree that space can't be a thing on itself since all expressions of space need thing that ocuppy said space, that is, space is a relational entity(to rpove that space can exist as somethign else ebsides all the relations of the things in space you wuld need to have an instance of prue space, which is impossible), this is further proved thanks to the quantic model, in which space is altered in relation to mass and mass moves trought space, here's a vid of the Madhyamaka philosophy model and quantum physics: https://youtu.be/OOeWr51f97M
so your whole argument takes for granted that space must be noncomposite and permanent, which is not only not self evident, but is already proven wrong by Kant and quantim physics
also Nagarjuna's whole point on space is that is relational with the conciuosness being aware of that space, is an idealist aproach to the categories of space and time, which this argument just ignores completly i dunno why, if you want t ofind a fallacy in nagarjuna's argument against "space" you should find a way in which space as we know it can exist without an awareness of space and time
as i said before Buddhist scholar fromthe alst century all were ultra focused on some sort of chrtian version of buddhism, trying to find a soul and a trascendental principle in the budhadhamma, (this is why the whole arument spins around the need of akasha being indivisible and permanent withour and ends up in questionbegging)which create all kinds of mediocre critics of revision of buddhist texts, reading texts from the 60's is an awful idea

>>22127268
>I don't have to prove my point because I'm already right
Yeah, sorry anon, I'm going to assume the other anon is correct.

>>22130725
I wouldn't argue with him, I've seen him in these threads before. He will keep giving you vague non-answers which do not answer the question, and pretending they are somehow coherent. Look at his post just above, he starts vaguely referencing Kant (a questionable philosopher himself) in a desperate attempt to give credence to Nagarjuna.

Buddha is right. The vedas lost.

Nagarjuna is right. Shankaracharya lost.

Ambedkar is right. Casteism lost

>>22130914
>this is the first mistake, when Nagarjuan say something is "not real" he's not saying it doesn't exist
1) It doesn't actually matter whether Nagarjuna is arguing against Akasha existing whatsoever or simply against it existing absolutely with svabhava, since the fallacy of circular argumentation occurs either way

2) Space isn't the same thing as akasha (ether), ie some schools and thinks reject the very premise of Akasha but accept space as an absence of covering or they use some other description of it.

3) Kant's arguments are not relevant in this context, I don't find his arguments against absolute space to be serious at all, at the end of the day you can reference Kant and other thinkers as much as you want but it doesn't remove the underlying fallacy of circularity in Nagarjuna's argument (a fallacy which you failed to even address directly)