Cracking the walnut, p.3
Cracking the Walnut, page 3
But who is the Buddha? The Buddha is also us; we keep occupying his or Thầy’s place. If we are lucky, then Thầy will come and say, “Move over! Let me do it for you.” At that moment we will be overjoyed. Since this practice is so easy, why do we not do it? When we look deeply into the teaching on conditioned co-arising and see the empty nature of all things, we shall become unstuck. The insight of emptiness can be applied in very practical ways.
We hurt from our hurt, we suffer our suffering, and we worry our worries. We rush around erratically as if we were walking on hot coals; we sit as if we were sitting on a hot stove. Why don’t we make room for the Buddha to do it? The Buddha is inside of us, so give him a chance! Give Thầy a chance! Thầy and the Buddha are present in every cell of our body. We have the Buddha’s feet, but we don’t let the Buddha walk. We have the eyes of the Buddha, but we don’t let the Buddha look. We keep standing our ground saying: “Dear Buddha, just step aside and let me take care of this. I can do it.” And who am I? I am the one who is rushing around erratically, caught up in so many things.
These first verses might appear to be difficult to understand, but in fact they are quite easy; going deeply into them is difficult. They are like advanced mathematics: if we are capable of resolving the problem, the result will reveal something truly wonderful.
4. Does the effect arise out of the conditions,
or does it arise out of a non-condition?
Is the effect contained in the conditions,
or is there no effect in the conditions?
果為從緣生
為從非緣生
是緣為有果
是緣為無果
This verse questions again the argument that an effect arises out of the conditions, and in doing so allows us to examine this assumption and to make it an object of contemplation.
This is the question: “Did you say that the effect arises from its conditions? Or did you say the effect comes from a non-condition?”
For example, when we say that the egg is born from the chicken, what we mean is that the chicken is the condition and the egg is the effect. But ìf you say the egg is born from thetable, then is the table a condition or a non-condition? As far as outer appearances are concerned, we see that the hen is one of the conditions for the egg, while the table is not. The hen is a condition (緣), while the table is a non-condition (非緣).
The second question is: “Is the effect contained in the conditions, or is there no effect in the conditions?” Is the egg already contained in the hen, or not? The answer to both of these questions lies in the fifth verse:
5. A seed condition that gives rise to an effect
is called a condition.
When the effect has not yet arisen,
why then don’t we call it a non-condition?
因是法生果
是法名為緣
若是果未生
何不名非緣
The fifth verse is the first gunshot that Nāgārjuna fires to shatter the theory that the effect is already contained in the conditions. As stated above, there are four conditions, and the first condition is called “seed condition.” Here Nāgārjuna examines the first condition before continuing on to look at the other three conditions.
A seed condition that gives rise to an effect is called a condition. The chief cause is thought to be that which produces the effect. It is one of the four conditions that produces the effect. This is why we call it a cause.
When the effect has not yet arisen, why then don’t we call it a non-condition? There are two things: one is the condition, and one is the effect. Only after the condition has given rise to the effect can we call a condition a condition. Therefore, before the condition has given rise to an effect, why don’t we call it a non-condition? What, if the effect has not yet arisen, is the condition conditioning? For example, after a hen has laid an egg, we will say the hen has caused the egg to arise—the hen is the condition and the egg is the effect. Before the hen has laid the egg the hen, just like a table or anything else, is a “non-condition.” Another example is seen in the fact that a woman only begins to be called a mother when she becomes pregnant with her first child; at this point, she has become the cause of the child, she is a condition that gives rise to the child, who, though still in the mother’s womb, is an effect of the mother. Before that pregnancy, the woman could not be called a mother. In this example we see that the same person can at one time be a condition and at another time be a non-condition. Only when the child manifests can the mother be called the condition—her existence has given rise to that of the child. What is it that makes her a condition as opposed to a non-condition?
We can talk of condition and effect because there is a relationship of causality between the two. Why don’t we call the thing referred to as a condition a non-condition before it has given rise to an effect? This question confounds us because we believe too much in our own concept of causality. Our ideas regarding causes, conditions, and effects are still naïve and shallow. We are caught in certain dogmas without being aware of it. This question is meant to make us feel less sure of ourselves: Can the same thing which we call a condition after the effect has arisen be called a non-condition before it has given rise to an effect?
Looking at the hen we see its connection to the egg clearly, but looking at the table we see no apparent connection with the egg. Is it certain, though, that the table did not give rise to the egg? What could be the connection between the table and the egg? When we ask ourselves this question we begin to see that the table is made out of a tree and that if there were no trees, then neither the hen nor the egg could exist. This same insight will be taught by the Avataṃsaka Sutra a few centuries after Nāgārjuna: there is not a single thing which is not related to everything else. The one contains the all. Often we are not able to see the sun or the clouds as the mother of the egg, and so we believe that the hen is its only mother. But if there were no clouds, or if the sun was not there, how could there be an egg? Our distinction between condition and non-condition is faulty and naïve. For now, it is enough for us to understand that this distinction is not correct; later, with time, we will understand more.
6. To say that the effect, prior to arising,
exists or not within the conditions, has no meaning.
If it does not exist, then what does the condition condition?
And if it does exist, then why do we need a condition?
果先於緣中
有無俱不可
先無為誰緣
先有何用緣
It is illogical and incorrect to say either that the effect is already present in the conditions or not yet present in the conditions. Why?
If it (the effect) does not exist, then what does the condition condition? If the effect is not yet there, then what is that condition conditioning?
And if it does exist, then why do we need a condition? If the effect is already there, there is no need for a condition.
This verse is talking about no-birth. Here we begin to touch our notion of birth. We believe that we have been born, but in truth no-birth is our essence. If the egg is not found in the conditions, then it cannot be born from conditions. If the egg is not in the conditions, just as it is not there in the table, then how could it be born from the conditions? But if the egg is already there in the conditions, then it does not need to be born anymore. The egg only needs to be born when it is not there, but if it is already there, then there is no need for it to be born.
Are you afraid of Nāgārjuna? He is firing cannonballs to blow up our ideas about being and nonbeing, our ideas about birth and death. Nāgārjuna is like Oppenheimer, the man who directed the Manhattan Project. Oppenheimer’s team developed nuclear bombs that made atoms collide and undergo fission to create a great explosion. With Nāgārjuna it is our concepts of birth and death, of after and before, of being and nonbeing, which collide and undergo fission. Nāgārjuna uses his art to make our concepts collide and explode. Reductio ad absurdum uses concepts, reasoning, and words to demolish these very things.
Conditions are only conditions when the effect needs them in order to be born. But if the effect is already contained in the conditions, then the conditions no longer need to play the role of conditions. If the effect is not present in the conditions, the conditions cannot be called “conditions.” The sixth verse is telling us that it is unreasonable for the effect to be present in the conditions, just as it is unreasonable for the effect not to be present in the conditions.
7. If the effect is already present before it arises,
or if it is not present before it arises,
or if it is both present and not present before it arises,
how can we say that it is conditioned?
若果非有生
亦復非無生
亦非有無生
何得言有緣
The seventh verse continues to discuss the seed condition.
Just like the fifth and sixth verses, the aim of the seventh verse is to destroy our notion of a seed condition. We call this examining the seed condition to see that it cannot be established. Contemplating in this way, we gradually see the nature of no-birth.
In this verse Nāgārjuna presents three different cases:
The first verse says that the effect is not present in its cause.
The second says that the effect is present in its cause.
The third verse says that the effect is both present and not present in its cause.
In each of these cases, our notion of a seed condition turns out to be illogical. If the effect is not in the conditions, why do we call them conditions? If the effect is already contained in the conditions, then the conditions no longer need to play the role of conditions. The case in which the effect is both there and not there in the conditions is completely unreasonable.
If all three cases turn out to be unreasonable, the notion of causality is not correct. Nāgārjuna is not trying to argue a point or to show off his knowledge. He seeks a way to clarify a number of misunderstandings of the Buddha’s teachings so that the true teachings of the Buddha can be apprehended.
About one hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, the Sangha split into two different schools: the Sthaviravāda, which was the conservative school, and the Mahāsaṃghika, which comprised the majority, focused on adapting the Buddha’s teachings. After this initial split at least eighteen different schools arose over a period of several hundred years. This is called the period of the Mainstream Schools of Buddhism.
One of these eighteen schools was the Sarvāstivāda school, which taught that everything exists (sarva-asti). The position of this school was: the self is empty, but the dharmas really exist. Such a philosophical standpoint is today called Realism. Not only phenomena are real, but time and space are also real, because they are the framework in which phenomena lie. Reality is just like a painting; it needs to have a frame. This is why the Sarvāstivāda school maintains that the three times are real, and the nature of the dharmas is constant. We find the opposite tendency later on in the Vijñānavāda school, which maintains that everything arises in consciousness.
The Sarvāstivāda school upheld that everything exists—except the self. At first glance it looks as if they remained loyal to the teachings of the Buddha. They upheld the three Dharma Seals: impermanence, nonself, and nirvāṇa. They accepted that everything is impermanent and remains just for an instant. Things were there in the past, they are there in the present, and they will be present in the future—they are not just illusions; they are real. Even though the past is no longer there, those things were there in the past and they will be there in the future. The danger in this kind of thinking is that it can mislead people into believing that there is something permanent—a self-nature (svabhāva)—that lies beneath this process of change. Someone could think that although phenomena keep changing, underneath that process of change there is a permanent basis.
The Sarvāstivāda school belongs to the Mainstream Schools Buddhism, but it made a radical departure from the original teachings of the Buddha. To say that the Mainstream Schools of Buddhism are equivalent to original Buddhism is not correct. Original Buddhism was very pure. We need to be skillful in order not to depart from the Buddha’s original meaning.
The Sarvastivādins said that if the present is there, then the past must be there too. The present is present in relation to what? If the past is not there, how could we have the present? If the future is not there, how can the present be? Just like left and right, if right is not there, how can we have left? This argument stands solidly on its own. It does not need to be based on the sutras and it does not need the Buddha to say that the past and the future are real. The Buddha just needs to say that the present exists; this is enough for us to conclude that the three times are all real.
During the time that the Sarvastivada school flourished in Kashmir they created a wealth of treatises and commentaries. The Abhidharma literature* of the Sarvāstivāda School is extensive and comprises commentaries called the Vibhāṣā. They seem endlessly long. The Sanskrit version of this text is no longer extant, except for a few fragments, but its Chinese translation has survived in the Chinese Tripitaka.†
The Vibhāṣā is a monumental philosophical work specializing in analysis. When Nāgārjuna went to the north of India he studied the philosophy of the Vibhāṣā. Thanks to this, his insight into the Middle Way deepened. He saw that he needed to use some method in order to destroy the philosophical views that had departed from the original teachings of the Buddha. This is the reason why he composed the Verses on the Middle Way. The purpose of these Verses on the Middle Way was “to destroy what is wrong and make manifest what is right,”** which means to destroy all incorrect points of view and reveal the authentic, original Buddhadharma.
Nāgārjuna studied famous Vibhāṣā commentaries and used examples to demonstrate that there is a self-nature. First, Dharmatrāta used the example of gold and things made out of gold. A pair of earrings, a ring, and a bracelet made of gold, he said, are three distinct pieces of jewelry, but they all share something fundamental: the gold. In the same way, underlying apparent differences between the past, present, and future and whether we consider something to be present or absent is something fundamental to all three times. Looking deeply into the earrings, the ring, and the bracelet, we see that they have something in common that is always there. The same is true for the three times.
Another teacher of the Sarvāstivāda School named Ghoṣa used another interesting example. Imagine that a number of different people have the same duty—for example, that of being head cook. We see that brother Pháp Độ, brother Giác Trí, and brother Nguyện Hải are three different monks who all share the responsibility of being a cook in Plum Village. Despite their differences, when they enter the kitchen each has the same duty. This means that even though we see their differences, their responsibility is the same. Looking at these three people, we see that deep inside there is something they all share: their capacity to be head cook.
Vasumitra, author of the Samayabhedoparacanacakra, The Wheel of the Formations of the Divisions of the Doctrines (in other words, the tenets of the eighteen Buddhist Schools), used the example of numbers like 1, 2, and 3. Each of these numbers can play many roles. The number 3, when combined with 0, becomes 30. Combined with two 0s it becomes 300, and when followed by three 0s it becomes 3,000. We can see that 30 is not the same as 300 and that 300 is not the same as 3,000, but in all three cases we find the idea of 3. Similarly, different things like past, present, future, form, sound, smell, taste, and touch are different, and yet beneath the differences they all share something: self-nature.
The fourth commentator, Buddhadeva, offered the example of a young girl. When she is born, she is called a daughter and plays the part of a daughter; when she grows up and marries, she is called a wife and plays the role of a wife; when she gives birth to a child, she is called a mother and plays the role of a mother. These three roles—daughter, wife, mother—are all distinct, but there is only one woman who plays these roles. What remains the same throughout these roles is called self-nature according to the Sarvāstivāda.
This viewpoint is dangerous because it brings Buddhism close to the Saṃkhyā and Vedānta viewpoint. It is no longer orthodox Buddhism as taught by the Buddha Śākyamuni. The viewpoint that the nature of dharmas is constant—that the self-nature of phenomena is always there as with the gold of different pieces of jewelry, the number 3, the responsibility of head cook, and the young girl who becomes a woman—concerned Nāgārjuna enough that he needed to use dialectics to destroy it.
Nāgārjuna had the great merit of using his extraordinary intelligence to destroy the viewpoints and the teachings that led people far away from the original meaning of the Buddha. During his lifetime and for generations afterwards, people considered Nāgārjuna a second Buddha who came to rescue the first Buddha by ensuring that Shakyamuni would not be misunderstood.
The Buddha taught that “My teachings are like a finger pointing at the moon; you should not confuse the finger for the moon.” In doing so, he hoped that people would avoid becoming caught in his words. For example, the Buddha taught that “there is only the present moment” to help people avoid losing themselves in the future or in the past. When the abhidharmists of the Sarvāstivāda school held that if the present exists, there must be the past—it is only because of the past that the present is here, they took their argument too far. The Buddha did not want to prove that the present exists. He was not aiming to philosophize, but to help us stop living in forgetfulness. If we take this teaching and make it the foundation of a philosophical theory, we have lost the Buddha’s intention.
8. When the effect has not yet arisen
its cause cannot cease.
