Cracking the Walnut, page 23
The first verse of this chapter is an aperitif to whet your palate for the magic show of Nāgārjuna, and the next verse is the reply.
2. If all phenomena are not empty,
they are unborn and undying.
So what you call nirvāṇa
is the ending and extinction of what?
若諸法不空
則無生無滅
何斷何所滅
而稱為涅槃
The second verse is perfectly symmetrical with the first. Nāgārjuna’s opponents say that you cannot talk about nirvāṇa if all things are empty—and therefore are not produced or destroyed. They point out that it is wrong to say that all things are empty. For them, you only have the right to speak about nirvāṇa if you recognize that things exist. If all things are empty how can they end? Nāgārjuna, they say, your thesis is wrong! If things are not empty, nirvāṇa is meaningful. If they are empty, they are not produced or destroyed, so how can there be the ending that is called nirvāṇa? So, they declare, you should be saying that all things exist.
To this Nāgārjuna replies, “If things were not empty—which would mean that they exist—then they would also not be born nor die. In that case, what is there to be terminated or extinguished for there to be a nirvāṇa to speak of?” If things truly existed, they would be permanent. They would have a true substance or permanent entity—and could not be destroyed. They would be unborn and undying. “So what could end or be extinguished for you to talk about nirvāṇa?” Nāgārjuna asks in reply, using the same words as his opponent. The opponent, in the first verse, asks, “If all things are empty, how can there be nirvāṇa?” Nāgārjuna replies, “If all things are not empty, how can there be nirvāṇa?” With just one word he topples his opponent. “Not empty” means “exists” and if something exists, then it cannot become nonexistent.
It is not possible for something that existed yesterday evening not to exist this morning.
—Vũ Hoàng Chương
To exist means to exist permanently—to have a self-nature. By destroying the notion of nonbeing, Nāgārjuna destroys the notion of being. The idea of nirvāṇa is incompatible with ideas of being and nonbeing.
Reading this verse with our heart, we can understand how it is connected to our suffering and to our worries. There might be a person dear to us who is dying, and we may believe that this person is crossing the threshold from being to nonbeing. If we can realize the true nature of things, we will not suffer anymore.
3. Not attaining and not coming,
not annihilated and not eternal,
not born and not destroyed,
this is what we call nirvāṇa.
無得亦無至
不斷亦不常
不生亦不滅
是說名涅槃
This verse tells us what Buddhism means by nirvāṇa: the extinction of all notions. It is not the extinction of phenomena, but simply the extinction of our notions about them.
Not attaining and not coming,
Nonattainment means not coming into being from nonbeing. Someone who had no children suddenly has a child. They ask: “Where did the child come from?” Buddhism replies: “The child does not come from anywhere.” That is no coming. No coming is also no going. No coming and no going are one reality. Nonattainment also means no loss. The reality of nirvāṇa is the reality that transcends ideas of attainment and loss.
According to the Buddha’s teachings, ideas of attainment and loss have nothing to do with reality. Coming from somewhere and going somewhere are just ideas. Attaining and coming mean from being nothing we come into existence and from being something we go to being nothing. Not attaining and not coming are the characteristics of nirvāṇa.
Not annihilated and not eternal
Eternal means existing, and existence cannot become nonexistence. Annihilated means complete destruction and nonexistence—an eternal nonexistence that can never become existence. The reality of nirvāṇa transcends eternalism and nihilism, attainment and loss, coming and going.
Not born and not destroyed,
Birth is the idea that something comes into being from nonbeing, and death is the idea that from being something goes into nonbeing.
Not attaining and not coming,
not annihilated and not eternal,
not born and not destroyed,
this is what we call nirvāṇa.
How strange it would be, then, to describe nirvāṇa in terms of being and nonbeing! If we say that nirvāṇa exists, we are wrong; if we say that it does not exist, we are also wrong. Ideas of being and nonbeing cannot be applied to nirvāṇa. It would be absurd to say, “I don’t know for sure if nirvāṇa exists or not, so I’m not going to bother practicing.” If we look for nirvāṇa in terms of being and nonbeing, we will never find it.
The Lotus Sutra presents the idea of a historical and an ultimate dimension. These two dimensions relate to each other like the wave and the water. In the historical dimension (the wave), there is birth and death, there are big waves and small waves. In the ultimate dimension (the water), ideas like birth and death, being and nonbeing, this wave and that wave, and big and small no longer apply. Imagine a wave suffering—afraid, anxious, and jealous. It is looking for a peaceful place. Someone tells the wave, “What you are looking for is the water. Once you know that you are water, you will no longer be afraid of going up or going down, of being big or small, beautiful or ugly.”
The metaphor of the wave and the water is an example—a finger pointing to the moon. Nirvāṇa is like the water; being or nonbeing are like waves. In truth the wave does not need to go and look for the water because its nature is already water. We are the same. Nirvāṇa is our nature: not born, not dying, not coming, and not going. We rest already in nirvāṇa. How could we look for it? To say that nirvāṇa exists or does not exist, that we can look for it and then attain, witness, or realize it is mistaken and naïve—like a wave looking for the water. The wave is already water! What more does it need? That is nonattainment. In the sutras we read, “Witness the unwitnessed, attain the unattained”; this means we realize that there is nothing to realize, and we witness that there is nothing to witness, because we already are the object we want to attain or witness.
Imagine again a kaleidoscope, containing within it a number of mirrors and colored bits of paper. Shake it a little, and you will see a beautiful pattern of shapes and colors. Shake it once more, and that pattern will disappear, giving way to another. In this way children, spellbound by each new beautiful pattern, keep turning the kaleidoscope and don’t regret the disappearance of one pattern as it gives way to another. This pattern differs from that one, but all the patterns arise from the little pieces of paper inside the kaleidoscope. Let these little pieces of paper represent the ultimate dimension and the patterns that manifest, the historical. If we know that everything manifests from the ultimate dimension, then birth and death and abiding and loss in the historical dimension cannot affect us.
A cloud—tired of being blown this way and that, and then dying—is lured by the hope of becoming water, and looks for it. Its dream of becoming water is needless because it already is water. When the cloud encounters cold air it becomes snow, hail, or rain. Although it no longer has the form of a cloud, it continues to be water.
I keep repeating these examples to help you understand, but I do not want you to become caught in them. The Buddha used many different examples when he taught, and said, “People of sharp intelligence, thanks to the example, will understand what I mean; people of dull intelligence will become caught in it.”
When the cloud experiences itself as water, it is no longer afraid. It feels joy to be a cloud and joy to be rain, hail, or snow; it is carefree. Human beings worry, discriminate, and feel jealousy because they are not aware and cannot live the experience that they are nirvāṇa. If we can touch our reality of nirvāṇa—which is our nature of no birth and no death, no coming and no going, neither permanence nor annihilation—all of our worry, sadness, and jealousy will disappear. This is something that we can do. An enlightened person sees that our ground is nirvāṇa; and with this insight, going up or down, coming in or going out is a joy. Someone who has realized the path is a free person: they are free from ideas of being and nonbeing, gain and loss, coming and going.
Nowadays many scholars translate nirvāṇa as “freedom.” In the past it has been translated as “extinction”—the extinction of notions like attainment and loss, coming and going, annihilated and eternal, and birth and death. Now we can translate it as “freedom from concepts.” When our ideas no longer ensnare us and make us suffer, we have freedom—and that means we have nirvāṇa. This body does not have to disintegrate for us to realize nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is present right here and right now; it is called “nirvāṇa in the here and now” (drṣṭadharmanirvāṇa). In this way, Christians could say, “We are God and God is us. God is our ground of no-birth and no-death. We do not need to look for God because God is our ultimate reality.”
Only the waves that know they are water can enjoy their time in a carefree way. When they finally break on the shore they can smile. Only those who realize nirvāṇa will know how to smile at their last breath; others, when faced with that moment, will be invaded by worries and fear. The best, most beautiful, and most wonderful aspect of being a practitioner is the realization of nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa is not something far away that we need to chase after. It is our own nature; it is found in every cell of our body. Nirvāṇa is the ground of everything.
Imagine someone who wants to locate space, who runs in search of it to the east, west, south, north, above and below, all the while blind to the space within and around them everywhere. We are just like that. We look for nirvāṇa in the past, in the future, in the east, and in the west. The truth is that we are already in nirvāṇa. This is called nirvāṇa in the here and now, and we can only see it when we wake up. Buddhism is called the path of awakening. When we wake up, we see we have no need to search for nirvāṇa. When we contemplate life deeply, we will be in touch with it. The French scientist Lavoisier—who had never studied Buddhism—could say, “Nothing is created, nothing is lost.” The essence of all things is no-birth and no-death. If people like Lavoisier could go a little deeper, they would certainly realize freedom—the great freedom of nirvāṇa.
4. You cannot say nirvāṇa exists;
existence is characterized by old age and death.
There is ultimately no existence
that is not characterized by old age and death.
涅槃不名有
有則老死相
終無有有法
離於老死相
If nirvāṇa exists, it must be characterized by decay and death. Everything that exists has to go through decay and death.
We say that a flower exists, and so it will wilt and die. If nirvāṇa existed, it would also have to go through old age and death. What good would it do to search for it? In the beginning we say, “The practice is to realize nirvāṇa, so if nirvāṇa does not exist, why practice?” If there were no God and no heaven, people might think “What a waste it would be to practice Christianity!” According to the teachings of the Buddha, nirvāṇa cannot be said to exist. If it existed, it would have to go through the doors of dissolution and death. In this case, it could not be called nirvāṇa. Ultimately there is no existence separate from old age and death.
5. If nirvāṇa exists,
it would be conditioned.
There is ultimately no existence
that can be called unconditioned.
若涅槃是有
涅槃即有為
終無有一法
而是無為者
If you say that nirvāṇa exists, it has to be conditioned (saṃskṛta). But in principle, nirvāṇa is unconditioned (asaṃskṛta). All phenomena that are composed by the coming together of different conditions are called “conditioned.” The forest, the rain, the carpenter, the nails, and so on come together for the table to manifest: the table is conditioned. Nirvāṇa is not conditioned because all conditioned things undergo decay and death, and a conditioned nirvāṇa subject to decay and death would not be worthy of our quest. If nirvāṇa is conditioned, what in the world would be unconditioned? Traditionally Buddhists divide phenomena into two: those that come about because of conditions—“conditioned dharmas”—and those that do not come about because of conditions—“unconditioned dharmas.” In the sutras, nirvāṇa is always described as an unconditioned dharma.
6. If nirvāṇa exists,
how could you call it independent?
There is nothing independent
that can be said to exist.
若涅槃是有
云何名無受
無有不從受
而名為有法
If you describe nirvāṇa as something that exists, how can you say it is independent? In Buddhism we learn: What is dependent is subject to birth and death. Nirvāṇa is independent—無受 (anupādāya).
Upādāya means receiving, acquiring, together with, appropriating, dependent. All the things that can be acquired and grasped that depend on other things to exist—can be called upādāya. They are conditioned and, as such, belong to the realm of birth and death. For example, working as a banker, farmer, or carpenter you are dependent; you are conditioned. The job is there now, but in the future it will not be there anymore. You could easily lose it. You have to depend on it and hold on to it. Your career relies on many conditions to manifest. If nirvāṇa relied on other things, it would not be nirvāṇa. If you say that nirvāṇa exists, how can nirvāṇa be independent? Independent means not tied to and relying on other things.
The third and the fourth lines mean that there isn’t a single existent that is not dependent. All existents must be dependent on other things. There is not a single existent that does not rely on other things. Nirvāṇa is not dependent; it does not depend on being and nonbeing, going up or going down, abiding and loss, as do other things. Upādāya (dependent) and anupādāya (independent) should be understood in the light of the sutras, where dependent means being born and dying, and independent means nirvāṇa.
7. If nirvāṇa is not existent,
how could it be nonexistent?
Since existence does not apply to nirvāṇa
how could nonexistence apply to it?
有尚非涅槃
何況於無耶
涅槃無有有
何處當有無
There are people who are willing to practice only if nirvāṇa exists. They think that if nirvāṇa does not exist, it would be a waste of energy to pursue it. This is our normal way of thinking. Nāgārjuna says, “Everything that we call existent, must change and decay. If nirvāṇa exists it will also change and decay.” Is that the kind of nirvāṇa we want to look for? When people see that nirvāṇa does not exist then they have hopes that nirvāṇa is nonexistence. They go from the extreme of nirvāṇa existing to the extreme of nirvāṇa not existing. Is nirvāṇa nonexistent? Nāgārjuna replies, “Nirvāṇa is not existent. How much less so is it nonexistent!” Nāgārjuna demonstrates in the following verse how nonexistence is the opposite of existence.
8. If nirvāṇa is nonexistent,
how could you call it independent?
There is nothing independent
that can be said not to exist.
若無是涅槃
云何名不受
未曾有不受
而名為無法
Independent means that it does not depend on other conditions to exist or not; to go up or down. If nirvāṇa is nonexistent, how could it be called independent? Everything—whether existent or nonexistent—depends on other things.
Yesterday during sitting meditation I was looking at a log, and I saw it smiling to me. Everybody believes that this log is existent. Maybe tomorrow a novice will put it in the stove and—in two or three hours—it will become nonexistent. The existence of the log depends on the sun, the clouds, the earth, the weather, the novice, etc. So it is called dependent. When the log is burned in the stove and becomes nonexistent, its nonexistence is also dependent on conditions—the fire, the air, the novice, etc. Existence is dependent, but nonexistence is also dependent.
If nirvāṇa exists, then it is dependent, and if it does not exist, it is still dependent. As long as something is dependent it is not nirvāṇa. Nirvāṇa can only be independent.
There is nothing independent
that can be said not to exist.
This mirrors the sixth verse:
There is nothing independent
that can be said to exist.
In other words, everything that is described as existent depends on other things. The same is true for everything that is described as nonexistent: it has to depend on other things. Nirvāṇa is the only thing that is not dependent or conditioned. To say it another way, there has never been any nonexistent thing that has the nature of independence. Now the log exists thanks to the cloud, the sun, and the forest. It will become nonexistent thanks to the fire, the oxygen, and the novice. Nonexistence also needs conditions.
