Reddit reviews The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā

Nagarjuna is one of the most amazing philosophers that I've ever encountered. I cannot recommend Jay Garfield's translation of/commentary on The Mulamadhyamakakarika enough.

If you want what is probably the most influential book in Mahayana literature that would be Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Now the book I just linked includes Nagarjuna's original text with no commentary in the first section, and the second section has Garfield's commentary of the text line by line. Now in your post you said you wanted depth, and this book is definitely a heavy read. You can of course try to read Nagarjuna's text without the commentary, but if you're like me you will find yourself jumping to the commentary.

Work your way through Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamikakaarika. It's truly astounding. Shantideva's Ninth Chapter also.

The heart of it is that the cart is simply made of non-cart elements (chair, roof, floor, wheels, etc.), which themselves are made of non-themself things (spokes, hub, rim, etc.) all of which is subject to decay. This "cart" is just a mental object with no real essence.

Now do your own body. Your own self. Your name. All the things you're running from, chasing after. Hope/fear, gain/loss, pleasure/pain, fame/shame... All based on a non-person worrying about non-things.

Then, catch the next time someone needs something of you. Do you like them, and want to help, or not and feel put out? The thing you attach as "them" is empty, as is any perceived burden on your part. You can then take refuge, and simply help without hope of reward or fear of failure.

Does that make it a bit less abstract?

If you want to research Buddhist views on the mind, I suggest you start with the Mahayana Sutras like Lankavatara Sutra and Shurangama Sutra. If you want to get really technical, then I recommend you read Mulamadhyamakakarika, although Jay L. Garfield's translation is much better imo.

That's just the tip of the iceberg of course. And the Suttas you find in the Pali canon in my experience 100% confirm the same exact view, but they are more circuitous and more subtle about it, so they are not as good for educating a person about the nature of one's own mind.

It's joke easy to spend 10 years studying Buddhist primary sources and not finish studying more than a tiny fraction of them. And understanding the nature of one's own mind is essential prior to meditation.

http://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Wisdom-Middle-Way-Mlamadhyamakakrik/dp/0195093364

It will take a while to understand the book but the rewards are worth it imo. I'm just starting to read up on it myself.

For the MMK, Jay Garfield's The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way is quite well-regarded, albeit somewhat academic in style. I've also heard good things about Siderits' work.

haha! yeah that would be pretty funny. youre right though, according to Mahayana (and Buddhism generally, though they focus less on "Sunyata" compared to Mahayana), reifying things, the self and other, as inherently existent, independent, unchanging, etc is the fundamental primary delusion that leads us to appropriate things mainly either through acquiring pleasure and avoiding pain.

a great read on Sunyata, or emptiness, is THE FUNDAMENTAL WISDOM OF THE MIDDLE WAY by Nagarjuna, translated by Jay L. Garfield: https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Wisdom-Middle-Way-M%C5%ABlamadhyamakak%C4%81rik%C4%81/dp/0195093364

If you really want to get into the roots of Buddhism, 2 books I highly recommend are The fundamental wisdom of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna and Guide to a Bodhisattva way of life by Shantideva. both were written many hundreds of years ago and were influential in the developments of the Mahayana (india, china, japan, korea, etc) school of buddhism,

I don't know how valuable that would be without more context. The Diamond Sutra would probably give a little better base if you're interested in Prajnaparamita text. The Heart Sutra is sort of an abbreviation of the teachings. The Diamond Sutra says a little bit more, but it's probably very different from what you've been discussing and would still probably hard to appreciate coming just from a western philosophical context and without a meditation practice.

The Mulamadhyamakakarika, specifically this version with a very good commentary by a professor of philosophy seems to me like it'd be a better fit for your sub given what you've been studying. It's about using thought to see through thought, but with a framework and especially with a commentary that would probably be better suited to someone coming from Western philosophy, provided you can catch yourself if you start dismissing arguments because they challenge things that seem self-evident. It's more analytic, but it argues against the tools of analysis in a way, so it can be tricky.

There's a neat article that talks a little bit about it here. I'd be interested in hearing what your group thinks about it if you ever cover it. Please let me know if your sub ever decides to look at it.

Chiming in for a sec, we used this book in my Buddhist Metaphysics class which focused a lot on Nagarjuna. This is his greatest work and it also includes some good commentary for clarification, since you'll probably need it, the first time around anyway :)

> One of the key differences that I mentioned earlier, between Buddhism and Science, is that a scientist's "no mind" isn't actually no mind; it's the distinction between relative and absolute truths

It's kind of interesting, but another saying in Madhyamaka thought is that the only absolute truth is that the only truths are relative truths. Or that the only absolute truth is that there are no absolute truths. Gulp down the emetic. :) You might enjoy investigating that school. My impression is that you're pretty bright, and it's all about transformation that starts by turning the thinking mind against itself, in a way. This book is a good introduction, with commentary in the second half that's much easier to parse than the original text.

> just read the wiki on the "Mūlamadhyamakakārikā", which seems pretty enlightening; though am a hardcore philosophical-theorist

I just looked over the wiki page and it seems pretty esoteric. The MMK is pretty hard-nosed philosophy when you get down to it. If that approach interests you, you might like Buddhism as Philosophy as a short, more down-to-earth overview of this, along with a bunch more topics from the tradition. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way seems to be recommended a lot around here if you're at all interested in diving into a translation/commentary.

> Thank you for your thoughtful replies.

Sure thing.

the mulamadhyamakakarika is going to be pretty tough sledding for someone who has no background in buddhist philosophy. better to read a commentary on it before tackling it directly. try garfield's excellent treatment as it's the standard for teaching nagarjuna's "fundamental wisdom of the middle way".

Death is nothing like an endless void since death/nothingness isn't real at all. Another perspective from Wittgenstein:

> Death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death. If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present. Our life has no end in just the way in which our visual field has no limits.


Beyond death there are many other existential facts and uncertainties you could despair over. For example, you could fear the opposite of death, eternal life: not being able to die. You could become anxious over literally anything if you are creative enough and find a way to perceive it as a threat. Then to think your way out of the fear and see how it could be based on a misperception, you have to get even more creative! Academic philosophers, who handle these kinds of thoughts at the distance of the intellect, are very good at this. Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, often held up as the most important philosophical work of the 20th century, could go a long way toward curing you of your existential anxieties.

Fortunately or unfortunately, uncertainty lies beneath everything. You can't consciously ground yourself in that uncertainty; it would be like drowning in an endless ocean with nothing to hold onto. The Buddhist solution is to relinquish attachments (to the world, to self/ego - everything): to learn to float and stop grasping after permanence and substance, and to embrace emptiness (which is held as the essential nature of existence).

Without non-attachment, ignorance, evasion or denial, I think the only way to "get over" it was described by Kierkegaard, the originator of existentialism (who IMO has not been surpassed and who Wittgenstein declared the most profound author of the 19th century). He explores it from a Christian perspective in The Sickness Unto Death, and his remedy is faith:

> The formula that describes the state of the self when despair is completely rooted out is this: in relating itself to itself and in willing to be oneself, the self rests transparently in the power that established it.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Fundamental-Wisdom-Middle-Mulamadhyamakakarika/dp/0195093364


As far as I know it's definitely buddhist

If you're interested in an eastern philosophy perspective but have a western cultural background there's no one better than Alan Watts to start with. He's an expert at translating difficult concepts into a frame of reference that's far more digestible.

I'd start here with The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. Alternatively you can listen to many of his talks on YouTube for free. I highly recommend this as his character is half the joy of his work. Here's a relevant talk that covers some of the same material as The Book, just in less depth obviously.

If you enjoy his work, then you can move on to more difficult material. I'm a huge fan of Nagarjuna and his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, or "The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way". It's an incredible work but you can't just start there or you won't have the necessary conceptual vocabulary.

Beyond the obvious choices, Watts' The Book, Ram Dass' Be Here Now, Huxley's Doors of Perception, Leary’s The Psychedelic Experience, and of course Fear and Loathing (all of these should be on the list without question; they’re classics), here are a some others from a few different perspectives:

From a Secular Contemporary Perspective

Godel Escher Bach by Douglass Hofstadter -- This is a classic for anyone, but man is it food for psychedelic thought. It's a giant book, but even just reading the dialogues in between chapters is worth it.

The Mind’s Eye edited by Douglass Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett – This is an anthology with a bunch of great essays and short fictional works on the self.

From an Eastern Religious Perspective

The Tao is Silent by Raymond Smullyan -- This is a very fun and amusing exploration of Taoist thought from one of the best living logicians (he's 94 and still writing logic books!).

Religion and Nothingness by Keiji Nishitani – This one is a bit dense, but it is full of some of the most exciting philosophical and theological thought I’ve ever come across. Nishitani, an Eastern Buddhist brings together thought from Buddhist thinkers, Christian mystics, and the existentialists like Neitzsche and Heidegger to try to bridge some of the philosophical gaps between the east and the west.

The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by Nagarjuna (and Garfield's translation/commentary is very good as well) -- This is the classic work from Nagarjuna, who lived around the turn of the millennium and is arguably the most important Buddhist thinker after the Buddha himself.

From a Western Religious Perspective

I and Thou by Martin Buber – Buber wouldn’t approve of this book being on this list, but it’s a profound book, and there’s not much quite like it. Buber is a mystical Jewish Philosopher who argues, in beautiful and poetic prose, that we get glimpses of the Divine from interpersonal moments with others which transcend what he calls “I-it” experience.

The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila – this is an old book (from the 1500s) and it is very steeped in Christian language, so it might not be everyone’s favorite, but it is perhaps the seminal work of medieval Christian mysticism.

From an Existentialist Perspective

Nausea by Jean Paul Sartre – Not for the light of heart, this existential novel talks about existential nausea a strange perception of the absurdity of existence.

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus – a classic essay that discusses the struggle one faces in a world inherently devoid of meaning.

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I’ll add more if I think of anything else that needs to be thrown in there!

i find that studying buddhism helps in this area. specifically, this book https://www.amazon.com/Fundamental-Wisdom-Middle-Way-lamadhyamakak/dp/0195093364

this will allow you to not fall into the trap of equating conditions with an object or an object with conditions, which is based in our innate misunderstanding of reality.