The Great Indian Philosophers

The purpose of this page is to share some of the source material for The Heart Of The World.

The underlying philosophical message is how we can learn to see the truth that everything only exists in relation to everything else. In order to do this, we often have to strip away our habits of fixating on concepts or perceptions as being substantial or ‘real’. I have therefore put together various verses from two great Indian philosophers and meditation masters, Nagarjuna and Shantideva, who lived in the eighth and second centuries respectively. In Western philosophy, we can find similar ideas in the work of George Berkley and Immanuel Kant.

Although based on the Buddhist tradition, the following verses describe a reality beyond any one tradition or belief. This reality is sometimes known as the union of appearance and emptiness, as nothing exists substantially (emptiness), yet everything appears vividly in a mutually dependent way (appearance or dependent arising). We are then left with a reality untainted by exaggeration or denial, which come about when we hold on to concepts such as this and that, right and wrong, self and other, something and nothing.

The verses which follow relate to various themes covered in the novel. The validity of concepts such as ‘mind’, ‘form’, ‘contact’, ‘feelings’, ‘arising’ and ‘action’ are challenged in a very pithy way. For some people these verses immediately make sense, though for others they might seem very cryptic. 

GOOD LUCK!

VERSES FROM NAGARJUNA’S FUNDAMENTAL WISDOM OF THE MIDDLE WAY

I prostrate to the one

Who teaches that whatever is dependently arisen

Does not arise, does not cease,

Is not permanent, is not extinct,

Does not come, does not go,

And is neither one thing nor different things.

Not from self, not from other,

Not from both, nor without cause:

Things do not arise

At any place, at any time.

On the path that has been traveled, there is no moving,

On the path that has not been traveled, there is no moving either,

And in some other place besides the path that has been traveled and the path that is not,

Motions are not perceptible in any way at all.

Except for there being the cause of form,

Form would not be seen.

Except for there being what we call ‘form,’

The cause of form would not appear either.

Feelings, discriminations, formations,

Minds, and all things there are

Are susceptible to the same stages of analysis

That forms have been put through here.

When emptiness comes up for debate,

Whatever answers try to prove true existence,

Those answers are unsound

Because they are equivalent to the very thesis to be proved.

Whenever explanations are given about emptiness,

Whoever would try to find faults with them

Will not be able to find any faults at all,

Because the faults are equivalent to the very thesis to be proved.

Space can in no way exist

Prior to its defining characteristics.

If space existed prior to its defining characteristics,

It would follow that space could exist without defining characteristics.

Therefore, space is not something, it is not nothing,

It is not a basis for characteristics, its defining characteristics do not exist,

And the other five elements are precisely the same.

If before desire existed,

If without any desire there existed a desirous one,

In dependence upon that, there would in fact be desire,

For when there is a desirous one, there is also desire.

Arising, abiding, and ceasing do not exist,

And therefore there are no composite things.

Since composite things are utterly non-existent,

How could anything non-composite exists?

Like a dream, like an illusion,

Like a city of gandharvas,

That’s how birth and that’s how living,

That’s how dying are taught to be.

An actor exists in dependence upon and action,

An action exists in dependence upon an actor,

And apart from that,

No reason for their existence can be seen.

The one who experiences perceptions does not exist

Before, during, or after the experiences of seeing and so forth.

Knowing this, all thoughts of an experiencer of perceptions either existing or not existing are reversed.

If something exists in dependence upon something else,

But that thing upon which it depends

Must also depend on it,

Then which one of these exists in dependence upon which?

The firewood itself is not the fire,

There is no fire that exists apart from the firewood,

The fire does not possess the firewood,

The fire does not support the firewood, and the firewood does not support the fire.

This examination of fire and firewood

Refutes the self and its components which it appropriates in all five ways.

Similarly, examining vases, blankets, and so forth,

It is perfectly explained that none of them exist in any of these five ways.

Since one cannot happen before the others,

And they cannot happen simultaneously,

Why would you ever think

That birth, aging and death truly exist?

If there were the slightest thing not empty,

There would be that much emptiness existent.

Since, however, there is not the slightest thing not empty,

How could emptiness exist?

The object seen, the eye that sees, and the seer –

These three do not meet each other,

Either in pairs or all together.

Desire, the desirous one, and the object of desire do not meet either,

Nor do any of the remaining afflictions,

Nor any of the remaining sources of consciousness:

In these sets of three there is neither meeting in pairs nor all together.

Do the mental afflictions bind?

They do not bind one already afflicted,

And they do not bind one who is not afflicted,

So when do they have any opportunity to bind anyone?

There is no nirvana to be produced

And no samsara to be cleared away.

In essential reality, what samsara is there?

What is there that can be called nirvana?

If there is no ‘me’ in the first place,

How could there be anything that belongs to me?

When ‘me’ and ‘mine’ are found to be peace,

Clinging to ‘me’ and ‘mine’ ceases.

The ones who do not cling to ‘me’ and ‘mine’

Do not exist either.

Those who do not cling to ‘me’ and ‘mine’ see accurately,

So they do not see a self.

Unknowable by analogy; peace;

Not of the fabric of fabrications;

Nonconceptual; free of distinctions –

These are the characteristics of the precise nature.

If the present and the future depended on the past,
The present and future would exist in the past.
If the present and the future did not exist there,
How could the present and future be dependent on it?

A nonstatic time is not grasped..
Nothing one could grasp as stationary time exists.
If time is not grasped, how is it known?

If cause and result were one,

Then producer and produced would be the same thing.

If cause and result were different,

Then causes and noncauses would be equivalent.

Emergence and decay

Cannot logically be the same thing.

Emergence and decay

Cannot logically be different things.

How could it be possible for

Beings who are like illusions

Or objects that are like reflections

To be either pleasant or unpleasant?

We imagine something to be pleasant

Based on our idea of what is unpleasant.

But unpleasant too does not exist independent of pleasant.

Therefore, for pleasant to truly exist would be impossible.

We imagine something to be unpleasant

Based on our idea of what is pleasant.

But pleasant too does not exist independent of unpleasant.

Therefore, for unpleasant to truly exist would be impossible.

Since pleasant does not exist, ho could desire exist?

Since unpleasant does not exist, how could aversion exist?

If emptiness is possible,

Then everything is possible,

But if emptiness is impossible,

Then nothing else is possible either.

Whatever is dependently arisen

Is explained to be emptiness.

Its existence is imputed in dependence upon something else,

And this is the path of the Middle Way.

There is not a single phenomenon

That is not dependently arisen.

Therefore, there is not a single phenomenon

That is not empty.

Holding us in your incredible wisdom and love,

You taught us the genuine Dharma

To help us abandon all views.

I prostrate before you, Gautama.

VERSES FROM SHANTIDEVA’S WAY OF THE BODHISATTVA

When ordinary folk perceive phenomena,

They look on them as real and not illusory.

This, then, is the subject of debate

Where ordinary folk and meditators differ.

“If that which is deceived does not exist,

What is it,” you ask, “that sees illusion?”

But if, for you, these same illusions have no being,

What, indeed, remains to be perceived?

The mind, indeed, is never seen by anyone,

And therefore, whether it can know or cannot know itself,

Just like the beauty of a barren woman’s daughter,

This merely forms the subject of a pointless conversation.

“A mirage may be known,” you say, “though lacking true existence.”

The knower is the same: it knows, but is a mirage.

“There is nothing” – when this is asserted,

No “thing” is there to be examined.

For how can nothing, lacking all support,

Remain before the mind as something present?

 

When real and non-real both

Are absent before the mind,

Nothing else remains for mind to do

But rest in perfect peace, from concepts free.

 

The teeth, the hair, the nails are not the “I,”

And “I” is not the bones or blood;

The mucus from the nose, and phlegm, are not the “I”,

And neither is it made of lymph or pus.

 

The “I” is not the body’s grease or sweat,

The lungs and liver likewise do not constitute it.

Neither are the inner organs “I”,

Nor yet the body’s excrement and waste.

 

The flesh and skin are not the “I”,

And neither are the body’s warmth and breath.

The cavities within the frame are not the “I”,

And “I” is not accounted for within the six perceptions.

 

If the hearing consciousness is permanent,

It follows that it’s hearing all the time.

If there is no object, what is knowing what?

Why do you now say that there is consciousness?

 

If consciousness is that which does not know,

It follows that a stick is also conscious.

Therefore, in the absence of a thing to know,

It is clear that consciousness will not arise.

 

 

What we call the body is not feet or shins,

The body, likewise, is not thigh or loins.

It’s not the belly nor indeed the back,

And from the chest and arms the body is not formed.

 

The body is not ribs or hands,

Armpits, shoulders, bowels or entrails;

It is not the head or throat:

From none of these is “body” constituted.

 

If “body”, step by step,

Pervades and spreads itself throughout its members,

Its parts indeed are present in the parts,

But where does “body,” in itself, abide?

 

If “body”, single and entire,

Is present in the hand and other members,

However many parts there are, the hands and all the rest,

You’ll find an equal quantity of “bodies.”

 

If “body” is not outside or within its parts,

How is it, then, residing in its members?

And since it has no basis other than its parts,

How can it be said to be at all?

 

Thus there is no “body” in the limbs,

But from illusion does the idea spring,

To be affixed to a specific shape –

Just as when a scarecrow is mistaken for a man.

 

As long as the conditions are assembled,

A body will appear and seem to be a man.

As long as all the parts are likewise present,

It’s there that we will see a body.

 

Likewise, since it is a group of fingers,

The hand itself is not a single entity.

And so it is with fingers, made of joints –

And joints themselves consist of many parts.

 

These parts themselves will break down into atoms,

And atoms will divide according to their direction.

These fragments, too, will also fall to nothing.

Thus atoms are like empty space – they have no real existence.

 

All form, therefore, is like a dream,

And who will be attached to it, who thus investigates?

The body, in this way, has no existence;

What is male, therefore, and what is female?

 

If suffering is truly real,

Then why is joy not altogether quenched thereby?

If pleasure’s real, then why will pleasant tastes

Not comfort and amuse a man in agony?

 

If feeling fails to be experienced,

Through being overwhelmed by something stronger,

How can “feeling” rightly be ascribed

To that which lacks the character of being felt?

 

Perhaps you say that only subtle pain remains,

Its grosser form has now been overmastered,

Or rather it is felt as mere pleasure.

But what is subtle still remains itself.

 

If, through presence of its opposite,

Pain and sorrow fail to manifest,

To claim with such conviction that it’s felt

Is surely nothing more than empty words.

 

If between the sense power and a thing

There is space, how will the two terms meet?

If there is no space, they form a unity,

And therefore, what is it that meets with what?

 

Atoms and atoms cannot interpenetrate,

For they are equal, lacking any volume.

But if they do not penetrate, they do not mingle;

And if they do not mingle, there is no encounter.

 

For how could anyone accept

That what is partless could be said to meet?

And you must show me, if you ever saw,

A contact taking place between two partless things.

 

The consciousness is immaterial,

And so one cannot speak of contact with it.

A combination, too, has no reality,

And this we have already demonstrated.

 

Therefore, if there is no touch or contact,

Whence is it that feeling takes its rise?

What purpose is there, then, in all our striving,

What is it, then, that torments what?

 

Since there is no subject for sensation,

And sensation, too, lacks all existence,

Why, when this you clearly understand,

Will you not pause and turn away from craving?

 

Seeing, then, and sense of touch

Are stuff of insubstantial dreams.

If perceiving consciousness arises simultaneously,

How could such a feeling be perceived?

 

If the one arises first, the other after,

Memory occurs and not direct sensation.

Sensation, then, does not perceive itself,

And likewise, by another is not perceived.

 

The subject of sensation has no real existence,

This sensation, likewise, has no being.

What damage, then, can be inflicted

On this aggregate deprived of self?

 

The mind within the senses does not dwell;

It has no place in outer things, like form,

And in between, the mind does not abide:

Not out, not in, not elsewhere can the mind be found.

 

Something not within the body, and yet nowhere else,

That does not merge with it nor stand apart –

Something such as this does not exist, not even slightly.

Beings have nirvana by their nature.

 

If consciousness precedes the cognized object,

With regard to what does it arise?

If consciousness arises with its object,

Again, regarding what does it arise?

 

If consciousness comes later than its object,

Once again, from what does it arise?

Thus the origin of all phenomena

Lies beyond the reach of understanding.

 

 

Analysis and what is to be analysed

Are linked together, mutually dependent.

It is on the basis of conventional consensus,

That all examination is expressed.

 

If phenomena are truly analysed,

No basis for analysis remains.

Deprived of further object, it subsides.

That indeed is said to be nirvana.

 

If, without a son, a man cannot be a father;

Whence, indeed, will such a son arise?

There is no father in the absence of a son.

Just so, the mind and object have no true existence.

 

If there is no object for analysis,

There can be no grasping of its nonexistence.

Therefore, a deceptive object of whatever kind

Will also have a voidness equally deceptive.

 

Thus, when in a dream, a child has died,

The state of mind which thinks he is no more

Will overwhelm the thought that he was living.

And yet, both thoughts are equally deceptive.

 

Therefore, as we see through such investigation,

Nothing is that does not have a cause;

And nothing is existent in its causes

Taken one by one or in the aggregate.

 

It does not come from somewhere else,

Neither does it stay, nor yet depart.

How will what confusion takes for truth

In any sense be different from a mirage?

 

What arises through the meeting of conditions

And ceases to exist when these are lacking,

Is artificial like the mirror image;

How can true existence be ascribed to it?

 

Something that exists with true existence –

What need is there for it to have a cause?

Something that is wholly inexistent –

Again, what need has it to have a cause?

 

Even by a hundred million causes,

No transformation is there in nonentity.

For if this keeps its status, how could entity occur?

And likewise, what is there that could so change?

 

When nonbeing prevails, if there’s no being,

When could being ever supervene?

For insofar as entity does not occur,

Nonentity itself will not depart.

 

And if nonentity is not dispersed,

No chance is there for entity to manifest.

Being cannot change into nonbeing,

Otherwise it has a double nature.

 

Thus there is no being,

Likewise no cessation.

Therefore beings, each and every one,

Are unborn and never ceasing.

 

Wandering beings, thus, resemble dreams

And also the banana tree, if you examine well.

No difference is there, in their own true nature,

Between the states of suffering and beyond all sorrow.

 

Thus, with things devoid of true existence,

What is there to gain, and what to lose?

Who is there to pay me court and honours,

And who is there to scorn and to revile me?

 

Pain and pleasure, whence do these arise?

And what is there to give me joy and sorrow?

In this quest and search for perfect truth,

Who is craving, what is there to crave?

 

Examine now this world of living beings:

Who is there therein to pass away?

What is there to come, and what has been?

And who, indeed, are relatives and friends?

 

Sad it is indeed that living beings,

Carried on the flood of bitter pain,

However terrible their plight may be,

Do not perceive they suffer so!

 

Some there are who bathe themselves repeatedly,

And afterwards they scorch themselves with fire,

Suffering intensely all the while,

Yet there they stay, proclaiming loud their bliss.

 

Likewise there are some who live and act

As though old and age and death will never come to them.

But then life’s over and there comes

The dreadful fall into states of loss.

 

When shall I be able to allay and quench

The dreadful heat of suffering’s blazing fires,

With plenteous rains of my own bliss

That pour torrential from my clouds of merit?

 

My wealth of merit gathered in,

With reverence but without conceptual aim,

When shall I reveal this truth of emptiness

To those who go to ruin through belief in substance?