Nāgārjuna's Middle Way · Chapter 23
Examination of Errors
Someone praises you, and something warms. Someone insults you, and something hardens. A face looks beautiful, a smell disgusting, a loss unbearable. These reactions feel like responses to what is simply there: the beauty in the face, the insult in the words. Chapter 23 asks where greed, anger and confusion really come from, and whether the qualities that seem to set them off are found where we feel them to be.
The chapter is about the afflictions (kleśa), the states that Buddhist practice sets out to remove. It follows directly from the examination of the self (Chapter 18) and of bondage and liberation (Chapter 16). If the afflictions had a nature of their own, nothing could remove them. If they were simply nothing, there would be nothing to remove. Nāgārjuna shows a third way to see them: they arise from mistaken ways of taking things, and they end when those mistakes are seen through.
The verses
The translation is new, made from the Sanskrit for this site. The Sanskrit is given above each verse; it follows the GRETIL e-text (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
śubhāśubhaviparyāsān saṃbhavanti pratītya hi ||
Desire, hatred and delusion, it is taught, are born of conceptual thinking. For they come about in dependence on the attractive, the unattractive and the inversions.
te svabhāvān na vidyante tasmāt kleśā na tattvataḥ ||
What comes about in dependence on the attractive, the unattractive and the inversions does not exist by its own nature. So the afflictions are not real in truth.
taṃ vināstitvanāstitve kleśānāṃ sidhyataḥ katham ||
The existence or non-existence of a self cannot be established in any way. Without that self, how could the existence or non-existence of the afflictions be established?
kaścid āho vinā kaṃcit santi kleśā na kasyacit ||
For these afflictions are someone's, and that someone is not established. Or, with no one at all, are there afflictions that belong to no one?
svakāyadṛṣṭivat kliṣṭaṃ kleśeṣv api na pañcadhā ||
As with the view of a self in one's own body, the afflictions are not found in the afflicted one in any of the five ways. As with that view, the afflicted one is not found in the afflictions in any of the five ways either.
pratītya katamān kleśāḥ śubhāśubhaviparyayān ||
The attractive, the unattractive and the inversions do not exist by their own nature. Then on which attractive, unattractive and inversions could the afflictions depend?
vastu rāgasya doṣasya mohasya ca vikalpyate ||
Forms, sounds, tastes, touches, smells and mental objects: these six are imagined as the ground of desire, hatred and delusion.
gandharvanagarākārā marīcisvapnasaṃnibhāḥ ||
But forms, sounds, tastes, touches, smells and mental objects, taken by themselves, are like a city of spirits in the clouds, like a mirage, like a dream.
māyāpuruṣakalpeṣu pratibimbasameṣu ca ||
How could the attractive or the unattractive be found in things that are like a magician's illusory person, like a reflection?
yat pratītya śubhaṃ tasmāc chubhaṃ naivopapadyate ||
There is no unattractive that we could designate without relying on the attractive. Yet it is in dependence on that unattractive that the attractive is designated. So the attractive does not hold up.
yat pratītyāśubhaṃ tasmād aśubhaṃ naiva vidyate ||
There is no attractive that we could designate without relying on the unattractive. Yet it is in dependence on that attractive that the unattractive is designated. So the unattractive is not found either.
aśubhe 'vidyamāne ca kuto dveṣo bhaviṣyati ||
If the attractive is not found, where would desire come from? If the unattractive is not found, where would hatred come from?
nānityaṃ vidyate śūnye kuto grāho viparyayaḥ ||
If grasping the impermanent as permanent is a mistake, then since nothing impermanent is found in what is empty, how is that grasping a mistake?
anityam ity api grāhaḥ śūnye kiṃ na viparyayaḥ ||
If grasping the impermanent as permanent is a mistake, why is grasping what is empty as impermanent not also a mistake?
upaśāntāni sarvāṇi tasmād grāho na vidyate ||
That by which one grasps, the grasping, the one who grasps and what is grasped: all of these are at peace. So grasping is not found.
bhaved viparyayaḥ kasya bhavet kasyāviparyayaḥ ||
And if grasping, false or correct, is not found, who could be mistaken, and who could be free of mistake?
na cāpy aviparītasya saṃbhavanti viparyayāḥ ||
Mistakes do not arise for one who is already mistaken. Nor do they arise for one who is not mistaken.
vimṛśasva svayaṃ kasya saṃbhavanti viparyayāḥ ||
Nor do they arise for one who is in the middle of being mistaken. Consider it yourself: for whom do mistakes arise?
viparyayeṣv ajāteṣu viparyayagataḥ kutaḥ ||
How could mistakes that have not arisen exist? And if mistakes are unborn, where is anyone caught in mistake?
na svataḥ parataś ceti viparyayagataḥ kutaḥ ||
A thing is not born from itself, nor from another, nor from both. So where is anyone caught in mistake?
ātmā ca śuci nityaṃ ca sukhaṃ ca na viparyayaḥ ||
If a self, the pure, the permanent and the pleasant really existed, then taking things as self, pure, permanent and pleasant would not be a mistake.
anātmā 'śucy anityaṃ ca naiva duḥkhaṃ ca vidyate ||
If self, purity, permanence and pleasure do not exist, then non-self, impurity, impermanence and suffering do not exist either.
avidyāyāṃ niruddhāyāṃ saṃskārādyaṃ nirudhyate ||
In this way, when the mistakes cease, ignorance ceases. And when ignorance ceases, formations and the rest of the chain cease.
kathaṃ nāma prahīyeran kaḥ svabhāvaṃ prahāsyati ||
If anyone's afflictions were real by their own nature, how could they be abandoned? Who could abandon an own-nature?
kathaṃ nāma prahīyeran ko 'sadbhāvaṃ prahāsyati ||
If anyone's afflictions were unreal by their own nature, in the sense of not existing at all, how could they be abandoned? Who could abandon what does not exist?
Where the afflictions come from
The chapter opens with a teaching every Buddhist school accepts. Desire, hatred and delusion spring from conceptual thinking (saṃkalpa). More exactly, they come about in dependence on three supports (23.1). Desire depends on what seems attractive (śubha). Hatred depends on what seems unattractive (aśubha). Delusion depends on the inversions (viparyāsa): the four mistaken ways of taking things, which the chapter examines later. This is how Candrakīrti reads the verse. (The Sanskrit can also be read as 'mistaken views of the attractive and the unattractive'; the argument comes out the same.) We do not first meet a beautiful thing and then, as a separate matter, want it. The wanting rides on a way of taking the thing: as beautiful, from its own side, in a way that seems to call for possession.
Nāgārjuna draws the consequence at once. Whatever arises in dependence on such supports does not have a nature of its own (23.2). The afflictions are real enough as experiences. Anger burns, craving pulls. But they are not things in themselves, solid lumps in the mind with fixed natures. They are what a certain way of seeing produces, and they are no more solid than that way of seeing.
Whose afflictions?
Verses 23.3 to 23.5 bring back the result of the earlier chapters on the self. Afflictions are always someone's: my anger, your craving (23.4). But the self has been sought and not found as existing from its own side, and not found as simply non-existent either (23.3; Chapter 18). If the owner is not established, the afflictions cannot be established as the owner's possessions.
Verse 23.5 uses the fivefold analysis from the examination of the self. The self is not the same as the body and mind, not different from them, not in them, not containing them, not possessing them. Apply the same five tests to an affliction and the one it afflicts. The anger is not the same as the angry person, not separate from them, not inside them, not containing them, not owned by them as a separate thing. Each is designated in relation to the other. Neither is found standing alone.
Attractive and unattractive are named together
The heart of the chapter is verses 23.6 to 23.12. If the afflictions depend on the attractive, the unattractive and the inversions, are those supports any firmer? They are not: none of them exists by its own nature (23.6). Take the first two. Desire is aimed at the attractive, hatred at the unattractive. The objects that seem to carry these qualities are the six kinds of sense object: forms, sounds, tastes, touches, smells and mental objects (23.7). But taken on their own, without the mind's addition, these objects are like a mirage or a dream (23.8). A mirage shows water. Go to it for a drink and no water is found. In the same way, the object shows beauty or ugliness. Go into the object for the beauty and it is not found.
Then the decisive step. 'Unattractive' can only be named by reference to 'attractive', and 'attractive' only by reference to 'unattractive' (23.10–11). Each is defined against the other, like tall and short, near and far. Neither is a quality sitting in a thing on its own. The same meal is delicious to the hungry and sickening to the overfed; the same song is beautiful at a wedding and painful at a funeral.
So: if the attractive is not found on its own, where does desire get its grip? If the unattractive is not found on its own, where does hatred get its grip (23.12)? This is not a recipe for feeling nothing. Food still tastes good and a cut still hurts. What loosens is the sense that the goodness or badness is lodged in the thing, demanding that we seize it or destroy it.
The four mistakes, and their opposites
Buddhist teaching names four inversions (viparyāsa): taking what is impermanent as permanent, what is suffering as pleasant, what is not-self as self, and what is impure as pure. The path corrects them: see impermanence, suffering, not-self and impurity. These are the third support named in 23.1, the one delusion rests on. Nāgārjuna accepts the teaching and then pushes it one step further than the schools that taught it.
If seeing the impermanent as permanent is a mistake, ask what exactly is mistaken. In what is empty, no impermanent thing is found any more than a permanent one (23.13). If 'permanent' is a wrong grasp, then 'impermanent', grasped as the real nature of a real thing, is also a grasp (23.14). The correction can become a new fixation.
Verse 23.15 says where this ends. The instrument of grasping, the act, the one who grasps and the thing grasped are all at peace. Each is designated with the others, and none is found on its own. Then who is mistaken, and who is correct (23.16)? Verses 23.17 to 23.20 run the analysis of Chapter 2 on mistakes: they do not arise for someone already mistaken, nor for someone not mistaken, nor for someone in the middle of being mistaken. Like everything else, they are not found to arise from self, other or both (23.20, echoing 1.1).
The conclusion is in 23.21 and 23.22. If self, purity, permanence and pleasure really existed, seeing them would not be a mistake. And if they do not exist as real things, their opposites do not exist as real things either. Not-self is not a thing that replaces the self. Impermanence is not a substance found in place of permanence. The opposites are taught to undo the four mistakes. They are true as correctives. Held as the real natures of real things, they would be one more mistake. Like medicine, they do their work and are not kept once the illness has gone.
How the afflictions end
When the mistakes cease, ignorance ceases, and with it the whole chain of the twelve links, beginning with formations (23.23; Chapter 26). Here is the practical point of the chapter. Afflictions are not removed by force, like stones lifted out of a field. They end when the mistake that feeds them is seen through.
The final two verses close the alternatives. If afflictions were real by their own nature, they could not be abandoned, because a nature that is really a thing's own cannot be taken away from it (23.24). If 'unreal by their own nature' meant that they simply do not exist, they could not be abandoned either, because there would be nothing to abandon (23.25). Nāgārjuna does hold that the afflictions lack own-nature; what he rejects is reading that as 'they are nothing at all'. Only because they arise in dependence on mistaken views can they cease when the views cease.
What is left standing
Desire, anger and confusion are not explained away. They arise, they hurt, and they shape lives. The attractive and the unattractive are still told apart: fresh bread from mould, a kind word from a cruel one. Ethics and practice keep their full force, and the four inversions keep their place as a true diagnosis.
What goes is the idea that these qualities sit in things, and that the afflictions are solid states owned by a solid self. Notice the next flash of irritation. Look for the irritating quality in the sound, the person or the words, apart from your taking of them. It is not found there. Yet the irritation was felt, and it can now relax without being suppressed. That is the whole method of the chapter, in one moment.
In the books
The two books take up this chapter's themes in these places.
- Introduction: The Unravelling of the Substantialist Premise (The Logical Necessity of a Substrateless World), the section 'Why It Matters': suffering located not in appearances but in reading them as more than they are; the reputation and the insult felt as solid.
- Chapter 1, The Substantialist Misconception: the sections 'The Innate Sense of Reality' and 'Do We Really Think Inherently?', on the innate grasping that the afflictions ride on.
- The Logic of Dependency (bonus article), the section 'Do We Actually Think Substantially?': Tsongkhapa's advice to look for the object of negation when falsely accused or unexpectedly praised.
- The Logic of Dependency, the section 'A Different Path: Conditions and Openness': anger arising from conditions, changed by changing conditions rather than removed like a stone.
Words to know
- Affliction (kleśa): a disturbing state such as desire, hatred or delusion, which practice aims to end.
- Conceptual thinking (saṃkalpa): the mind's construing of things, here the source of the afflictions.
- Attractive and unattractive (śubha, aśubha): the qualities that desire and hatred take to be in things.
- Afflicted one (kliṣṭa): the person or mind that the afflictions afflict.
- Inversion (viparyāsa): a mistaken view; the four take things as permanent, pleasant, self and pure.
- Ignorance (avidyā): the first of the twelve links; at root, taking things to exist from their own side.
- Abandonment (prahāṇa): the ending of the afflictions, possible only because they are empty.