Nāgārjuna's Middle Way · Chapter 25
Examination of Nirvāṇa
Every spiritual path seems to promise a destination. Suffering now, freedom later; this world now, a better state beyond it. The Buddhist word for that freedom is nirvāṇa, 'blowing out', and it is easy to picture it as somewhere to arrive: a calm place reached when the noise of life has been left behind. This chapter asks what nirvāṇa could be, if everything examined so far has turned out to be empty.
It comes straight after the great defence of emptiness in Chapter 24, where an opponent charged that emptiness makes the Four Noble Truths, and so the path and its goal, impossible. Here Nāgārjuna turns to the goal itself. He tests every way of taking nirvāṇa as a thing, an absence, both or neither, and then says the most startling sentence in the whole work: there is not the slightest difference between nirvāṇa and the round of birth and death (25.19–20). As in Chapter 1, nothing that works is taken away. What goes is the picture of a second world.
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).
prahāṇād vā nirodhād vā kasya nirvāṇam iṣyate ||
'If all this is empty, there is no arising and no passing away. Then by abandoning what, or by the ceasing of what, is nirvāṇa supposed to come about?'
prahāṇād vā nirodhād vā kasya nirvāṇam iṣyate ||
If all this is not empty, there is no arising and no passing away. Then by abandoning what, or by the ceasing of what, is nirvāṇa supposed to come about?
aniruddham anutpannam etan nirvāṇam ucyate ||
Not abandoned and not attained, not cut off and not permanent, not ceased and not arisen: this is what is called nirvāṇa.
prasajyetāsti bhāvo hi na jarāmaraṇaṃ vinā ||
First, nirvāṇa is not an existing thing. If it were, it would follow that it has the marks of ageing and death, for there is no existing thing without ageing and death.
nāsaṃskṛto hi vidyate bhāvaḥ kva cana kaś cana ||
And if nirvāṇa were an existing thing, nirvāṇa would be conditioned. For nowhere is there any existing thing that is unconditioned.
nirvāṇaṃ nānupādāya kaścid bhāvo hi vidyate ||
And if nirvāṇa were an existing thing, how could it be without dependence? For no existing thing is found that does not depend.
nirvāṇaṃ yatra bhāvo na nābhāvas tatra vidyate ||
If nirvāṇa is not an existing thing, will it then be an absence? Where there is no existing thing, no absence is found either.
nirvāṇaṃ na hy abhāvo 'sti yo 'nupādāya vidyate ||
And if nirvāṇa were an absence, how could it be without dependence? For there is no absence that is found without dependence.
so 'pratītyānupādāya nirvāṇam upadiśyate ||
The coming and going of births and deaths goes on in dependence, or through conditions. When it no longer goes on in dependence or through conditions, that is taught to be nirvāṇa.
tasmān na bhāvo nābhāvo nirvāṇam iti yujyate ||
The Teacher spoke of abandoning both becoming and ceasing to be. So it is right to say that nirvāṇa is neither an existing thing nor an absence.
bhaved abhāvo bhāvaś ca mokṣas tac ca na yujyate ||
If nirvāṇa were both, an absence and an existing thing, then liberation would be both an absence and an existing thing. That is not right.
nānupādāya nirvāṇam upādāyobhayaṃ hi tat ||
If nirvāṇa were both, an absence and an existing thing, nirvāṇa would not be without dependence, for both of those depend.
asaṃskṛtaṃ hi nirvāṇaṃ bhāvābhāvau ca saṃskṛtau ||
How could nirvāṇa be both an absence and an existing thing? Nirvāṇa is unconditioned, while existing things and absences are conditioned.
tayor abhāvo hy ekatra prakāśatamasor iva ||
How could nirvāṇa be both an absence and an existing thing? The two cannot be in one place, any more than light and darkness.
abhāve caiva bhāve ca sā siddhe sati sidhyati ||
The claim 'nirvāṇa is neither an absence nor an existing thing' could be established only if absence and existence were themselves established.
naivābhāvo naiva bhāva iti kena tad ajyate ||
If nirvāṇa really were neither an absence nor an existing thing, by whom could that 'neither … nor' be made known?
na bhavaty ubhayaṃ ceti nobhayaṃ ceti nājyate ||
After his final passing, the Blessed One is not said to exist. Nor is he said not to exist, nor both, nor neither.
na bhavaty ubhayaṃ ceti nobhayaṃ ceti nājyate ||
Even while he is alive, the Blessed One is not said to exist. Nor is he said not to exist, nor both, nor neither.
na nirvāṇasya saṃsārāt kiṃcid asti viśeṣaṇam ||
There is nothing at all that sets saṃsāra apart from nirvāṇa. There is nothing at all that sets nirvāṇa apart from saṃsāra.
na tayor antaraṃ kiṃcit susūkṣmam api vidyate ||
The limit of nirvāṇa and the limit of the round of saṃsāra: between these two, not even the finest gap is found.
nirvāṇam aparāntaṃ ca pūrvāntaṃ ca samāśritāḥ ||
The views about what lies beyond the final passing, the views that the world has an end and the rest, and the views that it is permanent and the rest, rest in turn on nirvāṇa, on the later limit and on the earlier limit.
kim anantam antavac ca nānantaṃ nāntavac ca kim ||
Since all things are empty, what is endless, what has an end? What is both endless and with an end? What is neither endless nor with an end?
aśāśvataṃ śāśvataṃ ca kiṃ vā nobhayam apy atha ||
What is the same, and what is other? What is permanent, what impermanent? What is both impermanent and permanent, or else neither?
na kva cit kasyacit kaścid dharmo buddhena deśitaḥ ||
The quieting of all taking-as-objects, the quieting of elaborations, is peace. No teaching was ever taught by the Buddha to anyone, anywhere.
The objection: emptiness leaves nothing to end
The chapter opens with the opponent (25.1). Freedom, says the tradition, comes from abandoning the afflictions, greed, hatred and confusion, and from the ceasing of the aggregates that make up a suffering life. But if everything is empty, the opponent argues, nothing really arises and nothing really passes away. Then there is nothing to abandon and nothing to cease. Emptiness seems to make nirvāṇa impossible.
Nāgārjuna answers with the same words turned round (25.2). Suppose things are not empty. Then each affliction has a nature of its own, fixed from its own side. A thing like that cannot arise from conditions, and it cannot be ended by changing conditions either. Anger with its own nature would simply be anger, for ever. So it is the opponent's view, not emptiness, that leaves nothing to abandon.
Then comes the definition (25.3). Nirvāṇa is not abandoned and not attained, not cut off and not permanent, not ceased and not arisen. It is not a thing you get, as you get a new house, and not a thing that is destroyed, as a house is pulled down. These are the same kinds of negation as the homage in Chapter 1: they remove the picture of a thing with whereabouts, not the freedom itself.
Is nirvāṇa a thing?
The next verses test the first option: nirvāṇa as an existing thing (bhāva), something real in its own right (25.4–6). Three problems follow at once.
It would age and die (25.4). Everything we know as an existing thing is marked by change, by coming to be and passing away. A nirvāṇa that was a thing would be one more thing that wears out.
It would be conditioned (25.5). No existing thing is found that does not come from conditions. But the whole point of nirvāṇa is that it is not one more product of causes, not one more house built on sand.
It would depend (25.6). Every existing thing is what it is in dependence on other things. A nirvāṇa that depended on causes could be taken away again when they changed.
Is it an absence, both, or neither?
Perhaps then nirvāṇa is an absence (abhāva), the mere ending of suffering, as a flame is simply gone when it goes out (25.7–8)? But an absence is always the absence of something. 'No milk in the jug' only makes sense against milk. So an absence depends on the thing it is the absence of, and if nirvāṇa is not a thing, there is nothing for it to be the absence of. An absence, too, is dependent.
Verse 25.9 then gives the key. Birth and death come and go in dependence, through conditions: that is saṃsāra. When this coming and going no longer runs on in dependence and through conditions, that is called nirvāṇa. Candrakīrti glosses it simply as the round no longer going on. That stopping is not a new thing put in place of the round, and not a bare absence either: 25.4–8 have just ruled out both. What stops is a round driven by grasping. When the grasping at own-nature ends, the round it drove does not go on, and nothing else needs to be added.
The Buddha told his followers to abandon craving for becoming and craving for non-becoming (25.10). If nirvāṇa were a thing, or an absence, it would be one of the two things he told us to let go of. So it is neither.
Could it be both (25.11–14)? Then liberation would be both something and nothing, which makes no sense. It would depend, because each half depends. It would be conditioned, because things and absences are conditioned. And the two cannot sit together in one place, like light and darkness in the same spot.
The last corner is the subtlest (25.15–16). Why not say nirvāṇa is 'neither a thing nor an absence', a mysterious fourth state? Because that phrase is built out of 'thing' and 'absence'. It makes sense only if those two had already been established. And who would know such a state? If it were neither, there would be nothing for any knowing to take hold of.
The Buddha, living or passed
Verses 25.17–18 bring in the old 'unanswered questions'. Asked whether the Buddha exists after death, does not exist, both or neither, the Buddha in the early discourses set the question aside. Nāgārjuna presses the point, as the Buddha himself did with the monk Anurādha (Saṃyutta Nikāya 22.86): the same four answers fail even while the Buddha is alive. The question was never about what happens at death. It was about whether there is a Buddha found from his own side, a self to exist or not exist. There never was, before death or after. So the silence was not a secret held back. There was nothing for any of the four answers to be about. Chapter 22, on the Tathāgata, makes the same point at length.
Not the slightest difference
Now the verses that have been quoted ever since (25.19–20). There is nothing that sets saṃsāra apart from nirvāṇa, and nothing that sets nirvāṇa apart from saṃsāra. Between the limit of the one and the limit of the other, not even the finest gap is found: the limit of one is the limit of the other.
It is important to read this exactly. It does not say that suffering is liberation, or that a confused, grasping life is already free. It says that saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are not two places, two kinds of stuff, or two worlds. Look for the boundary where saṃsāra ends and nirvāṇa begins, the edge you would cross to get from one to the other. No such edge is found, because neither side is found standing on its own. Both are empty, and in emptiness they do not differ by a hair.
So there is still a difference, but not where we looked for it. It is a difference in how the same appearance is met: grasped as solid things, with all the fear and craving that brings, or seen through, and let be. Tsongkhapa and the Prāsaṅgika commentators hold the two together in just this way. In nature, saṃsāra and nirvāṇa are equally empty. In convention, they are clearly distinct: one is bondage, the other is freedom, and the path is what turns the first into the second. The path is not empty words. It is the removal of a misreading.
Where views come from
Verses 25.21–23 explain why people keep asking the unanswerable questions. Does the Buddha exist after death? Does the world have an end? Is it permanent? Each set of views rests on something taken as a fixed point (25.21). Views about the Buddha after death rest on nirvāṇa, pictured as a final place. Views about an end rest on the later limit, the future. Views about permanence rest on the earlier limit, the past. Each view takes for granted something with a nature of its own, which could last or not last, end or not end.
But all things are empty (25.22). Then what is there to be endless or to have an end, to be permanent or impermanent, the same or other? The questions are not hard. They have nothing to be about. Chapter 27 takes these views apart one by one.
No teaching, taught to no one
The chapter ends with peace (25.24). Nirvāṇa is the quieting of all taking-as-objects (upalambha) and the quieting of elaborations (prapañca). An elaboration is the mind's spinning-out of 'is', 'is not', 'it came', 'it went' around something it takes to be there. Taking-as-object is the grip that turns each appearance into a thing to hold. When that grip relaxes, the spinning stops by itself. The words 'the quieting of elaborations, peace' (prapañcopaśama, śiva) are the same words used in the homage of Chapter 1, where the Buddha is praised for having taught dependent arising as that peace. The text has come round to its opening.
Then a line that sounds like a paradox, all the more after a homage that praised him for teaching: the Buddha never taught any teaching to anyone, anywhere. Of course he taught for forty-five years. But no teaching existed from its own side, no listener was found as a self, and no place held the event. The teaching worked, as a raft works for crossing a river, because it was empty. A teaching with its own nature would be one more thing to grasp, and so one more source of suffering.
What is left standing
Read quickly, this chapter seems to empty the path of its goal. It does the opposite. It shows why a goal is possible at all: suffering, coming from conditions, can end when its conditions end. It keeps the difference between a grasping mind and a free one, which is the whole difference that matters. It keeps the path, the practice and the teacher, each working as designated. What it removes is the picture of nirvāṇa as a place elsewhere, reached by leaving this world behind.
The test is close at hand. Notice a moment of irritation. Look for where it stands, its own nature, its edge. It is vivid, and it is not found apart from its conditions: the remark, the tiredness, the story told about it. Seen that way, it loosens. Nothing has gone anywhere, and nothing new has arrived. This is how the chapter can say that nirvāṇa is not a second world: it is this world, no longer misread.
In the books
The two books take up this chapter's themes in several places.
- Interlude: Same Words, Different Worlds (The Logical Necessity of a Substrateless World), the section 'Nirvāṇa': nirvāṇa as this world no longer misread, citing verses 25.19–20 and 25.24, and the table at the end of the Interlude.
- Resonances and Open Questions (The Transition from Anatta to Emptiness), the section 'The Eight Extremes and Nirvāṇa': the limit of one is the limit of the other, and the difference between sharing nirvāṇa's nature and having realised it.
- Appendix: From Rheomode to Relation, 'Synthesis 2: Conventional and Nirvanic States': chapter 25's shared limit restated in the book's notation, as a claim about nature, not a claim that recognition is unnecessary.
Talks on YouTube:
- MMK Intro: The Path of Synchronization: Anatta and Madhyamaka.
- Why Insights and Experiences Still Require Right View.
Words to know
- Nirvāṇa: 'blowing out'; the end of suffering, the quieting of grasping and elaboration.
- Saṃsāra: 'wandering on'; the round of birth and death, driven by grasping.
- Existing thing (bhāva) and absence (abhāva): the two poles every way of taking nirvāṇa leans on.
- Limit (koṭi): an end or edge. Saṃsāra and nirvāṇa share one limit; no edge lies between them.
- Taking-as-object (upalambha): the grip that turns an appearance into a thing to hold.
- Elaboration (prapañca): the mind's spinning-out of 'is' and 'is not' around something it takes to be there.
- Tathāgata: 'thus-gone', a name of the Buddha.