MURYOKO
'Infinite Light'
Journal of Shin Buddhism
Harold Stewart
Nagarjuna
Nagarjuna flourished in India about the second to third centuries A.D. He was the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhism and the pre-eminent exponent of its critical dialectic of the Middle Way, which negated all possible logical positions in order to arrive at Shunyata or Emptiness. As the Thirteenth Patriarch in direct line from Shakyamuni, Nagarjuna is regarded as the second founder of Buddhism; for just as Shakyamuni's sermons, preached during his lifetime and later recorded in the sutras, were called the First Turning of the Wheel of the Law, so Nagarjuna's initial formulation of the Mahayana doctrines came to be known as the Second Turning of the Wheel of the Law.
In the Far Eastern Traditions, theoretical doctrine was never divorced from practical method designed to lead to Enlightenment; so that, as Rene Guenon remarked, there was no philosophy east of Istanbul, nor any need ever felt for lack of it. But modern Occidental professors (and their Westernized Oriental colleagues) have appropriated such highly intellectual sages as Nagarjuna and, by abstracting the rational content from their doctrines, have tried to make them academically respectable ?philosophers? like themselves: in other words, sterile professional thinkers without spiritual realization or means for its attainment.
But Nagarjuna's doctrine of Emptiness was not merely the result of logical ratiocination: it grew out of his profound Metaphysical Insight, or prajna, which is a faculty that cannot be developed by passing university examinations or collecting higher degrees. For prajna is suprarational in that, while not contrary to reason, it transcends it and all its ingenious explanations. The dialectic method of the Madhyamaka was never intended to erect a logically consistent self-contained system of ideas cast in watertight verbal formulations, which the philosopher's successors could then examine critically so as to expose its fallacies. It was, on the contrary, devised to "tease the mind out of thought" by its paradoxical twists of negation and so to provide an antidote to the excessively logical and rational nature of the Indo-European languages and modes of thought. Thus its practical aim was to use rational thinking to transcend thought and so lead to Metaphysical Realization. All closed or self-sufficient systems of ideas are of necessity finite and limited and can never adequately describe or explain the Infinite and Limitless, which was what Nagarjuna, like the Buddha, refused to speak about but sought to make us realize by direct Insight.
In Japan, Nagarjuna is known as Ryuju and claimed as First Patriarch by no less than eight different sects, including the two Pure Land schools, Jodo-shu and Shinshu, because after his death he is said to have been reborn in the Western Paradise of Amida Buddha, where he was accorded the rank of a Bodhisattva of the tenth grade. His importance for Pure Land doctrine depends upon the Igyohon, the section on Easy Practice from the ninth chapter of book five of his work, Dalabhumikavibhasa-shastra (Japanese: Jujubibasharon). In this chapter, from which the above quotation is taken, Nagarjuna, for the first time in Buddhist thought, clearly distinguished between Igyodo, the Easy Way, and Nangyodo, the Difficult Path, of practice. The Easy Way is that of the Nembutsu, or Invocation of the Name of Amida Buddha with complete reliance on his infinite store of merit, which he accumulated during five kalpas of contemplation. Out of his boundless generosity and compassion, Amida has vowed to transfer this to all who call his Name, no matter how ignorant or defiled they may be. Amida's fulfilment of his Forty-eight Vows was to ensure the Rebirth of all who place unconditional trust in him, so that they can reach his Pure Land, Sukhavati, that Paradise in the Western Region of the Universe which he established as a state more propitious for the attainment of Nirvana than this Saha World of long-suffering. Nagarjuna contrasts this Invocation of the Sacred Name with the Difficult Path of Traditional Buddhist ascesis as laid down in the rules and restrictions of the Vinaya, or monastic discipline of the Sangha, the Order established by the historical Buddha, Shakyamuni.
Later, Tan Luan (476-542), known in Japanese as Donran, who was the First Chinese Patriarch of Ching-t'u (Japanese: Jodo), or the Pure Land school, identified the Easy Way with Tariki, or the Other Power of Amida Buddha, and the Difficult Path with Jiriki, or the self-power of the Zen and other sects of Buddhism. Tao-ch'o, the Second Chinese Patriarch (562-645), then equated them respectively with the Jodomon, or Pure Land Path, and the Shodomon, or Path of the Sages who seek to attain Enlightenment by individual effort.
Nagarjuna compares the Easy Way to a pleasant voyage by boat on the water, since in this method the devotee need only invoke with perfect confidence the Name of Amida, Namu Amida Butsu, which is easy for anyone, anywhere, and at any time to call and to hold in mind. But he likens the Hard Path to the arduous climbing of the mountain of meditation on foot.