THE ATLAS OF THE EMPTY THRONE

Nāgārjuna

nature

The Mahāyāna calls him its second Buddha, and one of the most rigorous minds any tradition has produced. His method is entirely negative: take any candidate for a thing that exists in its own right — motion, time, fire, the self, causation, even nirvāṇa — and show the notion collapses under its own terms.

The philosopher of emptiness. Everything downstream — Madhyamaka, Chan, Tibetan scholasticism — reads through him.

There is not the slightest difference between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.

rhymes with

sephirahbinah

whyBinah is the understanding that gives form — and Nāgārjuna is its exact inverse operation, the understanding that takes form away. The rhyme is the faculty, not the direction.