[Buddha-l] MMK 25.09 (was: as Swami goes...)

[Richard Hayes]

On Apr 29, 2010, at 2:29 PM, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> You mean "nirvana" for the latter occasion. This is exactly where our 
> interpretations of Nagarjuna diverge, and why you sometimes mistakenly 
> believe that he is commiting logical errors.

My belief that he equivocates is not an error.

> You think it is common sense 
> that thing Q can be apprehended by different perspectives, and still be the 
> self-same thing; or a process can be interpreted, i.e., "seen" differently. 

You seem to have a persistent fantasy that you know what I think.

> You want something really 
> there (the process, the things produced in/by the process), and yet 
> everything hinges on the psychology of the viewer.

No, that is not at all what I want. It seems to be what you would like for me to want, but wanting me to want tht will lead only to frustration for you, for I cannot comply with your wishes.

> Nagarjuna doesn't only deconstruct things and 
> substances, but relations and processes as well.

Yes, of course. I don't think anyone denies that.

>> It's a dynamic process, not a stable locus.
> 
> Oh, yeah... it's just figurative.

It's idiomatic. There is a name for someone who takes an idiom literally: idiot. There is no good reason to persist in doing that. Better just to take the expression as I take it, namely, as a nominalization of the verb bhavati that entails no reifications.

Richard