All Things Have One Nature, That Is, No Nature

John Tan and I like this excerpt. 

 

John Tan:

“I really like this article from Jay Garfield expressing "emptiness of emptiness" as:

 

1. The everydayness of everyday.

 

2. Penetrating to the depth of being, we find ourselves back to the surface of things.

 

3. There is nothing after all beneath these deceptive surfaces.

 

Also concisely and precisely expressed the key insight of anatta in ATR.”

 

“That is what I always thought is the key insight of Tsongkhapa also. Like the phases of insights in ATR through contemplating no-self (a negation), one directly and non-dually tastes the vivid appearances.”

 

The excerpt:

 

“Now, since all things are empty, all things lack any ultimate nature, and this is a characterization of what things are like from the ultimate perspective. Thus, ultimately, things are empty. But emptiness is, by definition, the lack of any essence or ultimate nature. Nature, or essence, is just what empty things are empty of. Hence, ultimately, things must lack emptiness. To be ultimately empty is, ultimately, to lack emptiness. In other words, emptiness is the nature of all things; by virtue of this they have no nature, not even emptiness. As Nagarjuna puts it in his autocommentary to the Vigrahavyavartanı, quoting lines from the Astasahasrika-prajnaparamita-sutra: ‘‘All things have one nature, that is, no nature.’’

 

Nagarjuna’s enterprise is one of fundamental ontology, and the conclusion he comes to is that fundamental ontology is impossible. But that is a fundamentally ontological conclusion—and that is the paradox. There is no way that things are ultimately, not even that way. The Indo-Tibetan tradition, following the Vimalakırtinirdesa-sutra, hence repeatedly advises one to learn to ‘‘tolerate the groundlessness of things.’’ The emptiness of emptiness is the fact that not even emptiness exists ultimately, that it is also dependent, conventional, nominal, and, in the end, that it is just the everydayness of the everyday. Penetrating to the depths of being, we find ourselves back on the surface of things, and so discover that there is nothing, after all, beneath these deceptive surfaces. Moreover, what is deceptive about them is simply the fact that we take there to be ontological depths lurking just beneath.”

 

Jay Garfield & Graham Priest, in "Nagarjuna and the limits of thought" 

(Source of text: https://app.box.com/s/ne0b0wwismozwkftpe1h3tx4ew7mi9gn)

 

 

[4:43 pm, 26/09/2021] Soh Wei Yu: Oh nice didnt know you posted
[4:45 pm, 26/09/2021] John Tan: Yes so well expressed. How can I not post it.🤣