From elsewhere (link below):
So, in these texts I see Nagarjuna & Chandrakirti doing something over and over again. Andrè mentioned it:
> Also mutual dependency - the desirous one requires desire, and vice-versa.
So
on one hand we have things figuring in the texts, like mover and
movement, agent and action, seeing and eye, etc. Chandrakirti gives a
list:
>
Hypostatizing thought springs from the manifold of named things
(prapanca), ie., from the beginninglessly recurring cycle of birth and
death, which consists of knowledge and objects of knowledge, words and
their meanings, agents and action, means and act, pot and cloth, diadem
and chariots, objects and feelings, female and male, gain and loss,
happiness and misery, beauty and ugliness, blame and praise.
There
are more than these, and these are not necessarily strict dualities of
two; there are also for example trinities, like eye form seeing, mover
moved movement, etc.
On
one hand we have these things. They are mentioned in the texts. And I
see something happening in the texts: So on one hand we have these
things, but then on the other hand it is being "dredged up", explored,
exposed, _that these things appear almost as if under the guise of
certain mental models or relations_.
These
*relations* are sort of "hidden" and yet they are also in plain sight
in the texts. These relations almost aren't really emphasized or made
much of, except the whole text is about them.
The
texts explore how, not only are these things (like form, eye,
appropriator, agent, etc.) defined by their (let’s call it:) "common
characteristics/qualities" (like color, capabilities, and other
concepts), _but they are also defined by very important
models/modes/relations_. In fact, outside of these relations, _we can't
define those things._
So,
for example, not only is a seed something brown, small, round-ish,
hard, breakable, etc.,—these are its "common characteristics”…
…
a seed is also dependent on "sprout”—and first of all, a sprout is not
precisely the same nor precisely different from a "seed".
So,
the definition of a seed does not only come from ascribing common
characteristics like size and hardness and color, but the definition
also unavoidably contains some kind of model or relation to something
else.
These
models or relations are almost "meta-cognitions”. For example, we have
seed and sprout. And when it comes to common characteristics, seed and
sprout seem to be independent.
_But seed and sprout also have a meta-definition as cause and effect._
Now
"cause and effect" is a kind of "abstract relation"—a meta-model
almost. We take the cause-and-effect relation and apply it to many
things, not just seeds and sprout. This relationship is sort of
abstracted or, better yet, "general". I.e., we use this relation not
just for seed and sprout, but for all kinds of things.
And
it is *these* relations or meta-models or meta-cognitions, upon which
our definitions depend (!), that are as if being dredged up from our
mind and investigated in the texts.
First there is mention of things like seed and sprout. And these have common characteristics, like size, solidity, color, etc.
But
then it is revealed that a definition of something is *in no way*
complete or sufficient _without these meta-models_. If we did not cast
these things in the relations of these meta-models, then we simply _do
not_ get a sufficient definition at all. We *must* account for these
meta-models—they are completely required—, but they are at first
subconscious.
Nagarjuna
blows through one meta-model or “relational schema” after another, and
points out that what characterizes all of these meta-models or
relations, is that at least *some* aspect of them always has
*reciprocity* or mutuality (or, even, "duality"—but understood in a
different way than usual, more as "complementarity”).
A little side note is that our definitions of things also "interface" or "reflect" with the meta-model that it is placed in.
For
example, an eye can be defined by its characteristics, but at some
point we *have* to say that at least *something* that irreducibly,
unavoidably makes an eye an eye is that it sees (form). So we have some
kind of meta-model or relation *in* the definition of an eye: It acts
upon or appropriates an acted-upon or appropriated. And if we took away
this *type of relationship* (and it is these various “relationship
types” that are being investigated in the texts), we can't define an eye
(or form, or self, or...). Some meta-model is actually part of what an
eye is; it supplies some necessary section of its definition.
Nagarjuna
and Chandrakirti *extremely strongly* insist on this fact: That we
*muuuust* have these relations to define and make sense of things. But
after that has been established (that we *must* have/infer/model these
relations to define and make sense of things)—and they do this over, and
over, and over again; they don't just establish it once, say, at the
beginning of the text; instead they insist on it every single time they
do any specific reasoning—after it has been established that we must
have these relations, they show that *since we need these relations* and
*since the relations have an aspect of reciprocity*, therefore things,
as defined—and there are no things outside of what they are (ie. outside
of definition)—first of all do not have svabhava—does not
self-exist—and then therefore are not things to which arising or
ceasing, existing or not, nor indeed any other character, is ascribable.
There
are "loose definitions", but the imputation of (independent) existence
makes no sense. And the crux is that that sort of reclassifies
everything: To be something independently existing is such a *massively*
different thing or condition than what it turns out that those things
really are—which is peaceful—which we see when we understand the
reciprocal aspect of dependent co-arising.