Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime

by Nāgārjuna, Stephen Batchelor

The understanding of the nature of reality is the insight upon which the Buddha was able to achieve his own enlightenment. This vision of the sublime is the source of all that is enigmatic and paradoxical about Buddhism. In Verses from the Center , Stephen Batchelor explores the history of this concept and provides readers with translations of the most important poems ever written on the subject, the poems of 2nd century philosopher Nagarjuna.

Genres: Buddhism, Poetry, Philosophy, Spirituality, Religion, Nonfiction, Meditation

208 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2001

About the author

Acharya Nāgārjuna (Telugu: నాగార్జున) (c. 150 - 250 CE) was an Indian philosopher and the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhism.

His writings are the basis for the formation of the Madhyamaka school, which was transmitted to China under the name of the Three Treatise (Sanlun) School. He is credited with developing the philosophy of the Prajnaparamita sutras, and was closely associated with the Buddhist university of Nalanda. In the Jodo Shinshu branch of Buddhism, he is considered the First Patriarch.

Reviews

[Mesoscope · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is much about Stephen Batchelor's new translation of Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika which is extremely useful, although the work is also highly problematic. Batchelor has chosen to render Nagarjuna's verses in a very free fashion, communicating what he discerns to be the real message at the heart of the Karikas. He has felt free to omit material, paraphrase, summarize, and reword entire sections with enormous liberty. On the one hand this has freed the text from much of its cryptic quality which has resulted from the metrical constraints of the Sanskrit root text. On the other hand we must rely heavily on Batchelor's interpretation of what Nagarjuna actually meant. What did Nagarjuna actually mean? Batchelor sets forth his interpretive model in the lengthy and challenging introduction. Nagarjuna, Batchelor argues, should be interpreted as belonging to a common philosophical heritage. In comparing Nagarjuna's text with the writings of Taoism and Zen and even the English Romantic poets, Batchelor suggests that the Verses espouse a common insight which is far broader than many modern interpreters have suggested. It seems probable that the unspoken opponent of his exegesis is the Gelukpa and Gelukpa-inspired scholarship which has had much to say about Madhyamaka in recent years, and of which Batchelor himself was once a part when he translated Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara with Geshe Rabten in Echoes of Voidenss. Here, he briefly presents Dzong-ka-ba's view on Nagarjuna, which Batchelor clearly thinks is overly scholastic and removes the heart of the message by viewing emptiness as primarily a kind of anti-metaphysics. The real message, we learn, is that we are to approach the world with a particular stance of openess and sense of interconnectedness. Emptiness is to be lived in its realization, not realized propositionally. Clearly Batchelor has been deeply influenced by his experiences with Zen in this approach, and it has much to offer in considering the relationship of emptiness to the endeavor of liberation. This work is obviously highly personal, and highly personalizes the process of meditation on emptiness. That being said, I found the book to contain significant problems. In my opinion it behooves Batchelor to spend more energy in the introduction in justifying his beliefs. I do not see why we should necessarily believe that Nagarjuna is best read through the existential model that Batchelor suggests. This certainly flies in the face of many of his Indian commentators such as Aryadeva, Chandrakirti, Buddhapalita, and Bhavaviveka. I see no reason to assume that, on the basis of stylistic and rhetorical affinities, we should view Nagarjuna as belonging to the family of thought that somehow includes Chuang-Tzu and Keats rather than as belonging to the milieu in which he lived and wrote. "Verses" is clearly more of a presentation of Batchelor's views than an argument on their behalf, so while I personally resonated with much of what he said I found myself wondering what justified Batchelor in translating this work so freely. It is more a collaboration than a translation, and I'm not convinced that Nagarjuna needs a collaborator. If you are looking for a translation which is not extremely demanding philosophcially, this might be the version for you. Likewise if you are interested in a free, interesting and challenging reading of Nagarjuna, this book has much to offer. Be warned, however, that if you are interested in Nagarjuna's actual words, this is not the book for you.

[Marc · Rating 4 out of 5]

All energy for actually writing a review expended on typing up selections below, which I hope actually shed light on the text. In short, Batchelor always writes so accessibly about Buddhism and writes both a long intro to put Nāgārjuna and the text in context, as well as translating the verses with the intent of keeping their spirit current.

QUOTES FROM THE INTRO
“One can become fixated on emptiness as easily as on anything else. In doing so, what is intended to stop fixations becomes an insidious form of entrapment.”

“The emptiness that results from dissolving the seemingly impenetrable barrier between “self” and “other” enables Shantideva to see that “I” is only possible in relation to “you.” The very word “I,” which so poignantly hints at that elusive sense of what is most irreducibly peculiar to a person, only makes sense as part of a language that includes “you,” “him,” “her,” “us,” and “them.” There never has been and never can be an “I” existing in isolation."

“The sublime may be beyond the grasp of concepts or language, but it is only ever encountered deep within the pulsing heart of what is happening here and now.”

“Take the term “zero.” Until the fifteenth century it was a Spanish word, used to pronounce the Arabic ciphr (which also gave us the English “cipher”). When Arabic-speaking Muslims settled in Spain, they brought with them a system of arithmetic that included a symbol for zero. This was to prove indispensable to constructing the mathematics now used in everything from quantum physics to computer programming. The Muslims had discovered the idea in India, the Arabic ciphr being their pronunciation of the Sanskrit shunya, which from the ninth century at least had been used in India to represent the mathematical notion of zero. Shunya means “empty” and was the term Nagarjuna used as the key to understanding what the Buddha taught. Thus shunya becomes ciphr, then ciphr becomes zero.”

“Fixations do not manufacture a false reality; they exaggerate what is merely contingent. Fixations imbue self and things with a tightness, solidity and opacity. Instead of experiencing the world as an uncertain play of conditions, we prefer the safety of one that appears to be clearcut, predictable and manageable. Yet the price to pay for this preference is that life is rendered dull and repetitive. To relive the tedium, we find ourselves driven to ever more intense moments of experience (food, shopping, drugs, sex, vacations, movies, religion). For Nagarjuna, the problem lies not in the way the world is but in the way we have construed it.”

PARTIAL SELECTION OF VERSES
Birth:
Were darkness shed
By light it never meets,
A single lamp could lift
The darkness of a galaxy.

If light illuminates
Itself and other things,
Does the dark obscure
Itself and other things?
---------------------------
Before:
Was there a before before?
---------------------------
Change:
Buddhas say emptiness
Is relinquishing opinions.
Believers in emptiness
Are incurable.

[Merl Fluin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a reliable translation of Nāgārjuna, but a beautiful and stimulating work in its own right nonetheless.

[Vita Pires, Ph.D. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting translation of Nagarjuna's text. In Batchelor's inimitable manner, he translates this text into a modern framework combined with a commentary which again displays his quite brilliant writing skill. Hope to read this one again.

[Mckinley · Rating 1 out of 5]

Disappointing. This is not a translation of Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika. It is an oddly framed up 80 page widely ranging introduction with 50 pages of poems that Batchelor drafted. I don't think his Zen koan approach works for this text.
See: The philosophy of the middle way (Mulamadhyamakakarika) by Nagarjuna, English translation and annotation by David Kalupahana.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

besides the actual verses by nagarjuna, which one can (and should) spend the rest of one's life pondering, the other half of this book is a superb (remarkably clear) primer on the basic precepts of buddhism, i.e. emptiness and contingency. much food for the soul.

[Tetrijeb · Rating 4 out of 5]

quick and decent introduction to heavy, hardcore, mindblowing and otherworldly teachings of Nagarjuna, which are meant to deconstruct the one who reads.

[Sacha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Karen Armstrong's Lost Art of Scripture made it possible for me to appreciate this at some level. Definitely trippy.

[Philippe Desaulniers · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5, actually. Very interesting intro by the author. Then the verses themselves sort of disappointed. Too repetitive, and they didn't feel as rich as the explanation that was done of them in the intro.

Maybe it's a translation problem. Maybe I just didn't get it.

[Aaron Wood]

I am always reading this book over and over....

[Jeffrey Bumiller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buddhist poetry with an existential tinge. Emptiness and contingency are the main subjects here. Contains a very lengthy and interesting introduction by Stephen Batchelor.

[Tyrone Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

very good book on the philosophy of emptiness

[Andrew Furst · Rating 5 out of 5]

A delightful read. One of Stephen's best

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hmm...

[Ellen Hughes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in San Miguel de Allende and Oaxaca, MX during the dreamy 2019 summer sabbatical.