Malcolm Smith (Lopon Namdrol) wrote:
"I never maintained that N had no views at all. I have always maintained that he had no view concerning existence and nonexistence."
"He (Nagarjuna) states in the VV that he has no propositions/thesis concerning svabhāva as defined by his opponents. He does not say he has no views at all. For example, he clearly states in the MMK that he prefers the Sammitya view of karma.
Your claim is similar to the mistaken assertion made by some who claim that Candrakirti never resorts to syllogisms, which in fact he clearly does in the opening lines of the MAV. What Candra disputes is not syllogistic reasoning in its entirety, but rather, syllogistic reasoning applied to emptiness.
Likewise, he clearly asserts the view in the VV that there is no svabhāva in phenomena. Madhyamaka is not a simple minded "I have no view" proposition."
"There are only two of those views, i.e., "It exists" and "It does not exist." Nāgārjuna negates these two because he has a view — dependent origination, which he calls the "the pacification of views.""
"You are confusing emptiness with dependent origination. Emptiness is a negation, but dependent origination is a statement on how conditiond things function, i.e things do not arise from themselves, from other, from both or without a cause.
You are also making the mistaken argument that views cannot be antidotal, that they are invariably pathological. Thus, Candrakirti states that right view, emptiness, is the antidote for wrong views.
I think you are getting a little too carried away with your anti-view view."
"As long as we understand, as I pointed out at the very beginning here, that "all views" simply means views of existence and nonexistence.
Is it possible to express anything concerning this truth? Perhaps this:
"There is no distinction whatsoever between saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.
There is no distinction whatsoever between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra."
MMK 25.19
Or perhaps more apt:
This pair, samsara and nirvana, do not exist.
However thorough knowledge of samsara is nirvana.
But of course, all of this concerns the objective state of phenomena, and not how we subjectively experience the path and its realization."
"But it clearly is a view: "Where this arises, that arose; with the arising that, this arose; where cease ceases, that ceases; with the cessation of that, this ceases."
How does dependent origination function? It functions because entities are empty of existence and nonexistence. That emptiness is what is not to be taken as a view. But dependent origination is acceptable as a view. Why? This is the question you need to ask yourself. If Buddha taught no views at all, then there is no need for Dharma, a path, nor could there be a result."
"The Buddha did not teach emptiness as a view, indeed, but he certainly taught dependent origination as a view. In fact it is what is called "right view.""
"Ummmm...Nāgārjuna held the metaphysical view that sentient beings take rebirth, that past actions ripen, that merit must be accumulated in order to earn the marks of a buddha, etc. So obviously this is not the case."
"He is saying precisely that the reality of phenomena is dependent origination and emptiness, depending on which way one is seeing things.
For example, in the 70 he says:
The nature of all things is empty.
For what reason? The nature of all things
is an assembly of causes and conditions.
or, because there is neither being nor nonbeing
in each and every thing, they are empty
He is here declaring that the nature or reality (the state of being pertaining to things) of all things is emptiness.
He says,
Having realized things are empty,
one will not be confused because of seeing correctly"

Reminded me of what Thusness said in 2014,

"I m not into no view...but actualization of right view. We all know views r only provisional and r approximate of "reality" but some views r better representations of "reality" than others. I m not into "no view", that will lead us into taking "non conceptuality" as the goal of practice. I hv no issue adopting "right view", "non conceptuality of view" to me simply means not to let "view" remains intellect and conceptual but have experiential insight and actualized it in daily activities."
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