What is dependently originated, that we declare to be emptiness. It is a dependent designation; it is itself the middle way.
yaH pratiityasamutpaadaH shuunyataaM taaM pracakSmahe / saa prajNaptir upaadaaya pratipat saiva madhyamaa
Philosophers
Nagarjuna
A second-century South Indian monk who founded the Madhyamaka school by systematizing the doctrine of emptiness. His Mulamadhyamakakarika is among Buddhism's key texts. Tibetans call him the Second Buddha.
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Nagarjuna's Other Quotes
Neither ceasing nor arising, neither annihilated nor eternal, neither one nor many, neither coming nor going.
Emptiness is declared by the Buddhas to be the exit from all views. But those who hold emptiness as a view are called incurable.
Emptiness wrongly grasped destroys the slow-witted, like a snake wrongly seized or a spell wrongly cast.
For whom emptiness works, everything works. For whom emptiness does not work, nothing works.
Those who understand that things arise dependently know them to be empty.
Related Quotes
Neither ceasing nor arising, neither annihilated nor eternal, neither one nor many, neither coming nor going.
-- Nagarjuna
Emptiness is declared by the Buddhas to be the exit from all views. But those who hold emptiness as a view are called incurable.
-- Nagarjuna
Emptiness wrongly grasped destroys the slow-witted, like a snake wrongly seized or a spell wrongly cast.
-- Nagarjuna
For whom emptiness works, everything works. For whom emptiness does not work, nothing works.
-- Nagarjuna
Those who understand that things arise dependently know them to be empty.
-- Nagarjuna