Those who understand that things arise dependently know them to be empty.
yac ca pratiityabhaavanaM bhaavaanaaM shuunyataam viduh
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
For whom emptiness works, everything works. For whom emptiness does not work, nothing works.
Emptiness is declared by the Buddhas to be the exit from all views. But those who hold emptiness as a view are called incurable.
Neither ceasing nor arising, neither annihilated nor eternal, neither one nor many, neither coming nor going.
Emptiness wrongly grasped destroys the slow-witted, like a snake wrongly seized or a spell wrongly cast.
What is dependently originated, that we declare to be emptiness. It is a dependent designation; it is itself the middle way.
Related Quotes
You must learn all things: both the steadfast heart of well-rounded Truth and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true trust.
-- Parmenides
For thinking and Being are the same.
-- Parmenides
For whom emptiness works, everything works. For whom emptiness does not work, nothing works.
-- 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
Neither ceasing nor arising, neither annihilated nor eternal, neither one nor many, neither coming nor going.
-- Nagarjuna
Emptiness wrongly grasped destroys the slow-witted, like a snake wrongly seized or a spell wrongly cast.
-- Nagarjuna