The Foundations of Buddhism

The Mahiiyiina 239

teaching of the Buddha is that everything is empty of its own

inherent existence.

But Nagarjuna was quick to point out that we should not con-

clude that emptiness itself is equivalent to the view that nothing

exists; in fact those who see in emptiness some kind of 'annihila-

tionism have a faulty view of emptiness, and 'when it is wrongly

seen, emptiness destroys the dull-witted, like a snake that is

wrongly grasped or a magical spell that is wrongly cast'.^28 It is

not that nothing exists, but that nothing exists as an individual

essence possessed of its own inherent existence. In particular, to

see 'emptiness' as undermining the teaching of the Buddha is to

fail to take proper account of the basic Abhidharma distinction

between conventional truth and ultimate truth. The point is that,

for Nagarjuna, the Abhidharma account of the world in terms

of dharmas cannot be the ultimate description of the way things

are; rather it still falls within the compass of conventional truth.

The ultimate truth about the way things are is emptiness, but

conventional truth is still truth, not conventional falsehood, and

without it the Buddha's teaching is hopeless:

The buddhas' teaching of Dharma depends equally on two truths: ordin-

ary conventional truth and. truth from the point of view of the ultimate;

tliose who do not perceive the difference between these two truths do

not perceive the deep 'reality' (tattva) in the teaching of the buddhas.

Without resorting to ordinary conventions, what is ultimate cannot be

taught; without recourse to what is ultimate, nirvaJ:.la is not attained.^29

But nirval).a is not some 'Absolute Reality' existing beyond the

phenomenal conditioned world, behind the veil of conventional

truth, for again this would commit us to eternalism. Emptiness

is the ultimate truth of reality and of nirval).a-it too is empty of

its own existence, it is not an existent. It follows that nirval)a can-

not be understood as some thing, some .existent, which is other

than the conditioned round of existence, sa111sara:

There is nothing that distinguishes sarp.sara from nirva1.1a; there is noth-
ing that distinguishes nirva1.1a from sarp.sara; and the furthest limit of
nirva1.1a is also the furthest limit of sarp.sara; not even the subtlest dif-
ference between the two is found.^30