Relation of Sky to Dependent Origination - Garth Mason - Bog

While much of Nagarjuna's writings are aimed at deconstructing fixed views and views that hold to some form of substantialist thought (where certain qualities are held to be inherent in phenomena), he does not make many assertive propositions regarding his philosophical position. He focuses most of his writing to applying the prasariga method of argumentation to prove the importance of recognizing that all phenomena are sunya by deconstructing views of phenomena based on substance. Nagarjuna does, however, assert that all phenomena are empty and that phenomena are meaningful because ¿¿nyata makes logical sense. Based on his deconstruction of prevailing views of substance, he maintains that holding to any view of substance is absurd, that phenomena can only make sense if viewed from the standpoint of sünyata. This thesis grapples with the problem that Nagarjuna does not provide adequate supporting arguments to prove that phenomena are meaningful due to their sunyata. It is clear that if samveti is indiscernible due to its emptiness, samvrtisatya cannot be corroborated on its own terms due to its insubstantiality. But how does viewing phenomena as empty make them meaningful? Scholars who base their understanding of how meaning is established in Nagarjuna's thought based on Candrakirti's interpretation of his two- truths formulation, which grants both param¿rtha and samveti truths their distinctive truth-values, tend to prove the distinctive truth of samveti in terms of its linguistically- based, conventional status. I am critical of this approach and argue, instead, that an explanation of how phenomena are meaningful due to their emptiness is found in the Prajñ¿p¿ramit¿ Satra's (PPM)'s use of metaphoricity. Rather than seeing the two truths as distinctive. I argue that samvitisatya and paramarthasatya both make sense based on their metaphorical relationship in that they are both ¿¿nyata and that phenomena. point to, or are metaphors for, the all-inclusive sunyata of reality akin to understanding of akasa in the Prajñaparamita Sutras which although experienced cannot be cognitively grasped.