PART ONE: Review of Verses 1 - 14
Verses 1 -3 = Arising, abiding, and ceasing, etc, are conventional terms, which are empty signifiers.
Verses 4 - 6 = Arising and the cause of an arising cannot be found in the present, past, or future.
Verse 7 = “Without one, there are not many. Without many, one is not possible.”
Verse 8 - 12 = Ignorance, the cause of Ignorance (i.e. the Four Inversions), and saṃskāras are dependently-originated, lacking inherent existence.
Verses 13 & 14 = The parent is not the child and the child is not the parent, yet both cannot be what they are without the other. “Just as in a dream, happiness and suffering depend on dream objects that do not actually exist, likewise any phenomenon which arises in dependence on another dependent phenomenon should be known not to exist in the manner of its appearance.”
PART TWO: Opponents assert something must exist
Verse 15 = A Sarvāstivāda-Vaibhāṣika opponent
The Sarvāstivādans were an early school of ‘Hinayana’ Buddhism that held the position that ‘everything exists’ in the past, present, and future (sarva "all" + asti "exist"). Nāgārjuna presents their argument as:
‘If things do not exist with an own being, then inferiority, sameness, and superiority would not exist, diversity would not be admissible, origination out of causes would not exist.’
Verse 16 = Nāgārjuna’s Response
If things had inherent existence then they would not arise in an inter-dependent way, and they would go on forever.
Verse 17 = Opponent & Response
Then how can you talk about the characteristics of “a thing”, or differentiate from “another thing” or a “non thing”?
Response: The same way we differentiate the various objects of a dream, although they are ‘unfindable’ and without inherent existence, they appear to have existence.
Verse 18 = Opponent
If things don’t exist, then where do destruction and birth occur?
Verse 19 = Response
Without the not existing thing, the existing thing is not (possible). Existence and non-existence are dependently originated and therefore ‘do not arise’.
Verse 20 = Response continued
“Without the existing thing there is not the not existing thing; (a thing) does not exist out of itself;
PART THREE: The Two Extreme Views - Eternalism & Nihilism
Verse 21 = Nāgārjuna accuses the Opponent of holding an extreme view
“If there were existence in itself of things, there would be eternalism; if there were inexistence in itself, there would be nihilism; and things cannot both exist and not exist; therefore things are not admitted.”
Verse 22 = The Opponent brings up the ‘Mindstream’ (citta-santāna)
The two extremes of eternalism and nihilism are avoided due to ‘continuity’ (i.e. the ‘mindstream’). If there is a cause, things cease.
Response: We refuted causes in Verses 4-6.
Verse 23 = What about Nirvana?
Even though the Buddha spoke of birth and destruction regarding the path to nirvāṇa, due to emptiness they do not exist.
Verse 24 = Opponent
If birth and cessation do not exist, through the cessation of what would nirvāṇa be produced? Not being born and not ceasing, isn’t that liberation?
Verse 25 = Nāgārjuna again accuses the Opponent of holding an extreme view
“If nirvāṇa is cessation, there is nihilism; if it is the other (alternative), there is eternalism; therefore it is neither an existing thing nor a non existing thing; it is without birth and cessation.”
Verse 26 = The ‘non-existence’ of something is contradictory in-and-of-itself
“If a cessation did subsist, then it would have to be without the existence of the thing; (but) it cannot be without the existence of the thing; nor can it be without the inexistence of the thing.”
Verse 27 = The dependent arising of characteristics and that which is characterized
“It is admitted that the characteristic is on account of the characterized (thing); and it is admitted that the characterized (thing) is on account of the characteristic; therefore it is not admitted that they exist in and of themselves; nor can it be admitted that both (exist) one on account of the other, since what is not admitted cannot make another thing – that itself is not admitted – to be admitted.” Verse 28 = All concepts and conceptualization, all that ‘exists’ is explained
With this has been completely explained all that can exist: cause and effect, sensation together with the object of sensation etc., who sees and the visible (thing) etc.