Nagarjuna’s Grinding to Dust

with Venerable Gache

On Six Tuesdays starting August 9
(August 9, 16, 23, 30, September 6, 13) @ 4 – 6 pm

Additional Dates
Tuesday September 20 @ 4 – 6 pm
Saturday September 24 @ 4 – 6pm

ONLINE ONLY: Indian Standard Time (IST) – convert to your time zone

This course is open for beginners and experienced students alike!

The Text – Nagarjuna’s Grinding to Dust

Though Nāgārjuna’s Vaidalyasūtra (Tib. Zhib mo rnam par thag pa’i mdo, Eng. Grinding to Dust) forms an essential component of his seminal Sixfold Collection of Reasoning, it has received little attention both among Tibetan commentators and modern presentations on Nāgārjuna’s philosophy. The main reason for this lack of attention is not that the text is unimportant—indeed, Tsongkhapa references it as an authoritative source—but that its presentation presupposes familiarity with philosophical ideas of non-Buddhist texts that were not translated into Tibetan. Fortunately, pioneering modern scholarship has drawn upon the Sanskrit texts of Nāgārjuna’s opponents, especially Gautama’s Nyāyasūtra, to unpack the brilliant arguments latent in Nāgārjuna’s often terse phrases.

In light of these new developments, we will examine how Nāgārjuna meticulously refutes the notion that the rules of logic, presented in the “sixteen categories” of traditional Indian philosophy, comprise a solid groundwork for a philosophy of true existence. Without disputing the usefulness of logical argumentation—indeed, Nāgārjuna employs it with great expertise—Grinding to Dust demonstrates that logic, like all phenomena, is dependent on a mental frame of reference and not something existent independently of context and point of view.

Gaining an understanding of this text is crucial for gaining a full perspective on Nāgārjuna’s philosophy, which forms the basis for all subsequent Mādhyamaka philosophy, including that of Tsongkhapa and the Geluk school.

We will go through this text slowly during one session per week, allowing students gradually to integrate its complex arguments.

Course Schedule

• Six Tuesdays (August 9, 16, 23, 30, September 6, 13) @ 4 – 6 pm
  (ONLINE ONLY: Indian Standard Time – IST – convert to your time zone)

We recognize that for many of you outside of India, this time may not work. It can still be possible to use the recordings of the sessions.

Video recordings of each session will be available on Tushita’s Youtube Channel for those who cannot make the live sessions.

Register

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