Quotation
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“Emptiness is proclaimed by the victorious ones as the remedy for all views. Those who take emptiness as a view are said to be incurable.”
Nāgārjuna · Madhyamaka · Ancient · c. 2nd–3rd century CE
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a warning about the medicine. Emptiness is taught as the remedy for all views, the habit of grasping things as having a fixed nature, and a person who then grasps emptiness itself as a view is called incurable. A competing reading hears a ban on argument, as if he wanted no claims at all. The book is full of arguments. The view he refuses is the one that makes emptiness into a hidden substance or a dogma. The verse is 13.8, in the chapter on compounded things. It explains why 24.18's identification of emptiness with dependent arising must not be turned into a thing called Emptiness. Incurable is a sharp word. It says the misuse is worse than the original views, because the remedy has been swallowed as another poison. Garfield's English is the translation.
Did Nāgārjuna really say this?
The library’s label is Paraphrase or translation. Verse 13.8. The English follows Garfield. 'Victorious ones' are the buddhas. The warning is that emptiness, held as one more theory of how things really are, becomes the disease it was meant to treat.
Where it comes from
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 13.8, following Jay L. Garfield
Approximate date: c. 2nd–3rd century CE.
How to use it
A reading group that replaces every question with 'it's all empty' has taken the remedy as a view. He thinks that move is harder to correct than the first mistake. The verse does not say discussion should stop. It says a single word should not be asked to end it. If emptiness cannot be explained as the absence of independent nature, it has become the slogan he warns against.
A mindset reading
A cure that you start to collect is no longer a cure. The habit is to notice when a critical term has become an identity. He applies that test to his own central word, which is why the verse is uncomfortable for anyone who likes the word.
Understand the philosophy
Verse 13.8 is the classical warning not to cling to emptiness. The key contrast is a remedy and a view. It protects the later claim, in 24.18, that emptiness is itself a dependent designation. Chapter 1's refusal of inherent arising is the analysis this warning keeps from hardening. The four verses together are a sequence. They are not four ways of saying one motto.
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FAQ
What does it mean?
The mainstream reading is a warning about the medicine. Emptiness is taught as the remedy for all views, the habit of grasping things as having a fixed nature, and a person who then grasps emptiness itself as a view is called incurable. A competing reading hears a ban on argument, as if he wanted no claims at all. The book is full of arguments. The view he refuses is the one that makes emptiness into a hidden substance or a dogma. The verse is 13.8, in the chapter on compounded things. It explains why 24.18's identification of emptiness with dependent arising must not be turned into a thing called Emptiness. Incurable is a sharp word. It says the misuse is worse than the original views, because the remedy has been swallowed as another poison. Garfield's English is the translation.
Did Nāgārjuna really say this?
Paraphrase or translation. Verse 13.8. The English follows Garfield. 'Victorious ones' are the buddhas. The warning is that emptiness, held as one more theory of how things really are, becomes the disease it was meant to treat.
Which work is it in?
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 13.8, following Jay L. Garfield Approximate date: c. 2nd–3rd century CE.