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Body

Nagarjuna, Nagarjuna poetry, Buddhist, Buddhist poetry,  poetry, [TRADITION SUB2] poetry,  poetry by Nagarjuna
(150? - 250?) Timeline

English version by
Stephen Batchelor

Original Language
Sanskrit

Buddhist
2nd Century

I have no body apart
From parts which form it.
I know no parts
Apart from a "body."

A body with no parts
Would be unformed,
A part of my body apart from my body
Would be absurd.

Were the body here or not,
It would need no parts.
Partless bodies are pointless.
Do not get stuck in the "body."

I cannot say,
"My body is like its parts."
I cannot say,
"It's something else."

Feelings, perceptions,
Drives, minds, things
Are like this body
In every way.

Conflict with emptiness
Is no conflict;
Objections to emptiness,
No objections.

 

 

-- from Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime, by Nagarjuna / Translated by Stephen Batchelor

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Themes

  Womb
 
 
 
 


Recommended Books


The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way: Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika, by Nagarjuna / Translated by Jay L. Garfield
Nagarjuna in Context: Mahayana Buddhism in Early Indian Culture, by Joseph Walser
Nagarjuna's Letter to a Friend, by Nagarjuna / Translated by Padmakara Translation Group
Nagarjuna's Seventy Stanzas: A Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness, by Nagarjuna / Translated by David Ross Komito
Ngarjuna's Philosophy: As Presented in the Maha-Prajnaparamita-Sastra, by K. Venkata Ramanan

More >>

 

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Ivan M. Granger's original poetry, stories and commentaries are Copyright © 2002 - 2009 by Ivan M. Granger.
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