Nagarjuna's Tetralemma

[Shi Da Dao]

Generally speaking, people gravitate toward the 'pleasant' and away from the 'unpleasant' - prefer the 'good' to the 'bad' and the 'easy' to that of the 'suffering' - who in their right mind would not? The historical Buddha divided human experience into 'good', 'bad' and 'neutral' - pointing-out that due to agency of habitual greed, hatred and delusion (which acts as an experiential filter) - individuals like those sensory experiences that are joyous and reject those sensory experiences which are ladened with psychological, emotional and physical pain, etc, with little thought given to inhabiting a 'neutral' stae of being. Nagarjuna, the 14th Ch'an Patriarch in India - further explained the human predicament as involving a world where 'experiemce' is divided into four planes of being:


a) Good
b) Not-Good
c) Both 'good' and 'not good'
d) Neither 'good' and 'not-good'


With the enlightened-being having realised and penetrated the empty mind ground (which underlies all thought and sensory experience) and inhabiting a simultaneous 'state' of 'statelessness' (which lies just 'behind' or 'underneath' Nagarjuna's 'Tetralemma') - involving no attachments, partialities or contradictions of any kind (with all defilements - or 'klesa' being permanently 'uprooted').