Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime [Hardcover]

Stephen Batchelor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 20, 2000

The understanding of the nature of reality is the insight upon which the Buddha was able to achieve his own enlightenment. This vision of the sublime is the source of all that is enigmatic and paradoxical about Buddhism. In Verses from the Center, Stephen Batchelor explores the history of this concept and provides readers with translations of the most important poems ever written on the subject, the poems of 2nd century philosopher Nagarjuna.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Ex-monk Stephen Batchelor has stirred up controversy in the past by marrying Buddhism to secular agnosticism. Now he goes right to the greatest Buddhist sage after Sakyamuni, Nagarjuna, for corroboration. In this translation of Nagarjuna's seminal work, Verses from the Center, we see Nagarjuna turning a skeptical eye to all dogmatic beliefs. But Batchelor, through his emphasis on the poetics of the work, moves away from polemics to experience--experience of the emptiness that pervades existence and teaches deeper truths. Verses from the Center is an extended meditation on the implications of emptiness, and thanks to Batchelor's limpid rendering, it prompts a meditative reading. Batchelor's opening essay, half of the book, is one of the best introductions you'll find on Nagarjuna's notion of emptiness, emphasizing that emptiness ultimately brings us back to face the world. In a chapter called "Acts," Nagarjuna says:

My acts are irrevocable

Because they have no essence...

Where are the doers of deeds

Absent among their conditions?

Imagine a magician

Who creates a creature

Who creates other creatures.

Acts I perform are creatures

Who create others.

--Brian Bruya

From Publishers Weekly

Batchelor (Buddhism Without Beliefs) here translates and extensively comments upon Nagarjuna's 2nd-century masterpiece, Verses from the Center. Nagarjuna, the Indian philosopher-monk, is often revered for his deeds as a founder of the compassion-driven wing of Buddhism called Mahayana, but his writings have been unsung and largely untranslated (Batchelor's translation is the first nonacademic, idiomatic English version of the text). If Nagarjuna's teachings have been neglected, it may be because they are frustratingly difficult; Batchelor notes that while Nagarjuna was immersed in Indian traditions, elements of the Verses may be best understood as Zen koans. Indeed, Nagarjuna's dialectic poetry does contain the kind of maddeningly paradoxical statements that characterize classic koans. The Verses are preoccupied with the question of emptiness, which Nagarjuna sees not as an absence of meaning but as "a way to realize liberation of the mind." Emptiness, according to Nagarjuna, is the famed Middle Way of Buddhism and the closest vehicle to the sublime, though emptiness is slippery to attain. To illustrate the concept, Nagarjuna relies on a barrage of pairs of opposites, all the while expressing awareness that language and metaphors based on personal experience only inadequately reveal the true nature of emptiness. Although this bracing, abstruse text has been lovingly translated for accessibility, it remains a demanding philosophical treatise geared for the serious student of Buddhism, not the dilettante.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 208 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; 1St Edition edition (April 20, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573221627
• ISBN-13: 978-1573221627
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,852,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

83 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating, Original, Problematic, June 13, 2000

By 

Barnaby A Thieme - See all my reviews

This review is from: Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime (Hardcover)

There is much about Stephen Batchelor's new translation of Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika which is extremely useful, although the work is also highly problematic. Batchelor has chosen to render Nagarjuna's verses in a very free fashion, communicating what he discerns to be the real message at the heart of the Karikas. He has felt free to omit material, paraphrase, summarize, and reword entire sections with enormous liberty. On the one hand this has freed the text from much of its cryptic quality which has resulted from the metrical constraints of the Sanskrit root text. On the other hand we must rely heavily on Batchelor's interpretation of what Nagarjuna actually meant. What did Nagarjuna actually mean? Batchelor sets forth his interpretive model in the lengthy and challenging introduction. Nagarjuna, Batchelor argues, should be interpreted as belonging to a common philosophical heritage. In comparing Nagarjuna's text with the writings of Taoism and Zen and even the English Romantic poets, Batchelor suggests that the Verses espouse a common insight which is far broader than many modern interpreters have suggested. It seems probable that the unspoken opponent of his exegesis is the Gelukpa and Gelukpa-inspired scholarship which has had much to say about Madhyamaka in recent years, and of which Batchelor himself was once a part when he translated Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara with Geshe Rabten in Echoes of Voidenss. Here, he briefly presents Dzong-ka-ba's view on Nagarjuna, which Batchelor clearly thinks is overly scholastic and removes the heart of the message by viewing emptiness as primarily a kind of anti-metaphysics. The real message, we learn, is that we are to approach the world with a particular stance of openess and sense of interconnectedness. Emptiness is to be lived in its realization, not realized propositionally. Clearly Batchelor has been deeply influenced by his experiences with Zen in this approach, and it has much to offer in considering the relationship of emptiness to the endeavor of liberation. This work is obviously highly personal, and highly personalizes the process of meditation on emptiness. That being said, I found the book to contain significant problems. In my opinion it behooves Batchelor to spend more energy in the introduction in justifying his beliefs. I do not see why we should necessarily believe that Nagarjuna is best read through the existential model that Batchelor suggests. This certainly flies in the face of many of his Indian commentators such as Aryadeva, Chandrakirti, Buddhapalita, and Bhavaviveka. I see no reason to assume that, on the basis of stylistic and rhetorical affinities, we should view Nagarjuna as belonging to the family of thought that somehow includes Chuang-Tzu and Keats rather than as belonging to the milieu in which he lived and wrote. "Verses" is clearly more of a presentation of Batchelor's views than an argument on their behalf, so while I personally resonated with much of what he said I found myself wondering what justified Batchelor in translating this work so freely. It is more a collaboration than a translation, and I'm not convinced that Nagarjuna needs a collaborator. If you are looking for a translation which is not extremely demanding philosophcially, this might be the version for you. Likewise if you are interested in a free, interesting and challenging reading of Nagarjuna, this book has much to offer. Be warned, however, that if you are interested in Nagarjuna's actual words, this is not the book for you.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Book!, May 3, 2000

By 

Tom Dylan (Georgia, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime (Hardcover)

Nagarjuna's philisophy of the "middle way" can be difficult. It has usually been left to discussion by academics. Stephen Batchelor, as in his other writings, makes this subject flow like the poetry it is. It permeates your whole being. The author's helpful commentary and analysis makes this book a "keeper." It is for anyone interested in the Buddhist path and its profound reflections on life and living. "In seeing things To be or not to be Fools fail to see A world at ease."

34 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Struggling alternative MMK translation, December 29, 2002

By 

Mr. B. J. Griffin "fortunate-human" (The World) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime (Paperback)

There is little doubt that Nagarjuna gave humanity a masterpiece with the MMK which is evident in the attention that this text has received over the centuries.

Moreover as a vertebra in the backbone of the student-centric disclosure of emptiness, MMK is indeed an essential read for those of us who tread the fascinating and beautiful road to insight.

The MMK is not about Philosophy or Sanskrit but of sharing a direct, living experience of emptiness through the medium of writing; using language and concept to reveal a non-conceptual experience of emptiness. In my mind this would be the only way of 'translating' a text such as the MMK. A good re-presentation of the MMK must be memorable and life-changing. Self-grasping must be left with nothing to hold onto and be clearly revealed as the unskilful, foolish enemy that it is.

I feel that with this book, Batchelor is attempting to offer an alternative experience of MMK to those that are currently presented by the linguists and philosophers who have chosen MMK as belonging to their respective domains. His arguments are at their strongest when he resists ownership of the text by intellectualising academics. For this alone he gets a star. For his provocative alternative rewriting of the MMK, (helping us remember that there are alternative approaches to translation) he gets one more star.

Batchelor wishes to share with us the spontaneity of the verse form without getting lost in a rarified explication of his own understandings of the intellectual import of the verses, which is indeed a lofty and noble goal, but the question arises over whether or not Batchelor is up to the challenge; I believe that he is not.

In this battle of academic ownership, Batchelor ends up forgetting the purpose of the text; his rendition is not student-centric, does little to help reveal the experience of insight and is not particularly memorable.

Instead, what we read is Batchelor. The text shows a lot of Batchelor- his life, his views and his interests ring out on nearly every page. In this he doesn't differ from most other translators, but my expectations were higher regarding both text and translator. Moreover I feel that he ends up conveying himself as an expert - as does several of his contemporaries (Berzin springs to mind) which is deeply unfortunate as self-aggrandisement is not a part of the path to emptiness and should not form a component of any translation of the MMK.

Batchelor also attempts to syncretise different traditions which more often than not is akin to shoving a stick into a hornets nest. It isn't even skilful as it implies that there is some Platonic 'truth' in the form of a common ground; this of course really weakens the purpose of the MMK altogether.

Why not just get on with the basic job of soteriesis?

In my opinion Batchelor fails again on the poetic front. He does not manage to convey any spirit or experience through verse in the MMK. I am at a loss to find either rhythm or metre in his 'verses'. It looks to me that he translated the verses into prose, and then used word juggling and formatting to make his translation appear to be an attempt at free verse.

I humbly suggest to Batchelor to learn something of the infrastructure of the English tradition of poetry and poetic translation before attempting such a translation in the first place. I recommend he read e.g Hobsbaum (ASIN 041508797X) chapter 7 for a good idea of what free verse can be. Even better would be to learn and develop experience with blank verse (i.e. unrhymed iambic pentameter) - a good choice for translating nine syllable Tibetan quatrains.

If he wishes to translate texts such as the MMK into verse he must also remind himself of the purpose of verse in India and Tibet- to help the reader memorise and recite the text, rather than for any sense of beauty or revelation. I feel that there is a pragmatic and legitimate purpose in following the import of the Indians and that a useful versification of the MMK is possible, but I believe it would require much more experience with writing verse in English than Batchelor reveals here.

He must always remember the purpose of the MMK to be student-centred, soteriological and memorable; not poetic, philosophical, academic or as an excuse to talk about personal experiences or views.

He must also apply a strong vigilance to his authorship to leave the reader to struggle with the reader rather than with the author.

My position rests that the book is an entertaining but complementary read of MMK, not a final read.
Try reading it alongside e.g. Garfield's philosophical MMK (ASIN 0195093364).

Better still, leave them both on the electronic bookshelf and read the Dalai Lama e.g - "The Key of Madhyamika" (e.g. ASIN 1556431929) for a simple, practical and powerful introduction to emptiness.

Alternatively- purchase the final volume of the Lam Rim Chenmo (Vol 3: ASIN 1559391669) - The Dalai Lama's own recommendation for revealing emptiness most skilfully.