Verses from the Center: A Buddhist Vision of the Sublime

by Stephen Batchelor

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101663097
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/01/2001
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	764,526
File size:	623 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Stephen Batchelor is a former monk in the Tibetan and Zen traditions and the author of the national bestseller Buddhism Without Beliefs. He lectures and conducts meditation retreats worldwide, and is a contributing editor for Tricycle.

Table of Contents

Preface

Intuitions of the Sublime

Verses from the Center
Walking
Seeing
Body
Space
Addiction
Birth
Actors
Already
Fire
Before
Anguish
Change
Connection
Essence
Life
Acts
Self
Time
Disappearance
Buddhanature
Awakening
Nirvana
Contingency
Opinion

Afterword
Appendix
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“A Buddhist scholar and former monk, Stephen Batchelor is well known to American readers as the author of the bestselling Buddhism Without Beliefs. Now comes Verses from the Center, his vision of the poetic legacy of Nagarjuna, a visionary monk who lived in India in the second century and who is, Batchelor writes, ‘arguably the most important figure in Buddhism after the Buddha himself.’…In addition to providing useful guidance to the key philosophical concepts, Batchelor’s introduction also delves into the colorful strata of myth and legend surrounding the man and his work, and traces the historical traditions of centrist thought all the way from Nagarjuna’s Chinese contemporary, Laotzu, to the English Romantic poet John Keats….This is a book about wisdom, not understanding; it invites us to acknowledge paradox with equanimity, and to dwell without question among the questions that it poses.”—Los Angeles Times

Editorial Reviews

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. (Apr.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

The close here refers to a sacred place and the religious community that occupies it. In this memoir, Breyer (founder of the community-activist publication Who Cares) takes us to her close, the General Theological Seminary in New York City, a world of spiritual and intellectual training in which she immerses herself. In a personal, confessional style, she narrates her daily frustrations and struggles over the course of a year, as she adopts a lifestyle of prescribed daily prayer and rigid ritual while responding and ministering to the diseased and disenfranchised. Her work as a chaplain at Bellevue Hospital is especially poignant. There are no epiphanies or miraculous calls, no special incidents that yank her out of the secular and into the religious. Instead, she quietly explains in this meditation on faith how she is responding to the call for the spiritual life. Of interest to anyone concerned with spiritual issues, this book will be especially useful for those thinking of entering a life among the contemplative and socially active. Recommended for public libraries. Glenn Masuchika, Chaminade Univ. Lib., Honolulu Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A playful and provocative tone runs through his text. The verses embody the movement of a supple but disquieting intelligence, which constantly has to sidestep the logical traps of the language Nagarjuna cannot help but utter. His awareness ... is expressed in a voice that is quixotic and inquisitive, dramatic and tentative, always poised to surprise. Each poem is an attempt to disclose emptiness through the play of language. For poetry works not by describing its subject with detached objectivity from without, but by imaginatively entering inside its subject so as to disclose it from within. As a poet, Nagarjuna gives voice to the freedom of emptiness from within. He is not interested in confirming what is safe and familiar but in exploring what is unsettling and strange. For the letting go of fixed opinions about oneself and the world can be frightening and compelling. Although such emptiness may seem an intolerable affront to one's sense of identity and security, it may simultaneously be felt as an irresistible lure into a life that is awesome and mysterious.

Tricycle Magazine