The cloud of nothingness

Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy
of Traditions and Cultures 19

C.D. Sebastian

The Cloud of
Nothingness
The Negative Way in Nāgārjuna and
John of the Cross


Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy
of Traditions and Cultures
Volume 19

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University of California, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA, USA
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C.D. Sebastian

The Cloud of Nothingness
The Negative Way in Nāgārjuna
and John of the Cross


C.D. Sebastian
Philosophy Group, Department
of Humanities and Social Sciences
Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

ISSN 2211-1107    ISSN 2211-1115 (electronic)
Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures
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Everything is right when śūnyatā is possible;
Nothing is right when śūnyatā is impossible
(Nāgārjuna, MK 24, 14).
This knowledge in unknowing
is so overwhelming (John of the Cross, SCE 6)


For
Professor Sebastian Thuruthel
my grand-uncle who taught me to love
wisdom

Foreword

Nāgārjuna is a figure of legend. We know very little about him as a historical personage, and there is considerable debate over which works attributed to him are
authentic. Their interpretation is, to say the least, tricky. His dates are uncertain,
although he is usually given as round about the second century CE. In Indian
Buddhist philosophy Nāgārjuna is, of course, the philosopher of ‘emptiness’ or
‘nothingness’, ‘voidness’ (śūnyatā). This is generally well known. He did not originate the concept in Buddhism, and even the use of the concept to apply to all things
without any exception almost certainly did not originate with him.
Nevertheless, it is Nāgārjuna we tend to associate with the idea that ‘all things
are empty’, or perhaps stated with more philosophical precision, ‘emptiness (nothingness, voidness) is nothing other than a universal property, a property that pertains
to things, all things without exception’. This is the case no matter how rarified or
spiritually central those things might be. For all X, X is empty. For all X, X has the
property of emptiness (expressed in English with the ‘-ness’ ending). This applies
even to nirvāṇa, a point made elsewhere by one of the [Mahāyāna] Buddhist scriptures quite probably before the time of Nāgārjuna. The same scripture adds that
even if there were to be something greater than nirvāṇa, that too would not escape
emptiness, nothingness, voidness. And it was Nāgārjuna who considered himself to
be capable of showing, using impeccable logic and the principles and tenets accepted
by those whom he sought to convince, that the universality of emptiness or nothingness was not just the insight of enlightened beings but also was rationally
inescapable.
This ‘emptiness’ or ‘nothingness’ is not a vague or imprecise concept. ‘Śūnyatā’
is a term that takes on a range of meanings across the history of Indian Buddhist
philosophy. In different Buddhist traditions, these meanings are by no means always
the same or compatible with each other. But it is a feature of Indian Buddhist thought
that it thrives on conceptual precision. And for Nāgārjuna, ‘emptiness’ or ‘nothingness’ is to be understood very strictly as an equivalent for ‘absence of intrinsic
nature’ (niḥsvabhāvatā, ‘essencelessness’), a concept that in Nāgārjuna’s own usage
comes to entail ‘absence of intrinsic existence’. Thus, each and every thing, no matter how refined, lacks its own intrinsic nature, i.e. it lacks intrinsic existence. This
ix


x

Foreword

property of lacking its own intrinsic nature, or its intrinsic existence, is its emptiness
or its nothingness.
Why would Nāgārjuna say such a thing? Indeed, why would this be a significant
thing for a Buddhist to say? What has it to do with Buddhism as a religion, a path,
a praxis with a salvific goal? What Nāgārjuna is saying here needs to be understood
within the Buddhist discourse of his day and previous centuries going back to the
Buddha himself. It should not be unthinkingly torn out from it. As a spiritual and
intellectual soteriology, Buddhism originated in the idea that we suffer because we
do not see things the way they really are. We are confused. We suffer as a result of
profound ontological ignorance (avidyā). We misunderstand the nature of things in
a very, very deep way. Hence, we act in a manner that causes us misery (suffering,
duḥkha). And seeing things the way they really are (yathābhūtadarśana) – when it
occurs in the deepest way, in a manner that is existentially ingrained in our minds at
the deepest possible level – is totally life transformative. It is enlightening, liberating, freeing us from all forms of suffering. It is nirvāṇa. And once attained, it will
never be lost.
The person who sees this way has prajñā, ‘wisdom’. At first in Buddhism, this
meant seeing behind the apparent stabilities of the things we meet with in our everyday unenlightened experience, particularly the persons we are, and comprehending
their evanescent nature. Our unenlightened seeing of stability when in reality there
is change, seeing unity and identity when really there is diversity, is fundamental to
the misperception that leads to misery. We hope for permanence, we crave it, but we
are faced with change, collapse, decay and death. Understanding the way things
really are, the Buddha pointed out, is to see in terms of ever-changing ‘aggregates’
(skandha) of, on the one hand, the flow of the physical world and, on the other, the
mental flow, itself consisting of the flows of our feelings, perceptions, intentions/
volitions and that awareness which accompanies it all which we call consciousness.
This psychophysical flow is the reality out of which we construct stability and, for
those of us who are unenlightened to the way things really are, some sort of hoped-­

for permanence as a refuge from decay and death. Because it so contradicts the true
nature of things, that hope is doomed to frustration and failure.
As time passed, this analysis within Buddhism became more refined so that what
is really there came to be expressed in terms of dharmas. In this context, ‘dharmas’
can best be thought of as conceptually irreducible ontologically fundamental elements which, while in the main causally produced and hence impermanent, are
nevertheless held to be really there, that is, to be the actual final reality (or, better,
realities), in opposition to the constructed way things simply appear to be to us
unenlightened folk.
Most of these fundamental reals are part of a causally conditioned flow. Each is
caused by a previous one and is radically impermanent. It gives rise to its successor
in a stream, a flow, of conditionality. In the case of mental events such as sensations,
perceptions, or whatever (the mental aggregates), they are fundamental mental
moments of the relevant type (‘mental atoms’), each again normally the result of
causes and giving rise to its successor. These fundamental reals (dharmas) by definition, therefore, must have their natures ‘in themselves’ (since they are fundamental


Foreword

xi

reals they have svabhāva, their ‘own intrinsic nature’, an ‘essence’). They are ontologically the very opposite of things that have their natures given to them simply for
practical purposes, the stable everyday objects like tables and chairs that we unenlightened folk think are really there. Dharmas are ‘substantially existent’ (dravyasat), not merely ‘conceptually existent’ (prajñaptisat). They are ultimately real,
not merely conventionally real, i.e. simply held to be real things for our practical
everyday conventional purposes.
But in stating that all things without exception, including all dharmas, lack fundamental ultimate reality, Nāgārjuna called into question this whole framework as
an understanding of ‘the way things really (i.e. ultimately) are’. This is because the
distinction between something having its own intrinsic nature, being substantially
existent, and that which lacks its own intrinsic nature (niḥsvabhāva) and is merely
conceptually existent is itself only an apparent distinction. This must be the case,
Nāgārjuna argued, because if things are each one way or another the results of

causes and conditions – and he felt this could be demonstrated through the careful
use of critical reasoning – then they cannot in reality be ontologically fundamental.
Put bluntly, caused existence cannot ever be ontologically fundamental existence.
We might say, only something necessarily existent could be finally fundamentally
existent. And nothing, Nāgārjuna thought, was necessarily existent. Each thing, no
matter what, was no more than a product, one way or another, of its causes and
conditions.
Thus, there can be no fundamental reals. Hence, reason can demonstrate that all
things whatsoever must lack their own intrinsic nature. So all things whatsoever
must indeed be empty (śūnya) of their own intrinsic existence. And as we have seen,
absence of intrinsic nature (niḥsvabhāvatā), for Nāgārjuna equivalent to absence of
intrinsic existence, is the very same as emptiness, nothingness (śūnyatā).
So when Nāgārjuna speaks of ultimate reality as emptiness, nothingness, what is
meant here is that the true nature of things is that they lack any intrinsic and hence
ultimate existence. That is, when things are understood in their ontologically final
way, since they are the results one way or another of causes and conditions, so they
are seen to lack fundamental, intrinsic, existence, to lack any ultimate existence
intrinsic to them, any existence beyond that extrinsically given to them by their
causal conditioning. That property of ‘lacking ultimate existence’ is their ultimate
nature, i.e. what they truly, ontologically, are. That property itself is their nothingness, their emptiness.
It should be clear that this way of speaking that we find in Nāgārjuna needs to be
totally contextualised within his Buddhist world view and project. This is important
because it is too easy for well-meaning cross-cultural comparisons to tear out of
context Nāgārjuna’s assertion that the ultimate truth is emptiness, nothingness, and
seek or hope to equate it with perhaps the intrinsically, fundamentally, absolutely
existent Ultimate Reality of, e.g., Śaṅkara’s Brahman, or even the God or Godhead
of theistic religions. In these cases, a necessarily existent Absolute Reality, hence
necessarily intrinsically existent, is said in itself to be empty of something or another,
empty of the relative, empty of creation, empty of ignorance, empty of all our
­conceptualities, or whatever. It was in order to avoid such a confused interpretation

xii

Foreword

of the emptiness, nothingness, spoken of by Nāgārjuna and his tradition in Indian
Buddhist thought that his great commentator Candrakīrti used the expression ‘a
mere negation’ (abhāvamātra) to refer to emptiness, nothingness. ‘Emptiness’,
‘nothingness’, here is not vague, not obscure, not ‘mystical’ or open to guesses
regarding its meaning. It refers for Nāgārjuna, Candrakīrti says, to a mere negation
of ultimate, intrinsic, necessary, fundamental existence, and this negation is universal, applies to all things without exception. In terms of the Buddhist salvific project,
only through direct experiential cognition of this emptiness, nothingness, in the
most refined way can a practitioner let go of all egoistic grasping, even the subtlest
and most rarified attachment, and attain complete liberation.
Within this perspective, to think that emptiness itself might be an Ultimate
Reality, have some sort of ontological pre-eminence, be more real than other things,
necessarily existent – as must be the case with Brahman, Creator God, or Godhead –
would be a radical misunderstanding of Nāgārjuna’s intentions. This is no doubt one
reason why he spoke of the emptiness of emptiness itself, nothingness of nothingness (śūnyatāśūnyatā), and declared those who would construe emptiness as more
than that to be pretty well incurable. From the perspective of theology, in referring
to emptiness, nothingness, voidness, Nāgārjuna cannot be construed as remotely
talking about the Creator God, or anything even analogous to God.
Well, but theologically, we are invited to bring into dialogue with each other, and
also into our own contemporary inter-religious dialogue, all the great thinkers of
religious history. Potentially, no one is left out! Dialogue does not necessarily mean
agreement. It does not mean an ignoring of or dissolution of differences, differences
that are often quite fundamental. But it does mean respect, a sympathetic attempt to
understand, and a conversation which is open to mutual learning and – in ways
which can be understood in their own terms and contexts by each dialogue partner –

perhaps also transformation. And, in terms too of Catholic theology, dialogue might
highlight or open us up to ‘seeds of the Word’ (semina Verbi) in the non-Christian
dialogue partners, signs of the presence of Christ in their own searching and their
own conceptualisation of that search and its results.
Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross both themselves sought avidly for truth, and
clearly that search touched them both in a very deep way. They were both convinced
they had found truth, and indeed it is likely that they each considered they had in some
way ‘touched’, experienced, truth ‘in their bodies’. In the light of this, when all is said
and done, it must still be possible to bring such thinkers (such pray-ers, such meditators) into dialogue with each other, for they share a human concern with ultimate
meaning and the search for spiritual understanding and security. Fundamental to the
concerns of this present book, both Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross employed the
concept of negation centrally in their theological/philosophical method and also
employed it terminologically in describing the focus of their quest. Of course, there
can be no grounds for any attempt simply to equate the loving, Trinitarian, Creator
God of St John of the Cross, a God who comes to us as Jesus Christ, True God and
true man, with the (quite literally, bloodless) emptiness, nothingness, mere absence of
intrinsic existence, of Nāgārjuna. But as C.D. Sebastian shows, the fact that both
thinkers use negation and negative terminology in their quest means that there is still


Foreword

xiii

some sort of via negativa taking place here, and a great deal of creative dialogue and
a constructive basis for further future dialogue can still be generated by a careful and
respectful comparative treatment of them both. In choosing to focus on the role of
negation and negative terminology in the writing of Nāgārjuna and St John of the
Cross (rather than perhaps naively suggesting that the goal of their spiritual striving
might be similar just because it is described using negative terms or grammatical

negatives), C.D. Sebastian makes a very real contribution to the appreciation of
Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross each in the light of the other.
I am unaware of a previous comprehensive and systematic comparative treatment of nothingness in Nāgārjuna and St John of the Cross. It is unusual to find
someone as sensitive and knowledgeable in this respect as C.D. Sebastian, who
knows the Catholic theological context intimately and from the inside and at the
same time has access to the Indian Buddhist Sanskrit sources for understanding
Nāgārjuna. Hence, it is with very real enthusiasm that I welcome C.D. Sebastian’s
book on nothingness, the result of work that he undertook with us during a mutually
enriching period of sabbatical leave at the University of Bristol and its Centre for
Buddhist Studies. This is a careful and frequently subtle attempt to engage in cross-­
cultural and inter-religious theological dialogue that will repay attentive reading.
While not by any means saying the last word on either of the two dialogue partners
or on the fruits of their conversation (could that ever be done?), this is a book that
will surely feed into and enhance contemporary religious and scholarly understanding, appreciation and debate.
Emeritus Professor of Indian Tibetan Philosophy
Centre for Buddhist Studies
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK


Paul Williams

***

C.D. Sebastian has done a great service to three different communities in the writing
of this remarkable book. Those three communities are students of religion in general and then, more specifically, both scholars of Christian history and spirituality
and scholars of Buddhist history and practice. In addressing these three communities, Sebastian actually inaugurates a fourth community, and one that is becoming
increasingly important both in the academy and outside it: those concerned with
Buddhist–Christian relations. This latter also builds a bridge that is all important
between the scholarly community and actual religious practitioners outside the

academy. One can now begin to take in the scope of Sebastian’s achievement in this
work.
Before saying something about the actual contents of the book, let me say a little
about the theology of religions and the relation of that field to this work. The relation is in some senses tangential as Sebastian is a historian, philosopher and linguist,
but he is also deeply sensitive to theology and spirituality. Approaching the book
from a discipline out of which I work allows us another glimpse into the achievement of Sebastian’s book. The theology of religions started by focusing primarily


xiv

Foreword

on how one religion views another, and it tended to be pejoratively in the early
nineteenth century when it came to Christians and other religions. Inevitably, there
was a complex reaction to that process in part because of increasing scholarship
about religions that was developing in tandem during that period and because of an
explosion in global travel and migration. No longer was it possible to think that non-­
Christians were savage heathens who lacked goodness and truth. In the aftermath of
the collapse of the European empire, the emergence of various independent nation
states that had often been shaped by the empire generated a new project: other religions began to provide a critique of Christian theology of religions, while at the
same time such a critique was well under way within Christian theological circles at
the heart of the empire. This resulted in a period where the dominant paradigm of
conceiving the relations between religions was primarily shaped by what is sometimes called the ‘liberal’ agenda: all religions are really paths to the same reality that
can be known in many different ways. One great advantage of such a movement was
that cultural imperialism was unmasked and made way for the possibility of really
returning back to the key texts of the giants and shapers of religious traditions as the
source of inter-religious engagement. In this respect, after liberalism, movements
such as comparative theology initiated by a number of scholars, pre-eminently
Francis Clooney SJ, have developed and are flourishing. Other movements, like the
scriptural reasoning project which involves closely reading texts of another religion

with those from that religion, have also been growing thanks to the pioneering work
of scholars such as David Ford and Peter Ochs, amongst many others. For the comparative theologians, the reading is still mounted from a theological perspective. For
the scriptural reasoning, likewise. In one respect, we could locate Sebastian’s work
in this new movement, but while both are theological, his is more historical, phenomenological and philosophical. His work is better located in the comparative
philosophy project that grew alongside the theological one I’ve just described.
Sebastian’s work remains within the nineteenth-century comparative philosophy
project that was initiated by the great Indologists who wanted to simply read primary texts, understand them in their own proper historical and cultural context and
present them with scholarly rigour and sensitivity. Max Müller and C. P. Tiele began
the scientific study of religion, Religionswissenschaft, that flourished and developed
in differing ways in Europe and then the United States. These scholars stepped back
from truth claims, although in fact they often had strong convictions and some were
religious, but they were equally convinced that these should not intrude into the
study. I have some reservations about the epistemological underpinnings of such an
endeavour, but the fruits of such studies are difficult to deny. It is within this stream
of intellectual history that Sebastian’s project fits so well and continues that tradition with considerable ability, intellectual and philosophical sophistication, close
textual study and huge imaginative empathy. When I was working with Sebastian
on this project at the University of Bristol, I soon saw his care not to fall into all the
traps that lurked around projects like these. The more he progressed, the more he
opened my eyes to the remarkable value of such patient, textual attention. I learnt
greatly from his work. I know readers also will.


Foreword

xv

With that methodological genealogy, we can turn to the main achievements of
this study. This is, probably, one of the first full book-length comparative study of
the Christian mystic and teacher St John of the Cross and the great Buddhist philosopher and spiritual ascetic Nāgārjuna, which treats both figures in such careful
and systematic detail. While he is in mastery of a large body of secondary critical

materials, they are used to push the basic concern of understanding and truthful
hermeneutics. There have been studies of emptiness, nothingness and the apophatic,
but in this work, all these concepts come together in an elaborate and thoughtful
treatment of the two thinkers and practitioners. In bringing out the similarities and
differences between John of the Cross and Nāgārjuna, refusing to encase them into
some basic metaphysical framework that reduces them to something other than they
intend, Sebastian walks a careful tightrope walk. He allows each to illuminate the
other, he allows each to talk to the other, and he begins to delicately tease out the
very substantial differences that underlie their similarities. This is done deftly, so we
are left with a raft of challenging questions as to whether we should step forward
and actually compare incomparables, or whether we should learn greatly that what
might seem as similar is more profoundly dissimilar. It is precisely in keeping this
acutely important question open that Sebastian’s greatest achievement is found. He
realises that we cannot build up meta-theories and overarching frames of reference,
for we are simply and starkly left with two profound visions of the world and its
meaning, which have overlap and have difference about matters that seem of concern to both.
Sebastian also coins the terms ‘philosophical epiphany’ and ‘theological epiphany’ for the idea of nothingness in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross, and this is
hugely suggestive. The ‘negative way’ is an ‘enlightened-indifference’ in Nāgārjuna
and a ‘positive and creative assertion’ in John of the Cross. The philosophical epiphany may even suggest some interesting speculation about nature and grace, were
one reading this as a Christian theologian, as I do, for it suggests that Nāgārjuna’s
towering achievement is one of the most profound philosophical explorations that
opens up a space which reason cannot penetrate further. John seems to dwell in this
space, but draws upon a different resource, not given immediately by reason but
reasoned upon and explicated. This is a challenge that the book sets out to this
reader and a vital one that requires answering. To arrive at this space is the great
contribution Sebastian has made to the four communities I set out above. For this we
should be most grateful.
University of Bristol
Bristol, UK
2015

Professor Gavin D’Costa


Preface

I know that nothing has ever been real
Without my beholding it.
All becoming has needed me.
My looking ripens things
And they come toward me, to meet and be met. (Rainer Maria Rilke, The Book of a Monastic
Life, I, 1(p. 43))

The notion of ‘nothingness’ is the leitmotif of this work. Nothingness, śūnyatā in
Nāgārjuna and (la) nada in John of the Cross, two representatives from two different cultural, religious and philosophical traditions of the East and West – Buddhism
and Christianity – is the negative way that is discussed in this book. This study is not
aimed at looking for the fashionable search for sameness in the scheme of thought
that we find in the works of these two great past masters, but it attempts to identify
the distinctiveness of each. There is similarity as well as dissimilarity in the negative
way paradigms proposed by these two thinkers. There is a striking difference in
their goals, for Nāgārjuna is a Buddhist philosopher, speaking from a Buddhist
standpoint for whom the Buddha-vacana, the Word of the Buddha is of paramount
importance, whereas John of the Cross is a Christian mystic speaking from a Judeo-­
Christian world view and belief for whom Dabar Yahweh, the Word of God, is the
ultimate source.
My attempt in this study is to look for the negative way employed by these two
thinkers. Each of them is speaking from his own tradition, and each of them has the
audience of his own religious order in mind. By presenting the negative way in this
study in six chapters, I make a comparison and contrast between Nāgārjuna and
John of the Cross by drawing attention to the tenets of their negative way, because,

I believe, such assessments have been integral to the history of thought. Such
attempts in cross-cultural philosophical traditions could ‘open a “new” way where
concepts developed in different philosophical traditions “illuminate” each other and
help us in understanding them better’ (Krishna 2006: xvii). In such an attempt,
‘without our necessarily having to agree with’ the beliefs of Nāgārjuna or John of
the Cross, ‘when we have discovered’ their ‘standpoint and horizon’, their ‘ideas
become intelligible’ to us (Gadamer 2005: 302).
xvii


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Preface

In the scheme of Nāgārjuna, there is undeniably no interest in stating things affirmatively. He is more interested in negative expressions, but at the end of the day,
even the via negativa is discarded, as the via negativa itself is another position as
problematic as its opposite, the positive way. The negative way of śūnyatā in
Nāgārjuna is not specific in articulating actually what it is all about, thus amounting
to a sort of indifference to specifications. The negative way of Nāgārjuna does not
subscribe to any ātma-nairātmya polarities and conceivable distinctions, and we
call it an enlightened-indifference (see Chap. 5). This enlightened-indifference ultimately ushers in a realisation of the real nature of reality as niḥsvabhāvatā, essencelessness, with the propitious cessation of all hypostatisation (MK 1, 1: 4; MK 27,
30: 248–249). This is more philosophical in nature, and we call it philosophical
epiphany (see Chap. 5) where one, being in the conventional (saṁvṛti), understands
the real nature of the conventional (saṁvṛti), which is called the ultimate
(paramārtha), and this is śūnyatā.
But when it comes to John of the Cross, in his negative way, there is room for
positive and creative facets. The negative way in John of the Cross is not purely
negative; it has a positive element. He is like any other Christian thinker, because
God is the centre of his experience, and not any abstraction. John of the Cross’s
negative way will seek for a self-abnegation and emptiness, but the end result is all

positive. There is a positive finality in the negative way of John of the Cross. The
negative way beautifully expressed in the writings of John of the Cross is intended
to do a stripping away of the created world where the ‘dark night’ helps the soul to
be one with God. It is transcendence as it starts from something real in life and goes
to something real, an unspeakable union with God. The negative way that we find in
John of the Cross we call the theological epiphany (see Chap. 5), a divine manifestation and experience at the end of the dark night. This is an experience which the
soul has in the divine union of spiritual marriage. There is ‘now that the perfect
union of love between God and the soul’, and the soul says, ‘let us rejoice, Beloved’,
‘let us go forth to behold ourselves in your beauty’ ‘and further, deep in into the
thicket’ (SC 36, 3: 611), which means deep into the mysteries of God.
The book is divided into six chapters. Taking the reader’s convenience, when
read in sequence, the preceding chapter paves the way for the succeeding one, and
thus, it provides a comprehensive idea of the negative way found in Nāgārjuna and
John of the Cross with their respective traditions, namely Buddhism and Christianity.
At the same time, the book is conceived and arranged in a manner that each chapter
could be read independently. The first chapter answers the why of study with an
introductory note on Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross and their most representative
works. In the second chapter, I briefly present the trajectory of the concept of nothingness in the negative way in the Buddhist and Christian traditions with its culmination in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross, respectively. In the third chapter, I
consider the negative way of śūnyatā in Nāgārjuna, while the fourth chapter is
devoted to nada and the negative way in John of the Cross. The fifth chapter I deem
as the most important of the study where an attempt has been made to dwell on the
similarities and dissimilarities between Nāgārjuna’s and John of the Cross’s negative way. The sixth chapter serves as conclusion to this entire work where I bring the


Preface

xix

apophasis, metaphor, metonymy and semiotics in the idea of nothingness that one
encounters in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross.

***

The present study is the outcome of my postdoctoral research carried out under the
supervision of Professor Paul Williams (former Director, Centre for Buddhist
Studies, and Professor of Indian and Tibetan Philosophy, University of Bristol, UK)
and Professor Gavin D’Costa (Professor in Catholic Theology, Department of
Theology and Religious Studies, University of Bristol, UK). I am immensely grateful to them for their scholarly guidance and timely help that made this project a
success. I thank them for writing the erudite ‘Foreword’ (not one, but two forewords, to be precise) to this book and, thus, endorsing this study.
There are many others who contributed to the success of the project. May I keep
on record my sincere gratitude and pay my respects to my affectionate Guru-ji the
revered Professor A. K. Chatterjee and Professor Abhimanyu Singh (both from
Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi). I remember here with gratitude Late Professor
Sebastian Karotemprel SDB (Rome and Shillong), Professor K. Valiamangalam,
Mar Sebastian Vadakel MST (Ujjain), Mar Thomas Elavanal MCBS (Mumbai),
Professor Thomas Parayady MST (London), Professor Kurian Ammanathukunnel
MST, Professor James Athikalam MST, Professor Peter Vattapara MST, Professor
Sebastian Kizhakkeyil, Professor Hans-Juergen Findeis (Bonn), Professor
Annakutty V. K. Findeis (Mumbai), Professor Heinrich-Niehues Proebsting (Erfurt),
Professor D. A. Gangadhar (Varanasi), Professor S. Vijayakumar (Varanasi),
Professor D. B. Chaube (Varanasi), Professor Kripa Shanka Ojha (Varanasi), Late
Professor Chinmay Goswami (Hyderabad), Professor Amitabha Dasgupta
(Hyderabad), Professor C. A. Tomy (Delhi), Professor M. Krzysztof Byrski and Mrs
Barbara Byrski (Warsaw), Professor William Edelglass (Marlboro), Anneli Litzka
(Bonn) and Dr Olena Lutsyshyna (Lodz, Poland). Many friendly people like Rt Rev.
Declan Lang (Clifton, UK), Canon Alan Finley (Clifton, UK), Msgr Gabriel Leyden,
Dr Fernando Cervantes, Dr Domingo Tortonese, Dr Kieran Flanagan, Dr Isaac
Chenchiah, Sharon Williams, Dr Lina G. Tahan, Dr Timothy L. Chambers FRCP,
Beryl De Stone, Maureen Keeley, Carlotta Kramskoy, Mary Manners, Penny

Chappell, Dr Matthias Adler, Anne and Tom Millington, Late Elizabeth Berry, Andy
Russell and Andrew (all from Clifton, Bristol) made my stay all the more comfortable in Bristol for this research project.
I thank my colleagues and friends who gave me constant encouragement and
support in this project: Professor L. M. Bhole, Professor A. Ramanathan, Professor
Neelima Talwar, Professor P. R. Bhat, Professor Pushpa L. Trivedi, Professor
Rowena Robinson, Professor D. Parthasarathy, Professor Sudha Shastri, Professor
Haripriya Gudimeda, Dr Sharmila Sreekumar, Dr Ramesh Bairy T. S., Dr Azizuddin
Khan, Dr Pravesh G. Jung and Dr Ratheesh Radhakrishnan (all from the Department
of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT Bombay). My colleague and friend Dr Siby
K. George has been part of this book project by the way of suggestions and critical
remarks. I am appreciative of his great support. I thank my doctoral students


Preface

xx

Dr Gyan Prakash, Dr Sarita Kar, Dr Walter Menezes, Biju Antony, Jithin Mathew
K. Jose, Konchok Nyima, Stalin J. Correya, Sujata Mallik and Manjit M. Bhatti for
their sustained interest in my work. I am also very much thankful to the research
scholars (IIT Bombay) Biju Antony Kollakompil, Caroline Rose Alukkal, Dinto
Mathew, Jithin Mathew, Kiran Joy Irimpan and Maria Thomas who gave their precious time, looked through the entire manuscript, made many helpful suggestions
and corrected typographical mistakes. I wish to thank my friends and well-wishers
at IIT Bombay who have been very supportive of this project: Akhila, Alice, Alwin,
Anand, Aneena, Anoop, Anu, Arun, Fathima, Harsha, Honey Priya, Joe Cherry,
Jibin, Maneesha, Merry, Mithila, Nandakumar, Priya, Rose, Roshan, Rupak,
Russell, Satyanand, Sunanda and Vasudevan.


***

I must gratefully acknowledge the following works that are frequently referred to in
this book: Garfield (1995), Inada (1993), John of the Cross (1991), Kalupahana
(2004), MK (1960) and Siderits and Katsura (2013).


***

I thank the series editors of Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions
and Cultures for their acceptance to publish this book under the series. I am especially grateful to Professor Purushottama Bilimoria (one of the series editors) for his
critical comments and suggestions on the notion of nothingness in comparative
metaphysics and Asian philosophy (see also Bilimoria 2012: 509–530). I am also
beholden to him for rephrasing the title of the book from the initial ‘the idea of
nothingness’ to ‘the cloud of nothingness’. I have benefited from his suggestions. I
am also thankful to the learned reviewers of the manuscript who made important
and insightful suggestions for the improvement of the book.
Anita Fei van der Linden-Rachmat, Assistant Editor, Philosophy and Religious
Studies, at Springer was an early supporter of this project. Shinjini Chatterjee,
Springer’s Senior Editor, Human Sciences, and her team in New Delhi deserve my
sincere thanks not just for their help in bringing this volume to fruition but also for
Shinjini’s efforts to advance cross-cultural and comparative philosophical research.
I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Shinjini Chatterjee, Anita Fei van der
Linden-Rachmat, Nupoor Singh, Shruti Raj Srivastava and all others at Springer for
the careful supervision of the publication of this project.
Mumbai, India
27 June 2016

C.D. Sebastian

Preface

xxi

Bibliography
Bilimoria, P. (2012). Why is there nothing rather than something? An Essay in the Comparative
Metaphysics. Sophia, 51, 509–530.
Gadamer, H-G. (2005). Truth and method. (Revised by J. Weinsheimer & D. C. Marshall, Trans).
(2nd Rev. edn). London/New York: Continuum.
Garfield, J. L. (1995). The fundamental wisdom of middle way: Nāgārjuna’s
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
Inada, K. K. (1993). Nāgārjuna: A translation of his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā with an
introductory essay. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications.
John of the Cross, Saint. (1991). The collected works of Saint John of the Cross. (K. Kavanaugh &
O. Rodriguez, Trans). Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications.
Kalupahana, D. J. (2004). Mūlamadhyamakakārikā of Nāgārjuna: The philosophy of middle way.
Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers.
Krishna, D. (2006). Preface (To the new collection of articles). In Indian philosophy: A counter
perspective, by Daya Krishna. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications.
MK: Nāgārjuna. (1960). Madhyamakaśāstra of Nāgārjuna with the commentary Prasannapadā by
Chandrakīrti. Buddhist Sanskrit texts No.10. (P. L. Vaidya, Ed). Darbhanga: The Mithila
Institute of Post-graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit Learning.
Rilke, R. M. (2005). Rilke’s book of hours: Love poems to God. (A. Barrow & J. Macy, Trans).
New York: Riverhead Books.
SC: John of the Cross. (1991). The spiritual canticle. In The collected works of Saint John of the
Cross. (K. Kavanaugh & O. Rodriguez, Trans) (pp. 461–630). Washington, DC: Institute of
Carmelite Studies Publications.
Siderits, M., & Katsura S. (2013). Nāgārjuna’s middle way: Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Boston:
Wisdom Publications.

Contents

1Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross: An Introduction...............................1
1.1 Why This Study?.................................................................................2
1.2Significance, Scope and Subject Matter of the Study.........................5
1.3The Works of Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross.................................8

1.3.1Nāgārjuna................................................................................8

1.3.2John of the Cross.....................................................................10
1.4A Mādhyamika Buddhist (Nāgārjuna) Reading of John
of the Cross.........................................................................................12
1.5The Similitude in Methodology and Approach: Nāgārjuna
and John of the Cross..........................................................................14
1.6The Negative Way: Different Objectives in Nāgārjuna
and John of the Cross..........................................................................15
References....................................................................................................16
2Nothingness: Two Traditions and a Concept...........................................19
2.1The Negative Way Paradigms in the Buddhist
and Christian Traditions......................................................................20
2.2The Negative Way in Buddhism.........................................................22

2.2.1Mahāyāna Buddhism...............................................................24

2.2.2Nāgārjuna and the Mādhyamika School..................................26

2.2.3The Conception of  Śūnyatā: The Negative Way.....................28
2.3The Negative Way in Christianity.......................................................32

2.3.1The Christian Orient and the Negative Way............................35

2.3.2Neoplatonism and  Pseudo-Dionysius......................................37

2.3.3Aquinas, Marguerite Porete, Eckhart and 
The Cloud................................................................................39

2.3.4John of the Cross and the Negative Way.................................43
References....................................................................................................46
3 Śūnyatā and the Limits of Saṁvṛti in Nāgārjuna....................................51
3.1Conception of ‘Nothingness’ in Nāgārjuna........................................52
3.2Śūnyatā and Nāgārjuna’s Philosophy of Language.............................57
xxiii






xxiv

 Contents

3.3Śūnyatā and the Doctrine of Two Truths.............................................61
3.4Śūnyatā and the ‘Eight Negations’ of Nāgārjuna................................66
3.5Śūnyatā and Silence............................................................................69
References....................................................................................................75
4Nada and the Limits of Faculties in John of the Cross...........................79
4.1Conception of ‘Nothingness’ in John of the Cross.............................80
4.2

Nada and John of the Cross’s Paradox of Language...........................82
4.3
Nada and the Doctrine of Three Faculties..........................................86
4.4
Nada and the Unknowing in John of the Cross...................................93
4.5
Nada and Silence................................................................................97
References....................................................................................................104
5Śūnyatā and Nada: Similarities and Dissimilarities................................107
5.1Similarities..........................................................................................108

5.1.1The Limits of the Faculties and the 
Conventional Truth..................................................................108

5.1.2Ineffability...............................................................................110

5.1.3No Outright Rejection of Rationality......................................113

5.1.4Importance of the Worldly Life and Its
Exercise...................................................................................115

5.1.5Negative Way and Silence.......................................................117

5.1.6The Negation of Self................................................................119
5.2Dissimilarities.....................................................................................121

5.2.1Absolute Difference in Goal and Apparent
Similarity in Approach............................................................122

5.2.2The Negative Way and Its Goal: Divergences

in Nāgārjuna and John of the Cross.........................................124

5.2.3The Negative Way: An Enlightened-Indifference
in Nāgārjuna and a Positive and Creative Assertion
in John of the Cross.................................................................125

5.2.4Philosophical Epiphany in Nāgārjuna and 
Theological Epiphany in John of the Cross.............................127

5.2.5Difference in Content and Objective: A Possibility
for Dialogue.............................................................................129

5.2.6Why Dissimilarity?..................................................................130
References....................................................................................................131
6Of Nothingness: Apophasis and Metaphor..............................................135
6.1Apophasis, Metaphor and the Negative Way......................................136
6.2Apophasis and Metaphor in Nāgārjuna and John
of the Cross.........................................................................................139

6.2.1Apophasis and Metaphor in Nāgārjuna...................................140

6.2.2Apophasis and Metaphor in John of the Cross........................147


Contents

xxv

6.3Metonymy and Metaphor in Nāgārjuna and John
of the Cross.........................................................................................159
6.4Semiotics, Apophasis and Metaphor in Nāgārjuna and John
of the Cross.........................................................................................161
6.5Conclusion: Of  Nothingness...............................................................163
References....................................................................................................166
Index..................................................................................................................171


About the Author

C.D. Sebastian  is Professor of Indian Philosophy in the Department of Humanities
and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai. He holds
M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Indian philosophy from Banaras Hindu University,
Varanasi. He is the author of Metaphysics and Mysticism in Mahāyāna Buddhism
(2005, Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica Series – 238) and Recent Researches in Buddhist
Studies (2008, Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica Series – 248). He also edits the Journal
of Sacred Scriptures.

xxvii


List of Abbreviations

AKB

Vasubandhu. 2012. Abhidharmakos̄a-bhāṣya of Vasubandhu, Vols
I-IV. Trans, Louis De La Valle Poussin. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass
Publishers.
AMC

John of the Cross. 1991. The Ascent of Mount Carmel. In, The Collected
Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio
Rodriguez, 101–349. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies
Publications.
BWB John of the Cross. 1991. A Romance on the Psalm ‘By the Waters of
Babylon’ (Ps. 137). In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross.
Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez. Washington, DC: Institute
of Carmelite Studies Publications, 68–70.
DN
John of the Cross. 1991. The Dark Night. In, The Collected Works of
Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez,
358–457. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications.
GSM
John of the Cross. 1991. A Gloss (with a Spiritual Meaning). In, The
Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh &
Otilio Rodriguez, 71–72. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies
Publications.
L
Letters. John of the Cross. 1991. The Collected Works of Saint John of the
Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez. Washington, DC:
Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications, 735–764.
LFL
John of the Cross. 1991. The Living Flame of Love. In, The Collected
Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio
Rodriguez, 638–715. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies
Publications.
MKNāgārjuna. 1960. Madhyamakaśāstra of Nāgārjuna with the Commentary
Prasannapadā by Chandrakīrti. Buddhist Sanskrit Texts No.10. Ed. P. L.
Vaidya. Darbhanga: The Mithila Institute of Post-graduate Studies and
Research in Sanskrit Learning.

MKVCandrakīrti. 1970. Madhyamakavatāra par Candrakīrti. 1970. Ed. Louis
de la Vallee Poussin. Osnabruck: Biblio Verlag.
xxix


xxx

R

List of Abbreviations

John of the Cross. 1991. Romances. In, The Collected Works of Saint
John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 60–68.
Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications.
SC
John of the Cross. 1991. The Spiritual Canticle. In, The Collected Works
of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez,
461–630. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications.
SC-CA John of the Cross. 1991. The Spiritual Canticle (First Redaction: CA). In,
The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh
& Otilio Rodriguez, 44–50. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite
Studies Publications.
SC-CB John of the Cross. 1991. The Spiritual Canticle (Second Redaction: CB).
In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. Trans. Kieran
Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 73–80. Washington, DC: Institute of
Carmelite Studies Publications.
SEC
John of the Cross. 1991. Stanzas concerning an Ecstasy experienced in
high Contemplation. In, The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross.
Trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez, 53–54. Washington, DC:

Institute of Carmelite Studies Publications.
SSNāgārjuna. 1987. (Śūnyatāsaptati.) Nāgārjuna’s Seventy Stanzas: A
Buddhist Psychology of Emptiness. Trans. David Ross Komito, et al.
Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications.
VVNāgārjuna. 1998. Vigrahavyāvartanī: The Dialectical Method of
Nāgārjuna- Vigrahavyāvartanī. Trans. Kamaleshwar Bhattacharya, and
Ed. E. H. Johnston and Arnold Kunst. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass
Publications.