The problem of action at a temporal distance

[josephzizys]

@Jayarava

Nāgārjuna did not demonstrate that “The agent cannot be the same nor different from the consumer of the action”.

Nagarjuna did not demonstrate it, he quoted it;

“Master Gotama, does the person who does the deed experience the result?”
“Kiṁ nu kho, bho gotama, so karoti so paṭisaṁvedayatī”ti?

“‘The person who does the deed experiences the result’: this is one extreme, brahmin.”
“‘So karoti so paṭisaṁvedayatī’ti kho, brāhmaṇa, ayameko anto”.

“Then does one person do the deed and another experience the result?”
“Kiṁ pana, bho gotama, añño karoti, añño paṭisaṁvedayatī”ti?

“‘One person does the deed and another experiences the result’: this is the second extreme.
“‘Añño karoti, añño paṭisaṁvedayatī’ti kho, brāhmaṇa, ayaṁ dutiyo anto.

Avoiding these two extremes, the Realized One teaches by the middle way:
Ete te, brāhmaṇa, ubho ante anupagamma majjhena tathāgato dhammaṁ deseti:
‘Ignorance is a condition for choices. … etc…
‘avijjāpaccayā saṅkhārā; … pe …
SN12.46

(although he is more likely qouting form SN12.17 SA302 T499 SF169 )

@Jayarava

Nāgārjuna himself never analyses his own beliefs. He never talks about his a priori views. And those who study him keep up this tradition. No one enquires into the details Nāgārjuna’s worldview or is able to state what he considered axiomatic.

I think this is very, very true, and I think that one of the prior beliefs, in fact IMO, the entire inspiration for the MMK is exactly the “undeclared” points, surveyed in the thread:

TO BE OR NOT TO BE, the undeclared points in the 4 principle Nikayas:

TO BE OR NOT TO BE (or both, or neither) The undeclared points in the 4 principle Nikayas. The undeclared points are a number of questions, typically ten, but sometimes as few as two, as at SN44.10, and sometimes as many as 11, as at AN10.95, and often 4, as at SN12.17. This essay focuses on the standard set of ten, and looks at the differing explanations given for the Buddha’s silence in the different suttas. We first see the undeclared points introduced at DN1 and DN2, where they are used to…

I think that most of the scholarship about Nagarjuna, emanating from a Mahayana-centric part of western scholarship, completely fails to read him in terms of the sutta material on the topic he addresses.

I am hoping to put something together on this at some point, in the hope that it might clarify somewhat exactly what Nagarjuna was in fact talking about, which to me borders on the incomprehensible without recourse to the sutta material.