Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c22.s3.5

c22.s3.5

There are in fact in the Mahāyāna two strains of thought regarding Nirvāṇa. The negativism of Nāgārjuna asserts that it is not created, not liable to destruction, not eternal, not passing away, not acquired, not wanting, and leaves it therefore in the same condition of negativism as anything else, so that it can be asserted to be the same as Saṃsāra, since both are purely negative in character, and two negations can be identified. But the doctrine can be given a positive aspect, and this is clearly seen in the *Vimalakīrti Sūtra*,² in which insight is said to grow amid the defilement of passion and sin, even as the lotus grows in the watery mire, as the seed springs up in muddy soil, not in the air. Passion is intelligence; Nirvāṇa is Saṃsāra; the two are vitally connected, and the attainment of Nirvāṇa must be in and through life, not in annihilation or abstention from its activities. Hence in Asaṅga’s *Mahāyānasaṃparigrahaśāstra* we have the character of a Buddha including superiority to attachment and defilement and yet connected with the passions of mankind, since depraved souls are to be rescued by the compassion of the Buddha. It is wrong, Vasubandhu explains, to see either the transitoriness of existence alone or the eternity of Nirvāṇa; from the standpoint of suchness the implications of both are essentially connected.