The History of Buddhist Thought c25.49

c25.49

But all this is true of Nirvāṇa itself. It is a dream, a magician’s deluding, says the commentator, quoting the passage in the *Aṣṭasāhasrika* given above (p. 216). Yet, says an objector, though you deny transmigration and Nirvāṇa, yet there are binding and release. Nāgārjuna replies : “ Compounded things, whose nature is arising and passing away, are neither bound nor released ; nor is a being, as said above, either bound or released.” But surely, says the objector, grasping is a bond, and as that is real there is binding. No, is the reply, for that which is already bound cannot come into the state of being bound, and that which is not bound is free from binding. It is the same argument which has already been used to prove the impossibility of motion. “ The bound is not released, and the not bound is likewise not released. If the bound were released, binding and releasing would be simultaneous.”