Nagarjuna s Wisdom A Practitioner s Guide to the Middle Way 1

Explore the Mulamadhyamakakarika the way the Dalai Lama teaches it.

Nagarjuna's Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, or as it's known in Tibetan, Root Wisdom, is a definitive presentation of the doctrines of emptiness and dependent arising, and a foundational text of Mahayana Buddhism.

In this book, Barry Kerzin, personal physician to the Dalai Lama, presents this fundamental work in a digestible way, using a method favored by His Holiness: focusing on five key chapters, presented in a specific order.

• First we explore the twelve links of dependent origination, in Nagarjuna's chapter 26, to learn why and how we cycle through samsara.
• Then we examine the self that cycles to discover that, in fact, there is no inherently existent self, based on Nagarjuna's chapter 18.
• We then enter an analysis of the four noble truths, based on chapter 24, to understand how conventional reality is understood.
• Next, an investigation of the Tathagata shows the reader that even emptiness is empty in chapter 22.
• Finally, Nagarjuna re-emphasizes the pervasiveness of emptiness in his first chapter.

Thus, Dr. Kerzin walks us through Nagarjuna's masterwork and lets the great teacher introduce us to Buddhist philosophy, step by step--deepening our understanding, enhancing the way we practice.