Bakmoon wrote:Why does the earth element need to be inherently existent in order to have sub elements?
Apart from when the mind is in jhanas (which is not ordinary awareness), does the experience of the earth element ever end or cease? Theravada Buddhism is based on insight where as Nagarjuna is based on intellectual inference.
The Buddha was concerned with the cessation of causes (of suffering) that can be known (such as the cessation of ignorance, craving, attachment, self-view, etc). Where Nagarjuna is expounding a causality that cannot be known but only inferred.
And what is the earth property? The earth property can be either internal or external. What is the internal earth property? Anything internal, within oneself, that's hard, solid, & sustained [by craving]: head hairs, body hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh, tendons, bones, bone marrow, kidneys, heart, liver, membranes, spleen, lungs, large intestines, small intestines, contents of the stomach, feces, or anything else internal, within oneself, that's hard, solid, and sustained: This is called the internal earth property. Now both the internal earth property & the external earth property are simply earth property. MN 62
Your question should not be phrased in this way: Where do these four great elements — the earth property, the liquid property, the fire property, and the wind property — cease without remainder? Instead, it should be phrased like this:
Where do water, earth, fire, & wind
have no footing?
DN 11
Bakmoon wrote:I personally think that Nagarjuna's key insights into emptiness are correct and match up quite nicely with the suttas. Many passages in the suttas express the freedom from views and the selflessness of phenomena.
They are not correct because based on Nagarjuna's key theories (not "insights") about emptiness (
sunnata), unconditioned sabhava phenomena such as Nibbana & the Dhamma Niyama (Laws) are dependently originated, which is contrary to Theravada. Nibbana & the Law of Dhamma are Emptiness (Sunnata) but not Dependently Originated. Therefore, Nagarjuna's equating of Emptiness with Dependent Origination is wrong from a Theravada viewpoint.