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Rating: 
Summary: Verse from the Perimeter
Review: I bow to Batchelor Who teaches emptiness (Not in Tibetan, not in Sanskrit, Not with neologisms, not with cliches, Not for Mensa, not for dummies, Neither adorned, nor stripped) And sees Nagarjuna.
Rating:
Summary: Another Batchelor masterpiece...
Review: I must admit that I realized only after a complete first read that this book had made its amazing impression on me. I thought as I was reading it that it was, well, interesting. It was only after reading it that I realized I was seeing life through an entirely different lens. It was an indescribable, incredible experience. I've read it twice since, and each time the feeling grows stronger. The book has allowed me to begin to experience emptiness, rather than try to understand emptiness.
Rating: 
Summary: Nagarjuna's MMK
Review: If you're interested in Nagarjuna, and his Mulamadhyamakakarika
then pick up a copy of "The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way";
which is a translation by Jay L. Garfield, and stay away from this
highly subjective abridgement of the MMK.
Rating:
Summary: Nagarjuna's MMK
Review: If you're interested in Nagarjuna, and his Mulamadhyamakakarika
then pick up a copy of "The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way";
which is a translation by Jay L. Garfield, and stay away from this
highly subjective abridgement of the MMK.
Rating: 
Summary: A Wonderful Book!
Review: Nagarjuna's philisophy of the "middle way" can be difficult. It has usually been left to discussion by academics. Stephen Batchelor, as in his other writings, makes this subject flow like the poetry it is. It permeates your whole being. The author's helpful commentary and analysis makes this book a "keeper." It is for anyone interested in the Buddhist path and its profound reflections on life and living. "In seeing things To be or not to be Fools fail to see A world at ease."
Rating: 
Summary: Struggling alternative MMK translation
Review: There is little doubt that Nagarjuna gave humanity a masterpiece with the MMK which is evident in the attention that this text has received over the centuries.Moreover as a vertebra in the backbone of the student-centric disclosure of emptiness, MMK is indeed an essential read for those of us who tread the fascinating and beautiful road to insight. The MMK is not about Philosophy or Sanskrit but of sharing a direct, living experience of emptiness through the medium of writing; using language and concept to reveal a non-conceptual experience of emptiness. In my mind this would be the only way of 'translating' a text such as the MMK. A good re-presentation of the MMK must be memorable and life-changing. Self-grasping must be left with nothing to hold onto and be clearly revealed as the unskilful, foolish enemy that it is. I feel that with this book, Batchelor is attempting to offer an alternative experience of MMK to those that are currently presented by the linguists and philosophers who have chosen MMK as belonging to their respective domains. His arguments are at their strongest when he resists ownership of the text by intellectualising academics. For this alone he gets a star. For his provocative alternative rewriting of the MMK, (helping us remember that there are alternative approaches to translation) he gets one more star. Batchelor wishes to share with us the spontaneity of the verse form without getting lost in a rarified explication of his own understandings of the intellectual import of the verses, which is indeed a lofty and noble goal, but the question arises over whether or not Batchelor is up to the challenge; I believe that he is not. In this battle of academic ownership, Batchelor ends up forgetting the purpose of the text; his rendition is not student-centric, does little to help reveal the experience of insight and is not particularly memorable. Instead, what we read is Batchelor. The text shows a lot of Batchelor- his life, his views and his interests ring out on nearly every page. In this he doesn't differ from most other translators, but my expectations were higher regarding both text and translator. Moreover I feel that he ends up conveying himself as an expert - as does several of his contemporaries (Berzin springs to mind) which is deeply unfortunate as self-aggrandisement is not a part of the path to emptiness and should not form a component of any translation of the MMK. Batchelor also attempts to syncretise different traditions which more often than not is akin to shoving a stick into a hornets nest. It isn't even skilful as it implies that there is some Platonic 'truth' in the form of a common ground; this of course really weakens the purpose of the MMK altogether. Why not just get on with the basic job of soteriesis? In my opinion Batchelor fails again on the poetic front. He does not manage to convey any spirit or experience through verse in the MMK. I am at a loss to find either rhythm or metre in his 'verses'. It looks to me that he translated the verses into prose, and then used word juggling and formatting to make his translation appear to be an attempt at free verse. I humbly suggest to Batchelor to learn something of the infrastructure of the English tradition of poetry and poetic translation before attempting such a translation in the first place. I recommend he read e.g Hobsbaum (ASIN 041508797X) chapter 7 for a good idea of what free verse can be. Even better would be to learn and develop experience with blank verse (i.e. unrhymed iambic pentameter) - a good choice for translating nine syllable Tibetan quatrains. If he wishes to translate texts such as the MMK into verse he must also remind himself of the purpose of verse in India and Tibet- to help the reader memorise and recite the text, rather than for any sense of beauty or revelation. I feel that there is a pragmatic and legitimate purpose in following the import of the Indians and that a useful versification of the MMK is possible, but I believe it would require much more experience with writing verse in English than Batchelor reveals here. He must always remember the purpose of the MMK to be student-centred, soteriological and memorable; not poetic, philosophical, academic or as an excuse to talk about personal experiences or views. He must also apply a strong vigilance to his authorship to leave the reader to struggle with the reader rather than with the author. My position rests that the book is an entertaining but complementary read of MMK, not a final read.
Try reading it alongside e.g. Garfield's philosophical MMK (ASIN 0195093364). Better still, leave them both on the electronic bookshelf and read the Dalai Lama e.g - "The Key of Madhyamika" (e.g. ASIN 1556431929) for a simple, practical and powerful introduction to emptiness. Alternatively- purchase the final volume of the Lam Rim Chenmo (Vol 3: ASIN 1559391669) - The Dalai Lama's own recommendation for revealing emptiness most skilfully.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating, Original, Problematic
Review: There is much about Stephen Batchelor's new translation of Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika which is extremely useful, although the work is also highly problematic. Batchelor has chosen to render Nagarjuna's verses in a very free fashion, communicating what he discerns to be the real message at the heart of the Karikas. He has felt free to omit material, paraphrase, summarize, and reword entire sections with enormous liberty. On the one hand this has freed the text from much of its cryptic quality which has resulted from the metrical constraints of the Sanskrit root text. On the other hand we must rely heavily on Batchelor's interpretation of what Nagarjuna actually meant. What did Nagarjuna actually mean? Batchelor sets forth his interpretive model in the lengthy and challenging introduction. Nagarjuna, Batchelor argues, should be interpreted as belonging to a common philosophical heritage. In comparing Nagarjuna's text with the writings of Taoism and Zen and even the English Romantic poets, Batchelor suggests that the Verses espouse a common insight which is far broader than many modern interpreters have suggested. It seems probable that the unspoken opponent of his exegesis is the Gelukpa and Gelukpa-inspired scholarship which has had much to say about Madhyamaka in recent years, and of which Batchelor himself was once a part when he translated Chandrakirti's Madhyamakavatara with Geshe Rabten in Echoes of Voidenss. Here, he briefly presents Dzong-ka-ba's view on Nagarjuna, which Batchelor clearly thinks is overly scholastic and removes the heart of the message by viewing emptiness as primarily a kind of anti-metaphysics. The real message, we learn, is that we are to approach the world with a particular stance of openess and sense of interconnectedness. Emptiness is to be lived in its realization, not realized propositionally. Clearly Batchelor has been deeply influenced by his experiences with Zen in this approach, and it has much to offer in considering the relationship of emptiness to the endeavor of liberation. This work is obviously highly personal, and highly personalizes the process of meditation on emptiness. That being said, I found the book to contain significant problems. In my opinion it behooves Batchelor to spend more energy in the introduction in justifying his beliefs. I do not see why we should necessarily believe that Nagarjuna is best read through the existential model that Batchelor suggests. This certainly flies in the face of many of his Indian commentators such as Aryadeva, Chandrakirti, Buddhapalita, and Bhavaviveka. I see no reason to assume that, on the basis of stylistic and rhetorical affinities, we should view Nagarjuna as belonging to the family of thought that somehow includes Chuang-Tzu and Keats rather than as belonging to the milieu in which he lived and wrote. "Verses" is clearly more of a presentation of Batchelor's views than an argument on their behalf, so while I personally resonated with much of what he said I found myself wondering what justified Batchelor in translating this work so freely. It is more a collaboration than a translation, and I'm not convinced that Nagarjuna needs a collaborator. If you are looking for a translation which is not extremely demanding philosophcially, this might be the version for you. Likewise if you are interested in a free, interesting and challenging reading of Nagarjuna, this book has much to offer. Be warned, however, that if you are interested in Nagarjuna's actual words, this is not the book for you.
Rating:
Summary: Difficult, but rewarding.
Review: This was a challenging book only because Buddhist emptiness is difficult for me to understand. There are fleeting moments in his book, however, when Batchelor makes the concept of emptiness seem within my mental reach. "The silence of emptiness allows one to hear more clearly the cries of the world" (p. 78). Emptiness, he writes, is learning to live moment by moment without "fixating." "Fixating tends to leave one morally numb and indifferent" (p. 78). This book is divided into two parts, Batchelor's 80-page meditation on Nagarjuna's second century C. E. "Verses from the Center," followed by Batchelor's translation of that work. Nagarjuna's poetry, Batchelor writes, offers insights for "anyone concerned with the questions of what it means to live a free and awake life today" (p. xvi). This book is difficult, but there are enough insightful gems along the way to make it worthwhile reading. G. Merritt
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