Buddhist-Meditation-Systematic-and-Practical

distinguished.
In my opinion, even though there were two persons, by
their thought they might be made one. Though the
records do seem to be of different persons living many
years apart, still Nagarjuna by tradition lived a very long
time. (Western scholarship usually distinguishes
Nagarjuna the philosopher living about 150 C.E. and the
Siddha Nagarjuna living about 700-800 years later.)
Also Nagarjuna is recorded as having passed away in
the moon samadhi which is the symbol of sunyata in
Mahayana and of the bodhicitta in Vajrayana. It is also
well-known that the first Nagarjuna taught Mahayana
sunyata philosophy while the second instructed in the
lower Tantras. So we see that the teachings of these two
are not opposed but are a progressive course of training.
In fact, when we review the philosophy, realization and
long life, they seem to belong to one and not to two
people, for the scholar and the practical meditator are
complementary.
Another reason we might give is that Nagarjuna went to
the Palace of the Dragons and got the Avatamsaka Sutra,
a canon which is called esoteric-in-exoteric work. We
see here the actual marriage of outer and hidden
doctrines within a single sutra connected with
Nagarjuna's name. It is therefore difficult to say that
different Nagarjunas founded the Madhyamika and
Vajrayana schools.
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