ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a specific strand in Indian Buddhism, namely that which regards the quieting of views as the highest form of transformative insight (prajñā). In Sections 4.2 and 4.3, I introduce the Buddha's teaching of ‘no-self,’ then explore the ideal of relinquishing all views qua highest form of insight as it manifests in canonical Pāli literature. In Section 4.4, I examine the teaching of emptiness (śūnyatā) and its connection to the ideal of ‘quieting all views’ as it is set out first in turn-of-the-era Prajñāpāramitā Mahāyāna texts, then in Nāgārjuna's principal philosophical treatises. In Section 4.5, I discuss the crucial role of what I call Nāgārjunian irony in both the propounding of Nāgārjuna's central teaching and the type of self-transformation that it is designed to call forth. In Section 4.6, finally, I argue that my interpretation carries us above and beyond the false dilemma between construing emptiness as therapy versus theory.
