I admit i know nothing, only can share what i have gone into so far myself. Thank you for sharing your perspectives, i will stay open. I too had a interest in Nagarjuna, as i said, and i even have one book about his teachings, by Stephen Batchelor, called "Verses from the Center" and i have read it and re-read it a few times, and i looked online too, read a few articles, and i still have no clue what Nagarjuna is talking about. But it might be because i am a little slow and not as quick to grasp as some of you. If you understand his teachings, pointers, that is wonderful.
Here is one more article i read that i think is good, relating to Nagarjuna and Zen, enjoy:
http://www.thezensite.com/zenwritings/z ... arjuna.pdf
From the article : To see the Mulamadhyamakakarika as a philosophical work would be, in my
opinion, to misunderstand Nagarjuna’s purpose in writing it. All texts
should be approached not only on the basis of what it is that they are conveying,
but also, and perhaps more importantly, why they were created in the first place.
Nagarjuna created his writings out of great compassion to liberate all beings
from ignorance and hence suffering. He certainly was not trying to create a new
philosophical view. Quite the contrary, he explicitly denied sunyata as a
philosophy:
The emptiness of the conquerors was taught in order to do away with
all philosophical views. Therefore it is said that whoever makes a
philosophical view out of “emptiness” is indeed lost. (quoted in
Huntington, 1989:3)