I think he is criticizing Abhidhamma realism.
As Namdrol said: Molecules are made of atoms which are made
of electrons and protons, etc.
By stopping at the salt molecule, you are making precisely the
mistake Madhyamakas criticized Sarvastivadins for making i.e.
arbitrarily stopping your analysis at a false level of
irreducibility.
What is meant by
indivisible, according to Vaibhashika tradition, are the smallest,
subtlest particles, which cannot be divided into, for example, a
northern part, a southern part, a top part, or a bottom part. Since
they cannot be divided like that, they are said to be ultimate. If
they could be divided into those parts, then they would not be the
smallest parts.
Since these
particles are small and indivisible, they cannot be destroyed.
Since they cannot be destroyed, since they can not be broken down
any further, these small parts are said to possess a particular
energy, or power.
The aggregation
of these small indivisible particles constitutes the coarse
objects. If you take the gross object and destroy it, what is left
over are the smallest indivisible particles.
From the point of
view of consciousness, consciousness cannot be destroyed in the
same way that an object can be destroyed. With consciousness, one
analyses it into the consciousness that was, the consciousness that
is yet to be, and the present consciousness. And with the present
consciousness, one investigates it down to the subtlest moment or
instant, beyond which it cannot be divided any further, and that is
the ultimate truth.
This smallest
moment in the Buddhist tradition is said to be the time it takes a
finger to snap, divided by 64. That is what is said to be the
smallest instant in time; in the Buddhist tradition that is called
the limit of time. Through one's analysis, through one's
intelligence, one could say that the moment could be divided into
hundreds, into thousands, into millions. Of course, that is
possible. But in terms of the arising of thoughts, the thought
arises in these 64 divisions of a finger snap.
If you take an
arrow or a bullet and you shoot it through 100 flower petals, it
seems to go through instantaneously; one cannot break down the
movement through 100 flower petals. But if one analyses it, one
sees that is has to go through the first flower petal before it
goes through the second flower petal, and so
forth.
Namdrol:
And at the end of the day, we will still be left with the fact
that all of these so called "things" are just imputations of
identity onto impermanent collections, which themselves are
composed of still further impermanent collections.
So whatever clinging we have to any impermanent collection whether
internal or external in terms of identity is certain to lead to
suffering. This is the point of Madhyamaka i.e. to demonstrate that
the beleif that attributions of identity onto impermanent
collections are anything more than mere conventions is a
delusion.
Of course these conventions work, but they are no more real than
the habit of the "I" we attribute to our personal collection of
aggregates. The habit of "I" certainly works, but that "I" is not
real. The imputation of salt onto a given collection we have chosen
to call salt "works" but the "salt" can't be found apart from the
imputation we make onto that collection so we can use it
effectively.
The problem most laypeople have with the MMK is that people rarely
are acquainted with the views that MMK is seeking to correct.
Without understanding Abhidharma, most of the arguments in the MMK
will seem rather pointless if not obscure in the extreme. Some
people mistakenly think that MMK is a panacea -- when it fact it is
rather narrow text with a rather narrow project i.e. to correct
Abhidharma realism and bring errant Abhidharmikas back to a proper
understanding of dependent origination and help them to abandon a
kind of naive essentialism that had crept into Buddhism.
Madhyamaka as a whole is an excercise in trying to introduce people
to the real meaning of dependent origination i.e. the emptiness of
persons and phenomena based in the Buddha's observation that
statements about existence and non-existence were at odds with the
real meaning of dependent origination.
Since there are no permanent phenomena, claims for the existence
and non-existence of phenomena are completely naive on anything
other than a conventional level.
So you can keep insisting that salt harms snails as much as you
like. Since you are making a conventional statement you are not
going to get any complaint from me, but if you assert that there is
saltiness in salt, for example, you have only two courses -- mire
yourself in the myriad contradictions of asserting that there is an
essence of salt or simply accede the point that "salt" is a
conventional identity proposition that is at best a functional
imputation and nothing more than that.
N
No just Adhidhamma realism, but basically
the Theravadins in general. Though what he has quoted are from the
Vaibhashika tradition, the quotes also applies to
the Theravada tradition which classified all elements as real and
existing in themselves albeit impermanent. Of course when combined,
like our skandhas, it give rise to the notion of an ego though
unreal and non-existing is grasped as the ‘I’ in the ordinary
person.
This thing about momentariness and
also the subject of non-duality which are Mahayanist teachings will
always be a sticking point with the purists and fundamentalists who
take the Pali Suttas alone as the sole authority on the Buddha's
words.