The Ornament of the Shentong Middle Way

By Jetsun Tāranātha

Translated by Rimé Lodrö

Translator’s Introduction

One reason that this profound text, has not been more influential and has aroused bitter controversy is that the presentation is condensed to the point that it is, at best, easily misunderstood, and at worst, literally false. Unsympathetic opponents looking for something to refute only acerbate this problem. Hence Jonangpas have been frequently accused of being secret Hindus, or advocates of the absolute conceptual consciousness of Mind-only.

We should recall that, in Tibet, texts like this are most often used as bases for commentary for students by more learned teachers. The text is condensed into summary verses that can be easily memorized. Then the teacher fills out the argument and resolves doubts. Therefore, I feel there is a need for explanatory notation to clarify Tāranātha’s intended meaning. Lengthy footnotes and parenthetical additions can be tedious. So, while I do have some footnotes, I have also added shorter notations to the text, so that readers will not be confused about which words are Tāranātha’s. Longer notations on bolded passages are referenced to appendices A1, and so forth. Links connect passages in the text with supporting scriptures in the companion text. Capitalized epithets like “the Conqueror” or “the World Protector” refer to the historical Buddha,

Śākyamuni. “Word” capitalized refers to the Buddha’s teachings. When one line of Tibetan verse is translated by two or more lines in English, the extra lines begin with a small letter. Perhaps the vagueness of Tāranātha’s approach has its virtues, though. A common oriental way of proceeding in such cases is to give a corner or two of the verbal teachings, to make students work out the rest. That makes students go beyond rote learning, and develop a thorough understanding of the intricacies of their school’s view, and its connection to the associated practice and experience.

Jetsun Tāranātha

Contents

Words of Homage to the Buddha

1. Teaching that the Conqueror’s Word is authoritative scripture

2. Analysis of the Buddha’s way of teaching in his three turnings of the wheel of Dharma

3. A teaching, according three sayings by the Buddha to Subhūti in the sūtras, is taught to clear away maintaining that the two truths are equally existent or equally non-existent

4. Answering an objection by advocates of universal emptiness of selfhood

5. Now what is said there is analyzed, beginning with provisional and definitive

6. Now this is composed concerning the divisions of Madhyamaka and Mind-only, within which Shentong is established as Madhyamaka, rather than as Mind-only

7. Further teachings on the traditions of Rangtong and Shentong

8. Teachings for abandoning controversy over whether Shentong is like the extremists

9. Teaching that the absolute is free from the reasoning of Rangtong Madhyamaka

10. Teaching how it is contradictory to maintain that the emptiness of all phenomena is self-emptiness alone

11. Refuting that Rangtong Madhyamaka is ultimate

12. How, when some Rangtongpas analyze doctrine, their reasoning establishes Shentong

13. Now a little is said about the suitability of our own system

Conclusion and dedication of Merit

Words of Homage to the Buddha

OṂ Svāsti. Namo Buddhaya.

The one who, by tongues of flameA1 of vajra pristine wisdom,
Consumed the mountains and forests of the view of self,
The World Protector, who abides beneath the placeA2
Of the seven kinds of relative consciousness,
Who became the god of gods, I bow to the Lord of Conquerors;
The one whose teachings, with different manners for different occasions,1
Taught to all the way of occurrence of dharmatā;
Though disagreeable, childish ones were disputatious,
Still gave them these authentic instructions on reasoning.
1. Teaching that the Conqueror’s Word is authoritative scripture
1 Teaching students of different capacities in a manner they can understand and to which they will be
receptive.


Though here in the Land of Snow,2 concrete, extremist doctrines,A3
And the realist approach of the ŚrāvakasA4 were not accepted
as the highest formulation of Buddhist teachings;
Awakened karmic propensities of these two approaches,
Led to the meaning of the texts of the Highest Vehicle
being wrongly explained. This needs to be corrected.
Learned Mahāyānists, in the Land of Noble Ones,3
Declared, “The scriptures spoken by the Conqueror
Shall be proclaimed as authoritative from now on.

Reasoning that has exhausted faults does not speak falsely.
For that reason, the falsehoods of the Śrāvaka Vehicle
Cannot be the Word of the Conqueror who taught the Great Vehicle;”
Then, when they proved the Word, Tibetans proclaimed that proving
The Word of the Mahāyāna was accomplished by certain treatises,
Some scriptures that happened to be in accord with their own ideas,
And that all texts saying otherwise were of merely provisional meaning.
Insofar as their meaning benefits beings, indeed it is wonderful;
Still, meanings that do not abide in the essence4 are said to be false –
Mere claims of validity cannot establish scriptures as valid.
If the Conqueror who has exhausted all faults still speaks falsely,5
Why mention his noble disciples who abandon all partiality

And ordinary beings who still possess all faults?6
Such persons cannot avoid falsity. They cannot be authoritative.
Then, according to the meaning just presented,
how can it be right for speakers of Buddhist doctrine
To claim that the Buddha’s words are not authoritative?
Instead, we should seek the perspective from which those teachings are true.
2. Analysis of the Buddha’s way of teaching in his three turnings of the wheel of Dharma
Most Tibetans claim, regarding the Buddha’s three turnings,

2 Tibet.
3 India.

4 Teachings that do not truly describe the essential qualities of their subject.
5 As those Tāranātha is criticizing maintain, and he denies.
6 Noble ones of the Greater and Lesser Vehicles and ordinary beings who are authors of treatises.


That the first, by teaching all dharmas as truly existent, is false;
The middle, by teaching emptiness, is of the definitive meaning;
And the last, by teaching existence,7 isA again of provisional meaning.
In general, not all the provisional meaning is false words.
In the gradual path that leads to the excellent way things are,
Teachings true in the relative are taught as provisional meaning –
Thus, in giving those teachings, the Buddha does not speak falsely;
ButB teachings of the absolute way things really are

Teach the definitive meaning. So capable ones maintain.
“All teachings taught for a purpose are of the provisional meaning,8”
Some, indeed, maintain this; but, as all holy Dharma
Is for the purpose of taming beings, it would all be provisional.
Nāgārjuna, as well as Asaṅga and his brother,9
Establish that the three turnings have a single intention:
The first turning of the wheel teaches the relative.
It is taught in accordance with the way things appear.
There is no teaching that what appears has true existence,
Within the subject of analyzing for how things are;
therefore, the words of these relative teachings are not false.
The middle10 refutes all dharmas of saṃsāra and
nirvāṇa,
All of the relative; but whether sugatagarbha,C
Exists or not is never taught or examined at all.
Therefore, these two turnings do not contradictD the last.
In any case, the first chiefly teaches the relative.
In the middle, there is only half the definitive meaning;
The lack of true existence of the relative,
But not the true existence of the absolute.

The last turning perfectly teaches the definitive absolute.11
The examples of medicine for the sick and learning letters;
Have this intention, and others12 are contradictory.
If it the first turning were to teach, “All dharmas are stable,13”
That would contradict the Sūtra of Katyayana.E
7 The true existence of absolute sugatagarbha with its intrinsic qualities.
8 Those who say this are thinking of examples like the Buddha teaching truly existing phenomena to
students who could not understand or accept the teachings of emptiness.
9 Vasubandhu.

10 Turning of the wheel of Dharma and ff.
11 For Jonangpas definitive, ultimate, and absolute have the same scope.
12 Other intentions alleged by some.
13 Rather than impermanent, which leads to suffering, according to the first of the four noble truths.


If the middle negated the absolute, dharmadhātu and so forth,A5
That would contradict the Sutra Requested by Maitreya.14 F
The sūtras and treatisesG then would have mutual contradictions.H
3. A teaching, according three sayings by the Buddha to Subhūti in the sūtras,
is taught to clear away maintaining that the two truths
are equally existent or equally non-existent
Moreover, 1. the Buddha says in the Chapter on Changeless Dharmatā:
In that way, Subhūti, all dharmas are emanations.15
Some are emanations of the Śrāvakas.
Some are emanations of the Pratyekabuddhas.
Some are emanations of the bodhisattvas.
Some are emanations of the tathāgatas.
Some are emanations of the afflictive emotions.
Some are emanations of the provisional Dharma.
Subhūti, all dharmas in that list are like emanations.

2. Also:


Subhūti asked, “What phenomenon is not an emanation?”

The Buddha spoke saying, “Subhūti, a phenomenon that is unborn and unceasing
is not an emanation.”
3. Then:

Subhūti asked, “Blessed One, what phenomenon might that be?”
“Subhūti, it is the phenomenon that possess the quality of non-deception, nirvāṇa.
That phenomenon is not deceptive.”
4. Answering an Objection by advocates of Universal Emptiness of Selfhood
Rangtong Objection:

Teaching emptiness through existent sugatagarbha
14 A sūtra of the middle turning that teaches dharmadhātu as absolute experience.
15 Because they are mere mentally created appearances of what does not truly exist.


Is known to be separate from the definitive meaning sūtras.16
This is taught by beings who are common individuals.
All such teachings are known to be of provisional meaning.
They have a hidden intention of emptiness of selfhood.
Has that not been maintained?

Shentong answer:

Well, it certainly has been maintained by some...
However, when the essence is taught in the final turning,
It should not be explained as an empty mental construct,I
Mere wistful imagination of what could never exist.
The absolute selfJ is not taught as a relative individual,
Subject to the duality of relative concepts,

Which both of us agree to be empty of true existence.
Accordingly, the final turning is known as “supreme,”
Because it teaches the ultimate self, the way things are.
You complain that our absolute self is like the gods of the Hindus.
Maheśvara and so forth indeed have been called exalted,
But teaching that is not right, for the words are not validly spoken.
WhyK? They are spoken of entities other than the three jewels,
Such words are to be abandoned by those who seek liberation.
If they17 were true, the Conqueror’s speech would not be valid.
Any masters maintaining that such a teaching is valid
Have the same understanding as Indian extremists,

Including Rangtongpas who deny the Buddha’s Word.
If you think that, by being exalted, they do not have this fault;
The same reasoning would apply to Maheśvara and so forth.
Claiming they are better than Buddha, they are no Buddhists.
If,L as they claim, their words are better than the Buddha’s,
Why could the words of a common being not be so too?
Rangtongpas speak of the four reliances incorrectly:

1. Relative existence is said to be existence.
Relative nonexistence is said to be nonexistence.
Absolute nonexistence is said to be existence.
Absolute existence is said to be nonexistence:
16 Middle turning sūtras, which Rangtong considers definitive, famously say that all phenomena,
including sugatagarbha, lack true existence.
17 The words teaching that the Buddhist supreme self is like the Hindu gods, and so forth.


They do not rely on the absolute, but the relative.
2. When consciousness has an essence, they say it is existent.18
When it does not, they cut it off as nonexistent.19
Though wisdom cannot exist from the viewpoint of appearance,20
Within the relative apprehension of consciousness,
Exponents of Rangtong want to claim that it does:

Abandoning pristine wisdom, they teach only consciousness.
3. They claim that teachings taught by the Buddha are mostly false,21
WhileM their “valid” commentaries on his intention are true; =
If a root text is false, their commentaryN cannot be true.
Relying on individuals, they abandon the holy Dharma.
4. Understanding the real in terms of the two negations,O
One that includes an affirmation, and one that does not,
Logicians, and those like them, rely on fallacious words22
And not the infallible meaning, the Dharma of realization.
Most of the later exponents of self-emptiness

Have strayed quite far away from these four reliances,
Though, in the Word of the Conqueror, these four are praised.
5. Now what is said there is analyzed, beginning with provisional and definitive
The present subject needs to be further elucidated.
There are no sūtras at all that clearly teach the approach
That the middle is definitive and the last turning is provisional.23
The Saṃdhinirmocana, Mahāparinirvāṇa,
Aṅgulimāla Sūtra and others clearly explain
That the middle is provisional and the last the definitive meaning.
To claim that the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, teaches the essence
As of the provisional meaning isP as weak as the squeak of a rabbit.24
You ask whether sugatagarbha is like the extremists’ false self,
A mere delusive entity of the relative.

18 In the relative.
19 In the absolute.

20 Here “appearance” = false, dualistic appearance.
21 They claim that all sūtras and tantras that do not teach emptiness of self are provisional.
22 Words are fallible, because the way things are transcends the scope of words and logic.
23 The middle and final turnings of the wheel of Dharma.
24 That claim has no plausibility.



Our true self is absolute emptiness,25 so we teach these are not the same.
“All emptiness negates true existence without affirmation,Q”
Is a fault in the understanding of advocates of Rangtong,26
Persistent proclaimers of nothingness as the way things are,
Though their view is supposed to be beyond all assertions.
Rangtong objection:

“The pristine wisdom of emptiness, your alleged perceiver of suchness,
Is empty, by non-affirming negation, as nothing at all,
According to reason that analyses for absolute truth,
As it is taught within the Buddha’s second turning.
Therefore, not absolute, as you claim, it is relative.”
Shentong answer:

Some of you claim that “emptiness that analyzes the skandhas
Establishes all phenomena as nonexistence.”
This is, indeed, the case for relative phenomena,
But not for the suchness of absolute phenomena,
Whose purity transcends both concepts and their analysis.
Though emptiness proved by analysis27 with analytical reasoning
Is, in your intention, a means of establishing suchness;R 28
As a means of establishing suchness possessing all supreme aspects,29
Your negation directly contradictsS what is to be proved.T
You eliminate absolute suchness, along with all other phenomena.
The final turning is, indeed, described as provisional
In Candrakīrti’s Entering the Middle Way;U

But, as it is described as definitive by the Victorious One,
the final turningV is proved to be the definitive meaning.30
Middle turning discourse, much in accord with the first,31
Presents the “real,” describable dharmas of abhidharma,
Characterized by impermanence, dependence, and suffering,
And disproved, as we both agree, by Madhyamaka reasoning.
Final turning discourse, much in accord with mantra,
25 Of other, relative things.

26 Since many sūtras of the definitive meaning teach otherwise.
27 Of the phenomena of the skandhas, and so forth.
28 Because Rangtong suchness is the self-emptiness of all phenomena.
29 The Shentong absolute, established by the experience of pristine wisdom.
30 By scriptural valid cognition.
31 The first and second turnings both say that absolute nirvāṇa is beyond description, while describable
reality is that of the phenomena of abhidharma.


Transcending all the limitations of relative concepts,
Presents the actual, luminous, blissful way things are,
Established by the experience of all the victorious ones.
Those reasonsW establish the final turning as supreme.
If the third turning is provisional, how can it be so profound?
In particular, when the final turningX is taught as provisional,
Since the absolute is provisional, that is logically absurd.
After teaching the ultimate definitive meaning,

If those to be tamed are told it is of provisional meaning,
Negating absolute suchness, as if it were relative things,
The stages of teaching the twoY will be thrown into great disorder.
When the teaching is out of order, for some individual student,
The true, non-conceptual self will be conceptual.A6
It will not bear analysis, which is incorrect.

True self is not something suitable for analysis,
Because it transcends all concepts that could be analyzed.
Nirvāṇa, as taught in the Questions of King Dharaṇīśvara,32
As the ultimate goal, the truth that fulfills all wishes,
Will then be joinedZ to leading individuals astray,
Chasing a phantom fulfillment, in an inescapable void.
The example of medicinal milk and that of a jewel
Show as one how defilements of true mind are purified,
So that enlightened dharmakāya can manifest.

In the Mahāparinirvāṇa,AA eight misapprehensions are taught.
In particular, the kāya of the Conqueror is pure.33
The buddha field and so forth, the blissful, absolute dhātu,
Are permanent mind itself. Since this is our absolute self,BB
Conceiving a body of flesh and blood, in the truth of suffering,
With instantaneous aspects whose nature lacks true existence,

As what we are is wrong view that has the four misapprehensions.
The first turning is in accord with the viewpoint of the world.
The middle is in accord with the relative being natureless,
While the Conqueror and his children have countless good qualities.34
Indeed, it is better, in many ways, than the Śrāvaka system;
Yet mostly, it still accords with the Lesser Vehicle sūtras.

32 Sūtra and so forth.
33 Of defilements of the two obscurations.

34 Even if, for Rangtong, they do not truly exist as anything at all.


The way of naturelessness35 in the last is like the middle.
What is other than absolute is never taught as existing,
But here many special, absolute dharmas are taught to exist.
Among the Dharma terms of this uncommon Great Vehicle,
There are the five topics, three natures, and eight kinds of consciousness;
Extensively taught in the sūtras of the final turning,
But taught in the middle one seldom, briefly, and unclearly.
The first turning is provisional.36 If the last were also provisional,
The two should be predominantly in accord;A7

Yet the first and last turnings of the wheel of Dharma
have very different ways of explaining the Teacher’s intention.
That was the beginning of the teachings on the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma, and the
discussion of provisional and definitive, with how the last turning is established as definitive, and hence
supreme.

6. Now this is composed concerning the divisions of Madhyamaka and Mind-only,
within which Shentong is established as Madhyamaka, rather than as Mind-only
Though the three turnings have a single pith of intention,
Lesser Vehicle Śrāvakas, the exponents of Rangtong
Adherents of Mind-only, and those of Shentong Madhyamaka,
Have positions very different in certain particulars.
Excluding Śāntarakṣita and Vimuktisena,37

Along with their followers, the other Rangtongpas
Explain the relative like the two schools of Śrāvakas,38
The realist Vaibhāṣikas and Sautrāntikas.
The relativeCC in Mind-only and Shentong is similar,
As mental phenomena, included within the grasper and grasped—
That is, Rangtongpas are similar to the Śrāvakas,
And many Shentong presentationsDD are like Mind-only.
However, they are not Śrāvakas and Cittamatrins,
Because their views do not accord in all respects,
Particularly, their accounts of absolute emptiness.
35 Or emptiness of the relative.

36 All Tibetans agree.
37 Who explained the relative according to Yogācāra.
38 Except that Śrāvakas do not then say the relative is empty from the absolute viewpoint.


For example, the Laṅkāvatāra is taught to transcend Mind-only.
The false view of Mind-only is that consciousness truly exists.
The Laṅkāvatāra’s true absolute39 is Dharmadhātu.
Dharmadhātu is not consciousness, so Shentong is not the same.
The three vehicles, in the ultimate, are notEE merely ornamental;40
Yet one or three vehicles may or may not exist for Shentong,
and the same is true for the cut-off familyFF

Of beings who can never attain enlightenment.
The three natures and two truths may be maintained or not,
though this is not characteristic of Yogācāra Madhyamaka,
Because those natures and truths are always present there.
All the four doctrines present some division of the two truths.
The three natures are also taught in the Perfection of Prajñā,
And also, byGG Nāgārjuna’s Bodhicittavivarana.41
The sūtras explain a temporary cut-off family.

It is taught that tathāgatagarbha is in all beings,
And so it is certain that they will actualize enlightenment.
As taught in the Mahāyānasūtrālaṁkara,HH
an ultimate cut-off family is thus refuted.
Because there is the ultimate,42 Shentong teaches one vehicle.
Rangtongpas maintain three incidental vehicles,
But their absolute has neither “vehicles” nor “attainment.43”
The Chapter Requested by Maitreya too has three.
Some Rangtongpas use Mind-only for the relative.

Though they say that, why speak of divisions created by fools?A8
The Conqueror teaches both transcending Mind-only and not,44
As do Mañjuśrī’s instructions, composed by Mañjugoṣa,
And, likewise, the teachings of Āryadeva and Jetāri.
A tantra commentary by Avalokiteśvara,
Has all these teachings occurring in a single presentation.
These words explain the provisional doctrines of Mind-only:II
Consciousness with appearance of dualistic grasper and grasped,
When its essence is free from grasper and grasped, is maintained

39 Presented as absolute mind in Shentong.
40 The differences are not merely verbal or stylistic.
41 As they are in Mind-only.
42 Which manifests as 1. the ground of all that is and can be, 2. the principal means of practice, and 3. the

fruition attained at the appropriate time.
43 Because it is experience that transcends all concepts. Shentong says the same about concepts of the
ultimate.

44 In different texts.


To be truly existing, absolute truth, and ultimate suchness.
Yet the absolute of Mind-only is dualistic consciousness.
If so, its aspects, grasper and grasped also truly exist.”
They cannot be seen through as delusion, when enlightenment is attained.A9
Yet, appearance of grasper and grasped is claimed to lack true existence.
Here both mind and phenomena are real things.

“Real things, in reality, are established as only mind.”
Anyone who says that is a Cittamatrin.45
How could it be otherwise? Yet, wrong appearances
that are delusive apprehensions of real things
have no true existence as anything, even mind.
Why do they not transcend the doctrine of Mind-only?A10
When phenomena of consciousness are realized

as relative appearance that has no true existence,
Relative appearance is established as nonexistent;
therefore, this is what is taught in Madhyamaka.46
Since appearances of the absolute are truly existent,
The way things are is realized by pristine wisdom.
Were it not the case that the absolute truly appears,
As is said in the view of literalistic Rangtongpas,
These absolute appearances of pristine wisdom
seen in the meditation of the noble ones

could not beJJ wisdom that realizes the Middle Way.
Enlightenment would be delusion, not knowing how things are.
7. Further teachings on the traditions of Rangtong and Shentong
Rangtongpas, when proclaiming only the texts ofKK Nāgārjuna,
Though indeed, within that limited scope, they are in accord;
Some maintain external objects, and others refute them.
Some maintain self-awareness, and others of them refute it.
Some of them affirm the eight kinds of consciousnesses,

within the relative, and others of them refute them.
They do or do not say that those in the Lesser Vehicle
Are able to realize the two kinds of selflessnesses,A11
And so forth. For every one of their fundamental doctrines,
their personal fabrications yield a turmoil of different aspects.
45 The Sanskrit term for an advocate of Mind-only.
46 Shentong also accepts this.


Indeed, they only agree that no dharmas truly exist;
So these “followers of the tradition-founding chariots,”
Are led, without trust in them, into paths of their own ideas.
Rangtongpas lack extensive commentaries
That demonstrate the self-contained necessity
of Great Vehicle sūtras, abhidharma, and vinaya;
And so, they analyze the view exclusively.

When they explain the tradition of these three piṭakas,
Some are Vaibhāṣikas, some are Sautrāntikas,
Some accept the traditional texts of Yogācāra.
They cannot reach a consensus about the meaning of scripture.
Shentongpas all enter the ocean of the Five Dharmas of Maitreya
And the textual tradition of Asaṅga and his brother;
Thus, they have no root doctrines that are not in accord.
In all commentarial texts on the Great Vehicle piṭakas,
No quotes from Yogācāra treatises other than those
are ever superimposed on them as postulates.

Therefore, as even many hundreds of lower mountains
Cannot overshadow their universal monarch,
Supremely lofty Mount Meru, at the center of the world,
Rangtong writings cannot suppress these texts of Shentong.
Some Rangtongpas claim that, for various ones to be tamed,
Compared to the sūtras, their treatises are more powerful,
as they teach the true intention of the Buddha.
This has, indeed, been refuted.A12 If it were really true,
Their sectarian comments on the Conqueror’s intention
would be superior to the treatises of Maitreya.

Though you search the world’s ten directions, no such works exist,
as it was validly proved by the noble one Nāgārjuna.
In commentaries wherein white virtue rises completely,
Candrakīrti, citing the prophesies of the Laṅkāvatāra,
says the Collection of Reasoning of the noble one Nāgārjuna
Is well-known to have commentary in the style of Shentong;
The Akutobhayā47 and so forth are also much in accord with that;
and the elder Dharmapāla, comments on mental awareness
in Āryadeva’s Four Hundred, as being the Middle Way –
That is how the subject was taught by Candrakīrti.
Therefore, within these texts of the noble ones, fathers and sons,

47 Ga las ‘jigs med, “Not fearful of anything,” Nāgārjuna’s autocommentary on the Root Verses on the Middle Way, aka the Mūla Prajñā.


The teachers of Rangtong48 can find no direct support at all.
There are points they would like to prove, but they lack the reasons to prove them.
For the followers of Candrakīrti and Dignāga,
As for direct disciples of the noble ones,
Different doctrines arising was pointless; and the disputes
Of Prāsaṅgika and Svatantrika arose only later on;
so there was no judge or criterion of “correct” Madhyamaka.
In particular, Shentong is taught in the Praise Collection,
The Bodhicitta-vivarana, Five Stages, and elsewhere.
Thus, both of these intentions were received by Nāgārjuna.

“The doctrines of Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga are one,”
Was clearly taught by the master Ratnakaraśanti.
Śāntarakṣita and others taught in the same vein.
Some later disparaged the vehicles of personal self-awareness,49
According to an approach of refuting self-awareness.
Mostly due to Rangtongpas, disputes were entered into

between the schools of Svātantrika and Prāsaṅgika.A13
“The absolute is not within the sphere of reason,”
was objected to by Rangtongpas as an inadmissible statement. A14
NorLL did Rangtong present the five topics, three natures, and so forth,
Which are key features of the intention of Asaṅga,
So calling their words “explaining the unexcelled Great Vehicle”
was hardly a designation that was accurate;

But, the prophesied explanations of Shentong were appropriate.
Might it be possible to fully explain the Great Vehicle
by saying that all dharmas are only self-emptiness? –
As is claimed by many exponents of Rangtong.
The invincible knower, Maitreya, says the opposite.
That knower’s intention commentary tradition is better;
because he is the yidam of Nāgārjuna himself,50

Because he says the Great Vehicle is all-victorious,
And because within the tantras of secret mantra,
this is what is chiefly taught in maṇḍalas,
Though in the sūtras it is mostly taught as well,
As it is by all the close children of the Buddha.
That tenth level lord himself 51 taught it in such a manner.
Even the Śrāvakas say that Maitreya is the regent.

48 Literalistic Rangtong.
49 This would include the Great Vehicle tradition of self-awareness of Maitreya and Asaṅga and the
tantric vehicles of self-awareness pristine wisdom.
50 See the Related Scriptures citations of Maitreya in tantric practice texts below.
51 Maitreya.


Nāgārjuna, as a human being, attained the first level,52
Supremely Joyful, where emptiness is fist directly seen.
This was taught of him as human before the Conqueror.
Because the source was a prophesy about the future,
The Śrāvakas claimed that it had evidence that was mistaken.
Those knowing intention commentaries should analyze well
whether this evidence is really good or bad.
Depending on secret mantra, buddhahood is attainable.MM
Within the absolute truth, the invincible knower Maitreya
Measureless eons ago, was truly, completely enlightened.
Some claim that, while Maitreya indeed expounded Shentong,

Mañjuśrī taught Rangtong, but where is that in Mañjuśrī’s texts?NN
WithOO oral instructions that teach the deep path of the vajra vehicle,
And also maintain the view of Kalkī Mañjuśrī Yaśas;
In his Brief Teaching Maintaining the View, he explains Shentong.
Then why, unable to see this, do others now speak falsely?
While Rangtongpas own tradition is without clear sources,
They disparage others’ traditions that are excellent.
Are they not corrupted by demons of grasping partiality?
When some of them claim that that the dharmas of Maitreya are Rangtong,
Their “words of great power” are quite exhausted within their own circle.
Most in Tibet and India do not accept those words,

which is much better than this one-sided Rangtong view.
When they say Tibetans, first and last, are Rangtongpas,
including both doctrines in theirPP tradition is a fault.
In particular, they truly contradict

the texts of the traditions of each of these two doctrines.
There are clear prophesies by the Conqueror that Asaṅga
Would write very excellent intention commentaries,
Distinguishing provisional meaning from the definitive,
Also, Vasubandhu, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti,
Ratnakaraśanti, as well as other teachers
Were excellently prophesied by the Conqueror himself.
Jñānagarbha, Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka,

Candrakīrti, Āryasiṁha, and others too,
Explained the sūtras and tantras in which these teachers were prophesied.
According to Jñānagarbha, Vasubandhu and so forth,
Were prophesied to be highly famed as chariots.

52 Bodhisattva level.


CandrakīrtiQQ heard much and conferred it with pure competence.53
When the Conqueror prophesied these exponents of Shentong,
Was it not destined that these knowledgeable ones,
becoming human, would write intention commentaries?
Though these others were indeed supremely holy,
They could not contend with those above who were prophesied.
For example, Candrakīrti, consulting the Laṅkāvatāra,
Explained, on that basis, it had the intention of Mind-only;
But Vasubandhu, consulting the Saṃdhinirmocana,
Having said the intention was three-fold naturelessness,
Then explained what he called “the teaching of naturelessness.”
With sūtra texts and reasoning in equal accord,
The powerful combination of scripture and reasoning
of the venerable, supremely competent Vasubandhu
Made him a capable one equal to any other

among the six ornaments that beautify the world.
In the noble land of India, among the authors of treatises,
The Rangtong tradition was held to be the highest authority.
In particular, Prāsaṅgika exponents, who were then supreme,
TriedRR to refute that there is a ground of all karmic seeds,54
Although, as the essence, the all ground, is irrefutable,55
Justified both by scripture and enlightened experience.
Apprehended and apprehender, clear awareness and its object,
And capability of memory and experience,

because they were phenomena dependent on self-awareness,
Were challenged; however, mere self-awareness was not rejected.A15
True existence of the dependent was indeed refuted,
but that was not the case for the perfectly established.
One’s mind, with its uninterrupted nature of luminosity,
Was never refuted by the texts of Madhyamaka.

In particular, all ground pristine wisdom was not explained,
So Prāsaṅgika texts were neutral regarding its existence.
Though the essence adorned with the major and minor marks was maintained
As provisional meaning, mere sugatagarbha was not refuted.

53 This second list of teachers explained prophesies, but were not prophesied themselves.
54 Which is the basis of relative experience.
55 The relative all ground that stores karmic seeds is an aspect of the true relative in Yogācāra. It is
correctly refuted by Madhyamaka with the rest of the relative. The absolute all ground that transcends
karma, pristine wisdom, is irrefutable, because it is the essence of enlightened realization of the way
things are.


8. Teachings for abandoning controversy over whether Shentong is like the extremists
Regarding the views above, later Tibetans analyzed the founders of textual traditions, great and small,
that were the sources of doctrines. Proceeding from scriptural proofs, their presentation was easy to
understand. Also, some Rangtongpas said that, since the Shentong tradition was similar to the
extremists’ Saṃkhya school, its view was deluded.

Rangtongpas made the claim that Shentong was Mind-only.
If Shentong is Mind-only it is contradictory,
Like the Indian extremist tradition that maintains a conceptual self.
Rangtongpas were arrogant about the great, eloquent teachings
of the Abhidharmakoṣa and other texts

That are explanations of the Lesser Vehicle,
And said they explain existence in the Greater Vehicle.
They claimed that Great Vehicle texts are like those of Indian extremists.A16
This was mad talk of those who are seized by demons of jealousy.SS
If, these two religions are similar in all respects,
the Great Vehicle would, indeed, be established as Hindu teachings.
Presentation of the four doctrines would be nonexistent.
If the two were alike in all respects, it would be so.

The two schools of Śrāvakas would be like the Indian Vaiśeṣika.
Buddhist Yogācāra would really be like the Samkhya.
The conduct of naked Jains would be like that of monks.
Meditation on compassion would be as in Hindu tradition.
The conduct of secret mantra would be like that of the Shaivites.
Showing a partial similarity with Buddhis teachings, the Five Destructions of Viṣṇu56 says:
There is complete transcendence of mere names.
Things and non-things are completely abandoned.
True liberation from all emission and gathering57
Has been designated “the son of the god of wealth.58”
In the real, real things do not exist.

Non-things also have no unreality.59
Real things and non-things are completely liberated,
56 Viṣṇu’s tenth avatar Kalkī brings about the destruction of the world at the end of the dark age and the
renewal of the Golden age. The story is similar in many ways to the Buddhist story of the 25th Kalkī king
of Shambhala. I don’t know the details of five destructions.
57 Similar to arising and destruction of separate dualistic relative things.
58 Because liberation that fulfills all desires is the most excellent wealth.
59 Concepts of real and unreal are transcended.


By what are they known? By that itself.60
Also the Composition on the Beauty of Śiva says:
One son, Bhramā, is supremely true.
The lord of awareness is completely limitless.
When there is speaking only of “existence,”

Doing that is described as a completed noose.61
According to what is said there, except for Rangtong exponents being just a little not the same
as the other Buddhist views, certain aspects of the Indian and Buddhist views are superficially
very similar. On that basis, Rangtongpas invalidly claim that they are have no difference at all.
Such texts of the extremists are cited in the autocommentary of Śāntarakṣita’s Ornament of the Middle Way: We are said to be empty of the characteristics of the god Viṣṇu. Great and small
songs of the essence, Songs of Having Goodness, Songs of Establishing dominion, the “Lam ba
da of Śiva,” and various Samkhya texts that express views like those in the quotes above are
indeed heard from some of the Brahmin paṇḍitas.TT

Though the False Aspectarians and Saṃkhya are much alike,
Their mere terminology is mostly dissimilar.
Some Hindu terminology accords with our tantra texts.
Vaiṣṇava texts are somewhat like Prāsaṅgika.
The Shaivites are proclaimed to be like Svatantrika.
These advocates of a creator have such particular teachings.
If two views with partial likeness are completely equal,
As the best of extremist doctrines, the Saṃkhya system,
is famous, Buddhism too would have the virtue of fame.
Among those who maintain the bondage of saṃsāra,

Indians who maintain that something or other exists,
And those who maintain the existence of the perfectly established
Except for respectively being in India and in Tibet,
look and see whether the two are any different.62
According to the scriptures of the Conqueror and his children,
The Shentong view is correct, but literal Rangtong is not.A17
Some Rangtongpas, because the scriptures provide them no certainty,
Claim now that their view must be established by reasoning.
Their tradition is established by neither scripture nor reasoning.
60 Similar to saying that the knower of enlightened reality is the supreme self beyond concepts of relative
selfhood.

61 Because then there is the bondage of attachment to concepts.
62 Rangtongpas say that the two views are essentially alike, most importantly in maintaining a fallacious,
absolute self. Shentongpas say they have many important differences.
The Ornament of the Shentong Middle Way
19

Though indeed there is a need for validation by reason;
For those who have yet to attain the noble ones’ pristine wisdom,
The way things are is profoundly established by valid scripture.
If the scriptures that tell what is seen by meditation
over three eons beyond calculation are incorrect,
How could the thoughts of a common being be more valid,
When they can never transcend the sphere of erroneous concepts?
Moreover, this is so, because what is very hidden
From ordinary beings, but not from enlightened ones,
Must be reliably known by scriptural valid cognition.
We have to think like that.

9. Teaching that the absolute is free from the reasoning of Rangtong Madhyamaka
Analysis how they are not established as one and many,
Is rightly put forward regarding compounded phenomena.
Uncompounded phenomena are neither one nor many.A18
Non-things like space do not partake of these divisions.
However, when examinedUU by minds that are confused,
By thinking reality must conform to relative concepts,
And that all concepts have been refuted by reasoning,
The essence seems to be nothing at all, hence nonexistent.
As your Rangtong system refutes dharmatā as nonexistent,VV
Completely nonexistent, it can never change.
Pristine wisdom, nothing forever, has nothing to realize.
When divided parts of place and time exist,

That these parts are changeless is not possible.
No place exists that could not be an object of sense perception.
Time changes, because there are three times, the past and so forth.
Refuting arising, and so forth, does not refute dharmadhātu.
This pristine wisdom is unborn and never ceases.
Within the various greater and lesser different aspects
of the noble ones’ tradition of the Middle Way,

Cause and conditions, coming and going, defined and defining,
Extremes of before and after, co-dependent cause and effect;WW
All these limitless labels, when analyzed by reason,
Occur in the relative only, and not otherwise.
These causes and so forth are only things of the relative.
Dharmatā does not depend on such changing dharmins.
Whatever exists depending on conventional dharmins


is something that does not exist in its own right.
Dharmatā, which is established in its own right,
has no dependent establishment by cause and effect.
Therefore, it does not arise in interdependence,
And does not share the emptiness of interdependent phenomena.
10. Teaching how it is contradictory to maintain
that the emptiness of all phenomena is self-emptiness alone
All relative dharmas63 are empty. That is Shentong tradition.64
All relative dharmas are essenceless. That is Shentong tradition.
For you Rangtongpas, none of the phenomena

That constitute the aspects65 of awareness and appearance
Are maintained as “empty” in practice, and so the mere word is received. A19
If appearances, like those of a vase, are emptiness,
Because you postulate emptiness as absolute truth,
In your system, a vase and all dharmas of the relative
are established by reason as being absolute truth.
If, on the other hand, they are not emptiness,
Because they are existent within the relative,

Where alone existence and nonexistence have meaning,
That contradicts your claim, “All dharmas are emptiness.”
Shentongpas maintain three different kinds of emptiness
And maintain three kinds of related naturelessness.
These are not maintained in the absolute alone.A20
Shentong, with such an approach, does not contradict itself,
So a very superior doctrine arises in consequence.
Our empty aspect, the relative, is not absolute;
and our absolute’s true appearance is not relative.

11. Refuting that Rangtong Madhyamaka is ultimate
Since Rangtong transcends Mind-only, it is indeed Madhyamaka,
but it is not the ultimate Madhyamaka.
63 Here dharmas = phenomena = relative phenomena.
64 If the intention included absolute phenomena, sugatagarbha and so forth would also be empty.
65 Or those of grasping subject and grasped object, comprising all existent phenomena of the relative.


It has mere emptiness, but no ultimate emptiness.
Its non-affirming negation is indeed definitive,
but it is not the ultimate, definitive meaning,
As it denies experience of how things are.
For that reason, since Rangtongpas do not proclaim
The Middle Way as ultimate, how is it the Middle Way?
When Rangtong texts are analyzed, there is no Middle Way.
Shentongpas analyze too, but maintain a Middle Way.


Not asserting what they maintain as the ultimate Middle Way,
Rangtongpas “Great Madhyamaka” is not very greatXX at all.
It is, in fact, a dissonant mix of Cittamatrins
Who do not accept the doctrines of Cittamatra
and Sautrāntikas and Vaibhāṣikas who do not accept
The sūtra collection of the Lesser Vehicle.
How can theyYY deny the texts of Sautrāntika or Vaibhāṣika?ZZ
Don’t they all have the same ideas about what is real?
Rangtong tradition says “emptiness is the absolute.”

Yet, in Rangtong tradition, emptiness cannot exist,
As it is nothing but a logical principle,
And as no dharmas at all truly exist for Rangtong.
Because they establish their absolute as nonexistent,
it cannot be the ultimate way things really are.
Mere non-affirming negation can never reach the ultimate.
What is and is not dharmadhātu,AAA are both non-existent for Rangtong;
So “absolute dharmadhātu” is impossible for them.
Then how can experience of emptiness and the absolute dhātu,
Not be false and relative within the Rangtong system?
Objects of conceptions and objects of false seeing,

From the viewpoint of analysis for the absolute,
are nonexistent, as well as lacking true existence.
If these points do not establish such objects as relative,
what could ever suffice for their being so established?
If false and conceptual objects can be established as relative,
the absolute dhātu, not so established, will be true.
Since it will not be not relative, it will truly exist,
It will exist from the viewpoint of analysis,
andBBB it will be rightly maintained as perfectly established.A21
If this does not serve as the Middle Way, the way things are,
Maintaining freedom from conceptual complexity



will also fail to qualify as the Middle Way.
Does it matter if true existence is maintained,A22
As Shentong does, and Rangtong famously does not do?
We both deny the truth of conceptual characteristics,
But the truth of the real, devoid of proliferating concepts,
these Rangtong exponents do not grasp, even partially,66
And so they never do anything but just negate.

They refute all true existence and true describable qualities.CCC
As they apply to them all the reasons refuting the relative.
These reasons are also maintained within in our Shentong tradition:
The perfectly established has67 no truths of complexity.
If there is truth with complexity, we refute it as relative,
That is why, though it is the essence of everything,
it is said in Madhyamaka, “The absolute is essenceless.68”
Denying three vehicles, Śrāvakas claim “There is only one.”
They accept only the Buddha’s original Śrāvaka teachings.
Maintaining the same, Prāsaṅgikas follow after them.

The reason this is so is because these two schools are equal
in their realization of the two kinds of self.A23
Here, it follows that the kāya of the essence69
Truly exists for Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas,
and they irreversibly enter into it in attainment;
However, their kāya of the essence is not like ours.
If it were,DDD the three other kāyas would have the same reasoning.
Similarly, their Buddha, is not ours, and so forth.70
Thus, abandoning the obscuration of knowables,
By irreversibly entering the kāya of the essence,
Requires, for them, abandoning appearance altogether.
Rangtong also entails these many, fallacious conclusions.

Its view is faulty by mixture with Lower Vehicle doctrine.
Does it make a difference whether, in attainment,
They abandon the obscuration of knowables?A24
It follows from teaching the distinctions of such abandoning,
66 Though Jonangpas hold that those in Rangtong tradition who have a proper view of self-emptiness do
understand this as the meaning of statements like, “form is emptiness.”
67 OR in the perfectly established there are no truths of complexity.
68 In a sense where all essences involve the conceptual complexities of relative phenomena.
69 Svābhavikakāya.

70 None of these can have aspects of absolute appearance.


That the essence is indivisible, so this cannot be reversed.
All teachings have their power by the power of aspiration;
When Rangtong says that pristine wisdom has no appearance,
there is nothing left after analysis that we could aspire to.
Their dharmakāya withoutEEE distinctions is similar.
When those of the Lesser Vehicle have realized
the two kinds of selflessnesses of all phenomena,

They see such a dharmakāya. That is the common fruition
Of noble ones who abide within the Lesser Vehicle.
Though they have realized all objects as self-empty,
They cannot realize their emptiness within the absolute self.
They have only inferior emptiness of other
Where one relative thing is empty of another.
A vase is just without a pillar, and a pillar
Is just without a vase. Divisions do not exist

Between the refuted relative and the irrefutable absolute.
So for them, all phenomena are empty of themselves.
There can only be the single kind of abandoning,
that applies non-affirming negation to everything as one.
Since the all ground does not exist, karmic seeds have no place.
When material dharmas of mind and metal factors71 cease,
The three vehicles leave no remainder. Why are they not the same?
In insight that is merely non-affirming negation,
Since there are no knowables of any kind,
How can there be obscuration by dualistic knowables?
Their scriptures have no clarity, but others have clear scriptures.
“All dharmas are realized to have no self of dharmas,
”
Is not consistent forFFF Lesser Vehicle noble ones.
Substances and falsely imputed things exist for them,
and accepted objects of false conceptions are extensive.
If these faults are not realized, ultimate realization
ofGGG phenomena as they are is contradictory.
If you ask “is this not clear to these Lesser Vehicle noble ones?”
it is not something suitable for them to perceive,
As there is nothing left over from phenomena they renounce
To realize as the phenomena of enlightenment.
They do not know the reasons for this limitation,
And, as they have no means of eliminating concepts,
71 Dualistic mind that identifies the objects it apprehends as perceptions of separate, material objects and

mental factors that fill in their relative qualities.


They cannot realize the perceivable ultimate.
Suchness can never be discriminated
merely by abiding in conceptualHHH distinctions.
Maintaining external objects ascertained by six-fold consciousnesses,
While refuting the absolute all ground as well as self-awareness,
Maintaining concrete, merely relative objects of refuge,
Like Pratyekabuddhas and Śrāvakas, and in other ways,
Rangtongpas mix themselves with Lesser Vehicle doctrine.

12. How, when some Rangtongpas analyze doctrine, their reasoning establishes Shentong
When there is the Rangtong’s tradition’s freedom from complexity,
It is non-affirming negation that no one can experience.
It is mere logical inference from inconsistency
Disproving all assertions about the existence of something.

Experience of such unreality can never exist at all.
When conception makes a general image72 into its object,
Seen merely from the viewpoint of abstracting a relative nature,
the “sample” is verbally labeled and held in memory;
Because it is established by analysis

That such “natures” have no instance in experience,
When objects of relative natures are seen, they are delusion;
there is no reality in what is apprehended.
If it is true that there is such freedom from complexity,
it exists as something that is truly existing. A25
If it exists as something that is truly existing,
It bears examination for the absolute.

If not, relative dharmas and lack of true existence
have the same scope, as there is nothing real at all.
The pristine wisdom of the Conqueror and others,
supreme, is free from proliferating complexity.
When something appears from that viewpoint, it exists, and it is true.
When such dharmas do not appear, there is seeming duality
Of absolute and relative phenomena,

Equally nonexistent, from the noble ones’ viewpoint –
Like Mind-only’s empty abstractions of an absolute mind
And phenomena of the relative that exist within it.

72 In the mental sense.


Since non-deluded wisdom of the absolute,
sees the true nonexistence of the relative,
Freedom from complexity is deluded for Rangtong;
Not when regarded as a logical principle,
But when it is taken as a quality of the real;

because there is nothing real within the Rangtong system,
so that all phenomena are equally deluded.
Thus, “relative” and “absolute” cannot be distinguished.
All is alike, but insofar as the two are different,
As the only reality and virtues are those of the relative,
rather than the absolute, is it the relative
That is abiding as whatever is real and good.

Though, in pure reality, their two truths are equally nothing,
the relative, creates objects from the viewpoint of delusion.
These abstractions, by definition, are not absolute.
You now establish the relative by valid cognition,
Reaching that conclusion in dependence on maintaining,
“Absolute reality is certainly nonexistent,
So the only cognition of existence is relative.”
If so, our view deserves your contemptuous deprecation.
From the unexamined viewpoint of the world,

all the things of ordinary life exist.
However, from the viewpoint of analysis,
these same things should be analyzed as “nonexistent.”
“The relative does not exist in absolute truth,
however, as the relative, it does exist.”

That is called “the viewpoint of analysis;’”
But relative, in the world, is not divided from absolute.
As you equate existence and the viewpoint of the world,
Invalidating the viewpoint of analysis,
InIII your tradition, the relative exists absolutely.
You must maintain the two truths,JJJ to be quite nonexistent.
As appearance proved to be empty of the relative,
is what passes as the absolute in your tradition,

You do not refute appearance of the relative.A26
You say, “Though a vase is not empty of a vase,
A vase, from the ultimate viewpoint, has no true existence.”
Due to your abandoning grasping true existence,
From the ultimate viewpoint, are the two extremes abandoned,
Eternalistic existence, and a nihilistic void?
As you deny that there is absolute appearance,


From the viewpoint of meditation, no appearances exist.KKK
This nothingness is your ultimate. This is not the Middle Way!
“In every case, the two truths, relative and absolute,LLL
Equally exist or not,“ you say, but then,
“Absolute existence is an impossibility,
So all existence is relative.” This is contradictory.
For you, the absolute exists as the relative,
Which is to say that truth exists as falsity.

As all is the same, the relative also is absolute,
Which is to say that falsity is the only truth.
Since the absolute exists as the relative,
It follows that the absolute really is the relative,
As all beings existing as human are human beings.
Absolute and relative make no distinction at all,

And so in your system these terms are meaningless.
Moreover, the absolute must exist absolutely.
If the contrary is established, the absolute would be relative.
The absolute could not be not established as the ground.
There would be no criterion of truth and falsity,
Which is the definition of absurdity.

So the absolute is established as absolute reality.
If the absolute appears from the viewpoint of delusion,MMM
Awareness that apprehends the absolute is deluded.NNN
Since the absolute is defined as emptiness,
It follows that emptiness is realized by delusion.
According what is maintained by later Madhyamaka,
The relative exists, so wisdom is deluded,
Because in the meditation of the noble ones
Wisdom sees the relative as nonexistent.

Meditation is deluded, not to mention post-meditation.
If, from that viewpoint, wisdom,OOO is relative appearance,
The relative is true, and yet when it appears,
They inconsistently say, “it has no true appearance,”
and “the relative is appearance of what does not exist.”
Their relative appearance is not false appearance,
so it follows that the objects of relative truth exist.
For pristine wisdom, the relative appears to be nonexistent,
And so, for Rangtong, pristine wisdom is deluded.
From that viewpoint, when something appears to be existent,
it is true, and, therefore, a non-erroneous object.


So wrongly maintaining that refutation of refutation
Of relative true existence has been correctly established,
Exponents of Rangtong say the following words:
“If it were true and meaningful that the nature of relative dharmas
is that all such dharmas are without any true existence,
Why would that not similar to expositions of Shentong?A27”
If it is “not true,” by those two negating words,
As dharmatā is understood as the way things are,
All is equal in being only truly existent,
With no analytical viewpoint, no absolute, and so forth.”
Thus, these literalistic Rangtongpas unwittingly establish Shentong

13. Now a little is said about the suitability of our own system
Since the nature of dharmas is changeless, there is certainty
That dharmakāya exists within all sentient beings.
If, at the beginning, dharmakaya is not there,
But later it is, it has only a changeable nature.

Since what is compounded never exists, it is nonexistent.
Changeless suchness is certainly something uncompounded.
It is known to transcend both real things and non-things.73
Because it is the way things are for enlightened beings,
It cannot be refuted; and, as it is the viewpoint
of absolute pristine wisdom that is never deluded,
Even in knowing delusion,74 it is not deluded.

The absolute, dharmadhātu is therefore, truly existing.
Awareness of the relative is of deceptive phenomena.
Material objects and non-things can never be truly experienced.
Thus, there are criteria distinguishing truth and falsity.
Therefore, dharmadhātu is absolute awareness.
The suchness of the dhātu is realized as75 good.

Since it is absolute goodness, that goodness is supreme.
Though Rangtong claims that relative goodness is goodness itself,
Because is it is the only goodness that there is;
73 Of the relative.
74 Experienced by other deluded beings.
75 It is established by experiential valid cognition, and its being basic goodness is part of that experience.


Why should absolute goodness not be said to be good,
When it is so experienced in the truth of realization?
These words are from the Ghanavyūha Sūtra:
The ground of all various topics
Is goodness, sugatagarbha,

A word for that essence is “all ground”
It is so taught by the buddhas.
The Abhidharmakoṣa says:

What is absolute goodness? It is suchness.”
By these words, the all ground is taught to be pristine wisdom.
Since it is suchness, there can be only pristine wisdom.
When there appears to be anything else, it is delusion.
By being explained as goodness, it is not the all ground consciousness.
The experience of consciousness may be good or bad,
But it is never experienced as eternal, absolute goodness.
This is teaching the all ground of wisdom and sugatagarbha.
In abhidharma, that suchness is taught as the cause of enlightenment,
Because it is also explained to be the uncompounded,

Realization of which is realizing enlightenment.
The absolute truth of cessation is the only truth,76
Because it is not unreal, and it transcends the false relative.
In Shentong, by one truth, the other one77 is empty.
Therefore, if you think this emptiness is inferior,
To other kinds, and especially to Rangtong’s self-emptiness,
The sūtras teach seven kinds of emptiness:
(1) Emptiness of characteristics,

(2) emptiness of the nature of real things,
(3) Emptiness of the possible,
(4) emptiness if the impossible,
(5) So-called emptiness of the inexpressible,
(6) The great emptiness of the absolute pristine wisdom of the noble ones, and
(7) One thing being empty of another.
(1) Real things are empty of their general characteristics.
(2) Real things are empty of arising by their own nature.
76 The truth of cessation of suffering is the only one of the four noble truths that is absolute. The others are
relative.

77 Of the two truths.



(3) The skandhas, and so forth, are empty of the two kinds of self,
(4) Empty of nirvāṇa, and (5) of imputed natures.
(6) Pristine wisdom of the absolute is empty
Of karmic seeds of all conceptual, faulty views.
(7) The individual characteristics of relative things,
are empty of each other. So the list is explained.

Six of these seven different kinds of emptiness
are supreme, but the seventh kind is the least of them.
Regarding the great emptiness, the ultimate way things are,
With no self of individuals, it is always empty of other.78
However, as this emptiness is anything but inferior,
It is suchness, dharmakāya, and the truth of the path.79
Explained as the absolute, the changeless perfectly established.
That is the uncompounded and the absolute truth.

The Five Hundred Stanza Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra says of the three kinds of emptiness:
“Because their three natures are also taught, we should have faith in them.
Conclusion and Dedication of Merit
The views of those that dispute with the view of Shentong in general
Are straightforwardly analyzed here, with scripture and reasoning.
Moreover, as many students of Shentong as closely analyze
Their own tradition should know the texts that are involved.
Free from one and many, the root of truth in reasoning
Is reaching the absence of compounded phenomena.80

Then we refute concepts of selfhood, in whatever logical style,
As the Twenty Verse Treatise81 PPP refutes external objects.
Our tradition clearly occurs in all Yogācāra texts,
Chiefly the Discrimination of the Middle and Extremes.
The extensive reasoning is explained in copious treatises.
78 Perhaps the selfhood of individual phenomena is included within the self of individuals here, since there must be

both of the two kinds of emptiness of relative selfhood for the absolute to be empty of other.
79 There can be a path leading to the cessation of suffering, because the absolute, and pristine wisdom, as the essence
of the path, are real.
80 Experience of the absolute provides reasoning with the perceptual valid cognition that establishes the
propositions establishing Shentong by reason. Until then it must be established from scripture. It cannot
be established by reasoning alone, because it is beyond the scope of reason.
81 By Vasubandhu.


All this is the matchless tradition of the Middle Way.82
Though this was explained again and again by competent ones,
What is contained in this great tradition was cast aside.
Though some necessary teachings have been explained
That are easy to understand, many new sophistries
Are propagated, in the attempt to discredit them.
This extraordinary manner of the Great Vehicle
Is disparaged as Mind-only, with the implication

That it should be abandoned, because of that bad name.83
Our critics claimQQQ that we take refuge in literalism.
They always like to apply this “conquering reasoning.”
Furthermore, there are countless detailed analyses
Of disputed points within the systems of Rangtong and Shentong
That do, indeed, make progress, but are hard to understand.
If such writings are not helpful to other beings,
They are useless. Therefore, they should not be written.

By the merit of this explanation, may limitless sentient beings
Abide within the holy Dharma of the Great Vehicle,
And experience absolute truth in all its totality.
May they quickly attain the level of the all-knowing Conqueror.
May they experience the joy of undefiled Dharma.

That was the Versified Ornament of Shentong Madhyamaka, gzhan stong dbu ma’i rgyan tshig le’ur byas pa. It
was entirely composed in the kingdom of Patāranā, in my thirtieth year at the Jonang hermitage. May
auspicious goodness increase. There are 157 new verses. Mangalaṃ. Translated and Edited.
82 Madhyamaka. The tradition of literalistic Rangtong that does not go beyond logic can never include the
Middle Way between logic and experience.

83 Rangtong and Shentong agree that Mind-only erroneously accepts that conceptually describable mind
is absolute.


Scriptures Related to the Ornament of Shentong Madhyamaka
By Jetsun Tāranātha
Namo guru buddha satvebyaḥ
I prostrate with devotion to those who are worthy of homage
The beautiful ornament of Shentong Madhyamaka,
the excellent form of the Middle Way is set out here.
Of the citations from the excellent, requisite Scriptures,

just those from the sūtras have been gathered here.
They teach the definitive meaning – which the competent should maintain.
Regarding this definitive meaning, the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra says:
To give an example, the Blessed One is like this: The sky is all of one taste, and all
that it has to offer is unobscured. Likewise, after beginning with teaching, to start
with, how there is no essence of phenomena and there is natural, complete nirvāṇa,
the Blessed One then taught the definitive meaning. This is of one taste with all the
sūtras of the provisional meaning. All his sayings in the Śrāvaka Vehicle, the
Pratyekabuddha Vehicle, and the Great Vehicle, are unobscured.84

The absolute teacher purely and truly explains the definitive meaning. This is done through the
power of understanding its relationship to what is opposite and additional to it. The Akṣayamati
Nirdeśa Sūtra says:
Sūtras that teach relative practice are said to be of the provisional meaning. Sūtras
that teach absolute practice are said to be of the definitive meaning.
Sūtras taught for the purpose of entering into the path are said to be of the
provisional meaning. Sūtras taught for the purpose of entering into the fruition are
said to be of the definitive meaning.

Likewise, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says:
84 The first, provisional teachings are not false, because, when rightly understood, they contain the
Buddha’s true intention partially and from certain limited viewpoints.


What is abiding in the definitive meaning? “The definitive meaning” is awareness of
the Dharma of realization. Abiding in it involves never living in illusion, behaving
hypocritically, creating pride, or being attached to acquisition and fame. In the
Dharma taught as means of practice, the Tathāgata said, “Do not produce
attachment.” That is called “the definitive meaning.” When someone abides in that
teaching, that individual is called “one who abides in absolute truth.” Therefore,
abide in the definitive meaning.

What is not abiding merely in the meaning for guiding?85 It is the meaning for guiding
when the sūtras say ,”All is torment: “All is impermanent. All is suffering. All is empty.
All is selfless.” Such teaching is called “the meaning for guiding….”
Moreover, the Śrāvaka vehicle is called “the meaning for guiding,” The unsurpassable
Great Vehicle is called “the definitive meaning.”

It is the meaning for guiding when someone says, “The Tathāgata is impermanent. He
changes. He is transient.” When someone says, “The Tathāgata is permanent. He does
not change. He is not transient,” that is called “the definitive meaning.”
When someone enters into realization through the Śrāvaka vehicle, what is realized is
the meaning for guiding. The insight gained through entering into realization through
the bodhisattva teachings is called “the definitive meaning.”

When someone says, “The Tathāgata must live by food,” that is the meaning for
guiding. When someone says, “The Tathāgata is permanently abiding, unchanging, and
not transient,” that is called ”the definitive meaning.”

When someone says “The Tathāgata’s nirvāṇa is like a fire that dies, when the wood that
fuels it is exhausted,” that is the meaning for guiding. When someone says, “The
Tathāgata abides eternally as dharmadhātu,” that is called “the definitive meaning.”
The extensive divisions are taught in the Akṣayamati Nirdeśa Sūtra. Some treatises say that a
teaching that leads students from a meaning that is readily grasped to another intended
meaning86 is called a teaching of “the provisional meaning.” As such a meaning is a stage on the
path that leads to the definitive meaning, these two explanations are not contradictory.
Regarding,

Nāgārjuna, as well as Asaṅga and his brother,
Establish that the three turnings...
Nāgārjuna’s Root Verses on the Middle Way says:
85 Guiding from saṃsāra to the definitive meaning.
86 In Tibetan, “leading” is drang, “meaning” is don, and “provisional meaning” is drang don.


Knowing things and non-things, The Blessed One said,
In the Sūtra of Instructions to Katyayana,
“Existence and nonexistence are both refuted.RRR”

That citation establishes that, like the Buddha’s other turnings of the wheel of Dharma, the first turning, teaches that ultimate reality is free from conceptual extremes, and that nirvāṇa alone is
true. Saying thatSSS teaches that the middle turning, in addition to teaching the emptiness and
non-existence of all relative phenomena, has the further ultimate intention of Shentong.
The teachings of Maitreya, as well as all the texts of Asaṅga and his brother, say that the
intention of all of the three turnings can be summarized as one. The MahāyānasūtrālaṁkaraTTT is
alone in commenting on the intentions of all three turnings. Even so, it does not teach that their
view and doctrine three, rather than one. In that text’s explanations of these turnings’
intentions, their view and doctrine is not taught to be three,UUU because it is taught to be single.
Regarding “medicine for the sick,VVV” the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says:

As a sick man, for his sickness,
Is given medicine by a physician,
So the Buddha, to sentient beings,
Gives the teachings of Mind-only.87
Regarding “the example of... learning letters,” Nāgārjuna says in his Precious Garland:
As grammarians first introduce reading
By teaching letters; likewise,

The Buddha teaches to students,
As much Dharma as they can bear.
Regarding “the Sūtra of Katyayana,” The reason for teaching Katyayana the instructions
taught in that sūtra is that he was attached to stable existence and nonexistence in this world.
Therefore, he was not liberated from birth, old age, sickness, and death; from pain and
lamentation; and from suffering, unhappiness, and being disturbed. He was not liberated from
cycling among the five kinds of beings.88

Regarding “Maheśvara and so forth indeed have been called exalted,” The venerable
Vajrapāṇi says:
The Maheśvara of the Vedas
87 When capitalized, Mind-only refers to Great Vehicle school maintaining the provisional teaching that
dualistic mind is absolutely real.
88 Like this six, combining gods and jealous gods as one.
Jetsun Tāranātha

Truly attains the whole earth.
That is taught in the Vajra Peak Tantra. There are very many other such passages.
Regarding “the four reliances...” The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says:
O Monks, abide in four teachings. What are these four?

1. Abiding in the teaching and not abiding in the individual who teaches it.
2. Abiding in the meaning and not abiding in the literal words.
3. Abiding in pristine wisdom and not abiding in consciousness.
4. Abiding in the definitive meaning and not abiding in the provisional meaning.
The individuals who realize these four are not individuals of four different kinds. Each
individual should realize all four.

These four reliances taught there are extensively explained in the Sūtra Taught by Akṣayamati.
Regarding “the middle is definitive, and the last turning is provisional,” and so forth, taught
in three verses, the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, Chapter Seven, says:

Then the bodhisattva Paramārthasamudgata said to the Blessed One, “The Blessed One
first, in the region of Vāraṇasi, in the Deer Park Ṛiṣivadana, by fully teaching the four noble truths, for those who would truly abide in the Śrāvaka vehicle, turned a
wondrous, marvelous wheel of Dharma. No one, gods or humans, had turned it in the
world before. This wheel of Dharma turned by the Blessed One was surpassable, had a
cultural context, was of the provisional meaning, and was a subject of controversy.
Then, for those who would truly abide in the Great Vehicle, through the aspect of
speaking about emptiness, he turned an even more wondrous, marvelous wheel of Dharma. In it, the Blessed One composed teachings saying that the essence of
phenomena does not exist, arising does not exist, cessation does not exist, and that there
is peace from the beginning that is nirvāṇa, natural, complete transcendence of suffering.
This wheel of Dharma turned by the Tathāgata was surpassable, had a cultural context,
was of the provisional meaning, and was a subject of controversy.
Then, well-distinguishing for those who truly abide in all vehicles, he turned a third
supremely wondrous, marvelous wheel of Dharma. This turning of the wheel of
Dharma by the Blessed One was unsurpassable, had no cultural context, was of the
definitive meaning, and was not a subject of controversy.

Also, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says:
Within the twelve divisions of the Buddha’s teachings, the Sūtra Collection arises. Within
the sūtras, the very extensive class arises. Within the very extensive class the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras89 arise. Within the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
arises, as the essence of butter arises from churning milk. The “essence of butter”
exemplifies buddha nature. “Buddha nature” is the Tathāgata.
Also, the Sūtra Benefiting Aṅgulimāla says:
Then Aṅgulimāla said these words to Purna the son of Maitrayani:90
By all the buddhas and Śrāvakas,

That which none have found,
That phenomenon, after enlightenment,
Should be taught to living beings.

What is the import of these words that were taught? Purna said: “The blessed buddhas
of the past sought, within all phenomena,91 for the dhātu of sentient beings, a self, a lifeprinciple,
an individual, that from which their strength arose, and a son of Manu;92 but
not finding them, they thought, “Selflessness, is the Word of the buddhas,” and they
passed beyond them. Similarly, the blessed buddhas of the present and future do not
and will not find these. The same is true of all the Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas.”
Having said that, Purna said further, “Thus they teach that a life-principal, an
individual, a possessor of strength, a son of Manu, a sentient being, and a dhātu of self
are nonexistent, so that there is selflessness. Therefore, the buddhas teach that all these
phenomena are empty, and they teach that with such a Dharma terminology.
Then Aṅgulimāla said these words to Purna the son of Maitrayani:

Alas venerable Purna, you are making noises like a fly. You do not know how to teach
Dharma terminology. A fly knows only how to make the sound “zi zi.” Insect-like fool
that you are, say no more!

Purna, because you do not know the hidden speech of the Tathāgata, thinking that
selflessness alone is the Dharma, you fall into the dharma of stupidity, as a moth falls
into a lamp.
Regarding “that which “the buddhas have not found,” the blessed buddhas of the past,
not finding tathāgatagarbha to be nonexistent among the relative phenomena that
comprise all sentient beings, went beyond that. The blessed buddhas of the present also
do not find the absence of the dhātu of self within all sentient beings. The blessed
buddhas of the future also will not find the absence of the dhātu of self within all
sentient beings. The Pratyekabuddhas and Śrāvakas also did not, do not, and will not
find, the absence of the dhātu of self within all sentient beings, in any of the three times.
This is the meaning of the verses above.

89 Prajñāpāramitā.
90 An arhat among the Buddha’s ten close Śrāvaka retinue. He was excellent at teaching Dharma.
91 Here phenomena = relative phenomena.
92 The primordial human being of the first eon, in Indian mythology, like Adam in the Bible.


Also, regarding “that which all the buddhas have not found,” though the blessed
buddhas of the past diligently searched among all phenomena, they did not find a
worldly self the size of a thumb, a grain of millet or rice, or a mustard or sesame seed;
red, blue, yellow, or white in color; short, long, or very long in length; and so forth, a self
said by the Hindus to be “blazing and present in the heart,” and to be eternal, stable,
and changeless.WWW

Not having found such a self, when all the buddhas and Śrāvakas had become
completely enlightened, they explained this to living beings. That is the meaning of that
verse above; but Purna analyzed it wrongly, and so his explanation is not its actual
meaning.

Also, regarding “that which the buddhas have not found,” the blessed buddhas of the
past, not having found a produced Tathāgatagarbha, went beyond it; yet the
unproduced dhātu of buddhahood, adorned with limitless excellent major and minor marks, exists within all sentient beings.

The blessed buddhas of the present, though they diligently search for a produced
Tathāgatagarbha, do not find it; yet the unproduced dhātu of buddhahood, adorned
with limitless excellent major and minor marks, exists within all sentient beings.
The blessed buddhas of the future, though they will diligently search for a produced
Tathāgatagarbha, will not find it; yet the unproduced dhātu of buddhahood, adorned
with limitless excellent major and minor marks, exists within all sentient beings.

The fly-like Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas of the three times acknowledge that
Tathāgatagarbha exists; but they also say, “It cannot be seen with the eyes,” and they
wonder what the cause of this may be. I will teach that cause. It is like this.
Rahulaśrībhadra, was very devoted to training and discipline, and so he looked very
diligently to see whether his drinking water contained living beings. He thought, “are
there living beings, or not, as it seems there is just dust, and none are there.” When he
systematically examined the water, he saw that tiny living beings were indeed abiding
there.

Similarly, tiger-bodhisattvas who have attained the tenth bodhisattva level see for
themselves that, within their bodies, the dhātu of selfhood exists. These bodhisattvas see
the limitless dhātu like that. Entering into experience of tathāgatagarbha like that is said
to be very difficult and to require great perseverance. This world is as if entirely blazing
and supremely blazing everywhere. Those within it who give up their personal lives to
become teachers, teach this benefit that is very hard to accomplish. I teach
tathāgatagarbha to these tiger-bodhisattvas, but I do not teach it to others.


Sentient beings themselves are tathāgatas.93 For example, vision is unobstructed in those
who have the miraculous eye. Therefore, when child-like ones who have the eye of flesh
come together with these unobstructed ones, and they all look for track of a bird in the
sky, do these child-like ones who have the eye of flesh see the track of a bird in the sky,
or is it these unobstructed elders with the miraculous, divine eye who can clearly see it?
Ordinary individuals having the eye of flesh can proceed only by becoming confident in
the kindness of these elders.

Similarly, Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas, like these childlike ones that have the eye of flesh, becoming confident of the manner of all the sūtras, know that tathāgatagarbha
exists; but how can they see the dhātu that is an object of the tathāgatas with correct
vision? If Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas must rely on the kindness of others, in this
case; how can ordinary people become confident of tathāgatagarbha, when their vision
of it is no better than that of the blind?

“Formerly, on this earth, there were four94 sweets.” Those words are saying, “this was
not taught by former truly, completely enlightened buddhas, but I have heard it.”
Present sentient beings who tasted these four sweets by eating them as children, having
becoming accustomed to them over a long time, even now cannot give up their delicious
taste.

Similarly, sentient beings who formerly meditated on tathāgatagarbha and who
performed many other actions with regard to it, in the presence of many truly,
completely enlightened buddhas of the past, even now have confidence in
tathāgatagarbha. That is because those beings have long since meditated on
tathāgatagarbha. They have long since repaid the kindness of the tathāgatas with
practice, and not otherwise. In the future too, sentient beings who hear and believe the
teachingXXX of tathāgatagarbha will not be otherwise. These children of the tathāgatas,
like those who ate the four sweets as children, will repay the kindness of those
tathāgatas with practice.

Regarding “the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra as provisional meaning...,” the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says:
Mahāmati asked, “When tathāgatagarbha was taught in other sūtras spoken by the
Blessed One, the Blessed One said there that, since tathāgatagarbha was luminous and
completely pure by nature, it was completely pure from the beginning, possessed the
thirty-two major marks, and existed within the bodies of all sentient beings.
The Blessed One said that, like a precious gem of great price wrapped in dirty rags,
tathāgatagarbha is wrapped in the rags of the skandhas, constituents, and sense sources.
Thus, its manifestation is overcome by stains of passion, aversion, and stupidity, and it
is completely defiled by defilements of conceptualization.

93 Because their essence is buddhahood, and they are capable of manifesting it.
94 The well-known list of three sweets is 1. honey, 3. molasses, and 3. sugar. I know of no list of four.


Tathāgatagarbha was said there to be permanent, stable, and changeless. Why is this
speech of the Blessed One about tathāgatagarbha not like Indian extremists’ teaching
of a self? Blessed One, Indian extremists also teach a self that is permanent, the doer
of all, has no conceptually describable95 qualities, is all-pervading, and is
indestructible.

The Blessed One spoke, saying “Mahāmati, my teaching of tathāgatagarbha is not
like Indian extremists’ affirmation of a self. Mahāmati, the tathāgatas, the arhats, the
completely perfect buddhas teach tathāgatagarbha as the meaning of the words
“emptiness,” “the true pure ultimate,” “nirvāṇa,” “the unborn,” “the signless,” “the
wishless,” and so forth. They teach tathāgatagarbha so that childish ones may
abandonYYY being frightened by selflessness. Through the means of tathāgatagarbha,
they teach the topic of the completely non-conceptual, the sphere of enlightened
experience without false relative appearance.

Thus Mahāmati, bodhisattva great beings who arise in the future and present should
not be attached to this teaching, as a teaching of selfhood.
Regarding “the example of medicinal milk and that of a jewel,” the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
says:

The Buddha spoke saying..., “It is like this, for example. A king of little competence and
little knowledge had a physician who was also incompetent and foolish. Not realizing
this, the king bestowed great rewards on thatZZZ physician. That foolish physician gave
milk as a medicine for all sicknesses. He did not know the cause from which any
sicknesses first occurred. Incompetent even in giving milk as medicine, he gave milk as
medicine for all wind, phlegm, and bile diseases. As even that physician himself did not
realize, the king too could not distinguish when giving medicinal milk was good or
bad.”

“Then, a competent physician came to the king from another country. He possessed
eight kinds of understanding,96 was very skilled in curing all diseases, and had mastered
all kinds of diagnoses. At that time, the incompetent physician, not questioning or
learning from the capable one, adopted an arrogant attitude. At that time too, the
capable physician, seeming to rely on the incapable one, took him as his master. Because
the capable one had trained in secret methods of diagnosis, the foolish physician also

mastered them, but he was so stupid that he did not realize that he had learned them
from the capable one. He made a promise to the capable one with these words. ‘If you
act as my servant for forty-eight years, I will teach you these diagnoses.AAAA’”
“Then that capable physician gave an answer in accord with the speech of the incapable
one, saying, ‘I will do that. I will be your servant as long as my leprosy lasts.’”
95 Words in red red-orange are annotations by Dölpopa to the same passages in Mountain Dharma.
96 I do not know this list.


“Then that foolish physician, bringing the new physician with him, went to the king’s
palace. Meeting with the king, the new physician did various diagnoses for him.
Furthermore, he made a great deal of intelligent conversation. In the end, he took over
rulership of the country, and this was his means of curing the king’s sickness. He
remarked, ‘Great king, comprehend what is going on here!’ The king harkened to the
words he said. Realizing that his former physician was incapable, he expelled him from
the country.”

“Then the new physician did further healing rites and homage, thinking at that time,
‘the time has come to teach this king.’ Having thought that, he made a request to the
king with these words. ‘Great king, my intentions are many, so please grant a request of
mine.’”

“The king replied in appreciation, ‘From my right hand to all the limbs of the body, may
they arise as you desire, and may all of them be given to you.’”
“The physician requested further, ‘Thus, all the limbs of the king’s body will indeed be
given to me; but my mind will not be capable of dealing with it, if I ask too much.
However, for the sake of all the people of the country, from now on, please proclaim as
lawBBBB forbidding the treatment of the old physician, giving milk as medicine. Why?
Because that medicine is poisonous, many people will die, if they drink it. Therefore, if
anyone gives that medicine, the best of the limbs of the giver should be cut off. If that is
decreed, giving milk as medicine will be forbidden. Then, before long, there will be no
more death from drinking it. All the people will be happy and comfortable, so please
grant my request.’”

“Then the king said, ‘Your request is very beneficial. From now on, if one of the people
of the country is sick, no milk shall be given as medicine. If people give milk as
medicine, the best of their limbs, the head, shall be cut off.’”
“So he decreed. At that time the capable physician gave medicines of various tastes, hot,
bitter, sour, sweet, astringent, and so forth. Sicknesses were cured and none of them was
uncured. Then, before very long, the king himself was struck by sickness, and he
summoned that physician and asked, ‘I am suffering very much from this sickness. How
can I be cured?’”

“The physician, looking at the king’s illness, said, ‘It seems milk is the necessary
medicine.’ He said to the king, ‘To join the king’s sickness with skillful means, please
take milk as medicine. My formerly saying that giving milk as medicine was
inappropriate was false. Actually, there is no better medicine than milk. Since the king’s
illness comes from heat, it would be good to give milk as medicine, in this case.’”

“The king said, ‘Physician are you mad, or, if someone is struck by a sickness of heat, is
milk really beneficial? Before you said that milk was poisonous. How can I drink it now?
Are you taking good care of me, or is this medicine that was praised by the previous
physician truly poisonous? Now that the former physician has been expelled, you say
Jetsun Tāranātha

that milk is a good medicine for sickness. Yet if that saying is joined with your former
words,CCCC my oldDDDD physician was certainly capable.”
“Then the capable physician made this request of the king, ‘Your majesty, “Don’t say
that! For example, a wood-eating worm may leave a letter as a track in the wood it is
eating, even though the worm has no idea whether there is a letter there or not. When

competent persons possessing superior knowledge see that later, they do not grasp it as
miraculous and say ‘This worm knows letters!’’”
““Great king, your former physician was also like that. Since he had no understanding
of illness, his giving milk for all of them was like a letter inadvertently left behind by a
worm. Your former physician did not know when milk was good and suitable and when
it was bad and unsuitable.”

“The king said, ‘Indeed, my former physician did not know that.’”
“The capable physician said, ‘The medicine milk is both poisonous and amṛita that
confers deathlessness. How can medicinal milk be both poisonous and amṛita? If cows
are given grass and grain residue from making beer, when they eat the grain husks, their
calves will be very tame. The place they live should not be the top of a high mountain.

They should live where it is not cold. The water they drink should be from clear
mountain streams that do not flow too strongly. When herd-leading bulls and ordinary
animals of the herds do not live together, they both eat and drink contentedly. Milk of
cows that are contented in their going and staying benefits the sick. For that reason, it is
called “amṛita.” Milk that is not like that is said to be poisonous for all.’”

“Then the great king, hearing those words, replied. ‘It is good, physician; it is very good!
From now on, I shall know whether milk is good and suitable or bad and unsuitable.
Then, if milk is given as medicine, the sickness will be cured. From now on, the
command shall be given To all the people of the country, ‘Drink milk!’’”
“On hearing these words, the people of the country, reviled the king, saying ‘O King, is
your conceit due to hungry ghosts or madness? What is wrong with you? We are being
deceived by being taught, ‘Drink milk.’’”

“As long as all the people were angry, they remained before the king’s eyes. The king
spoke to them saying, ‘Don’t you criticize me. This physician has investigated whether
milk is suitable or unsuitable as medicine, and so I have no fault.’”

“Then the great king and all the people of the country were very joyful. After that, they
all sang a song, and special reverence and respect arose for that physician. All the sick
people had their sicknesses cured by being given medicinal milk.”
“You too, O monks, in such a manner, should offer reverence to the Tathāgata, the
Arhat, the truly perfect Knower. The Sugata, the Knower of the World, the
unsurpassable Tamer of Beings, the Charioteer, the Teacher of gods and humans, the
blessed Buddha should be known like that. Coming into the world as the Great


Physician, overcoming all the bad-seeming medicines of the extremists, I am the
physician to all kings.“
“What I said before was taught for the sake of taming extremists through the words,
‘Self is nonexistent. The individual is nonexistent. Sentient beings are nonexistent. Life is
nonexistent. A possessor of power is nonexistent. A person is nonexistent. Knowing,
action, and the doer are nonexistent,’ Saying these things, I taught them at that time.”

“O monks, the so-called self of the extremists is like letters left in wood eaten by a worm.
Therefore, the Tathāgata taught ‘the Buddhadharma is selflessness.’ That was for taming
beings, due to knowing the times. Teaching that self is nonexistent like that had a certain

cause and conditions. In the same way, my teaching now that self is existent is like a
competent physician knowing when milk as medicine is suitable and unsuitable.
Inferior, childlike people, in grasping a self, grasp it as being the size of a thumb, a
mustard seed, or a small particle. Therefore, the Tathāgata teaches that that the self is not
like that. Though the Tathāgata teaches that all phenomena are selfless, they are not
selfless in true reality. Self is a phenomenon that is really true, eternally abiding, and a
master who is changeless and without transition. That is what is called “self.” Teaching
that is like the great physician who was capable in using milk as medicine. The

Tathāgata is also like that; For the sake of ordinary beings, he teaches, “All phenomena
really have a self.” You and the four kinds of retinue, monks, nuns, laymen, and lay
women, should act diligently within all phenomena in that manner.
Also, the Sūtra Requested by King Dharaṇīśvara or the Sūtra Teaching the Great Compassion of the
Tathāgata says:

Child of noble family, it is like this, for example. Skilled jewelers who know well the
methods for purifying jewels take a completely unpurified jewel, from the family of
precious stones. Soaking it in a sharp mineral salt solution, they completely clean it97
by thoroughly rubbing it with hair-cloth.98 However, they do not cease their efforts
with just that.

After that, soaking the gem in sharp food juice,99 they completely clean it by
polishing with a woolen cloth. However, they do not cease their efforts with just
that.

97 “Sharp,” rnon po, makes me wonder if lan tshwa and zas kyi khu just below might mean some kind of
semi-liquid polishing compound, containing dust of a substance as hard as or harder than the gem stone.
Hopkins, Mountain Doctrine, p. 203, says soda, which would have some detergent properties, and herbal
juice. His text seems to be not quite the same as this.
98 Hair, or cloth woven from hair of a goat, yak, etc.
99 Hopkins, op. cit., says quicksilver.

After that, soaking the gem in the juice of a great medicine, they completely clean it
with a sheer cloth. Then, completely purified and free from defilements, the jewel is
said to be one of the great family of vaidūrya gems.

Child of noble family, similarly, the Tathāgata, knowing the completely impure
nature of sentient beings, arouses sadness in beings who enjoy saṃsāra. He does so
by giving depressing discourses about impermanence, suffering, selflessness, and
impurity. By that he makes beings enter into the Dharmic monastic discipline of
noble ones of the first turning.

However, the Tathāgata does not abandon his effort with just that. After that, he
makes those of the Great Vehicle realize the way of the Tathāgata with discourses
about emptiness, marklessness, and wishlessness, according to the second turning.
However, the Tathāgata does not abandon his effort with just that. After that, with
talk of an irreversible wheel of Dharma, and with discourses of the three wheels
being completely pure, he makes sentient beings who have causes of various natures
enter into the realm of the Tathāgata.

Regarding “In the Mahāparinirvāṇa,EEEE eight misapprehensions, are taught,” that same
sūtra says:

Similar to what you say, we also diligently perceive impermanence, suffering, and
selflessness. However, what is said there has no object in true reality. The objects of
these three diligent actions of perception are nonexistent in true reality. Therefore,
rather than these three phenomena that are not truly real being so diligently acted
on, I should explain better ones.


1. Suffering is grasped as bliss.
2. Grasping bliss as suffering is wrong Dharma.
3. Impermanence is grasped as permanence.
4. Grasping permanence as impermanence is wrong Dharma.
5. Selflessness is grasped as self.
6. Grasping self as selflessness is wrong Dharma.
7. Complete impurity is grasped as complete purity.
8. Grasping complete purity as complete impurity is wrong Dharma.


Regarding “In the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra transcendence of Mind-only is taught,” that sūtra says:
When yogins put their reliance on Mind-only,
No external objects are observed.
Depending on appearance being nonexistent,
Even Mind-only is to be transcended.
Depending on apprehending the pure and true,


Nonexistent appearance should be transcended.
Yogins abiding in nonexistent appearance
Will not be able to see the Great Vehicle.

According to what is taught there, those who speak in accord with the ordinary, relative
world of selfhood, as well as those within the two schools of Śrāvakas, the Vaibhāṣikas and
Sautrāntikas, have faults in explaining the intention of the Great Vehicle. That is because
they do not know that the skandhas should be put aside.100
Mind-only, in positing what is relative as absolute, has a faulty view that is most ludicrous,
like the faulty editing in Paro, Bhutan, or the dubious volumes published in the kingdom of
Lwa ba can.

Regarding “The three natures are also taught in the Perfection of Prajñā,” The Chapter
Requested by Maitreya says:

The Buddha spoke saying, “Maitreya, three kinds of bodhisattvas abide in
competently discriminating phenomena.101 These, because they practice the
perfection of prajñā, should know how to classify distinctions of form in terms of
three aspects. Also, from feeling, perception, formations and consciousness, up to the
phenomena of buddhahood, they should know how to designate distinctions of
feelings, conceptualized perceptions, formations, and conscious as follows:


1. This is completely merely imputed form, the imagined.
2. This is partially merely imputed form, the dependent.
3. This is the form of perfectly established, dharmatā.
1. This is completely merely imputed feeling, the imagined.
2. This is partially merely imputed feeling, the dependent.
3. This is the feeling of perfectly established, dharmatā.
1. This is completely merely imputed perception, the imagined.
2. This is partially merely imputed perception, the dependent.
3. This is the perception of perfectly established, dharmatā.
1. This is completely merely imputed formations, the imagined.
2. This is partially merely imputed formations, the dependent.
3. This is the formations of perfectly established, dharmatā.
1. This is completely merely imputed consciousness, the imagined.
2. This is partially merely imputed consciousness, the dependent.
3. This is the consciousness of perfectly established dharmatā.

100 They believe that at least some of the phenomena that comprise them are absolute.
101 This looks like it should say something like, “competent bodhisattvas abide in discriminating phenomena in three ways.”


Up to

1. This is completely merely imputed phenomena of buddhahood, the imagined.
2. This is partially merely imputed phenomena of buddhahood, the dependent.
3. This is the phenomena of buddhahood of perfectly established, dharmatā.”


The Buddha spoke these words. Then the bodhisattva Maitreya asked the Blessed One, “Blessed One, what are completely imputed forms? What are partially imputed
forms? What are the forms of dharmatā? Blessed One, what are completely imputed
feelings, perception, formations, and consciousness? Blessed One what are
completely imputed phenomena of buddhahood? What are partially imputed
phenomena of buddhahood? What are the phenomena of buddhahood of
dharmatā?”

The Buddha spoke saying, “Maitreya, among real things characterized by
formationsFFFF are forms. That is their name. Depending on perception, grammar,
imputation, and conventional sayings, the essence of form is completely imputed.
This is completely imputed form.”

“Maitreya, among real things characterized by formations, and so forthGGGG are
feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness, up to what is called the
phenomena of buddhahood. Depending on name, perception, grammar, imputation,
and conventional sayings, these have the essence of completely imputed feeling,
perception, formations, and consciousness, up to the essence of the phenomena of
buddhahood. These are completely imagined feeling, perception, formations, and
consciousness, up toHHHH completely imagined phenomena of buddhahood.”

“Among real things characterized by formations,IIII are partially imputed forms
depending on conceptualizationsJJJJ of merely conceptualized dharmatā that are
manifestly spoken, depending on names, perception, grammar, imputation, and
conventional sayings. Such feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness, up
to phenomena of buddhahood are partially imputed feeling, perception, formations,
and consciousness, up to partially imputed forms of buddhahood.”

“Whether relative tathāgatas arise or not in dharmatā, as well as arising in the dhātu
in which phenomena abide, the existence of these partially imputed forms is
existence of merely imagined, imputed forms in the relative ground of merely
imagined, imputed forms. These merely imagined, imputed forms are falsely
characterized as being eternal, and stable for eternal time, but they are actually
essenceless for all the time they are apparently stable. They are without a self of
phenomena.”

“Suchness and ultimate reality include the forms of dharmatā. They also include
what is called the feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness of dharmatā,
and so forth, up to phenomena of buddhahood of dharmatā.”


The Buddha spoke those words. Then the bodhisattva Maitreya asked the Blessed One the following: “Blessed One, of these three kinds of form, which is viewed as
not substantial, which is viewed as substantial, and which is not substantial and is
not insubstantial and is distinguished as absolute?

Blessed One, which of these three kinds of feeling, perception, formations, and
consciousness up to which of these three kinds of phenomena of buddhahood
areKKKK viewed as insubstantial, viewed as substantial, and are neither substantial
nor insubstantial, and are distinguished as absolute.”
He asked that, and then the Blessed One replied to the bodhisattva Maitreya saying,
“Maitreya,LLLL completely imputed form is viewed as insubstantial.
Partially imputed form, since it exists as imputed substance, is not established as
independent in terms of the view that it exists substantially.
The form of dharmatā is neither substantial nor insubstantial, and it is distinguished
as absolute.”

Regarding “a temporary cut-off family,” the Eight Thousand Stanza Perfection of Wisdom Sutra says:
Śāriputra, such individuals should be understood to disparage the Dharma.
Śāriputra, such individuals are like a rotten tree.
Śāriputra, such individuals should be known to be of a black nature. So it is taught.
Such individuals are said to be temporary exponents of the three vehicles as empty
of themselves.

Regarding what is taught there, Vaibhāṣikas and Sautrāntikas of the Lesser Vehicle maintain
the three vehicles to be ultimate. Many Mahāyānists who are not true followers of
Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga maintain only a single vehicle, without divisions of incidental and
ultimate. All masters of Prāsaṅgika and Svātantrika maintain three incidental vehicles that
are empty of themselves and no absolute vehicles at all. According to the second chapter of
the exalted Eight Thousand Stanza Perfection of Prajñā Sūtra, the Indra Chapter,
Those who exclusively abide in true reality do not have the good fortune of
generating the attitude directed at unsurpassable, true, complete enlightenment. Why so? By terminating the continuity of saṃsāra, they cycle
within it again and again. Therefore, it is taught that they do not have the
good fortune of generating the attitude directed at unsurpassable, true,
complete enlightenment.

This is also taught in the Perfection of Prajñā in One Hundred Thousand, Eighteen Thousand, and
Twenty Thousand stanzas. Thus, passing into peace is taught in the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras
generally. These sūtras also explain the determining factors of that. Briefly, resting in
formless meditation on emptiness is considered resting in true reality in the second turning.
Those who do this do not generate bodhicitta. Like those who rest in the absorptions of the
formless realms, they do not pass beyond all karmic attachment to selfhood, and so they are
Jetsun Tāranātha
still conditioned by the obscuration of dualistic knowables Therefore, when their good karma that allows them to rest in absorption beyond gross passion and aversion is
exhausted, they are reborn, typically in the lower realms. The teachings of the Chapter
Requested by Maitreya are also in accord with that. It says there:
Blessed One what is it? Are all the Śrāvakas partial, or do they abide in passing
beyond pain?

The Blessed One spoke saying, Maitreya, passing beyond pain is not how they abide.
Why? Maitreya, these worldly ones have a variety of natures, many natures. These
worldly ones, that have a variety of natures, many natures, having that variety of
natures, many natures, are the family of sentient beings. They have very many
natures. Maitreya, the lineage and family of sentient beings, exist like that from the
first, because they desire good distinctions, and attain good distinctions. The lineage
and family of sentient beings, exist like that from the first, because they desire bad
distinctions, and attain bad distinctions.

The Śrāvakas are partial at the beginning, because they believe in many truly existing
dharmas. Among those, they have attached desire to attain good dharmas and avoid bad
ones. At the end, they are partial to formless extinction. The result is like resting in the
formless realms, as just described. Therefore, Asaṅga and his brother, with their followers,
completely practice the Middle Way beyond partial attachment alone. That should be
known. From where? From the third turning scriptures.
Regarding “The Akutobhayā and so forth are also much in accord with teaching
Shentong” that same commentary says:

As for the absolute truth, the noble ones say that all phenomena are erroneous. By
impressing that on the mind, all phenomena are seen as unborn. Since, that is
absolutely true, that is absolute truth.
From this passage alone, it is not clear whether Nāgārjuna is talking about merely
intellectual realization of self-emptiness being absolutely true as a logical principle, or
experiential realization of phenomena as non-dual with pristine wisdom, the experiential
absolute truth of Shentong. This passage alone is compatible with Shentong, but
establishing that Nāgārjuna accepts non-dual phenomena requires citing works where his
teaching this is more explicit, like the Praise of Dharmadhātu. If Nāgārjuna’s ultimate
intention is that all experienced phenomena are dualistic, that would be incompatible with
Shentong.

Also, regarding “In particular, Shentong is taught in the Praise Collection,” Nāgārjuna’s
Praise of Dharmadhātu says:
To that which, when it is quite unknown,
There will be revolving within the three levels;


Abiding with certainty in all sentient beings,
To that, dharmadhātu, I pay homage.
That which is the root cause of saṃsāra,
From having purified just that itself,
That purity is what is called nirvāṇa.
Dharmakāya is also that itself.

Also:
Just as precious vaidūrya
Is luminous at all times;
But when it abides in stone,
Its light does not shine forth.
Likewise, when it is wrapped in the afflictions,
Though dharmadhātu is utterly undefiled,
Its light does not shine forth within saṃsāra;MMMM
But in enlightenment it is luminous.
Also, this dharmadhātu is not non-affirmingly negated, but is absolutely present pristine wisdom. By teaching emptiness, this dharmadhātu is not refuted:
The sūtras that teach the truth of emptiness,

As many as were taught by the Conqueror,
By all of these, the afflictions are reversed.
But the dhātu is not harmed by that.
As water that exists within the earth
Abides there in the earth without defilement,
Pristine wisdom in the afflictive emotions
Likewise abides with those without defilement.

Also:
Though buddhahood is taught as self existing,
As hungry ghosts see oceans as being dry;
Likewise, those obscured by ignorance
See buddhahood as being nonexistent.
For such lesser ones with lesser merit
What can be done by even the blessed ones?
Also, the same author’s Praise of the Absolute says:
Not abiding among all phenomena
Is the reality of dharmadhātu.

Jetsun Tāranātha
This is where the ultimate depth is found.
To you, who are profundity, I prostrate.
The abiding of dharmadhātu is explained not to be abiding within the dharmin.102 Also, his
Praise of the Unexampled says:
Eternal, stable, and completely peaceful,
Is the nature of phenomena, your body.103

That teaches dharmakāya to be eternal, stable, and changeless. Also, Nāgārjuna’s Praise of
the World-Transcending says:
When the amṛita of emptiness is taught,
Imagined imputations are all abandoned;
Anyone who is attached to that,
Will be strongly criticized by you.104
Emptiness of material dependence
Arises from conditions, like illusion.
You, Protector, meditate upon

The unreality of all phenomena.
You do not create anything at all.
You do not hinder anything at all.
Formerly like that, and like that later,
You apprehend the suchness of how things are.
That teaches:
the fault of being attached to mere, vacuous emptiness,
the lack of true existence of imagined false conceptions,

interdependent arising depending on others, and
the changeless nature free from increase or decrease, dharmatā.
The Stage of the Unsurpassable Intention, from Nāgārjuna’s Five Stages of the Guhyasamāja says:
The third division of emptinesses is explained
As completely pure and luminous.
That explains how all is emptiness.105

Also:
102 Phenomena possessing the dualistically fixated qualities of saṃsāra,
103 Sku, honorific, Sanskrit kāya.
104 The Buddha.
105 Even the absolute appearance of realization.


The great disparager of all being empty,106
Is the great pristine wisdom, pure and clear.
As a result of the kindness of the guru,
That wisdom can be very clearly seen.
That explains the pristine wisdom of emptiness. Also, the Fourth Stage says:
The enlightenment of buddhahood will be instantly attained, as inner bliss free from
disturbance.

There absolute great bliss is taught. Also, the Stage of Union says:
Consisting of the “grasper and the grasped,”
Dualistic mind does not exist;
Mind exists without the least division.
That is what has been described as “union.”
That says that the ordinary awareness of dualistic appearance has no true existence, but
explains nondual pristine wisdom as true. Also, Nāgārjuna’s Bodhicittavivarana says:
Imagined, dependent, or perfectly established
All phenomena are classified

As emptiness that is the essence, mind.
The only nature that is the way things are.
Those words clearly explain emptiness as perfectly established, absolute mind. However,
when the all ground of delusion arises, it is said not to be true or luminous at all.
Phenomena within that are collectively taught to be the “other” that is empty within the
absolute for Shentong.NNNN A seven-year dispute about that arose between Candragomin
and Candrakīrti,107. For a long time, body and girls in the city of Magadha sang songs to
each other about the sayings of these learned ones:
Alas, the texts of the noble one Nāgārjuna

Are sometimes medicine and sometimes poison;
But those of the noble Asaṅga, the invincible,
Are always deathless amṛita for all beings.
They sang that out loud. Regarding “As prophesied,” the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says:
The vehicle of personal self-awareness
Is not found within the scope of logicians.
Following the protectors of the past,
Whoever grasps it, please explain it now.
106 Nihilistically empty of itself.
107 Advocating Shentong and Rangtong respectively.


After the nirvāṇa of the Sugata,
The manners of these teachings will be grasped.
After time has passed, you will arise,
The one who will be called “great understanding.”
In the region of Beta, in the south,
Will be a glorious monk, who is greatly famed,
His name will be Nāga,108 destroyer of extremes
Of existence and of nonexistence alike.
Having explained my vehicle in the world,
My Great Vehicle that is unsurpassed,
Having established the level Supremely Joyful.
He will be reborn in Sukhāvati.

Regarding
“...within the tantras of secret mantra,
this is what is chiefly taught in maṇḍalas,”
the Krodha-trailokya-vijaya-nirmitabhāṣāOOOO says:
Then the maṇḍala arises.
The circular maṇḍala is drawn.
In that maṇḍala, Maitreya is established. Four tathāgatas, and forty bodhisattvas are also
created. These words are said while abiding with the weapon-showing mudrā. This is
extensively taught there, from “VAJRA ḌI ḌHI TIṢṬHA” up to “realization of Maitreya.”
There are many other such passages.
Also, regarding “Oral instructions that taught the deep path of the vajra vehicle...”
From form and so forth, continuing to omniscience,
As for the nature of phenomena,
Like the space of the sky, completely pure,
Profound and luminous, it is nondual wisdom.
Regarding “the Brief Teaching Maintaining the View,” that same text says:
The emptiness that analyzes the skandhas
Has no heart, like a banana tree.
Emptiness with all the highest aspects
108 Nāgārjuna.


Is not like that...
Regarding, “they truly contradict the texts of the traditions of each of these two
doctrines,” The Abhisamayālaṃkāra says:
The pure fruition, and dharmas such as form,
What is the reason for their purity?
These two are not different, and therefore,
They are said to be pure because they cannot be analyzed.
Also:

In the nature of unceasing reality,
By the one of the five paths known as “seeing,”
How are the families of conception exhausted?
How are the aspects of the unborn attained?
Likewise:
That profound reality that is liberated
From extremes of glorification and of denigration...109

And:
Without the expression of any real things
Suitable for experience and increase;
By the path that is known as meditation,
What is experienced and what is attained?
As enlightenment does, in a similar way,
This establishes the goal that is desired,
The characteristics of enlightened suchness.
This is explained as having those characteristics.

Rangtongpas of the present maintain, like Shentongpas, that absolute truth is without any
abandoning, attaining, exhaustion, arising, and so forth. In general, it follows from their
refuting truth,PPPP these alleged real things assertions of whose existence otherwise would
have to be analyzed for absolute truth need not be, and cannot, be analyzed. Yet these same
Rangtongpas also say that the emptiness that is the absolute truth of the Rangtong system,
also called “primordial, absolute purity,” is analyzable, but it can be determined that it does
not bear analysis by reasoning, because it does not transcend objects of the reasoning of
proper establishing. That contradicts their saying that absolute truth is unanalyzable.110
109 That are involved in dualistic conceptual assertions.

110 Rangtongpas and Shentongpas both claim that assertions about the absolute are refuted on analysis for
absolute truth and that the non-conceptual experience of absolute pristine wisdom itself are


If this is so, insofar as absolute truth is not a possible object of analysis, it bears the analysis
of reasoning by default, and so it is truly established as existing.111 Here, conceptually
knowable objects, all dharmins within the Rangtong system, are analyzed as emptiness.112
They are free from one and many. Therefore, when they are analyzed by the reasoning of
interdependent origination and so forth, they can be resolved as having no true existence.
Enlightenment and suchness are said to be the same nature it is explained that the meanings
involved in maintaining that point are also reasons establishing the proof of their lack of
true existence and their emptiness. That proof non-affirmingly negates assertions of the
existence of these phenomena, and they are, therefore, asserted to be nothing at all. How is
the desired point established? The Abhisamayālaṃkāra, says further:


Since dharmadhātu is inseparable,
Different families are unsuitable.
Its divisions have been fully expressed.
By distinctions of dependent phenomena

According to what is taught there, statements about support and supported and different
families are unsuitable in the context of non-affirming negation that establishes emptiness of self for all phenomena, including dharmadhātu, in the second turning.
However, according to third turning teachings, establishment of families, support and
supported, and distinctions of phenomena that do and do not exist are, in fact, suitable
within dharmadhātu. Therefore the emptiness of dharmadhātu cannot be emptiness of self.
It can only be emptiness of other. The Sublime Continuum says:


The dhātu is empty of the incidental
Which has the characteristic of being separable;
It is not empty of unsurpassable phenomena,
Which have the characteristic of being inseparable.
So it is taught, and in regard to both:
Here there is nothing at all that has to be cleared away,
And there is nothing at all that has to be established.
Look purely and truly at the pure and true.
When the pure and true is seen, there is total liberation.

unanalyzable. Shentongpas say that asserting that the absolute and its intrinsic qualities truly exist is
valid within conventional discourse.
111 Sometimes Tāranātha says the absolute transcends relative concepts of existing and not existing that
are not beyond analysis. Yet the sense in which the unanalyzable absolute truly exists is said also to be
expressible in conventional discourse. We explored this by the story of the blind men and the elephant.
112 So when Rangtongpas say that the perfection of prajñā sees the union of appearance and emptiness,
those too must be something beyond analyzable, conceptual dharmins.


Regarding
...prophesies by the Conqueror that Asaṅga
Would write very excellent intention commentaries,
Distinguishing provisional meaning from the definitive, ...”
The Root Tantra of Mañjuśrī says:
As for the monk who will be called Asaṅga,
He will be skilled in the meaning of treatises.
He will fully distinguish many kinds
Of provisional and definitive meanings of sūtras
A master of teaching worldly families,

He will writeQQQQ texts that have an inner manner,
His establishment of these by reasoning
Will be called a sāla messenger lady.113
By his attainment of the power of mantra,
Good understanding will subsequently rise.
So that the teachings will last for a very long time,
He will summarize the essence of the sūtras.
He will live one hundred and fifty years.
When his body is destroyed, he will go to the god realm.
Among saṃsāric beings who are in saṃsāra,
After experiencing bliss for a very long time,
Finally becoming a great being,

He will attain complete enlightenment.
Moreover, regarding “Vasubandhu and so forth,” the same text says:
One who will disprove the doctrines of other schools,
He will be a former merchant and a physician,
Generous in both, doing various things,
Famed, as a “man of letters,” for diligence in discipline.
That is a prophesy about master Vasubandhu. And:
First in learning, a very literate person,
Likewise, arousing faith in his discipline.
That is about master Lodrö Tenpa. Also:
113 I am not sure of the meaning, except that these ḍākinī messenger ladies are associated with sāla trees
or groves that are gathering places for tantric yogins.


A man of letters who was first in that,RRRR
Taught to be diligent in discipline…
That is about master Dignāga. Also:
It is quite well known in the southern direction,
That the syllable DHA means diligence in discipline.
Likewise diligent in discipline,
After defeating opponents, he practiced tantra.
That is about master Dharmakīrti.
Known by the name of Ratnasambhava...
That is about master Shantipa. After that passage:
Diligent in discipline, famous everywhere,
Teacher of teachers, illuminator...

That is about Shantipa’s excellent intention commentary that illuminates the teachings. Also:
He will attain supreme enlightenment.
That prophesies his enlightenment.

The Tantra of the Great Black One translated by Rwa chos rab says:
The chief of paṇḍitas, Dharmakīrti, will be very famous, and he will benefit the six kinds of beings with the teachings. He will attain the siddhi of those who abide in
pure conduct.

Moreover, there are also prophesies concerning Vinitadeva, Guṇaprabha, and many other
matchless, great chariots, as well as Candragomin, Lalita Vajra, Ānandagarbha,
Buddhajñānapāda, Buddhaguhya, Maitripa, and so forth. The citations above present some
of these limitless, accomplished awareness holders who were prophesied.
Regarding, “consulting the Saṃdhinirmocana, having said the intention was three-fold
naturelessness,” The Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra says:

The naturelessness of the exalted phenomena of the true and pure absolute is of


three kinds, taught as follows:


1. The naturelessness of characteristics,
2. The naturelessness of arising,
3. The naturelessness of all phenomena.


After this brief teaching, these three are extensively taught.
Regarding, “Also, some Rangtongpas said that, since the Shentong tradition was similar to
the extremists,” the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra says:
Moreover, liberation is non-empty emptiness. “Empty emptiness” is nothing at all.
Nothing at all is like the liberation of the naked Jain extremists.
Also, the Sūtra Benefitting Aṅgulimāla says:
Mañjuśrī said, “Liberation is like space.
Space is without any characteristics at all.
Liberation is Buddha, the Thus-gone One.
Emptiness that is purely nothing at all.
How, Aṅgulimāla, can you know it?”

Here, in teaching emptiness of selfhood, Aṅgulimāla, having talked extensively about
negating and affirming, finally says these words:
The naked Jains also meditate on everything as empty. Like a fly of a naked Jain, you
are not saying anything. Like the extremists,SSSS you are saying that what the Buddha
explained is emptiness of self.
Regarding “the all ground pristine wisdom was not explained,” if you think, ‘some of
these teachers do not teach the pristine wisdom of the all ground at all,’ it is not so. The
Ghanavyūha Sūtra says:

The jewels that are the sun and moon
Have completely pure characteristics.
By saying “Sun and moon,” they are contacted,
And so these two bestow their own qualities.114
Likewise, superior knowledge of the all ground,
Which is also called “good tathāgatagarbha,”
Becomes something with undefiled goodness.
When it is ‘other,’ this is fully given.115

These words say that awareness of the absolute all ground has an undefiled nature that is
other than the nature of awareness of the dualistic all ground consciousness. This nature is
said to bestow the dharmatā of buddhahood. Since it is both all ground and pristine wisdom, how could that kind of all ground be something other than pristine wisdom?
114 To enrich the meaning understood for the words. Words for absolute entities derive their meaning
from those entities, even if they cannot express them completely.
115 In enlightened experience.


Regarding “others have clear scriptures,” the Ghanavyūha Sūtra says:
The skandhas are empty of a self of the individual.
These two categories are seen as very distinct.
The Śrāvakas realize these points perceptively.
The real existence of dharmas116 is not destroyed by this.
However, those who are competent, as well as the Buddha children,
Meditate on both of the two kinds of selflessnesses.
Also, the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtra, or the Sutra of the White Lotus of Holy Dharma says:
Mahākaśyapa,

All of these phenomena are undefiled and pacified.
They have completely abandoned cessation and arising.
“All of these phenomena do not exist at all,”
If someone thinks like that, that person has no faith.
Also, the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says:
Moreover, Mahāmati, because all the Śrāvakas and Pratyekabuddhas do not
abandon the obscuration of knowables and karmic propensities, they do not
meditate on the selflessness of phenomena. Therefore, they do not attain
inconceivable death and transference. For that reason, three vehicles are taught to
the Śrāvakas. One vehicle that is the ultimate way things are is not.
Regarding “the absolute truth of cessation is the only truth,”
The Sūtra Requested by Queen Śrīmāla says:
Blessed One, of these four noble truths, three are impermanent. One truth is
permanent.

Also:
Blessed One, this single truth transcends objects with compounded characteristics.
Blessed One, what transcends compounded characteristics is permanent. What is
permanent is a nondeceptive dharmin. Blessed One, what is a nondeceptive dharmin
is true, permanent, and a refuge.
So it is taught, and also in regard to the way of clearing away the two extremes,
116 As a belief and as a resulting fixated perception.


Blessed One, if formations are viewed as impermanent, that is not an extreme
nihilistic view of them. That is the correct view of them.
Regarding “The sūtras teach seven kinds of emptiness,” the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says:
Mahāmati, briefly, there are seven kinds of emptiness, as follows:


1. Emptiness of characteristics,
2. Emptiness of the natures of real things.
3. Emptiness of existence.
4. Emptiness of nonexistence,
5. The emptiness of all phenomena being inexpressible,
6. The great emptiness of the noble ones’ pristine wisdom of the absolute, and
7. Emptiness of one thing of others.


Regarding the extensive explanation of the last two,
Mahāmati, what is the great emptiness of the noble ones’ pristine wisdom of the
absolute? It is like this. My apprehension of the individual, self-aware117 pristine wisdom of the noble ones is empty of all habitual propensities of conceptual views
and faults. Therefore, the noble ones’ pristine wisdom of the absolute is called “the
great emptiness.”

Mahāmati, what is emptiness of one thing of others? It is like this. The specific and
general characteristics of certain relative phenomena are absent in each other.
Therefore, this kind of emptiness is called “emptiness of one thing of others.”
Mahāmati, emptiness of one thing of others is the least of all of these seven. You
should abandon it, as an explanation of emptiness that applies to the absolute.
In the Five Hundred Stanza Perfection of Wisdom, there are three kinds of emptiness.
Regarding, “because their three natures are also taught, we should have faith in them,”
the same sūtra says:

Subhūti, what is the absorption of emptiness of form? Subhūti,TTTT form has
1. the emptiness of the nonexistence of relative real things,
2. the emptiness of their existence, and
3. emptiness of their natures.

Observing these, and making the mind one-pointed on them is the absorption of
emptiness. Bodhisattvas should completely know the absorption of emptiness of
form in that way.
117 Some teachers say “personal” rather than “self-aware,” thinking that the first sounds too conceptual.


Subhūti, bodhisattvas should also completely know the absorption of emptiness of
feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness. Subhūti, what is the absorption
of emptiness of consciousness? Subhūti, whenever someone observes in
consciousness the emptiness of non-existence of relative real things, and, likewise,
the emptiness of existence of relative real things, and emptiness of their natures, and
makes the mind one-pointed on that, that is the corresponding absorption of
emptiness. Subhūti, bodhisattvas should know the absorption of emptiness of
consciousness like that.

Those are those three kinds of emptiness, and also:

Subhūti, form is without real things, bad things, and the existence of things;
from there up to the mental consciousness, this is extensively explained. Then,
Thus, as explained in three chapters, the form apprehended by childlike ordinary beings as if it were true and real, is utterly not known as it is. Therefore, these beings
are completely attached to that form. They are completely obscured. They are made
obscured by that. Because these beings are completely attached to that form, they are
completely obscured. If, because they are obscured in that way, they do not renounce
the world within the Śrāvaka vehicle or the Pratyekabuddha vehicle, what need to
speak of the Great Vehicle?

Thus, these sets of three characteristics are clearly taught. However, the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra
says:

In the relative, all real things exists.
In the absolute sense, they do not exist.
That is taught when it is asked, “If all phenomena are empty, even emptiness, will the two truths not become equally existent or equally nonexistent? Though all relative phenomena
exist from the viewpoint of delusion, they are taught to be nonexistent in the perfectly
established absolute. The same text says:

When phenomena being naturelessness,
Are maintained within absolute truth,
The observed that is nonexistent,
Like that is taught to be relative.
Thus it is explained that mere naturelessness of relative phenomena that do not exist is not
absolute truth, because that nonexistence is not observed within pristine wisdom whose
existence is perfectly established.

As for that same pure and true pristine wisdom,
It is characterized as perfectly established.


The absolute is explained there as pristine wisdom that is suchness. Furthermore the
occasion of proving intellectually the natureless of relative phenomena that are erroneously
grasped in consciousness is not pure and true pristine wisdom itself:
But that occasion is not the pure and true itself.
Why? If that occasion were the pure and true,
Error would also be pure and true.

According to that teaching, the pure and true that is apprehended from the viewpoint of the
pristine wisdom of meditation of the noble ones is explained to be without error, because it
is without attached grasping;118 however, what is not pure and true in that sense is not so
explained. If so, this supreme manner of Shentong Madhyamaka is, indeed, the ultimate
intention of the three-fold wheels of Dharma. Regarding sūtras teaching that turning as the
principle one,

the Chapter Requested by Maitreya within the Perfection of Wisdom in Twenty-five Thousand
Stanzas,

the Perfection of Wisdom in Five Hundred Stanzas,
the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra,
the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, and
the Ghanavyūha Sūtra,
and the Avataṃsaka Sūtra

explain that in common and are in accord.
The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra,
the Lion’s Roar Requested by Queen Śrīmāla Sūtra, and so forth, some sūtras included within
the Ārya-ratnakūṭa-sūtra,
the Jewel Heap Sūtra,
the Dhāraṇī of entering into Complete Non-conceptualization,
the Holy Golden Light,

the Questions of King Dhāraṇīśvara Sūtra,
the Sūtra of Entering into Inconceivable Pristine Wisdom and Qualities,
the Sūtra Benefitting Aṅgulimāla, The Exalted Great Cloud Sūtra, the Sūtra of the Cloud of the
Three Jewels or Ratnamegha Sūtra,
the Exalted Great Drum Chapter Sūtra,
the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra,
the Sūtra of the Absorption Ascertaining complete Peace, and so forth, and
most of the tantra collection of the mantra vehicle are in accord with that on many points,
depending on meanings that are very clearly taught.
The exposition of the middle turning mostly has a presentation where nothing at all is
observed when one rests in equanimity in the profound space of meditation.
118 This is extensively explained in “Appendix-deluded phenomena” in my translation of Mountain Dharma.


Regarding teaching by means of resolving knowable objects, the Chapter Requested by
Maitreya and the Five Hundred Stanza Perfection of Wisdom Sūtra, explained by the Teacher
himself, explains this topic in terms of Shentong. Some other sūtras, like the Ratna Talala
Dhāraṇī, do indeed say that teaching emptiness of self is mistaken. However, Śantideva’s
Bodhisattva Conduct and an immense number of sūtras chiefly presenting the path and fruition are connected with both Shentong and Rangtong. The Exalted Level of Buddhahood,
the Dharmasangīti Sūtra or Compendium of Doctrine Sutra, and many more are mostly in
accord with such a Madhyamaka style.

Moreover, if you think that no texts teach Shentong aside from the sūtras and treatises of
Mind-only, such sūtras are not a group aside from others, just as, for example, the sūtras
depended on by the Vaibhāṣikas and those depended on by the Sautrāntikas are not two
different groups. Some scattered Mind-only treatises explain the essence as existing in a
relative sense, but the dharmas of Maitreya and the followers of Asaṅga and his brother do
not.

The Bodhicitta-vivarana, Nāgārjuna’s essay on bodhicitta, and so forth, teach by refutingUUUU
Mind-only treatises that existed before Asaṅga, since they also arose before the noble one
Nāgārjuna. Accordingly, five hundred Yogācāra masters the great monks Abitarka, Jñānata,
and so forth, provably existed at that time, as is well known. However, their treatises were
not translated into Tibetan, like the treatises of the eighteen schools of Śrāvakas. Therefore,
the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra says:

By saying there is no cause,
The view of no cause is realized.
Since external things are not realized,
The Middle Way is destroyed.
These words say that the Rangtong system of the absolute as non-affirming negation refutes
the absolute Middle Way between outer and inner. Also,
By thinking there is a nihilistic view,
Grasping real things will not be empty.

These words say that Rangtongpas, by negating absolute entities, maintain, in practice, that
all the relative exists. Similarly,
By words of denigration119 and glorification,120
This kind of Madhyamaka is taught.
These words say that these literalistic Rangtongpas teach Madhyamaka that is not the great
Middle Way.

On completely clearing away external objects,
119 Of the true and pure absolute as non-existent.
120 Of the delusive relative as existent.


By the understanding of Mind-only,
The one who conceives of them is also reversed.
That path is the path of the Middle Way.
These words say that both external objects and mental cognition are refuted, and moreover,
Real things exist that are established
As having abandoned existence and nonexistence,
With real things free from existence and nonexistence,
How could the nature exist dualistically?

That teaches the existence of the perfectly established without other that transcends both
grasper and grasped. That is Shentong Madhyamaka. Therefore,121
Since mind-only exists, appearance is nonexistent.
Since appearance is nonexistent, appearance does not arise.
This realization, which is the path of the Middle Way
Clears away the duality of I and other.

Since deluded appearance does not exist, the conceptually attached Mind-only that is one of
the four doctrines is transcended. By also maintaining the nonexistence of what is other than
mind, that path of the Middle Way accords with absolute mind-only being explained as it is
taught by all the buddhas.

This holy Dharma of the ultimate vehicle,
that is profound and very hard to realize,
May it be quickly realized by all limitless beings,
So that, as victorious ones and conqueror children,
They may experience its objects of magnificence,
the merit of composing this is dedicated.

This text joins the requisite scriptures, of the sūtras only, to my Ornament of Shentong Madhyamaka. It was composed in the kingdom of Patāranā. Mangalaṃ. Śubhaṃ.
Appendix

A1
The one who, by tongues of flame of vajra pristine wisdom,
Consumed the mountains and forests of the view of self,
121 These are the author’s incidental verses.


No phenomena characterized by the view of the two kinds of relative selfhood appear in
pristine wisdom’s apprehension of absolute phenomena. They have been consumed, ingested
by the mouth of pristine wisdom, blazing with tongues of flame like a forest fire. Here
mountains symbolize the solidity of preconceptions of a personal self, and forests the illusory
multiplicity of its fixated objects. Bringing the inner and outer karmic energies together in
practice manifests as the inner fire, tummo of yoga that purifies the winds, channels, and
essences until they can manifest the non-dual phenomena of the pure and true. The dualistic
relative, from that viewpoint is like a fire offering consumed by “the eater” who is the fire god.
The fire at her navel makes Vajravārāhī the one who, like a sow, ingests whatever she
encounters. She symbolizes the enlightenment of the Buddha. Not struggling to maintain the
limitations of the relative releases a great deal of blissful energy, and at some point, the more
bondage of relative delusions there is, the greater the blissful heat of realization when they are
released.

A2
The World Protector, who abides beneath the place
Of the seven kinds of relative consciousness,…
The seven kinds of relative consciousnesses of saṃsāra are like the eight. The all ground consciousness is omitted, because enlightenment transmutes the relative all ground and all
ground consciousness into the all ground of pristine wisdom. Then everything manifests as
buddha qualities that are aspects of the kāyas and pristine wisdoms. This is Buddhahood, that
has always been abiding beneath the conceptually-ordered time and place of the relative. The
Buddha is the World Protector, because the enlightenment protects the world from saṃsāra.
A3
concrete, extremist doctrines

Formerly, different Buddhist schools like Rangtong and Shentong were very competitive. The
attitude is rather like that of fundamentalist Christians who believe that they should do
anything they can to save people from the Devil, because otherwise they will burn forever in
Hell. A common attack in debates between advocates of different Great Vehicle schools was to
accuse opponents of clinging to concrete, extremist doctrine by being attached to literal
concepts, when true reality was beyond concepts. Critics of Shentong call this their “conquering
reasoning.” Buddhists accused Hindus, and Rangtongpas accused Shentongpas of being attached to literal concepts of self. Hindus accused Buddhists, and Shentongpas accused
Rangtongpas, of being attached to nihilistic negation of everything. Tāranātha says in the text
that attachment to Indian extremist literalism in former lives was a source of Rangtong
literalism in Tibet in his time.

A4


the realist approach of the Śrāvakas,
The Buddha taught his monastic hearers, the Śrāvakas of the Lesser Vehicle, the realist
abhidharma philosophy of the Buddha’s first turning of the wheel of Dharma. Its approach is
that reality consists of truly existing, momentary phenomena apprehended by dualistic consciousness. These have their own intrinsic natures. These natures correspond to the
conceptual labels by which they are identified, and so these phenomena are allegedly
apprehended as they are by dualistic, conceptual consciousness.
Within the Great Vehicle, the second turning refutes this philosophy of the first turning by
analysis for absolute truth. However, Rangtongpas maintain that these relative phenomena of
abhidharma are apprehended even after enlightenment, as appearance of what does not exist.
Therefore, Rangtongpas deny Shentong’s assertion of the nondual awareness of pristine wisdom in which relative phenomena do not appear. Again, Tāranātha says this is due to
Rangtongpas having been Śrāvakas in former lives.

A5
If the middle negated the absolute, dharmadhātu and so forth,
If the middle turning of the wheel of Dharma negated the absolute, dharmadhātu and so
forth… The second or middle turning negated the absolute, like all knowable phenomena, as
empty of true existence. Analysis for absolute truth in the Buddha’s middle turning of the wheel of Dharma is analysis for consistency of statements that assert the existence and qualities
of certain phenomena. Shentong accepts such statements that refute absolute phenomena, when
they refer to conceptual assertions about the absolute, pristine wisdom, dharmadhātu, and so
forth. Absolute phenomena in themselves transcend assertions and denials involving concepts
like existence and nonexistence. Self-establishing, they bear analysis for the absolute by default.
The same is true of nirvāṇa, when it says a little earlier, “The middle refutes all dharmas of
saṃsāra and nirvāṇa.”

A6
When the teaching is out of order, for an individual student,
The true non-conceptual self will be conceptual,
When the turnings are applied to phenomena in order, 1. the second turning teaches that all relative phenomena described in the first are empty of themselves, because assertions about them involve
contradictory concepts. Then 2. the third turning teaches that the true self apprehended by pristine wisdom is irrefutable, because it is beyond concepts. It remains after all relative phenomena are
negated. Therefore, it is not empty. Students then try to realize the absolute in mediation.
When the teaching of the second and third turnings is out of order, individual students 1. first
learn of pristine wisdom, the true non-conceptual self; but then 2. they are taught to negate it by


conceptual reasoning. This wrongly teaches that the true self is conceptual, refutable and empty.
Practice is distorted into systematic “purification” of wisdom from saṃsāric mind. When that
occurs, “Nirvāṇa is joined to leading individuals astray.”
A7

The first turning is provisional. If the last were also provisional,
The two should be predominantly in accord;
Why would any two provisional teachings would have to be similar? They would not.
Tāranātha seems to be thinking of how Rangtongpas claim that the first and last turnings both
teach conceptualized phenomena as absolute. Rangtong and Shentong agree that the first turning is provisional in that way. Shentongpas say the two are very different, because the first turning teaches refutable, conceptual phenomena, and the third turning teaches irrefutable,
non-conceptual ones. If the last were also provisional in the way Rangtongpas claim, those two
turnings would indeed be much more similar than they are. They would be predominantly in
accord, in teaching some kind of relative phenomena as truly existing.
A8

Some Rangtongpas use Mind-only for the relative.
Though they say that, why speak of divisions created by fools?
If someone used Mind-only for the relative and literalistic Rangtong for the absolute, this
combination of two incompatible, literalistic systems would indeed be foolish. It is especially so,
as it reverses the order and status of the second and third turnings, making the third provisional
and the second definitive, which Tāranātha argued against above.
The situation is much less clear if the combination was one of conceptually sophisticated
Yogācāra for the relative and non literalistic Rangtong for the absolute. That is what
Śāntarakṣita did in his Ornament of the Middle Way. His was the predominant view in Tibet until
it was supplanted by Tsongkhapa’s version of Rangtong, which established the viewpoint
Tāranātha is arguing against. Tāranātha speaks of approvingly of Śāntarakṣita in another
passage:

“The doctrines of Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga are one,”
Was clearly taught by the master Ratnakaraśanti.
Śāntarakṣita and others taught in the same vein.

Indeed, he approved of him so much he named this work in a way that referenced Śāntarakṣita’s
Ornament of the Middle Way. This is true, even though Śāntarakṣita treats Yogācāra as subordinate
to the Rangtong logical absolute. Tāranātha seems to have liked the attempt to unite the second and
third turnings, and Śāntarakṣita’s doing so in terms of the theory of valid cognition presented by
Dignāga and Dharmakīrti.


The second turning emphasizes valid cognition by inference and the third valid cognition by
perception. The second turning says relatively little about phenomena, and a great deal about
inconsistent concepts of relative truth embodied in of ordinary language. The second turning
absolute is a logical principal that non-affirmingly negates all statements in ordinary language.
The third turning presents the two truths in terms of two kinds of perceptual valid cognition,

1. relative, conceptual consciousness involving inference of an object other than what is perceived
and
2. absolute nonconceptual pristine wisdom where valid cognition does not go beyond what is
perceived.

Tāranātha’s ideal is bringing these two turnings together in one system of the Middle Way, and he
seems to think the ideal has been achieved by a number of teachers of both turnings, whom he
names in this text. What brings the second and third turnings together is the principle that absolute reality is beyond assertion, and denial. Therefore, attempts to produce a perfect linguistic
description of phenomena fall into the delusions of the relative.
Good versions of the views of the second and third turnings that follow the founders’ intentions
are not attached to the literal meanings of words.

Literalistic Rangtong manifests as nihilistic denial that anything exists.
Literalistic Shentong becomes eternalistic affirmation of absolute selfhood.
These two attached views, irreconcilably at odds, fail to express the Middle Way. A non-literalistic
version of either Rangtong or Shentong is capable of assimilating the other. Shentong includes
Rangtong, but Rangtong critics who think they must refute Shentong fall into nihilism. Śāntarakṣita
uses Rangtong’s logical absolute as a reminder that there is no verbal formulation for the ultimate.
However, the logical absolute deals with the meaning of words, not perception. The relative is the
domain different kinds of perception. Within that, there is the division of experiential absolute and
relative:

1. The experiential relative is dualistic perception of consciousness that does not correspond to the
way things are, and
2. The experiential absolute is non-dualistic perception of pristine wisdom that does.

How do these two approaches to the two truths fit together? Consciousness first forms
uninstantiable, fixated concepts of the linguistic relative and then delusively projects them onto
phenomena as they are. The resulting error is first logical then perceptual. Pristine wisdom, as
presented in the works of Maitreya is free from the complexities of conceptual thought and from
projecting them onto phenomena. This corresponds to non-literal Rangtong’s acceptance that there
is a non-conceptual reality of unified form-emptiness and so forth to be realized, as we find in the
praises of Nāgārjuna.
A9


Consciousness with appearance of dualistic grasper and grasped,
When its essence is free from grasper and grasped, is maintained
To be truly existing, absolute truth, and ultimate suchness.
Yet the absolute of Mind-only is dualistic consciousness.
If so, its aspects, grasper and grasped also truly exist.”

They cannot be seen through as delusion, when enlightenment is attained.
Yet, appearance of grasper and grasped is claimed to lack true existence.
In Shentong, the merely conceptual duality of grasper and grasped is a delusive split projected on
a non-dual, absolute consciousness. The appearance is eliminated when the delusion is eliminated
by enlightenment. Tāranātha says this is not possible in Mind-Only because its absolute is
consciousness that is inherently a dualistic grasper caused to grasp different phenomena as the
effect of causal laws. Therefore, it is impossible to perceive the nondual absolute of Shentong within
the view of Mind-only. Mind-only cannot succeed in experiencing the perfectly established,
because its phenomena do not transcend the relative. Nor can practice eliminate dualistic delusions
from consciousness that is intrinsically dualistic.
A10

…wrong appearances
That are delusive apprehensions of real things,
Have no true existence as anything, even mind.
Why do they not transcend the doctrine of Mind-only?
Mind-only says that seeming appearances of external objects like rocks and trees cannot truly be
said to be appearances of anything at all, since there is nothing other than the mental appearance
itself that counts as experience of external rocks and trees.
Mind-only also says that these appearances exist as phenomena within the essence of mind. If
everything is within mind, being within mind or external to mind makes no distinction. It is
meaningless. Nothing in non-dual, enlightened reality corresponds to this merely conceptual
duality. Therefore the appearances of Mind-only do not exist as mind or anything else, even mere
appearance.

A11
They do or do not say that those in the Lesser Vehicle
Are able to realize the two kinds of selflessnesses,
Some lesser Vehicle texts present limited versions of the selflessness of phenomena,
through analogies that not explained by reasoning as they are in the Great Vehicle.
Pratyekabuddhas are sometimes said to realize the selflessness of phenomena of the
grasped object, but not of the grasping subject, a viewpoint that resembles Mind-only


A12
Some Rangtongpas claim that, for the various ones to be tamed,
Compared to the sūtras, their treatises are more powerful,
Since they teach the true intention of the Buddha’s teachings.
This has, indeed, been refuted.
An omniscient Buddha or a tenth level bodhisattva with non-deceptive pristine wisdom is more
authoritative than an ordinary being whose perception is delusive. However, the Buddha’s sūtras
of the three turnings disagree, as do the bodhisattvas’ treatises that explain them. Therefore, both
Rangtong and Shentong agree that there is a need for treatises that show by reasoning which sūtras
should be regarded as definitive. For example, when comparing Vasubandhu and Candrakīrti,
Tāranātha says that Vasubandhu did a better job of establishing his point with scripture and
reasoning. Unfortunately, opinions can differ. Rangtongpas say that Candrakīrti did better.
A13

Mostly due to Rangtongpas, disputes were entered into
Between the schools of Svātantrika and Prāsaṅgika.
Among other points, Svātantrika held, and Prāsaṅgika denied, that it was possible in
Madhyamaka to put forward one’s own coherent thesis, svātantra, on how things are.
Prāsaṅgika held that, since Nāgārjuna had established that all assertions were contradictory,
Madhyamaka exponents could only draw out unwanted consequences in the assertions of
others to show that their assertions were contradictory.
A14

“The absolute is not within the sphere of reason,”
Was objected to by Rangtongpas as an inadmissible statement.
This might seem odd, because Rangtongpas themselves, following Nāgārjuna, were the first to
say that the absolute transcends assertion and denial. Why did they object to Shentongpas
saying the same thing, following the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra?
They objected because Shentongpas claimed

1.-The absolute is beyond assertion and denial and establishment and refutation and
2.-The assertion “The absolute truly exists” is irrefutably established by experiential valid cognition of the absolute in enlightened pristine wisdom.
Rangtongpas objected that 1. and 2. are contradictory.
“The absolute truly exists” is a statement of existence in conventional language. Nāgārjuna
refutes all such statements. If pristine wisdom is beyond concepts of conventional language,
Jetsun Tāranātha

how could experience of pristine wisdom establish this, or any, statement in conventional
language? Shentongpas are trying to have their cake and eat it too. If this is not the case,
Shentongpas need to give an explanation of how the contexts of the two statements above
differ.
Both Rangtong and Shentong hold that the absolute itself is beyond assertion and denial. Both
also hold that it is suitable to make assertions and denials about the absolute conventionally, as
they both do in this very passage. However, they have never agreed on a clear formulation of
the spheres in which such assertions are and are not acceptable. If the absolute is beyond
language, how can we even say “the logical and perceptual absolute are beyond assertion and
denial?”

I dealt with some of the issues involved in the introduction to my translation of Mountain Dharma. First, Rangtong and Shentong have different absolutes, and a great deal of confusion
arises when these are not distinguished.
1.-The Rangtong absolute is a logical principle stating that nothing with a self-contradictory
description, like a round square can exist. Virtually all Tibetan schools accept that Nagarjuna
proved that all descriptions in language involve contradictions. Therefore, all assertions in
language that something exists must be false. This logical principle is entirely concerned with
the meanings of words. Therefore the absolute discourse of pure logic can say nothing at all
about existing phenomena, except for stating tautological principles like that an existent
phenomenon must have a consistent description. Statements of absolute discourse are of the
definitive meaning, and vice versa.

For Rangtong, all statements describing what exists or does not exist, all meaningful assertions
about what things and qualities exist, are made in conventional discourse about the relative.
Statements of conventional discourse are of the provisional meaning, and vice versa. That is
because they are all disproved on analysis. That is true even of assertions about what is
perceived by the pure perception of enlightened beings.
2.-The Shentong absolute is a observational principle, saying that anything perceived by
pristine wisdom is perceived as it is. Statements about what is perceived by pristine wisdom are
of the definitive meaning, and vice versa.

Statements about what is true of the relative phenomena perceived by dualistic consciousness
are of the provisional meaning, and vice versa.
Statements of pure logic depending on the meanings of words are in a class of their own for
Shentong. Logical certainty is nether absolute nor relative. These categories of Buddhist logic
are concerned only with statements about things that exist and do not exist. These statements
are classified as absolute or conventional depending on whether objects of pristine wisdom or
consciousness are described.
If so, the experience Shentong classifies as absolute is classified as relative for Rangtong. That is
why the three natures are presented even in second turning sūtras. They differentiate,


1. Merely imagined things that are false even in the relative, like the horns or a rabbit and the
son of a barren woman.
2. Dependent things, like truths of cause and effect, that are true in the relative, but not
absolutely, like, “Where there is smoke there is fire.”
3. Things that are true in pure perception of timeless beyond cause and effect.
When Shentong tries to describe the absolute in conventional terms as eternal selfhood and so
forth, they are accused of eternalism by Rangtongpas. Their absolute is merely provisional in
Rangtong terms.

The reasoning of Rangtong is that, since all descriptions of phenomena in conventional
language are inconsistent, no describable phenomena truly exist. That is nihilism. Therefore
Shentong often accuses Rangtong of nihilism, especially when they say absolute phenomena
perceived by enlightened beings so not truly exist. If that is true, their absolute is merely
provisional in Shentong terms.
How do these conclusions affect what is said about the describability of the absolute? Rangtong
has purely logical reasons for saying that its absolute is indescribable, but these do not apply to
the Shentong absolute, if it is part of the Rangtong relative. Reasons for saying that the relative
is not consistently describable are accepted by both Rangtong and Shentong. They would apply
to the Shentong absolute in that case.

Rangtong says that conventional language can describe only dualistic, conceptual entities of the
relative. Is that still true if the relative includes non-dual, nonconceptual entities perceived by
pristine wisdom that belong to the perfectly established nature?

To answer that, we must determine what “describable” means in this case. In the relative. In
Buddhist theory of knowledge, there is a one to one correspondence between the meanings of
words and their objects. That is because the objects of conceptual assertions exemplify a
particular set of generic qualities stored as generalized images in the mental sense, like, “blue,”
and “oak tree.” Therefore, it is possible to define words by direct reference by saying, “this is
blue,” and “this is an oak tree.” Any person of sound mind and senses can be expected to
understand. Reality actually involves many other factors like a linguistic system, but that is the
theory.

We can seemingly refer to objects of the perfectly established nature that are experienced by
pristine wisdom, like “This is sambhogakāya,” and “this is the great bliss,” but the objects are
much more elusive.
These objects cannot be experienced at all by anyone but noble ones, and there are increasing
degrees of realization as they advance on the levels to buddhahood, where alone the totality of
their meaning is realized.
Dölpopa says that if a relative objects could combine existence and non-existence into one, it
might then serve as an example of an absolute object. If so, the absolute is beyond distinctions of
Jetsun Tāranātha

assertion and denial in the relative, whose terminology functions only if we restrict ourselves so
saying that something either exists or does not exist.
Most important, absolute objects have multiple aspects, when viewed from different
perspectives. For example, dharmadhātu is like space in essence, but it has an intrinsic
luminosity, it is a container that accommodates all the phenomena of samsara and nirvāṇa, and
it is also non-dual awareness of those phenomena. The totality of aspects is limitless. The
problem of defining a term by referring to them is exemplified by the story of the blind men and the elephant, as told in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra.122

A king assembled many blind men and presented them with an elephant. He asked
them individually, “Describe the characteristics of an elephant.”
Those who touched the trunk said, “It is like a hook.”
Those who touched the eye said, “It is like a bowl.”
Those who touched the ear said, “It is like a fan.”
Those who touched the back said, “It is like a palanquin.”
Those who touched the tail said, “It is like a rope.”
These blind men were not talking about anything other than an elephant, but they had
not realized it in its totality. Buddha-nature is similar. Those who say

“it is emptiness,”
“it is like illusion,”
“It is brilliant luminosity,”
“it is non-dual awareness,”
and so forth, have not realized it in its totality, as only the buddhas do.

Therefore, when Shentongpas say “what exists and does not exist in absolute truth can be
described in conventional discourse as it is,” this must be taken with a grain of salt. A great can
deal can be said, as it is said in this text. However, there are limits. What Shentongpas say is not
more accurate than Rangtongpa statements that the absolute cannot be literally described, so it
can only be symbolically represented. To say “no assertions should be made at all” is going too
far. Rangtongpas are quite happy to say that no phenomena truly exist, and that the perfection
of prajñā experiences the unity of form and emptiness. Without going that far, they could not
say even, “this is the system of my tradition.”

A15
Apprehended and apprehender, clear awareness and its object,
And capability of memory and experience,
Because they were phenomena dependent on self-awareness,
Were challenged; however, mere self-awareness was not rejected.
The Rangtong refutations involved disproof of causal dependence of phenomena that were
inherently other than each other. On this basis, Rangtongpas argued that awareness cannot be
aware of phenomena that are aspects of itself, as a knife cannot cut itself. Shentongpas replied
122 This is a summary.


that argument presupposes the duality and causal dependence of the relative. Refutations of the
dependent do not affect the autonomous perfectly established. The arguments regarding nondual
pristine wisdom are like those for self-awareness. Rangtongpas said that sambhogakāya
could not have separate qualities of the major and minor marks of sambhogakāya, and
Shentongpas accepted that the form kāyas are relative for such reasons. However, on the level
of one’s true mind, luminous, nondual dharmakāya, both Rangtong and Shentong accept the
existence of buddha qualities that are co-essential with dharmakāya. However, Rangtongpas
are inclined to say this absolute reality is indescribable, and Shentongpas that it is describable
within conventional discourse. The extent to which either was right was discussed in A14.
A16

They claimed that Great Vehicle texts are like those of Indian extremists.
In the Shentong approach to the Great Vehicle, the second turning points out the faults of the
relative, and the third turning expresses ultimate truth as absolute selfhood. Rangtongpas said
this viewpoint was like the Indian presentation of a supreme self that was real, while
phenomena of appearance were illusory. They held that this viewpoint was not beyond
dualistic concepts, like Mind-only. I doubt whether this is a correct description of all Indian
views is beyond the scope of this text. The issue of whether Shentong descriptions of the
absolute are beyond dualistic concepts was explored in A14.
A17

According to the scriptures of the Conqueror and his children,
The Shentong view is correct, but literal Rangtong is not.
As discussed throughout the text, the Buddha’s third turning and tantras support Shentong,
and these texts are taught there to be the ultimate definitive meaning of the Buddha’s teaching.
These teachings of the Buddha are explained at length by tenth level bodhisattvas like Maitreya,
Mañjuśrī, Vajrapāṇi, and Kalkī Mañjuśrī Yashas, as well as by the third level bodhisattva
Asaṅga and at least some texts of the first level bodhisattva Nāgārjuna. According to what they
say, the Rangtong view is definitive regarding logical refutation of the relative only. Its
refutation of all phenomena is not the ultimate definitive meaning regarding what can be said
in conventional discourse about the experience of enlightenment. In particular, its refutations of
the validity of Shentong are not valid.

Some Rangtongpas, because the scriptures provide them no certainty,
Claim now that their view must be established by reasoning.
Their tradition is established by neither scripture nor reasoning.
This whole text is a presentation of why literalistic Rangtong or Shentong for that matter, are
not established by valid scripture and reasoning, while non-literalistic Shentong and Rangtong
are.


A18
Analysis how they are not established as one and many,
Is rightly put forward regarding compounded phenomena.
Uncompounded phenomena are neither one nor many.
Madhyamaka argues logically that relative phenomena are not one because they have many
qualities with separate nature. However, if the qualities are separate phenomena in their own
right, how can they be qualities of one phenomenon? Therefore, relative phenomena are not
many. Uncompounded phenomena are beyond all concepts, including those of one or many.
Showing the absolute was beyond one and many was the principal argument of Śāntarakṣita in
the Madhyamakālaṃkāra.

Uncompounded phenomena are also beyond one and many for Shentong, because they have a
multiplicity of experienced aspects, as explained in the story of the blind men and the elephant
in A14.
A19

For you Rangtongpas, none of the phenomena
That constitute the aspects of awareness and appearance
Are maintained as “empty” in practice, and so the mere word is received.
When all phenomena are empty, emptiness makes no distinction among phenomena. It
becomes meaningless experientially. In practice, literalistic Rangtongpas follow the relative
conceptualizations of the world regarding existence, nonexistence, truth, and falsity. They deny
the true existence of the experiential absolute beyond conception perceived by pristine wisdom.
True, they say that things that exist in the relative do not truly exist by the criteria of their
absolute, analysis for logical consistency, but since no phenomena bear the analysis, “true existence” also makes no experiential distinction among describable phenomena. It is
meaningless, except as a remainder that language is subject to logical inconsistencies. However,
these flaws do not keep people in the world from making ordinary practical statements about
existence and nonexistence in their worldly activities, including Dharma practice.
A20

Shentongpas maintain three different kinds of emptiness
And maintain three kinds of related naturelessness.
So these are not maintained in the absolute alone.
1.-The logically impossible imagined does not truly exist even in the relative, like the son of a
barren woman. Logically impossible, conceptual absolute phenomena are merely imagined.


This is what Rangtong refutes in refuting the absolute. The imagined is empty by non-affirming
negation.
2.-The dependent truly exists in the relative, but not in the absolute, by the above reasoning of
one and many and so forth. Insofar as it refers to something shown to be impossible by reason,
it is non-affirmingly negated, like the imagined. Insofar as “cause” refers to patterns of
regularity that truly exist among phenomena, it is true.

3.-The perfectly established exists in the absolute, but not in the relative, because it is neither
conceptual nor conditioned, and so it is not observable by consciousness.
The nonconceptual, non-compounded, unconditioned, perfectly established transcends
assertion and denial, so experience of it cannot be shown to be empty or non-empty by analysis.
However, by definition it excludes all describable phenomena of the relative. That definition
entails that it is empty of such phenomena and the kinds of emptiness that apply to them.
However, since it is beyond all assertions, it is beyond that definition as well. Assertions of the
existence of absolute phenomena are shown to be empty by analysis.
A21

If false and conceptual objects can be established as relative,
The absolute dhātu can also be established as true.
Since it will not be not relative, it will truly exist,
And it will exist from the viewpoint of analysis,
And it will be rightly maintained as perfectly established.

When Rangtong examines phenomena for logical consistency, no phenomena bear the
examination. All phenomena are established as empty of absolute truth by non-affirming
negation. That is established as a logical principle about the meaning of assertions. If that
principle is taken to apply to experience by literalistic Rangtongpas, the result is that the
distinction between absolute and relative becomes meaningless. No phenomena can be
meaningfully established as either relative or absolute.

Shentong uses the same reasoning as Rangtong to determine that relative phenomena, with
descriptions inconsistent like “son of a barren woman,” are inconsistent, that they exist is
necessarily false, and therefore they do not truly exist.

However, Shentong also uses the experience of pristine wisdom to determine that absolute
phenomena that are beyond inconsistent conceptual description exist. They cannot be analyzed
by logical reasoning, and therefore they cannot fail logical examination for absolute truth.
Therefore, they truly exist from the viewpoint of pristine wisdom. They also truly exist from the
viewpoint of analysis. That being so, it is correct that they are perfectly established as absolute.
Shentong’s criterion for absolute phenomena is corresponding to the way things are.
Phenomena seen as nondual and nonconceptual by pristine wisdom are seen as they are.
Phenomena seen as dualistic grasped objects by the conceptual grasping mind of consciousness


are not seen as they are. Therefore, Shentong has a meaningful, workable distinction between
relative and absolute phenomena. The workability of each of these terms depends on the
workability of the other.
A22

Does it matter if true existence is maintained,
When Rangtongpas say nothing is real, that looks like an excellent shortcut for cutting through
fear of life’s negativities. That is what the Beatles thought for a while when they discovered the
Maharishi.

Let me take you down
'Cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever.
Unfortunately, that approach also turns discernment of anything positive that might be attainable
into mush, so there is no hope either. So, yes, it does matter for the reasons discussed in the last
section. As Tāranātha puts it:

When Rangtong says that pristine wisdom has no appearance,
there is nothing left after analysis that we could aspire to.
A23
The reason this is so is because these two schools are equal
in their realization of the two kinds of self.
Rangtong denies the two kinds of self, and the Śrāvakas only the self of individuals, not the
selfhood of phenomena. However, Rangtong agrees with the Śrāvakas, as Shentong does not,
that all “selves” are conceptually describable essences within relative truth. There can be no true self with true qualities that is attained by enlightenment. It follows that nothing is realized in
enlightenment. It is like blowing out a candle.
A24

Does it make a difference whether, in attainment,
They abandon the obscuration of knowables?


The obscuration of knowables delusively regards knowable phenomena in terms of a
conceptual duality of grasper and grasped. Śrāvakas are unable to abandon the obscuration of
knowables because they accept many phenomena that comprise grasper and grasped as truly
existing. That means that they can abandon duality only by abandoning phenomena altogether.
Tāranātha says that literalistic Rangtongpas have the same problem.
There can only be the single kind of abandoning,

That applies non-affirming negation to everything as one.
It follows from teaching the distinction of such abandoning,
That the essence is indivisible, so this cannot be reversed.
Their situation is like those who are born in the formless realms, Once they enter the formless absorptions, there is nowhere else to go, until their karma of absorption is exhausted. Then they
have burned up all their good karma and are usually reborn in hell. This cannot be reversed as
long as they remain attached to their conceptualized viewpoint.

They cannot realize this perceivable ultimate.

It can never be discriminated

Merely by abiding in conceptual distinctions.

It is said that Pratyekabuddhas have a view like Mind-only do not realize properly the kind of
emptiness that applies to the perceiver. The difference this conceptual attachment makes is that
they fail to attain the path of seeing of the bodhisattva path, where the two kinds of selflessness
are directly perceived. Like the Śrāvakas, they are forced to abandon all phenomena as
delusory. If Shentongpas have the literalistic views Rangtongpas accuse them of, they would
have this problem as well. Then they really would be like literalistic Indians.
A25

If it is true that there is such freedom from complexity,
it exists as something that is truly existing.
If it exists as something that is truly existing,
It bears examination for the absolute.
If not, relative dharmas and lack of true existence
have the same scope, as there is nothing real at all.

The Tibetan bden grub can mean truly existing in experience, and it can also mean truly
established as a logical principle or conclusion. Both can be absolutely true, and hence, they can
both bear analysis for absolute truth. The same is true for asserting “emptiness truly exists.”
Tibetan passages like this one can obscure the difference between logic and experience, if they
are not read carefully. That “all relative phenomena are empty of themselves” is a true logical
principle entails that emptiness is the logical absolute. It does not entail by itself that pristine wisdom experiences that emptiness as the experiential absolute. That logical conclusion by
inferential valid cognition does not entail that there is any experience at all, or that, if there is,
there is non-delusive experience. These conclusions must be separately established.
Jetsun Tāranātha

Rangtongpas and Shentongpas have no disagreement about establishing by perceptual valid
cognition that beings have experience. They often have a big disagreement about whether
perceptual valid cognition establishes non-delusive, non-conceptual experience. That is the
same as disagreement over whether there is enlightened experience that is free from the
obscuration of dualistic knowables, as discussed for the realization of the Śrāvakas.
Shentongpas cite two kinds of non-conceptual perception where phenomena are seen as they
are:

1.-The pristine wisdom of enlightened beings
2. The first moment of sense perception, before conceptual duality is superimposed on it.
Some Rangtongpas dispute non-dual perception altogether, or even claim that, if does occur, it
is illusory. Jonangpas cite appropriate scriptures to show that this is not the correct tradition of
either Nagarjuna or Asaṅga.

An Rangtong objection with more merit is that “existence” and “nonexistence” are dichotomous
terms of conventional discourse that describe the relative, and that they have no literal
application to absolute phenomena. Shentongpas admit this, and this is the key to reconciling
the two Madhyamaka systems, insofar as it is possible. There is much more discussion of this
elsewhere in the text and appendices.
A26

As appearance proved to be empty of the relative,
Because it does not bear analysis for the absolute,
Is what serves as the absolute in your tradition,
You do not refute appearance of the relative.

Rangtongpas establish logically that relative phenomena do not truly exist, because phenomena
described by language are inconsistent, and so they cannot truly exist. Knowing that
intellectually is called enlightenment by literalist Rangtongpas, though not for non-literalistic
ones who typically practice tantra, as Jonangpas do. However, as they have not stopped the
karmic winds by yoga practice, relative phenomena and their apparent intrinsic natures,
continue to appear for them. Therefore, Rangtongpas say, “A vase is not empty of perception of
a vase. A vase is empty of belief in true existence.”

Shentong enlightenment is attaining the viewpoint of pristine wisdom. Relative phenomena do
not appear within pristine wisdom, experientially refuting relative phenomena that do not
correspond to the way things are.

Literalistic Rangtongpas also claim that negating all assertions destroys attachment to
conceptual extremes of existence and nonexistence. Tāranātha replies
From the ultimate viewpoint, are the two extremes abandoned,
Eternalistic existence, and a nihilistic void?


As you deny that there is absolute appearance,
From the viewpoint of meditation, true appearance will not exist.
This nothingness is your ultimate. This is not the Middle Way.
A27

So wrongly