Gelugpa and Nyingma on Conceptual Meditation on Emptiness

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How to Approach the Voidness Cognized in an Arya’s Total Absorption

Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II: Now, the biggest debate regarding Prasangika in Sakya, Kagyu, Nyingma and Gelugpa concerns differences in how to approach the voidness that is seen in total absorption. They all agree that in total absorption, there is no conceptual fabrication. There is no jug; there is nothing [appearing]. That’s why we say space-like total absorption (mnyam-bzhag nam-mkha’ lta-bu). Now the debate begins.

Do ordinary, mundane people, beginners who want to gain realization of voidness, start meditating with how space-like total absorption is, or do they have something different in their meditation than what the aryas have? Now, because as beginners we cannot yet meditate like, “This is conceptual fabrication, this is conceptual fabrication,” then all the schools other than Gelugpa will just say, “Even if you say voidness and that you are meditating on voidness, it’s wrong to think that you are meditating on voidness. That is because there is clinging.” That’s what the others say.

But in Gelugpa, we say, “Yes, in retreat we have inferential cognition (rje-dpag) that apprehends voidness on the conceptual level. Tsongkhapa says it apprehends voidness and it has the appearance of a jug. But that is not a kind of obstacle.” The other schools say that this can be an obstacle, because when you have an appearance of a jug during the time of meditation, this kind of a mind is supposed to be a cause and the future result is supposed to be that you have no appearances at all. But how can one mind, which has an appearance of a jug, become the cause of a mind having no appearances?

The Definition of Explicit and Implicit Apprehensions

Apprehension (rtogs-pa) is the accurate and decisive cognition of an object. The apprehended object may be either explicitly or implicitly apprehended.

According to the Gelugpa master Kedrub Je (mKhas-grub dGe-legs dpal-bzang):

  • In the explicit apprehension of an object, ascertainment (nges-shes) of the object arises from the awareness (blo) in the cognition facing toward that object and an aspect (rnam-pa, a mental hologram) of the object dawning.
  • In the implicit apprehension of an object, even though at the time of the implicit apprehension the awareness is not facing toward that object and an aspect (a mental hologram) of the object is not dawning, nevertheless, afterwards, ascertainment of the object arises merely by turning the attention to it.  

According to the Nyingma usage:

  • In the explicit apprehension of an object, the object is the main one cognized and cognition of it is emphasized.
  • In the implicit apprehension of an object, the object is the secondary one cognized and cognition of it is not emphasized.

Despite the differences in the definitions, both Gelugpa and Nyingma agree that in the inferential conceptual cognition of the impermanence of sound, the sound’s impermanence is explicitly apprehended and its not being permanent is implicitly apprehended.

Further, Nyingma accepts that inferential conceptual cognition of the voidness of a jug can be made in accordance with the Gelugpa scheme and, in such a cognition, there would be implicit apprehension of a jug. When Nyingma applies its own definitions of explicit and implicit apprehension to such a conceptual cognition, the cognition has its main emphasis on the explicitly apprehended conceptual representation of voidness in the graphic form of a generic blank space. It has secondary emphasis on the implicitly apprehended jug that arises without any graphic form. However, Nyingma does not consider meditation with this type of conceptual cognition of voidness to be proper conceptual meditation on voidness.

The Nyingma Objection to the Gelugpa Style of Conceptual Meditation on Voidness

In the Gelugpa analysis of the conceptual cognition of voidness, there appear two conventional objects – a conceptually fabricated generic blank space in graphic form and a jug not in graphic form. Note that the Tibetan word “snang-ba,” translated as “to appear” and “appearance,” means “to arise” and “something that arises” or “to dawn” and “something that dawns.” That “something” that dawns, arises, and appears does not need to do so in a graphic form.

This Gelugpa style of conceptual cognition of voidness grasps at these conceptual objects that appear in it. It grasps at them in the sense in that it apprehends them as conventional objects and takes them to exist in the way that they appear. Nyingma faults this type of conceptual cognition of voidness, saying that the appearance of conceptually fabricated conventional objects and grasping to them in the cognition is an obstacle to the non-conceptual cognition of voidness in which there are no such conceptually fabricated conceptual objects appearing and no such grasping. This obstacle is avoided in the Nyingma style of conceptual meditation on voidness and in the conceptual cognition of voidness gained in it, in which no conceptually fabricated conventional objects appear – “nothing appears” or is grasped.

Meditation in which there is this type of conceptual cognition, however, is not the extreme of nihilism and blank-minded meditation on nothingness. Even though nothing appears, it is still an apprehension of the voidness (the total absence) of conventional objects. This apprehension appears in the conceptual cognition, in the sense that it arises, so the cognition is not blank-minded. It is just that there are no conventional objects arising and appearing as apprehended objects. “Blank-minded” means not only that no conventional objects appear, but that also no apprehension or understanding arises.  

Nyingma points out another shortcoming that pertains to even the Nyingma conceptual cognition of voidness. It is has grasping to non-existence (med-‘dzin). Although the conceptual cognition does not cognize and grasp for the existence of conventional objects, which are all mere conceptual fabrications, it cognizes and grasps for the non-existence of conventional objects.

Thus, of the four extremes (mtha’-bzhi) – existence, non-existence, both or neither – the conceptual meditation on denumerable voidness has just negated and gone beyond the first extreme, the extreme of existence (yod-mtha’). But now it has gone to the second extreme, the extreme of non-existence (med-mtha’). It is still not the complete cognition of voidness beyond conception, incommunicable, unimaginable, and inexpressible, which only comes with an arya’s non-conceptual cognition of space-like voidness.

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