Gelugpa Objection to the Nyingma Style of Conceptual Cognition of Emptiness

Both Gelugpa and Nyingma assert in common the compatibility of voidness and dependent arising. Because of voidness, dependent arising functions; and because of dependent arising, all is void. Both also agree that upon analysis of either conventional or deepest truth, conventional objects cannot be found. Nevertheless, the dependent arising of karmic cause and effect functions on the basis of there being:

• According to Gelugpa, mere conventionalities
• According to Nyingma, no conventional objects.

One of the critiques that Gelugpa has of the Nyingma style of conceptual cognition of voidness is that having no appearance of conventional objects already in the meditation is too early on the path to gaining the non-conceptual cognition of voidness in which there are also no such appearances. When one goes on in one’s conceptual meditation on voidness from the total absorption phase on space-like voidness to the subsequent attainment phase on illusion-like voidness, one needs to have zestful vigor (enthusiasm) to work further toward enlightenment by building up more and more positive force (bsod-nams; merit). One builds this up by having confidence in working with conventional phenomena – including bodhichitta, compassion, constructive behavior, and limited beings (sentient beings) – and confidence in the dependent arising of karmic cause and effect.

The zestful vigor that one needs to have for meditating on and working with conventional phenomena during subsequent attainment periods should come from immediately preceding total absorption periods. If the conceptual cognition of voidness is done in the Nyingma style with no appearance of conventional objects, either with or without graphic form, the danger is that the meditator may lose confidence in working with conventional phenomena because they are all conceptual fabrications and “not real.” As a result, the meditator will become lazy and not have the joyful perseverance (brtson-’grus), zestful vigor and enthusiasm needed for developing bodhichitta, engaging in constructive behavior, and helping limited beings, and thus building up the positive force for attaining enlightenment through dependent arising.  

Shantideva explains zestful vigor in the seventh chapter, “Joyful Perseverance,” of Engaging in Bodhisattva Conduct (sPyod-‘jug, Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra):

(VII.1) Patient like that, I need to embrace joyful perseverance, since (based) on perseverance, enlightenment takes place. After all, without joyful perseverance, there's no arising of positive force, just as, without wind, there's no motion.

(2) What's joyful perseverance? It's zestful vigor for being constructive. Its opposing factors are explained as lethargy, clinging to what's negative (or petty), and, from being discouraged, disparaging oneself. 

(VII.18) “Even those who've become gnats, mosquitoes, hornets, and worms likewise too, shall attain unsurpassable enlightenment, so hard to attain, by generating the force of zestful vigor.”

(VII.76) Just as the wind, coming and going, takes control of a cotton ball, so shall I take control of myself, with zestful vigor, and gain, in this way, spiritual success.

Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II: So now, it is not only Lama Tsongkhapa saying this, but if you look at this now in the quote from Nagarjuna’s text: “They are from conceptual fabrication. But conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness,” there are two “conceptual fabrications.”

Our Guardian Nagarjuna says:

From the depletion of karmic impulses and disturbing emotions (there is) liberation,

These are the key words. This is the result, liberation, okay? How we get to this is by this method:

Karmic impulses and disturbing emotions are from conceptualization. They are from conceptual fabrication. But conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness.

This is a favorite quote of His Holiness. His Holiness normally gives a general explanation of that. It goes more like this: “Conceptualization” (rnam-rtog) – that refers to incorrect consideration. “They are from conceptual fabrication.” That first conceptual fabrication means this incorrect consideration. That comes from grasping for truly established existence. By knowing the voidness of this grasping for truly established existence, this grasping for truly established existence will be ceased.

In other words, conceptual fabrication means incorrect consideration, and that comes from grasping for truly established existence, and both incorrect consideration and grasping for truly established existence – these two can be ceased by voidness.

Dr. Berzin: So, what is the difference between the two conceptual fabrications?

That first one is the conceptualization that is incorrect consideration. I will explain. Before the manifest attachment, first you get like this – the conceptualization that is incorrect consideration. So, considering this object as good. You get this kind of feeling, that this is good. But it’s not like it is so good, like when you project too much information there. So, that is too much information projected there and so that is the conceptualization that is incorrect consideration.

So, exaggerating the good qualities of an object, like what you have with longing desire and attachment? Interpolation (sgro-‘dogs), projecting qualities that are not there, or exaggerating qualities that are there.

Yes, projecting too much information, exaggeration. Normally, we don’t say it’s always bad. But the problem is you are projecting on something grasped at as having truly established existence – a truly established jug or a truly established woman, a truly established woman as being good-looking and attractive. So, then all this comes.

Now the first conceptual fabrication is incorrect consideration, and then the second is grasping for truly established existence. This is normally how it’s explained in Gelugpa.

Nagarjuna’s verse indicates that to attain liberation and enlightenment requires depleting karmic impulses and disturbing emotions. Karmic impulses and the disturbing emotions that trigger them come from two levels of conceptualization. Therefore, to attain liberation and enlightenment requires ceasing the two levels of conceptual fabrication. It is based on quotations like this that Tsongkhapa asserts the need for zestful vigor to work to build up the positive force that is needed to attain this goal.  

According to Gelugpa:

• The first conceptual fabrication refers to the conceptualization that is the incorrect consideration of attributes of the superficial truth of its object, such as the cleanliness and beauty of someone’s body. It takes uncleanliness to be cleanliness and therefore ugliness as beauty. Based on this incorrect consideration, disturbing emotions such as longing desire arise. Longing desire may trigger and accompany first the compelling karmic impulse of a mental urge that drives the mind to think about committing inappropriate sexual behavior with this person and deciding to do it. That may be followed by a compulsive karmic impulse of the body ­– according to Nagarjuna, the compulsive motion of the body as a method implemented for committing that destructive action.
• Incorrect consideration of attributes comes from incorrect consideration of the deepest truth of its object, and this incorrect consideration comes from the second conceptual fabrication, grasping for self-established existence. The habits of grasping for self-established existence give rise to an appearance of self-established existence to the person’s body and to its cleanliness and beauty. The “grasping” takes that appearance as its object of cognition and takes it to correspond to their actual self-established existence, and then incorrect consideration takes these attributes in an inverted manner, such as its uncleanliness as being cleanliness, and so on.

According to Nyingma:

• The first conceptual fabrication refers to the conceptualizations that are conventional objects, such as someone’s body. The conventional object appears to have both self-established existence and self-established attributes, such as being clean and beautiful.
• Conventional objects come from the second conceptual fabrication, grasping for conventional objects. The habits of grasping for conventional objects give rise to the appearance of conventional objects having self-established existence and self-established attributes. As with the Gelugpa interpretation, the “grasping” cognizes that appearance and takes it to correspond to their actual self-established existence. Based on this appearance, disturbing emotions such as longing desire arise directed at the appearance, and disturbing emotions lead to karmic impulses.

An interpolation is something extraneous added that is either not there (such as self-established existence for Gelugpa or, for Nyingma, conventional objects) or that exaggerate what is there (such as attributes). Not all interpolation is detrimental, however. For example, exaggerating the good qualities of enlightenment and the attractiveness of attaining them may be helpful for developing bodhichitta.

Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II: There are two understandings. His Holiness has said many times that this is normally how it is explained [“conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness”], but then there is Khunu Lama Rinpoche’s way of reading the line as saying, “ceases in voidness (stong-pa-nyid-du ‘gag-par ‘gyur).” But there is also the reading “ceased by voidness (stong-pa-nyid kyis ‘gag-par ‘gyur).” In any case, this is the true cessation (‘gog-bden). So, this is how His Holiness explains.

Dr. Berzin: So, the two understandings are based on grammar, right?

Yes, two ways of understanding can be there, “in voidness” or “by voidness.” Khunu Lama Rinpoche says the Sanskrit has both connotations. Both understandings could be there, because this is really flexible. That’s what Khunu Lama Rinpoche says. “Ceases into voidness” makes a full understanding, like where it can be ceased into.

To understand this point, let’s look at the historical evolution of commentaries to Nagarjuna’s verse.

The original Sanskrit of the relevant lines of the verse reads:

Karmic impulses and disturbing emotions are from conceptualization. They are from mental fabrication. But mental fabrication is ceased in voidness.

The Tibetan translation reads:

Karmic impulses and disturbing emotions are from conceptualization. They are from mental fabrication. Mental fabrication is ceased by voidness.

In Sanskrit, “voidness” is in the locative case “in,” while Tibetan puts it in the instrumental case “by.” This discrepancy could have arisen because of slightly discrepant Sanskrit manuscripts. Voidness, śūnyatā, in the locative case is śūnyātāyām and in the instrumental case is śūnyātāyā. Both have the same number of syllables and both end in a long syllable. Thus, both variants fit in the śloka meter used in the verse. In Indian scripts, the only difference between the two is an anusvara, a nasal ending of a syllable written with dot. That dot could easily have been present in one handwritten manuscript and missing in another.

Voidness appears in both cases in the commentary to the verse attributed to Nagarjuna, Commentary on “Root (Verses on) the Middle Way,” (Called) Without Fear of Anything, (dBu-ma rtsa-ba’i ‘grel-pa ga-las ‘jigs-med, Skt. Mūlamadhyamakavṛtti-akutobhayā), extant only in Tibetan translation:

Karmic impulses and disturbing emotions originate from conceptualization, because they arise when those are present. Those conceptualizations originate from conceptual fabrication, because they arise from the conceptual fabrication that has the individual defining characteristic mark of clinging to conventional truth. Conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness, because it is ceased by the apprehension of what has the individual defining characteristic mark of the identitylessness of phenomena. That indicates that the aggregates enter into the sphere of nirvana without residue.

Here, voidness is first in the instrumental case – “conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness.” According to Prasangika, the “identitylessness of phenomena” refers to voidness and “the sphere of nirvana without residue” refers to an arya’s total absorption on voidness. The locative case is used for the total absorption on voidness.

Buddhapalita’s commentary, Buddhapalita Commentary on “Root (Verses on) the Middle Way” (dBu-ma rtsa-ba’i ‘grel-pa buddha-pā-li-ta, Skt. Buddhapālita Mūlamadhyama-vṛtti), also extant only in Tibetan translation, elaborates on and rephrases Nagarjuna’s presentation. It reads:

Like that, karmic impulses and disturbing emotions are what originate from incorrect conceptualization as their cause. That incorrect conceptualization is something that is produced from conceptual fabrication; it is produced from the conceptual fabrication of mundane people. Since those having a mind of clinging, thinking that phenomena such as worldly gain and loss, and so on are true, conceptualize that and that – because of that, conceptualizations are produced from conceptual fabrication. Conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness – in other words, these conceptual fabrications of gain and loss and so on of mundane people are ceased by voidness. One ceases to apprehend (them) in the voidness of the self-establishing nature of phenomena – in other words, they are ceased having apprehended voidness.

Buddhapalita carries over Nagarjuna’s usage of voidness in the instrumental case – “conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness.” He elaborates the locative usage by stating that conceptual fabrication is ceased both in voidness and from having apprehended voidness (in an arya’s total absorption).

Next comes Bhavaviveka’s commentary, Lamp for Discriminating Awareness: A Commentary on “Root (Verses) on the Middle Way” (dBu-ma rtsa-ba’i ‘grel-pa shes-rab sgron-ma, Skt. Prajñapradīpa Mūlamadhyama-vṛtti), which slightly abbreviates Buddhapalita and is likewise extant only in Tibetan translation,

Since the conceptualizations that are the causes for karmic impulses and disturbing emotions originate from conceptual fabrication, then in saying that they are from conceptual fabrication, (it means that) they are produced from the conceptual fabrication that has the individual defining characteristic mark of clinging to conventional truth. If you ask by what can that conceptual fabrication be ceased, conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness. In saying that, the words left out are “by the apprehension (of voidness).” 

Bhavaviveka repeats “conceptual fabrication is ceased by voidness.” He abbreviates the locative usage by indicating the words left out – “by the apprehension (of voidness in an arya’s total absorption).

Chandrakirti’s commentary, composed after all of the above, is slightly different in the original Sanskrit and in the Tibetan translation. The Sanskrit original reads:

Like that, karmic impulses and disturbing emotions proceed from conceptualization. And due to habituation from beginningless samsaric existence, these conceptualizations arise from assorted conceptual fabrications ­having the individual defining characteristic mark of cognizing minds and objects cognized … and so on. In reality, in the sight of the voidness of the self-establishing natures of all (phenomena), this and that conceptual fabrication of mundane people is ceased in voidness.

The Tibetan translation reads:

Like that, karmic impulses and disturbing emotions, as many as there are, originate from conceptualization. And those conceptualizations are, in fact, assorted conceptual fabrications, habituated to from beginningless samsara. They arise from what has the individual defining characteristic mark of a cognizing mind and an object cognized … and so on. Further, these conceptual fabrications of mundane people, without exception, are ceased by means of voidness – in other words, one ceases to view (them) in the voidness of all phenomena.

In Sanskrit, voidness does not appear in the instrumental case, though it is added in the Tibetan translation. Sanskrit retains Buddhapalita’s dual usage of the locative – “in the sight of voidness” (in an arya’s total absorption) and “this and that conceptual fabrication of mundane people is ceased in voidness.” The Tibetan translation implies both meanings by saying “one ceases to view (conceptual fabrications) in the voidness of all phenomena.”

Dr. Berzin: Is the Nyingma assertion that conventional objects are the conceptual fabrications of conceptualization a False Aspectarian view where conventional objects are merely conceptual fabrications synthesized by conceptual cognition?

Tsenshap Serkong Rinpoche II: We can say False Aspectarian, but here I think you shouldn’t bring in True Aspectarian and False Aspectarian. That’s because we have to go more deeply than the Chittamatra point of view and come to the area of Prasangika. So, let’s simply put “conceptualization.”

Within the context of the Sautrantika and Chittamatra systems, there are two interpretations: True Aspectarian (rnam-pa bden-pa) and False Aspectarian (rnam-pa rdzun-pa).

According to the True Aspectarian position:

• Sensory non-conceptual cognition cognizes not only the sensibilia (such the colored shape of an apple) of one specific sensory faculty (such as sight) together with its constituent elements (earth, water, fire and wind) but also, simultaneously, commonsense objects, such as an apple, that extend over all their sensibilia (sight, sound, smell, taste and physical sensation) as well as over time.
• Sensibilia, their constituent elements and commonsense objects are nonstatic phenomena, have true, unimputed existence, as well as self-established existence, and have the ability to perform functions (don-byed nus-pa).

According to the False Aspectarian position:

• Sensory non-conceptual cognition cognizes only the sensibilia and their constituent elements of one specific sensory faculty and only one moment of them together with their constituent elements. For instance, visual cognition cognizes only one moment of colored shapes and their constituent elements.
• Sensibilia and their constituent elements are nonstatic phenomena and have true, unimputed existence. Their constituent elements have the ability to perform functions.
• Commonsense objects that extend over all their sensibilia and over time are conceptual fabrications, synthesized as static collection syntheses (tshogs-spyi) – a conceptual synthesis of a collection of sensibilia and moments. They are not cognized by sensory non-conceptual cognition, only by conceptual cognition. They lack true, unimputed existence and, instead, have only imputed existence.
• Sensibilia, their constituent elements and commonsense objects all have self-established existence.

• Sautrantika asserts that sensibilia and their constituent elements have external existence, which means that they exist before they are cognized, independently of being cognized.
• Chittamatra asserts that sensibilia and their constituent elements lack external existence. Before they are cognized, they and the moment of consciousness and mental factors that will cognize them exist as a single tendency (sa-bon; seed), which is an imputation phenomenon on the basis of the foundation consciousness (kun-gzhi rnam-shes, Skt. ālayavijñāna) of the person who will cognize them.

In one regard, the Nyingma Prasangika system is False Aspectarian in that commonsense objects are conceptual fabrications. However:

• Commonsense objects are not conceptually synthesized from a collection of sensibilia and moments.
• Commonsense objects are non-static, not static.
• Not only commonsense objects but also sensibilia and their constituent elements are all conceptual fabrications.
• Commonsense objects, sensibilia and constituent elements lack both true, unimputed existence and self-established existence. Thus, they cannot be established from their own sides as existing either externally before they are cognized or internally as a tendency on the mental continuum.
• Although commonsense objects, sensibilia and constituent elements cannot be established as existing either ultimately or conventionally, nevertheless the minds of mundane ordinary beings validly cognize with sensory non-conceptual cognition deceptive appearances of them having the ability to perform functions.