Emptiness

The Gelug presentation of meditations on the different Indian Buddhist tenet systems concerning the selflessness of persons and phenomena.

The Indian Buddhist tenet systems differ in their views of the voidness or total absence of impossible ways that establish the existence of something and in their views of what establishes its conventional existence.

The different views among the Indian Buddhist tenet systems concerning the difference between arhats’ and Buddhas’ understanding of the lack of an impossible “soul” of persons and phenomena.

Svatantrika and Prasangika are two divisions of the Madhyamaka tenet system, but according to the Gelugpa presentation, Svatantrika asserts self-established (inherent) existence, while Prasangika refutes it.

A concise lam-rim text on how renunciation, bodhichitta and a correct view of voidness (emptiness) are the three pathways of mind essential for reaching enlightenment through either the sutra or tantra vehicles of practice.

The basis of the meditation on voidness is the identification and understanding of what is to be refuted: the truly established existence of persons and of all phenomena.

Disturbing emotions and disturbing attitudes arise from our unawareness of reality, which is fed by incorrect consideration. With incorrect consideration, the confused mind projects something that is not there.

The Indian Buddhist tenet systems present graded levels of understanding of how things exist like an illusion, which we can use in our daily lives.

With correct understanding of voidness, we also correctly understand the different levels of dependent arising.

The difference between the Gelug presentation of voidness and that shared in common by Kagyu, Nyingma and Sakya concern the type of voidness that is cognized non-conceptually and how to attain non-conceptual cognition of it.