Companion to karmapa-feast-fortunate-1578. For thesis, key claims, methodology, critical notes, and paper-relevance tagging see the source page.
The Feast for the Fortunate (‘Jug ṭīk dwags brgyud grub pa’i shing rta bde bar ‘dren byed skal bzang dga’ ston) is the Ninth Karmapa Wangchuk Dorje’s (1556–1603) abridgement, composed c. 1578–1580, of the Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje’s Chariot of the Takpo Kagyü Siddhas (c. 1545), itself a spyi don-style commentary on Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra. The text follows the Entrance verse by verse through its ten bodhisattva grounds, with by far the longest treatment devoted to the sixth ground (the perfection of supreme knowledge), where the refutation of arising from the four extremes, the presentation of the two truths, the refutation of the Proponents of Consciousness, and the analysis of personal selflessness unfold. Interspersed throughout are “general meaning” (spyi don) sections in which the Karmapa refutes Tsongkhapa, Dolpopa, Gorampa, Shākya Chokden, and Bodong Chokle Namgyal, integrates Mahāmudrā pointing-out instructions and siddha realisation songs, and returns repeatedly to a single thesis: that genuine Followers of the Middle Way dismantle the views of others while taking no position of their own. Translation by Tyler Dewar (Snow Lion / Nitartha Institute Series, 2008), under the guidance of Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche and according to explanations by Acharya Lama Tenpa Gyaltsen and Acharya Tashi Wangchuk.
Front matter
The book opens with an aspiration verse and a short statement by the Seventeenth Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, a four-line “Verse on the Essence of the Middle Way” by Khenpo Tsültrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, a foreword by Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche framing the Chariot/Feast pair as the literary heart of the Karma Kagyü Middle Way, and the translator’s acknowledgments. The Technical Notes detail the use of Sanskrit and phonetic Tibetan with Wylie in parentheses, the conventions for citing the root Entrance (numbered to Patsap Lotsawa’s translation) and the Ṭīkā (the Eighth Karmapa’s Chariot), and the convention of using bold type for direct quotations of Candrakīrti’s root verses.
Introduction
A 74-page translator’s introduction by Tyler Dewar that situates Feast historically and previews every major topic. It is organised in four sections.
The Middle Way in India
A history beginning with Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva as “Authors of the Model Texts” (gzhung phyi mo’i dbu ma pa), the Buddha’s instruction to Kāśyapa that “saying ‘it exists’ is one extreme, saying ‘it does not exist’ is a second extreme, the centre of these two is the middle way, inexpressible and inconceivable”, and an exposition of the three stages of analysis (no analysis, slight analysis, thorough analysis) keyed to Āryadeva’s Four Hundred Verses 8.15 (“In the beginning one reverses nonvirtue. / In the middle one reverses the view of a self. / In the end one reverses all views.”) and to MMK 18.6. The section then traces the Buddhapālita–Bhāviveka–Candrakīrti sequence, identifying Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra as the meaning commentary to MMK that pairs with the Prasannapadā, and notes the colophonic story of Candrakīrti drawing milk from a painted cow to dispel his colleagues’ clinging to true existence.
The Middle Way in Tibet
Begins with Śāntarakṣita’s eighth-century Yogācāra-Svātantrika dominance, Atiśa’s eleventh-century recognition of Candrakīrti as the authoritative source on emptiness, Naktso Lotsawa’s early translation of the Entrance, the polemical exchange between Chapa Chökyi Senge (Autonomist) and Jayānanda, Patsap Nyima Drak’s authoritative translation, and the rise to dominance of Consequentialism through the “four sons of Patsap” and successors such as Majawa Chanchub Tsöndrü, Rendawa Shönu Lodrö, and Lochen Kyapchok Palzang — the “Early Followers of the Middle Way” (dbu ma snga rabs pa) whom the Karmapa explicitly takes as his authorities. Feast names five Middle Way lineages assimilated into the Karma Kagyü transmission: Nāropa’s, Maitripa’s, Atiśa’s, Patsap Lotsawa’s, and a fifth dialectic lineage of reading transmissions and debate received first by the Eighth Karmapa. Dewar then introduces Mikyö Dorje’s Chariot (composed in his late thirties, when his major studies of the view were complete, and therefore taken to express his heart intention on the Middle Way), his student Pawo Tsuklak Trengwa whose commentary on Śāntideva preserves much of the Eighth Karmapa’s Middle Way, and Jamgön Kongtrul’s later Treasury of Knowledge synthesis. The Eighth Karmapa is identified as the most prolific Karmapa author, who wrote the principal Kagyü monastic commentaries on Vinaya, Abhidharma, Prajñāpāramitā, and Madhyamaka.
Considerations on the Debates in This Book
A short pastoral preface on how to read polemic. The Karmapa’s purpose in refuting Tsongkhapa, Dolpopa, Gorampa, and Shākya Chokden is not “to show that another master is inferior, or to place the Karmapa and his view on a high pedestal” but to use their positions as “sticks to be rubbed together until the flame of our intelligence burns brightly on its own”. Dewar reminds the reader that the Karmapa’s representations of opponents are partial — calibrated to the point at hand — and never to be read as substitutes for those masters’ own works. The section closes by citing MA 6.119: “Attachment to one’s own view and / Aversion to the views of others are nothing more than conception. / Therefore, if you first overcome attachment and aggression / And then analyze, you will be liberated.”
An Overview of Entrance to the Middle Way and Feast for the Fortunate
A chapter-by-chapter preview (pp. 16–74) running through Grounds One to Ten, the qualities of the grounds, and the resultant ground of buddhahood. Because this overview is unusually thorough — it previews almost every “general meaning” excursus the Karmapa undertakes — much of the material below has its first articulation here. The most important moments of this preview are: (i) the Hearers and Solitary Realisers Realise Phenomenal Selflessness discussion at the first ground; (ii) the Three Stages of Analysis and the Consequentialist–Autonomist Distinction as a primarily methodological difference; (iii) the Two Truths discussion at MA 6.23, including the claim that the distinction is drawn from the side of the perceiving subject; (iv) Clinging to True Existence Is an Afflictive Obscuration; (v) Tsongkapa’s Object of Refutation by Reasons and the charge of “partial emptiness”; (vi) Refuting Postdisintegration as a Thing; (vii) Refuting Self-Awareness Even Conventionally; (viii) Dolpopa’s Emptiness of Other; and (ix) What Is a Follower of the Middle Way?. All of these are treated in their proper place below.
Preamble
The Karmapa opens with eight verses of homage — to Śākyamuni, Mañjuśrī, Nāgārjuna, Buddhapālita and Candrakīrti, Könchok Yenlak (his tutor and the Fifth Shamarpa), his other teacher Namgyal Drakpa, the Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje, and a final verse exhorting the reader to pour the “deathless nectar” of the Middle Way into “the vase of your discriminating intelligence”. The prose preamble situates the Entrance within the threefold turning of the wheel of dharma, the three discourses, the eighty-four thousand gates of dharma, and the twelve branches of scripture, with anchoring citations from MMK 18.6, Maitreya’s Uttaratantra, and Āryadeva’s Four Hundred Verses. The Karmapa here states that the second turning is the “central pith” of the Buddha’s teachings and the source from which the Middle Way treatises arise.
Lineages
A taxonomy of the lineages by which the Middle Way teaching has reached the Karma Kagyü, organised in two main sections: (1) the lineage of certainty in the teaching (subdivided into Nāropa’s lineage, Maitripa’s lineage, Atiśa’s “command” lineage, and Patsap Lotsawa’s lineage) and (2) the lineage of reading transmissions and logic structures (klag lung and ‘bru sbyor). The Karmapa rejects the Kadampa claim that Candrakīrti was a direct student of Nāgārjuna — citing the prophecy of the ḍākinīs at Nālandā — and assigns him instead to Āryadeva’s lineage. Maitripa’s teaching cycle is identified as the “freedom from mental engagement” (yid la mi byed pa’i chos ‘khor) tradition, which in Tibet branches into three streams: secret-mantra Mahāmudrā, sūtric Mahāmudrā (Gampopa’s emphasis), and the False Aspectarian Mind Only reading of the dohas (rejected). The section closes with a spyi don on the relation between sūtra and mantra: there is no difference between sūtra and tantra regarding the freedom from elaborations (spros bral) that does not affirm anything after all fixation has been refuted, but mantra possesses a “special view of naturally present emptiness” realised “not by means of intellectual effort, but by employing the secret, key principles of binding”. The Karmapa here notes that the Eighth Karmapa had withheld these distinctions until granted permission by his master and presents the divergent views of the Jonangpas, Zilungpa, Bodong Chokle Namgyal, and Tsongkhapa on the sūtra/mantra distinction (with refutations preserved in the Ṭīkā rather than reproduced in Feast).
The Title and Translator’s Homage
A short chapter giving the Sanskrit, Tibetan, and (in this translation) English of the title Madhyamakāvatāra-kārikā-nāma (‘Jug pa’i tshig le’ur byas pa zhes bya ba), followed by a four-part spyi don on the Middle Way of ground, path, result, and statements. Here appears one of the most frequently repeated declarations of the entire commentary, on the meaning of the Middle Way of statements:
Accepting the view of the Middle Way is done only for the sake of reversing the misconceptions of students. It is not done as a position of one’s own. This is because in following the Middle Way, one dismantles the views of others while at the same time not positing a position of one’s own view.
The Karmapa then identifies the “object of refutation” of his treatise as including the Autonomists’ attempt to rationalise conventional reality through positing positions from one’s own side, and outlines the threefold purpose of composition (exclusion, inclusion, and essential purpose).
The Three Causes of Bodhisattvas
Commentary on MA 1.1, which praises compassionate mind (snying rje), nondual intelligence, and bodhicitta as the three causes of bodhisattvas. The Karmapa, following Candrakīrti’s autocommentary, takes the verse’s progression from hearers to bodhisattvas to compassion as a praising of “cause before result”: the most exalted homage is to the cause that produces bodhisattvas, and the supreme of those causes is compassion. The chapter then unpacks the three categories of compassion — observing sentient beings, observing phenomena, and observing nothing whatsoever — and locates the Entrance’s opening homage to compassion (rather than to a buddha or yidam) within this logic. The Karmapa includes a brief discussion of why the term “hearer” (nyan thos) can be applied derivatively to bodhisattvas who not only hear but proclaim the dharma.
Ground One — Supreme Joy
Commentary on MA 1.2 onward, where Candrakīrti introduces the first bodhisattva ground. Three substantive concerns: (i) the first ground is where the bodhisattvas have their first direct perception of emptiness, gaining the name “bodhisattva” in Candrakīrti’s tradition; (ii) bodhisattvas at this stage are likened (MA 1.6) to chicks of an unrivalled species of bird — their merit and intention outstrip those of hearers and solitary realisers, but not yet their wisdom; (iii) at MA 1.8 Candrakīrti notes in passing that the bodhisattvas’ wisdom does not surpass the arhats’ wisdom until the seventh ground. From this passing reference, the Karmapa launches into a long spyi don — the Hearers and Solitary Realisers Realise Phenomenal Selflessness discussion — using “three reasonings and seven scriptural quotations” to prove that arhats realise the selflessness of all phenomena, not merely of persons. The central reasoning is that an arhat who saw the aggregates as real could not avoid seeing the self as real either, since the self is grasped only in observation of the aggregates. The Karmapa cites Āryadeva’s Four Hundred Verses — “Whatever is the viewer of one, / That is the viewer of all. / Whatever is the emptiness of one, / That is the emptiness of all” — and adds the consequence that, if arhats did not realise phenomenal selflessness, their wisdom would already be surpassed by first-ground bodhisattvas, contradicting the seventh-ground threshold. Eighth Karmapa supplies the distinction that the arhats’ realisation of phenomenal selflessness is complete but restricted in scope: they apply it only to the phenomena of their own continua and to “the uncontaminated truth of the path”. The remainder of the chapter treats generosity, the first ground’s associated perfection: mundane vs. transcendent generosity, the three spheres (giver, gift, recipient), and the role of prajñā in making any of the ten perfections transcendent.
Ground Two — The Stainless
A short chapter on discipline (tshul khrims), the perfection associated with the second ground. The Karmapa treats discipline as essentially the cultivation of the ability not to mentally engage anger, lust, jealousy, pride, and so on in ways that would lead to harmful action of body or speech. He moves through the ten nonvirtuous actions (three of body, four of speech, three of mind), notes the karmic results of discipline as rebirth in the higher realms, and emphasises that the perfection of discipline becomes “transcendent” only when undertaken with awareness that agent, action, and object are empty of inherent nature.
Ground Three — The Luminous
Patience (bzod pa) is the perfection of the third ground. Candrakīrti interleaves descriptions of the bodhisattvas’ profundity with practical encouragements for ordinary beings: anger does not undo harm already received; the deeper cause of harm to oneself is one’s own past nonvirtue; the downfalls of anger and benefits of patience invite a sustained meditative comparison. The Karmapa notes the third-ground attainments — the four concentrations, the four formless meditative absorptions, and the five higher cognitions (mngon shes lnga) — and that patience is the last of the perfections taught primarily to laypeople and the last whose engagement accumulates merit more than wisdom.
Ground Four — The Radiant
Diligence (brtson ‘grus), defined here (citing Śāntideva) as “delight in virtue”. The Karmapa emphasises that on the fourth ground, on the wisdom side of the perfection, bodhisattvas exhaust their clinging to concepts of the self and entities connected to the self — the usually incessant thought-flow of “me” and “mine”.
Ground Five — Difficult to Overcome
A brief chapter on the perfection of meditation (bsam gtan) — the ability to calm and concentrate the mind at will, in any situation. The bodhisattvas now develop the ability to analyse and comprehend the four noble truths in ways previously inaccessible. The Karmapa here briefly correlates the four noble truths with the two truths: conventionally, suffering, origin, and path are relative while cessation is ultimate (being unconditioned); but in the final analysis, all four are relative, because each depends on the others for its designation as a “truth”. The same principle, the Karmapa adds in a remark that will be repeated in Ground Six, applies to the two truths themselves: “even the ultimate truth, when presented as a dichotomous opposite to the relative truth, is a relative truth, because it exists merely as a conventional counterpoint to the relative; it does not exist as an entity known as ‘ultimate truth’ in its own right”.
Ground Six — The Manifest
By far the longest chapter, comprising roughly two thirds of the entire treatise (Tib. pp. 143–490 in the translation). It contains the Entrance’s actual pledge of composition (MA 6.3 — uniquely late among Indian treatises), and presents emptiness in two main panels: the selflessness of phenomena (via the refutation of arising from the four extremes) and the selflessness of persons (via the sevenfold analysis of the chariot), then expands them into the sixteen and four emptinesses.
Introduction to the Teachings on Emptiness
Following Candrakīrti’s invocation of the Daśabhūmika Sūtra’s tenfold equality of phenomena (freedom from signs, characteristics, arising, etc.), the Karmapa identifies “free from arising” as the criterion from which the other nine equalities follow, and so frames the entire chapter as a refutation of inherent arising via the four extremes. He distinguishes innate ignorance (lhan skyes) — the fixation on “I” shared by all sentient beings from dung beetles to scholars — from imputed ignorance (kun btags) — the philosophical elaborations layered atop it. On the explicit level, the Entrance’s refutation of arising from other addresses imputed ignorance (MA 6.32: “Because worldly people will merely plant a seed / And say, ‘I produced this boy’ / Or think, ‘I planted this tree,’ / Arising from other does not even exist for the world”). The Karmapa here introduces the “four theses” of MA 6.8ab — Nāgārjuna’s MMK 1.1 — and immediately warns that thesis here must be read with a grain of salt: “the genuine Followers of the Middle Way, from their own side and in terms of their own take on things, have no thesis about anything whatsoever”. Such “theses” are temporary adoptions of the opponent’s vocabulary, citing MMK 22.11: “We do not assert ‘emptiness.’ / We do not assert ‘nonemptiness.’ / We do not assert ‘both’ or ‘neither.’ / We use these only as labels.”
The Consequentialist–Autonomist Distinction
The Karmapa’s most extended spyi don and the only major section of the entire commentary written without reference to a root verse — placed deliberately as the first subheading under the refutation of arising from the four extremes, signalling that the distinction is primarily methodological, not a difference about what reality is. The Karmapa works principally to debunk myths attributed to Tsongkhapa and his followers: (i) the Autonomists do not accept the perceptions of ordinary beings as valid cognition; (ii) they do not approach logic in the same manner as Dignāga and Dharmakīrti; (iii) they do not mistakenly apprehend emptiness. “For the Karmapa, the basic view of the Autonomists is the same as that of the Consequentialists: all phenomena are, from the beginning, free from all conceptual elaborations of existence, nonexistence, and so on.” Where the Consequentialists differ is in the Autonomists’ use of valid-cognition language and “commonly appearing subjects” for the purposes of communication, which the Consequentialists find unstable because calling anything “valid cognition” presupposes undeceivingness, which presupposes a degree of reality. The Karmapa is unusually warm to the Autonomists: “The Consequentialists and Autonomists differ in regard to the words they use to communicate, but their intentions are the same. The slight differences in their approaches are similar to a doctor treating different kinds of illnesses by administering sweet medicine to some and sour medicine to others.” For the underlying Candrakīrti–Bhāviveka exchange the Karmapa refers readers to the extract from the Prasannapadā preserved as Appendix I.
The Refutation of Arising from Self
A short treatment of the Sāṃkhya position that results pre-exist in their causes (sprout latent in seed), refuted in MA 6.8cd–6.13. If a thing already existed it would not need to arise; if existent things produced existent things, seeds would simply produce themselves in infinity; the result, being identical in entity to the cause, could not displace its cause (whereas in fact the sprout terminates the seed). The Karmapa concludes that “since not even normal worldly people observe or speak about things arising from themselves, the notion that they do should be rejected on both the ultimate and relative levels”.
Main Refutation of Arising from Other
The largest sub-section of Ground Six up to verse 6.21, refuting the abhidharmika reading of cause-and-effect. The opening absurd consequence: if a result arose from something inherently other than itself, then since flames and darkness are also “other” to each other, flames could arise from darkness. The hearers’ attempt to restrict “other” to within a single continuum collapses because inherent difference rules out continuum-membership. The Karmapa stresses that the Followers of the Middle Way do not dispute that seeds produce sprouts; they dispute the philosophical attempt to ascribe true existence to that production after analysis. Subsequent verses (MA 6.14–6.21) demonstrate that inherently different causes and results cannot be related as earlier/later (because otherness requires simultaneous co-existence) nor as simultaneous (because a result simultaneous with its cause would have no need to be “produced”).
The Two Truths
MA 6.22–6.29 introduces the two truths through a hypothetical objection — that arising from other is established by ordinary perception. Candrakīrti’s response, at the famous MA 6.23, is that “all things bear two natures, / Found by perception of the genuine and the false; / The objects of those who see the genuine are the suchness; / The objects of those who see the false are relative truths.” For the Karmapa, the decisive point is that the distinction is drawn from the side of the perceiving subject, not the object: ultimate is what is seen by wisdom of enlightened beings (whose cataracts of ignorance have been removed), relative is what is seen by ordinary confused beings.
The spyi don that follows centres on a single question: are the two truths of one entity or different? The Karmapa’s answer is that they are neither. If of the same entity, every sentient being would see the ultimate (since perceiving the relative would entail perceiving the ultimate) — contradicted by the manifest unliberatedness of beings. If of different entities, no being could attain liberation, since the ultimate would not be the true nature of the relative. The Karmapa joins this to MMK 18.10: “When something originates in dependence upon something else, / The [depender] is not the same as [the depended-on], / Nor is it different from it. / In this way, nihilism and permanence are transcended.”
The chapter then distinguishes relative truth (what worldly beings consider real, the objects of unimpaired sense faculties) from the mere relative (what appears to bodhisattvas in post-meditation, who perceive but do not ascribe true existence). In meditative equipoise (mnyam bzhag) the noble beings perceive neither — not even the mere relative — because at that time all movement of consciousness and conceptual elaboration is pacified.
Clinging to True Existence Is an Afflictive Obscuration
A short but consequential spyi don. In notable agreement with Tsongkhapa and against Gorampa and Shākya Chokden, the Karmapa holds that all instances of clinging to true existence (bden ‘dzin) are afflictive obscurations (nyon sgrib), not cognitive obscurations (shes sgrib). What bodhisattvas retain in post-meditation is not bden ‘dzin but the mere apprehension of subtle characteristics (mtshan ‘dzin), which falls away only at buddhahood. The chapter concludes with an explicit articulation of emptiness as a pedagogical tool:
What, then, is emptiness? All phenomena from form through omniscience are, from the outset, not established whatsoever as any extreme elaboration such as existent, nonexistent, arisen, ceased, permanent, impermanent, empty, not empty, true, or false. To that lack of establishment, mere conventional terms such as “emptiness” and “suchness” are given. It is nothing more than that.
The Karmapa here links the three-stage analysis framework to this point: at thorough analysis, even emptiness is not reified; the very terms “emptiness” and “non-emptiness” drop away as “freedom from elaborations” (spros bral) — a term of art borrowed from the Mahāmudrā tradition and used here to forestall reification of emptiness itself.
Continuation of the General Refutation of Arising from Other
The next stretch of root verses (MA 6.30–6.44) explains the proper context for each truth and dismantles the proposal that ordinary perception is authoritative. Verse 6.30 is read, on Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche’s suggestion, as a refutation of Dignāga’s and Dharmakīrti’s inclusion of ordinary sense perception in the category of valid cognition. Verses 6.34–6.36 outline three absurd consequences of treating worldly perception as valid: (i) emptiness would become a denigration of phenomena rather than a disclosure of their original mode; (ii) conventional reality, being verified by analysis, would become ultimate reality, leaving nothing further to discover; (iii) reasonings investigating ultimate reality would be incapable of refuting arising. The reply is the Heaps of Jewels Sūtra’s formulation: “emptiness does not empty phenomena of their characteristics; phenomena are empty of their own characteristics from the outset”.
Tsongkhapa’s Object of Refutation by Reasons
The Karmapa’s most influential spyi don in this section. Tsongkhapa, on the Karmapa’s reading, isolates “true existence” (bden grub) as the target of refutation rather than phenomena themselves: “the vase is not empty of the vase; the vase is empty of true existence”. This produces what the Karmapa calls a partial emptiness (nyi tshe ba’i stong pa nyid) — partial because sentient beings do not in fact cling to “the true existence of the vase”; they cling to “the vase”. Tsongkhapa thus takes as his own position what Candrakīrti refuted as the position of the opponents of the Middle Way. The Karmapa enlists Gendün Chöpel’s Ornament to Nāgārjuna’s Thought: “you need to refute the vase; you need to refute the pillar; you need to refute existence; you need to refute nonexistence. What use is there in positing the vase and then refuting a ‘truly existent vase’ off to the side?” Gendün Chöpel’s text adds in support Changkya Rölpa’i Dorje (“Leaving alone all vivid appearances, / They look for something with horns to refute”), Gungthang Tenpa’i Drönme, and Panchen Lobsang Chögyen — all Geluk masters with meditative experience whom Gendün Chöpel reads as quietly agreeing with the Karmapa’s critique. The fear that refuting “the vase” leads to nihilism is dismissed: an ordinary being looking at a vase in front of them cannot generate the view that the vase is utterly non-existent; if such a view arose, it would not be nihilism but “the twofold collection of appearance and emptiness that cognises how appearing phenomena do not exist in the way they appear”.
Refuting Postdisintegration as a Thing
The Karmapa’s second running critique of Tsongkhapa, here directed at zhig pa dngos po — the doctrine, set out in Tsongkhapa’s Ocean of Reasoning, that the “state of disintegratedness” following an action is itself a function-performing thing that carries karmic potential forward to its result. The Karmapa rebuts this in the Entrance’s logic of the relation between karma and emptiness (MA 6.39–6.40): actions and results lack inherent nature from the outset; a “reflection” of the action ripens as a “reflection” of the result; no special function-performing thing is needed to bridge them. To posit postdisintegration is to slide from a worldly account of karma into an analytical account — at which point one is no longer doing Middle Way but the system of the Proponents of Things. The Karmapa’s treatment is briefer than the Eighth Karmapa’s in the Ṭīkā, where this is treated as one of Tsongkhapa’s “eight great difficult points”.
Provisional and Definitive Meaning (first pass)
MA 6.43–6.44 introduces the distinction between provisional (drang don) and definitive (nges don) meaning, briefly here, in connection with the Buddha’s use of conventions such as “person”, “all-base consciousness”, and “aggregates” for the karmic infallibility teachings. The Karmapa returns to this distinction at length later in the chapter; here he simply notes that “every time the Buddha described something as ‘existent,’ he was making a statement of only the provisional, and not the definitive, meaning”.
The Refutation of the Proponents of Consciousness
The second-longest sub-section of Ground Six, refuting the Vijñāptivāda. Candrakīrti devotes three root verses simply to stating the Proponents of Consciousness’s view, which the Karmapa reads as a sign of Candrakīrti’s unique respect for an opponent born of the same Mahāyāna ethic. The bulk of the refutation targets the “consciousness of the dependent nature” (paratantra, gzhan dbang), which is said to possess three qualities: freedom from outer apprehended objects, substantial existence, and freedom from conceptual elaborations. Each is refuted in turn.
The first refutation works through the Proponents’ three examples — dreams (the dream object is unreal but the dreaming mind exists), diseased vision seeing falling hairs, and meditators who see the world as skeletons — and dismantles each. The famous discussion of the pus-and-water example (MA 6.71ab) follows, generating a Tibetan-wide controversy: is there a “common object of perception” (blta bya thun mong ba) behind the divergent perceptions of the six classes of beings? The Karmapa’s answer is no — hungry ghosts see pus, humans see water, but there is no third thing being “mistakenly” perceived; both perceptions are equally false relative appearances arising from ignorance, afflictions, and karma. This blocks the Proponents of Consciousness’s move to ground appearances in a non-mistaken substratum.
The second refutation targets the proof of the dependent nature’s substantial existence through self-awareness (rang rig). The Karmapa, here in explicit agreement with Tsongkhapa and against Gorampa and Shākya Chokden, holds that self-awareness does not exist even conventionally. Acrobats cannot ride on their own shoulders, a sword cannot cut itself, an eye cannot turn to look at itself. The Proponents’ memory argument — that recollection of “I saw that thing” requires prior self-awareness — is rebutted on the ground that memory itself is a worldly convention, not a phenomenon withstanding analysis, and cannot serve as evidence for the existence of a sophisticated philosophical posit. The Karmapa makes his own position on Candrakīrti’s intent explicit:
The master Candrakīrti does not, as his own position, accept any phenomenon as existent or nonexistent in either ultimate or conventional truth.
The third refutation — against a consciousness that is itself free from elaborations — uses Candrakīrti’s combination of logic and ridicule: by what bias do the Proponents of Consciousness not also declare the childless woman’s son to be something existing beyond conceptual elaborations? The closing point is that with the dependent nature dissolved, the Proponents’ account of relative truth collapses; for Candrakīrti, the worldly perspective alone suffices for positing the relative.
What the Buddha Really Meant by “Mind Only”
A sustained reading of the Daśabhūmika’s “the three realms are mind only” and parallel passages from the Laṅkāvatāra. The Karmapa, following Candrakīrti, takes “mind only” as a refutation of external creators (Īśvara and the like) and as an assertion of mind’s functional primacy among phenomena — not of its ontological superiority over form. The Buddha refuted form and mind equally in the Prajñāpāramitā and acknowledged both equally in the Abhidharma; the “only” in “mind only” carries weight only against external creators, not against form.
Provisional and Definitive Meaning (extended)
The Karmapa’s longer spyi don on the drang don / nges don distinction. For Candrakīrti, the criterion is simple: sūtras that teach emptiness, the suchness that is the true nature, are definitive; all others are provisional. The Karmapa adds two items to the list of provisional teachings: buddha nature and emptiness of other (gzhan stong). He stresses, however, that “all of the Buddha’s teachings, be they provisional or definitive, are supreme causes of liberation for beings of various dispositions and abilities”.
The Refutation of Arising from Both
MA 6.98 — a brief treatment of the Jain view that a vase arises from a combination of “itself” (the clay) and “other” (the craftsmen). Since arising from self and other have already been refuted individually, their combination cannot generate any additional truly existent production.
The Refutation of Causeless Arising
MA 6.99–6.103 — refutation of the Cārvāka assertion of arising without causes. Candrakīrti’s reply: if results arose without causes, causes and non-causes would be equivalent; anything could arise from anything; farmers would not need to till. The Cārvākas’ rejection of past and future lifetimes is engaged but not extensively refuted: the Karmapa preserves Candrakīrti’s somewhat cryptic claim that the Cārvākas’ view rests on a mistaken reading of the body.
Conclusion to the Refutation of the Self of Phenomena
A capstone to the four refutations. Phenomena appear because of ignorance (the diseased-vision example reappears: as long as the disease persists, the hairs appear; as long as ignorance persists, phenomena are perceived to exist). The arising that does occur in the relative is dependent arising, distinct from arising from any of the four extremes precisely because the very principle of dependence demonstrates lack of inherent existence. The Karmapa here delivers an extended passage praising dependent arising as the supreme method, listing the dualistic opposites that depend on each other for designation (performers/actions, self/aggregates, causes/results, viewers/viewed, expressers/expressed, parts/wholes, features/bases, truth/falsity, saṃsāra/nirvāṇa, permanent/impermanent). The section closes with a short reflection that the analyses of the Middle Way are themselves an expression of compassion: the debates are not for showing who is right but for clearing away the reifying concepts that are the deepest root of suffering. Citation: Nāgārjuna’s Sixty Stanzas on Reasoning 50 — “Genuine beings who are free from debate / Have no position of their own. / For those who have no own-position, / How could a position of others exist?”
Personal Selflessness
The second main panel of Ground Six. The Karmapa structures it under three headings: (1) the reasons it is necessary to refute the self of persons (MA 6.120 ff.); (2) the actual refutation; (3) the conclusion that the person is a mere dependent imputation. The opening spyi don unfolds the distinction between innate (lhan skyes) self-fixation — present in all sentient beings, requiring no philosophy — and imputed (kun btags) self-fixation, generated by philosophical systems. Crucially, the Karmapa holds that refuting the imputed self does not uproot the innate self; one merely gains tools for cutting through one’s own residual reification. Candrakīrti is compared to Chandrakīrti’s own polemical image: refuting the imputed self while leaving the innate intact is like pacifying the fear of snakes by assuring the fearful there are no elephants present.
The refutation proceeds by examining the self in relation to the aggregates in all possible permutations: as different from them (the non-Buddhist tīrthikas, especially the Sāṃkhya), as identical with them (the Sāṃmitīyas, who claim either the five aggregates or mind alone is the self), as in a support–supported relation, and as possessing them. Then the inexpressible self of the Vātsīputrīyas (neither same nor different) is refuted. The famous sevenfold analysis of the chariot (MA 6.151–6.166) follows: a chariot is not different from its parts, not the same as them, does not possess them, does not depend on them, is not depended upon by them, is not their mere assembly, and is not their shape. By analogy the self is shown to be a mere dependent imputation. MA 6.160 — “Through this they also easily engage in suchness, / But, in the relative, the existence of the chariot should be accepted in accordance with the world” — is the chapter’s lodestar against nihilistic over-reading.
Buddha Nature in the Vajrayāna as the Basis of Imputation for the Person
A spyi don of independent interest. Having traced how the Vaibhāṣikas, Sautrāntikas, and Proponents of Consciousness use the conventional notion of the person, the Karmapa describes the Vajrayāna’s distinctive use of buddha nature as the basis of imputation for the person. Though he classifies buddha nature explicitly as provisional meaning and as conventional rather than ultimate, he insists that this does not diminish its power: “Many noble yogis and yoginīs, during the impure stages of ground and path, have skillfully used these conventions. They cannot be defeated by debates from dharma lectures.” But, he is equally clear, in the context of analysis even in the Vajrayāna the person does not exist. He then briefly examines and refutes the views on the self of Shākya Chokden, the Jonangpas, and Tsongkhapa.
The Analysis of Contact versus No Contact
MA 6.166–6.178 — a short return to the analysis of inherent production: if causes truly produced results, they must do so either by contacting or by not contacting them; both options collapse. The Karmapa here adds the well-known Madhyamaka self-reflexive defence: the means of refutation also do not inherently exist, but this does not embarrass the Madhyamaka, because they never claimed inherent refutations to begin with. “The Followers of the Middle Way are free from holding any position of their own.”
The Sixteen Emptinesses
The Mahāyāna’s elaboration of the two selflessnesses into sixteen specific emptinesses, given by Candrakīrti at MA 6.179 onwards. The list (numbered as the Karmapa gives it): emptiness of (1) the inner, (2) the outer, (3) the outer and inner, (4) emptiness, (5) the great, (6) the ultimate, (7) the conditioned, (8) the unconditioned, (9) what is beyond extremes, (10) the beginningless and endless, (11) what is not to be discarded, (12) nature, (13) all phenomena, (14) defining characteristics, (15) non-observation, (16) the non-existence of things. Aside from the emptiness of defining characteristics — to which Candrakīrti devotes fourteen and a half verses, walking through the principal phenomena of ground, path, and fruition — each is treated briefly (two verses or fewer).
The Karmapa’s longest spyi don in this section follows the verses on inner emptiness. He first treats emptiness as a “nature” of phenomena: phenomena lack a nature, and to that very lack the conventional label “nature” is applied. Calling emptiness the “nature of phenomena” does not constitute an assertion, because it merely harmonises with worldly speech. Then he turns to Dolpopa.
Dolpopa’s Emptiness of Other
The Karmapa’s most explicit spyi don on gzhan stong. Dolpopa, on the Karmapa’s reading, cites the Kālacakra Tantra — “The emptiness of analysing the aggregates / Is, like a banana tree, without pith” — to argue that Candrakīrti’s emptiness is inferior, because it teaches only how phenomena are empty of themselves; Dolpopa’s “supreme other” is the ultimate truth proper, isolated from the relative and empty of what is other than itself. The Karmapa replies that it is illogical for Followers of the Middle Way to posit a true nature of reality that has no relationship to appearing phenomena. Both the true nature and appearing phenomena are beyond elaborations of existence and nonexistence; it is impossible for only one of them to be “existent” or “real” on its own. The Kālacakra verse, properly read, does not subordinate sūtric to tantric emptiness in profundity — sūtric and tantric emptiness are the same in profundity — but only indicates that the tantric methods accelerate the meditative realisation of that emptiness. The Karmapa concludes with a synoptic survey of the four Buddhist tenet systems’ accounts of emptiness (Vaibhāṣika, Sautrāntika, Cittamātra, Mādhyamika) and their bases of emptiness, ending with the formulation already quoted above: “to that lack of establishment, mere conventional terms such as ‘emptiness’ and ‘suchness’ are given”. The section also includes a four-fold condensation of the sixteen emptinesses: emptiness of things, of non-things, of phenomena’s own entities, and of other entities.
After Ground Six concludes with the sixteen emptinesses, the Entrance — in the Karmapa’s words — “powers down” the profound dimension and returns to the vast.
Ground Seven — Gone Far Beyond
A short chapter on the seventh ground, where bodhisattvas attain the perfection of methods (thabs) and the ability to enter and arise from the meditative absorption of cessation in every moment. From this ground onwards their wisdom too surpasses the arhats’. The Karmapa observes that they do not fully actualise cessation, having no attraction to personal peace. Following Candrakīrti’s autocommentary, cessation in Nāgārjuna’s tradition is equated with freedom from elaborations (spros bral) — the same term used in the Mahāmudrā tradition.
Ground Eight — The Immovable
The perfection of aspirations. The eighth ground inaugurates the “three pure bodhisattva grounds”: all mental afflictions without exception are relinquished, and bodhisattvas can effortlessly engage the dharmadhātu. The image (from a cited sūtra) is that of a mighty ship that, after a long stretch of laboured propulsion, sails smoothly in a strong wind. Because the effortless absorption at this stage can be mistaken for nirvāṇa, the buddhas must rouse the bodhisattvas from it; the Karmapa cites Brilliance of the Sun on its eight types of nirvāṇa to clarify what is and is not the final result. The chapter ends with the ten masteries (dbang bcu) attained on this ground.
Ground Nine — Excellent Intelligence
The perfection of powers (stobs). The bodhisattvas gain the four correct discerning awarenesses (so so yang dag pa’i rig pa): of phenomena, of meanings, of contextual etymologies, and of confidence.
Ground Ten — Cloud of Dharma
The perfection of wisdom (ye shes). The bodhisattvas receive empowerments from buddhas in all ten directions and become regents of the buddhas. Their qualities are described as utterly inconceivable.
Qualities of the Bodhisattva Grounds
Twelve sets of qualities increase in magnitude with each successive ground (e.g., first-ground bodhisattvas see one hundred buddhas, second-ground bodhisattvas one thousand, and so on through escalating numbers). The chapter is mostly straightforward exposition.
The Resultant Ground of Buddhahood
The Karmapa locates buddha-enlightenment at Akaniṣṭha and reads MA 11.1 ff. on the buddhas’ realisation of the equality of phenomena.
Does the Buddhas’ Wisdom Exist, and What Do Buddhas See?
A long spyi don on a debate in Tibetan monastic colleges. From the worldly perspective and “from the perspective of others”, the wisdom of the buddhas exists and its objects are all knowable objects. The Karmapa is careful, however, to emphasise that the Followers of the Middle Way hold no position even of abstention from holding a position:
Regarding the statement, “In our own system we do not speak of the buddhas’ wisdom as being existent or nonexistent,” we do not say even that!
The reply to the standard objection — if all phenomena are free from arising and elaborations, how could the buddhas’ mind know objects? — is that in the context of non-arising the mind of the buddhas is itself free from elaborations; “the wisdom of the buddhas is posited merely in reference to the aspect of knowing the objects’ freedom from arising”. Through the blessings of the dharmakāya even sambhogakāya, nirmāṇakāya, and inanimate phenomena such as space can teach beings about suchness.
The Kāyas
The dharmakāya is the perfect benefit for oneself; the form kāyas are the perfect benefit for others. The Karmapa identifies the dharmakāya as freedom from elaborations itself (“even when buddhas see it, they see it in a manner of not seeing anything”) and engages Shākya Chokden’s claims that the form kāyas are not the buddha and that they are of the nature of consciousness — both refuted by the Karmapa on the grounds that the form kāyas appear to the visual consciousnesses of sentient beings (and so, if they were consciousness, consciousness would have shape and colour). To Candrakīrti’s standard pairing of sambhogakāya and nirmāṇakāya, the Karmapa preserves Candrakīrti’s less-renowned third category, the kāyas of natural outflow (rgyu mthun pa’i sku), which present the buddhas’ supreme qualities, foremost among which are the ten powers (stobs bcu).
The Teaching of Three Vehicles Is Provisional
In the definitive meaning there is only one vehicle, the realisation of the suchness of phenomena; any teaching of multiple vehicles is provisional. The Karmapa illustrates this with the sūtric image of the tour guide who emanates an illusory city for his weary followers to rest in en route to the actual destination.
The section closes with Candrakīrti’s verses on the time of attaining buddhahood and the duration of buddhas’ remaining in the world, with a final praise of the buddhas’ compassion that forsakes their own peace for the sake of all beings tormented by clinging to existence and nonexistence.
Conclusion
Chandrakīrti’s brief colophon affirms that the Entrance has been based on Nāgārjuna’s Fundamental Wisdom and instructs the reader to ascertain that there is no follower of Nāgārjuna whose explanation surpasses Candrakīrti’s. The Karmapa reads MA 13.1–13.2 as making four claims: (i) the Proponents of Things do not realise emptiness; (ii) the Followers of the Middle Way do; (iii) the Autonomists are genuine Followers of the Middle Way; and (iv) Candrakīrti’s system is superior to the Autonomists’. Following Candrakīrti’s autocommentary, he comments that Vasubandhu, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, and Dharmapāla “became frightened by Nāgārjuna’s teachings upon merely reading the words and abandoned the Middle Way”. Bhāviveka’s polemic against Asaṅga is moderated: Asaṅga, like Maitreya, “should be respected as a Follower of the Middle Way who, in order to take care of certain types of beings, wrote some texts on Mind Only”.
The chapter closes with the Karmapa’s own most extended spyi don, an “essential explanation of dependent arising” based on the Eighth Karmapa’s thought, in which he restates his core distinctions between Consequentialists and Autonomists, classifies the levels of being a “Follower of the Middle Way”, and refutes Tsongkhapa on relative truth and on the way Consequentialists perform refutations.
What Is a Follower of the Middle Way?
The Karmapa’s final position: genuine Followers of the Middle Way are buddhas and the other three types of noble beings dwelling, not in postmeditation, but in meditative equipoise within the true nature of reality. The category of “worldly Followers of the Middle Way” extends, derivatively, to noble beings in post-meditation and to ordinary sentient beings who can describe at least some knowable objects in harmony with interdependence (i.e., as lacking true existence). The treatise ends with the Karmapa’s thanks to those who helped him compose the text, his aspirations for the future study and practice of the genuine Buddhadharma, and his dedication of merit.
The appendices to the Dewar translation — Candrakīrti’s Prasannapadā excerpt on MMK 1.1, Atiśa’s Madhyama-upadeśa, the Five Great Reasonings overview, the analytical-meditation guide, the root verses of the Entrance, the Karmapa’s outline, and the bibliography/notes/index — are not the Karmapa’s own work and are not summarised here. See the source page for cross-references to their independent addition.