Companion to mipham-introduction-middle-way-2002. For thesis, key claims, methodology, critical notes, and paper-relevance tagging see the source page.
The volume contains three layered textual strata: (i) Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra (MA) in verse translation; (ii) Mipham’s posthumous commentary The Word of Chandra: The Necklace of Spotless Crystal (དབུ་མ་ལ་འཇུག་པའི་འགྲེལ་པ་ཟླ་བའི་ཞལ་ལུང་དྲི་མེད་ཤེལ་ཕྲེང་), compiled by Khenpo Kunzang Pelden and Kathok Situ Rinpoche from Mipham’s notes and oral teachings; and (iii) a substantial Translators’ Introduction by Helena Blankleder and Wulstan Fletcher. Mipham’s commentary is verse-by-verse and largely follows the sabche (textual outline) he composed himself. Interleaved through the body are ten “Supplementary Discussions” — long argumentative excursuses, mostly polemical against the Geluk reading — collected by the editors from passages where Mipham expatiated beyond the strict requirements of the root verse. The structural shape that results is unusual: a reverentially gradualist commentary on the ten Bodhisattva grounds, punctuated by the most sustained Nyingma critique of Tsongkhapa in modern Tibetan literature, almost all of it concentrated in the sixth-ground chapter on emptiness.
Foreword (Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche, Dordogne, 2001)
A short framing note placing the volume in the lineage of the Padmakara Translation Group’s teachers. Kathok Situ Rinpoche and Khenpo Kunzang Pelden, the editors of Mipham’s commentary, are linked respectively to Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö (the previous Dzongsar Khyentse) and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, so the translation explicitly inscribes itself within a Nyingma transmission rather than presenting Mipham as a free-standing classical author. Madhyamaka is described as challenging but indispensable; the Madhyamakāvatāra itself is praised as “a product of the golden age of Buddhism in India.”
Translators’ Introduction (Padmakara Translation Group)
The Translators’ Introduction is itself a substantive piece of secondary literature roughly 80 pages long, treating Madhyamaka under five heads.
Chandrakirti and the Madhyamakavatara
The MA is positioned as the most accessible single entry to Nāgārjuna because, although longer than the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK), it covers fewer arguments at greater length. The dialectic is presented “as an integral part of the Mahayana, the Buddhism of the great vehicle”: the seed of wisdom is compassion, and the prasaṅga method is set within the framework of the ten pāramitās correlated with the ten bhūmis. The translators note that the Prāsaṅgika teaching of Candrakīrti is now “accepted by all four schools of Tibetan Buddhism as the summit of Buddhist tenet systems.”
The Origins of Madhyamika and the Buddha’s Silence
This section, drawing on T. R. V. Murti and on Mipham’s own Madhyamakālaṅkāra-vṛtti preamble, locates Madhyamaka’s central insight in the Buddha’s silence before Vacchagotta’s fourteen unanswered questions (whether the universe has a beginning, whether the Buddha exists after death, whether the self is identical with the body, etc.). The Buddha’s refusal to take a position on metaphysical questions “constitutes a seminal anticipation of the Madhyamika, in both meaning and method.” Madhyamaka is “to be understood as the exploration and systematic expression of the Buddha’s silence.” Kant’s antinomies are cited as a Western analogue: “the use of pure reason extended beyond the empirical sphere results not in knowledge but in antinomies, that is, contradiction.” Nāgārjuna’s citation of the encounter with Kātyāyana in MMK 15:7 is treated as the load-bearing scriptural anchor: “That things exist, O Katyayana, is one extreme. That they do not exist is another. But I, the Tathagata, accept neither ‘is’ nor ‘is not,’ and I declare the truth from the Middle Position.”
The Development of the Madhyamika School
The historical sketch sets out the standard four-phase scheme: (i) Nāgārjuna and Āryadeva (“Madhyamikas of the founding texts,” གཞུང་ཕྱི་མོའི་དབུ་མ་པ་), whose work directly engages the Abhidharmika synthesis of the earlier schools; (ii) the divergence of Buddhapālita and Bhāviveka in the sixth century over whether independent inferences (svatantra-anumāna) may be used in defining the view; (iii) Candrakīrti’s defence of Buddhapālita against Bhāviveka in the Prasannapadā; (iv) Śāntarakṣita’s Yogācāra-Madhyamaka synthesis at the end of the Indian period. The translators stress that Madhyamaka is “not a philosophy so much as a critique of philosophy” — “in being a system of pure criticism, Madhyamika has no positive content of its own.”
A Difference of Method: Buddhapalita, Bhavaviveka, and Chandrakirti
This is the most technical section, walking carefully through Candrakīrti’s three rebuttals of Bhāviveka’s objections to Buddhapālita: that consequences can be restated as “inferences accepted by the opponent” (གཞན་ལ་གྲགས་པའི་རྗེས་དཔག་) which carry the force of a syllogism without compromising the Madhyamika; that the Sāṃkhya counter-arguments are addressed only through independent syllogisms and so do not bear on the consequence; and that the meaning of the consequence is fixed by context. Candrakīrti’s positive case is summarised as a defence of the Madhyamika’s right not to verbalise a position of its own, since “the ultimate status of things is ineffable” and any independent inference presupposes a community of accepted entities that the Madhyamika denies. Bertrand Russell’s parable of the physicist and the cash machine is borrowed to illustrate why the Prāsaṅgika refuses to theorise even about the conventional: theoretical accounts of the conventional do nothing to remove “the tyranny of phenomenal appearance.”
Madhyamika in Tibet, and Mipham Rinpoche and the Prāsaṅgika-Svātantrika Distinction
The history of the Madhyamakāvatāra’s reception in Tibet — Patsap Nyima Drak’s translation in the twelfth century, the formative resistance of Chapa Chökyi Senge, the eventual triumph of Prāsaṅgika across all four schools — sets up the more interesting section on Mipham’s view of the Svātantrika–Prāsaṅgika distinction. The translators draw heavily on Mipham’s Madhyamakālaṅkāra-vṛtti here, and the key passage is quoted in full: the Svātantrika “emphasises the approximate ultimate” (རྣམ་གྲངས་པའི་དོན་དམ་), the Prāsaṅgika “emphasises the ultimate in itself” (རྣམ་གྲངས་མ་ཡིན་པའི་དོན་དམ་); the difference between the two reflects the capacities of the disciple (གཅིག་ཆར་པ་, immediate, vs. རིམ་བསྐྱེད་པ་, gradual), not a hierarchy of view. Hence: “Buddhapalita, Bhavaviveka, Chandrakirti, Shantarakshita and so on are all equal — they are all, we might say, Prasangikas, possessed of the highest view.” The Indian Svātantrika is, on this reading, a legitimate Madhyamaka in its own right; the disagreement is over communicative strategy in the postmeditation period.
The translators then narrow the focus to Mipham’s polemic with the Geluk reformulation. Tsongkhapa’s signature distinction between the basis of negation (the conventional phenomenon) and the object of negation (the phenomenon’s true existence, བདེན་གྲུབ་) is summarised sympathetically — its purpose was to forestall a nihilistic reading of emptiness — but its danger is also noted, using the Geluk master Janggya Rölpa’i Dorje’s verse against itself: “Our great intellects these days, / Leave things appearing clearly on one side / And look for hares with horns as something to refute. / Old grandmother will run away from them!” Mipham’s attack on the bden grub-as-extraneous-qualifier construction is then introduced as the polemical heart of the body commentary. The translators stress that Mipham’s reconciliatory generosity toward the Indian Svātantrika does not extend to this Tibetan reformulation: “the assertion that ‘the pot is not empty of pot but of true existence’ — by someone for whom the distinction between the object of negation and the basis of negation means nothing on the experiential or even intellectual level — far from calling into question the apparent reality of phenomena, tends instead to confirm the deep-rooted habitual belief in substantial reality. In the last analysis, it is a species of realism.” It is in this sense, the translators observe, that Mipham’s view “is in practice indistinguishable from Bhavaviveka’s Svatantrika assertion that phenomena, though empty ultimately, exist according to their characteristics on the conventional level.”
Mipham Rinpoche and The Word of Chandra
A brief biographical section on Mipham (1846–1912), with attention to his Rimé context: studies with Patrul Rinpoche, Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, and Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thayé; his commission by Khyentse Wangpo to compose textbooks for the Nyingma sutra curriculum (the present MA commentary, his commentaries on the Madhyamakālaṅkāra and on the wisdom chapter of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, the five Maitreya texts, logic, etc.); his impartiality in debate (Kunzang Pelden’s account of the debate with the Geluk scholar Lozang Rabsel is praised). The translators close by noting that the commentary on the Madhyamakāvatāra is one of several posthumous items assembled by Mipham’s closest disciples (Kathok Situ Chökyi Gyamtso and Khenpo Kunzang Pelden) after his death, on the basis of his lecture notes and unfinished writings. Mipham’s own hand authored only the sabche — the textual outline — which the translators describe as “the commentary itself in its most essential form.”
Mipham’s Preamble
The Preamble lays out the four divisions of the commentary: the meaning of the title, the homage of the translator, the treatise itself, and the conclusion. The title Madhyamakāvatāra is glossed: “Middle Way” refers either to the dharmadhātu (absolute madhyamika, ultimate reality beyond concept) or to scriptural madhyamika (the texts introducing this reality). The MA is a “general meaning commentary” on the MMK; in commenting on the MMK, Candrakīrti “emphasises the ultimate truth in itself, which lies beyond the reach of all assertion. He therefore adopts the extraordinary view of the Prasangikas.” The author’s homage praises great compassion under three aspects: compassion that takes beings as its object, compassion that takes transience as its object, and compassion that is non-referential. The image of the irrigation wheel is glossed at length in six points to describe how beings revolve helplessly through the realms of saṃsāra.
I. The First Ground: Perfect Joy (MA 1)
The first chapter explains how the Bodhisattva enters the path of seeing. The five additional qualities of the first ground are explained — lineage (the Bodhisattva enters the family of the Tathāgatas), elimination (the three fetters of the view of the transitory composite, the belief in the superiority of one’s ethical discipline, and doubt), realisation, ability (the hundred and twelve powers, including the capacity to shake a hundred world systems), and progression. The Bodhisattva can no longer fall into the lower realms. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to the preeminence of the pāramitā of generosity on this ground. Generosity is praised as the basis of happiness in saṃsāra and the path to the bliss of nirvāṇa, with the verse-by-verse argument that “the merest thought or sound of someone crying ‘Give!’ / Will bring to children of the Conqueror a joy / Unknown to Arhats even when they enter into peace” (MA 1.14). The chapter distinguishes mundane generosity (with attachment to the three “spheres” of giver, gift, and receiver) from supramundane generosity (devoid of these references). The metaphor of the Water-Crystal Gem closes the chapter.
II. The Second Ground: Immaculate (MA 2)
The chapter expounds the pāramitā of discipline. Bodhisattvas on this ground possess “perfect discipline” because they are wholly free from the ten negative actions and even from “the merest wish” to commit them. The argument that ethical discipline is the foundation of all qualities is structured under the defects of indiscipline (the impossibility of attaining high rebirth, the futility of accumulated merit, and the inescapability of the lower realms) and the benefits of discipline. The chapter classifies discipline into ethical discipline as restraint, discipline as the gathering of virtuous qualities, and discipline as accomplishing the welfare of beings. Mipham concludes that even ordinary persons need to keep ethics, since without it the practices of the higher pāramitās have no support.
III. The Third Ground: Luminous (MA 3)
The third chapter treats patience. The opening verses establish patience as the preeminent virtue on this ground because “anger destroys in a single moment / The merit gathered through ten million ages” (MA 3.6). Mipham’s commentary develops the classification of patience under three heads: patience that endures harm, patience that voluntarily accepts suffering as part of the path, and patience that arises from certainty regarding the profound Dharma. The “meditation on patience on the level of ultimate truth” (MA 3.3) is read as the recognition that no agent of harm, no patient, and no act of harm can be found by analysis. Mipham’s gloss emphasises that patience under the analytical method is not mere restraint but a direct consequence of the absence of inherent existence in the three components. The chapter ends with a short description of the further qualities that manifest on the third ground (the four levels of samādhi, the four boundless thoughts, and the four formless absorptions).
IV. The Fourth Ground: Radiant (MA 4)
A short chapter on diligence. Diligence is the cause of all virtuous qualities and the ground of further realisation; Mipham reads the brevity of the chapter as itself instructive, since the Bodhisattva’s diligence on this ground is described as a fire that “consumes all the firewood of obscuration.”
V. The Fifth Ground: Hard to Keep (MA 5)
Concentration is preeminent on this ground. The chapter is short. The “great difficulty” of this ground (the source of its name) is the integration of concentration with the four noble truths — the Bodhisattva understands them as both the means and as themselves empty of inherent existence. The fifth ground is the threshold to the central chapter.
VI. The Sixth Ground: Clearly Manifest (MA 6)
By far the longest and most important chapter, and the heart of Mipham’s polemical engagement. The chapter follows MA 6.1–226 verse by verse, but its philosophical density is in the ten Supplementary Discussions that the editors placed at relevant points in the verse-by-verse commentary.
Verses 6.1–6.7: The preeminence of wisdom
Mipham reads MA 6.1 as the declaration that Bodhisattvas on the sixth ground “abide in sublime evenness of mind. The power of their wisdom gives them a complete mastery of the two truths, and they perfectly assimilate the principle of dependent arising.” The simile of a single sighted man leading a multitude of the blind (MA 6.2) is used to argue that wisdom alone confers the pāramitā character on the other five perfections. The “tenfold equality of phenomena” passage from the Daśabhūmika-sūtra (MA 6.7) is reproduced — the ten points include: phenomena are without attributes, without a particular nature, cannot be produced, are unproduced, empty, primordially pure, beyond conceptual constructs, beyond acceptance and rejection, like illusions, and neither real nor unreal. Only the third point (non-origination) is then established by reasoning in the body of the chapter; the others “are the result of realisation alone.”
Verses 6.8–6.13: The four theories of production and the first Supplementary Discussion (true existence as extraneous to phenomena)
The standard refutation of the tetralemma of production (from self, from other, from both, from neither) is set out. After the short exposition at MA 6.8 (“Effects do not emerge from causes with which they are substantially identical…”), the editors insert **Supplementary Discussion **, the first sustained development of the central polemic. The argument runs:
- There is nothing wrong with the standard logical procedure of presenting the proposition “the pot is empty of true existence.” When sound is the subject and impermanence the predicate, the impermanence of sound is established without “refuting” the sound itself as the subject; in this exclusively verbal sense, “the pot is empty of true existence” can be unobjectionable.
- But: “since there has never been any such thing as permanent sound, it is not permanence (as a feature of sound) that is now being disposed of, but rather the idea of permanent sound in its entirety. … When the conceived object — the pot’s imaginary true existence — is refuted, it is the pot itself (the truly existent pot) that is refuted.”
- The Geluk position — that absolutist reasoning refutes “not the pot but only the pot’s true existence” — is therefore “a newfangled theory of substantialism.” The opponents “are in fact rejecting emptiness as taught in such scriptural passages as ‘Phenomena are empty and devoid of self,’ or ‘the eye is empty of eye.‘”
- Mipham then turns directly on Tsongkhapa, citing him by name and at length: “Although he expressed himself differently, the Lord Tsongkhapa arrived at a similar verdict when he classified the Svatantrikas as substantialists” — and then turns the argument back: the very strategy of treating true existence as something extraneous is itself the substantialist mistake.
- The conclusion: “Some have asserted that absolutist reasoning does not refute the pot itself but only the pot’s true existence … such a position cannot be sustained by any rational argument.”
Supplementary Discussion : The ultimate truth in itself and the approximate ultimate truth
The single most important conceptual exposition in the entire commentary, inserted after MA 6.23. Mipham articulates a two-tier ultimate:
- The ultimate truth in itself (རྣམ་གྲངས་མ་ཡིན་པའི་དོན་དམ་): the inseparability of appearance and emptiness, “the object of individual self-reflexive awareness,” which “cannot in any way be described and is referred to as the dharmadhātu, the tathāgatagarbha, and so on.” It “obliterates all four ontological extremes at a single stroke” and is not a non-affirming negative.
- The approximate ultimate (རྣམ་གྲངས་པའི་དོན་དམ་): emptiness as non-affirming negation, the conceptual gateway. At this level “the two truths are the distinct isolates or aspects of the same nature.” This level “is able to refute the extreme of existence. But given that the refutation of the extreme of non-existence involves an appeal to relative truth, ultimate reality, from its own side, constitutes an ontological extreme (non-existence).”
The polemical consequence is structural rather than merely textual: a Madhyamaka that stops at the approximate ultimate — Mipham’s reading of how Tsongkhapa’s med dgag ultimate functions — cannot in principle transcend the four extremes. The translators’ footnote 95 to the gloss on MA 6.23 is unambiguous: “the difference is epistemic, not ontological.” Mipham’s gloss of MA 6.23 itself reads: “This double identity (i.e., the two truths) is the conclusion of correct reasoning; it has no reality on the level of being.”
Supplementary Discussion : The valid establishment of phenomena
A short excursus on the Geluk doctrine that conventional phenomena are “validly established by the force of mental imputation” (རྟོག་པས་བརྟགས་པའི་ཚད་གྲུབ་). Mipham rejects this: “the Prasangika tradition does not say that phenomena are validly established by the force of mental imputation.” If mere imputation were the criterion, the distinction between Buddhist and non-Buddhist tenets would dissolve, and karmic distinctions would “dissolve into chaos.” Mipham’s preferred formulation: phenomena are conventionally established as what appears to undamaged senses, and there is no further conventionally established reality “behind” appearance.
Supplementary Discussion : What is refuted by absolutist reasoning?
Direct response to the Geluk position that absolutist reasoning refutes only “true existence.” Mipham argues that “absolutist reasoning certainly does not just refute true existence while leaving conventionalities alone. When conventional phenomena are examined, they are not found.” The object of refutation cannot be a separate “truly existent pot” because no ordinary person — even one who clings to the reality of pots — ever apprehends a true existence of the pot as something distinct from the pot itself.
Supplementary Discussion : Further discussion concerning true existence considered as extraneous to phenomena
A continuation of , marshalling new examples. The image of the rope mistaken for a snake is used: when the rope is examined and the snake is shown not to be there, what remains is the rope — but here, the opponent’s claim that “the pot is empty of a true existence” (a true existence that, like the snake, is not actually there) collapses, because no one apprehends a separately existing true existence in the first place. “There is no one who would ever take for a truly existent pot something that is separate from the pot itself, something indeed that has never existed within the ambit of common perception.”
Verses 6.34–6.45: Conventional production, valid cognition, the ālaya
Mipham reads MA 6.34 ff. as completing the refutation of “naturally existent other-production, even conventionally.” The Prāsaṅgika position is that, even on the conventional level, there is no production “according to characteristics” — “the only things one perceives are conditioned mere appearances.” The chapter’s discussion of valid cognition (MA 6.24–6.31) is read as preparing the ground for the Cittamātra refutation: the four causes of mistaken perception (impaired faculties, outer circumstances, hallucinogens, mental causes such as magic spells and dreams) are mapped onto deluded vs. correct conventional cognition. MA 6.39–6.45 introduce the discussion of how an action can produce its effect “even in the absence of the ālaya”: the Cittamātra, Sautrāntika, and Vaibhāṣika each provide some intermediary (the ālaya, the mental continuum, the doctrine of “obtention”) to ensure karmic continuity, but in each case the intermediary is needed only because they take cause and effect to be inherently existent. The Prāsaṅgika has no such need: “neither action nor effect has inherent existence; they arise in interdependence.”
Supplementary Discussion : Disintegration as a positive entity (zhig pa dngos po)
A direct refutation of Tsongkhapa’s zhig pa dngos po doctrine — that disintegration is a positive entity that can function as a cause. Mipham marshals three reductios:
- The double negation reductio: “if the disintegration and the nondisintegration of something are both said to be real entities, it follows that the two negatives … are not contraries — in other words, that the existence of something and its nonexistence are not opposites. They do not cancel each other out. … It follows that every thing is permanent, for it would be impossible ever to have a nonexistent thing that is precisely the reverse of the existent thing.”
- The light/darkness reductio: if darkness “arises from the extinguishing of a light,” and extinction is a functioning entity, then “in the space between the cosmic continents, there is no darkness, for there was never any light there to be extinguished.”
- The horse reductio: “since when one’s horse dies, one is obliged to walk, it follows that a horseless beggar need never walk, for his horse has never died. Ha ha! Very amusing!”
- The implicit affirming-negative reductio: if disintegration is a positive functioning entity, emptiness (qua interdependence of disintegrated and undisintegrated states) becomes “an affirming negative,” which contradicts the Geluk insistence that emptiness is a non-affirming negative.
Verses 6.45–6.97: Refutation of the Cittamātra
Mipham follows Candrakīrti’s verse sequence closely. The Cittamātra position is presented in its strongest form (MA 6.45–47): three worlds are nothing but consciousness, latent potentials (vāsanā) in the ālayavijñāna ripen to produce both subject and object, and the ālaya both binds in saṃsāra and makes liberation possible. The argument that the ālaya functions as a quasi-creator analogous to the theist’s God (“The only difference between God and the alaya is that the former is supposed to be immutable while the latter is said to fluctuate”) is reproduced from MA 6.46.
The refutation proceeds:
- The dream example (MA 6.48–6.53) is shown to be inadequate, because in a dream the three elements (object, sense power, consciousness) are equally unreal. If the example proves anything, it proves that all three are illusory, not that consciousness alone is real.
- The black-lines example (MA 6.54–6.55) is dispatched parallel to the dream argument.
- The potential of latent tendencies (MA 6.56–6.67) is refuted by a temporal analysis: the potential cannot belong to the present consciousness (cause and effect would coincide), nor to the future (which does not yet exist), nor to the past (which would break causal coherence). The “blind man in the waking state” reductio shows that if outer objects are merely projections of ripening tendencies, the waking blind man should see exactly as the dreamer does.
- Refutation by scripture (MA 6.94–6.97), the verses on the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra: the famous passage “Apparent things, external to the mind, do not exist; / They are the mind, in various forms, appearing to itself … bodies, goods, locations — all such things / Are but the mind alone, I do affirm” is read as expedient (neyārtha), and the Laṅkāvatāra is shown to read itself this way: “According to the ailments of an ailing man, / The doctor will apply his doctoring. / And likewise Buddha, for the sake of living beings, / Has said indeed that mind alone is true.” The teaching of “mind only” “was not an expression of what the Buddha, in his wisdom, had realized on his own account; it was set forth with reference to the minds of his hearers.” Mipham extends this verdict to the Saṃdhinirmocana-sūtra’s three natures doctrine.
The conclusion at MA 6.97 is procedurally important: “the sutras, the subject of which is not ultimate reality, were set forth to lead beings on the path. These are the scriptures of the expedient meaning. By contrast, sutras that discourse about emptiness are scriptures of ultimate meaning.” Mipham here treats the Two Truths and the neyārtha/nītārtha distinction as a single integrated reading apparatus.
Verses 6.98–6.103: Production from both and uncaused production
The Jaina theory of production from both self and other (illustrated by the nine elements of the person Maitreya) and the Cārvāka theory of uncaused production are dispatched together: the former inherits all the defects of the two species of production it attempts to combine, and the latter is incompatible with the very intelligibility of causal practice.
Supplementary Discussion : The purpose of absolutist reasoning (continued)
A continuation of , sharpening the rule that absolutist reasoning has no other object than commonly perceived conventional phenomena: “When establishing emptiness by reasoning, one does not use absolutist arguments to refute what can be disproved by ordinary reasoning operating on the relative level.” The bden grub qualifier, if read as picking out a real attribute, would force the absurdity that absolutist reasoning has a separate metaphysical object never accessible to common experience.
Supplementary Discussion : Phenomena as validly established by direct sense experience alone
A discussion of inter-realm perception: water perceived as pus by pretas, as a dwelling-place by fish, as water by humans, as space itself by gods of the absorption of Infinite Space. The argument: because phenomena are “in the final analysis empty, their character cannot be substantiated by rational means. They are merely the deposit of mental habituation.” The point is used both against the Cittamātra (who would have to explain how the same “mind-stuff” produces such different perceptions of “the same” thing) and against any conventional realism (because no conventional appearance enjoys a privileged status).
Verses 6.104–6.119: Replies to objections
The argument that emptiness should be evident if it is the nature of phenomena (MA 6.104–6.105) is met by the analogy of ocular defect: those whose minds are clouded by ignorance fail to see emptiness exactly as those with cataracts see black lines that are not there. Successive objections — that ignorance must itself be a real entity, that without a ground of appearance nothing could appear, that the Buddha and Bodhisattvas would have to be denied any real existence — are dispatched with the steady refrain that conventional appearance and ultimate emptiness coincide.
Verses 6.120–6.165: The personal self
The chapter then turns to the refutation of the personal self. The standard sevenfold analysis of the chariot is reproduced and extended (MA 6.135 ff.). Mipham takes the Vātsīputrīya position — that the self is “indescribable” as either the same as or different from the aggregates — and applies the catuṣkoṭi to dismantle it (MA 6.149). The conclusion that “the self is a mere dependent imputation” is then extended to all phenomena.
Verses 6.180–6.223: The twenty kinds of emptiness
The MA’s classification of emptiness into sixteen kinds and into a shorter four-fold scheme is glossed in detail. Mipham’s treatment of MA 6.181 (“Since the eye has no inherent existence, eye is empty of eye”) is occasion for **Supplementary Discussion **, the second extended return to the bden grub polemic. The argument is anchored to Candrakīrti’s autocommentary: “The expression ‘The eye is empty of eye’ (and so on for all other phenomena) expresses the nature of emptiness. Emptiness does not mean the absence of something from something else.” Mipham’s gloss on the four-fold abridgement (emptiness of things, emptiness of non-things, emptiness of essential nature, emptiness of the transcendent quality) treats the four as a summary of the sixteen rather than a hierarchy.
Supplementary Discussion : Do the Shravakas realize the no-self of phenomena?
The third major polemical excursus in the chapter. The view defended is that śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas do not possess a complete realisation of dharma-nairātmya. Candrakīrti is cited from the autocommentary: “It is true that the Shravakas and the Pratyekabuddhas understand dependent arising, the mere conditionedness of phenomena, but they do not meditate on the complete nonexistence of the phenomenal self.” Longchenpa is cited to the same effect. The argument is anchored in the seawater analogy: “it is rather as when someone drinks a mouthful of seawater, one cannot deny that he is drinking ‘the sea.‘” The śrāvakas have some realisation of the no-self of phenomena (insofar as they realise the no-self of the person), but not complete realisation; the difference is one of “proclivity and interest” and depends on “compassion as well as the availability of a teacher of the Mahāyāna.”
The argument’s load-bearing reductio: “if the nonexistence of the two kinds of self were necessarily realised simultaneously, it would follow that when the śrāvakas realised that a pot was a mere conceptual designation, they would also realise that the indivisible particle and moment of consciousness were but conceptual designations … and why should one not realise that emptiness coincides with dependently arising phenomena? Indeed, why should one not immediately embrace the Mahāyāna and become a Prāsaṅgika?” The diagnostic question makes the argument essentially structural: complete realisation of dharma-nairātmya is, on this view, definitionally Mahāyāna.
Verses 6.224–6.226: Concluding description
The chapter closes with the image of the sixth-ground Bodhisattva as the king of swans, with the two broad white wings of the relative and ultimate truths, soaring on the strong winds of virtue to the far shore of the qualities of buddhahood.
VII. The Seventh Ground: Far Progressed (MA 7)
The seventh-ground Bodhisattva can enter and emerge from cessation (nirodha) at each and every instant, but does not yet abide in true cessation. The pāramitā of skilful means is preeminent: the Bodhisattvabhūmi-śāstra’s two sets of six skilful means are summarised — the first six for acquiring the qualities of buddhahood (perfect knowledge of phenomena as they are, the wish for unsurpassed wisdom, etc.), the second six for bringing beings to maturity (making small virtues productive of vast results, dissipating animosity, drawing the indifferent to the Dharma, and so on).
VIII. The Eighth Ground: Immovable (MA 8)
The chapter teaches that the eighth-ground Bodhisattva has fully accepted that phenomena are without origin (anutpattika-dharmakṣānti), and the attainment of buddhahood is now irreversible. The simile of the boat is used: “before setting sail upon the sea, one needs to walk to reach the boat. But once on board, there is no further need to walk, and the distance that it would take, let us say, a hundred years to traverse on foot can be covered in a single day.” Saṃsāric birth is arrested, but the Buddhas exhort the Bodhisattva not to abandon beings: “Child of my lineage … remember your past aspirations and the work that is to be accomplished for the sake of beings. Remember inconceivable wisdom — mere ‘ultimate nature’ is realized even by the Shravakas and Pratyekabuddhas!” The chapter explains the ten powers of the Bodhisattva at this stage (power over life, mind, material things, karma, birth, prayers, aspirations, miracles, primal wisdom, and Dharma).
IX. The Ninth Ground: Perfect Intellect (MA 9)
A short chapter. The ten “strengths” of the Bodhisattva (strength of thought, proficiency, mastery, fearless ability, aspiration, pāramitās, love, compassion, ultimate reality, and being blessed by all the Buddhas) and the four perfect knowledges (of phenomena, of meaning, of expression, and of intelligence-and-ability) are listed.
X. The Tenth Ground: Cloud of Dharma (MA 10)
The Bodhisattva on the tenth ground receives supreme empowerment from rays of light emitted by the Buddhas of the ten directions, and actualises the concentration that is “the empowerment indistinguishable from omniscient wisdom.” From this Bodhisattva there falls “a spontaneous, effortless shower of the rain of sacred Dharma,” whence the name of the ground.
XI. The Ultimate Ground of Buddhahood (MA 11)
The longest of the post-sixth chapters. It is divided into the attainment of buddhahood and the description of the goal.
The attainment
The tenth-ground Bodhisattva cultivates the ten strengths and attains the supreme level in the buddhafield of Akaniṣṭha. The realisation of buddhahood is described as the realisation that all phenomena are of a single taste: “in the very moment that ‘those possessed of perfect wisdom’ understand that all phenomena are of a single taste, in that very instant they comprehend, in their omniscience, every object of knowledge.” Mipham takes pains here to defend the cognitive coherence of this realisation against two objections — that an unborn nature cannot be the object of cognition, and that, if subject and object are of one taste, the realisation cannot be taught to others. The reply is that “the Buddha’s realization of ultimate reality is a matter of primordial wisdom (ye shes) where subject and object are of one taste. It is not simply wisdom (shes rab).” Teaching nonetheless proceeds: “Just as in the ordinary world, gentle rain issues from rain clouds … in the same way, from the great Bodhisattvas residing on the tenth ground, there falls a spontaneous, effortless shower of the rain of sacred Dharma.”
The kāyas
The dharmakāya is “the burning of the tinder wood of knowledge objects by the fire of wisdom”; the sambhogakāya arises “of one taste with the expanse that is free from concepts”; the “kāya similar to its cause” (nirmāṇakāya) is described in MA 11.19–11.27 in terms of the Buddha’s ability to display in a single pore of the body all the activities of all the Buddhas of the three times.
The qualities
The ten strengths of buddhahood are expounded in detail (knowing what is correct and incorrect, knowing the fully ripened effects of action, knowing aspirations, knowing dhātus, knowing faculties, knowing all paths, knowing concentrations, knowing past lives, knowing the births and deaths of beings, and knowing the exhaustion of defilements), together with the four fearlessnesses, the eighteen distinctive qualities, and the four kinds of perfect knowledge. The chapter ends with the famous reductio of the one final vehicle (MA 11.45): “Except the knowledge of the ultimate nature of phenomena, there is no antidote able to remove the two obscurations. The ultimate condition of phenomena is not various as their different manifestations are. Ultimate reality is single and indivisible.” The verse from Vimuktasena is quoted: “Because the dharmadhātu is without division, / Undivided also is your vehicle. / And yet three vehicles you have set forth / That beings might pursue the path.”
The Buddha’s enduring presence
The closing verses (MA 11.49–11.51) develop the doctrine that the Buddha never withdraws into a one-sided nirvāṇa: “How could the Buddha withdraw into the mere one-sided, partial peace of a ‘nirvana without remainder’?” The compassion that holds the Buddha in the world is described as far surpassing the anguish of a mother whose only child has swallowed poison.
Conclusion
A brief closing section in which Candrakīrti describes the purpose of the Madhyamakāvatāra: to bring back to the tradition of Nāgārjuna those who had recoiled from it in fear of the words “unborn” and “empty,” and to clarify the view for the future. Mipham’s commentary closes with a colophon emphasising that the sabche (textual outline) was composed by Mipham’s own hand, and is “the commentary itself in its most essential form.”