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...the profound, terrifying practice of enlightenment, whose essence is emptiness and compassion.

Finally, the Jewel Garland declares:

Just as the grammarians make one read the grammar, the Buddha teaches the Dharma according to the tolerance of the disciple. To some he teaches the Dharma to refrain from sins, to some to accomplish virtue, to some as dependence on dualism, and to some as freedom from dualism; (finally) to some he teaches...

...the “real” relative, the inexpressible processes that we are.

[I have the impression that Thurman unfortunately makes this text, through his translation and his presentation, more difficult than is necessary. It is a bit of a slog at times and I don't think it should be.]

...“The form-aggregate is produced,” “it is ceased,” “it is abandoned,” “it is fully understood,” and so on. Thus, as long as our perceptions are habitually entangled in our conventional, verbalized descriptions of the world, that is, as long as we have not seen the unreality of the “structured, verbally, conceptually, and imaginatively constructed world,” we do not perceive...

“The imagined reality” designates the world of conditional processes, which are its ground as object of conceptual constructions, when this world is verbally and conventionally structured into a world of natural entities, as [evinced in perceptions accompanying such] expressions as “This is the form-aggregate,” and of natural qualities, as [evinced in perceptions accompanying such] expressions as...

...Tsong Khapa has the audacity to argue that the Absolute, the Ultimate Truth, Reality, can be proven, expressed, and experienced, and that human reason can thus serve as the solid ground for ethical, creative, and liberative action in the world.

P. 230
(re-reading some as I had put it down for awhile)

...Nirvana cannot be distinguished from samsara. It is just here now, and the full experiential acceptance of that is liberation, which is not a going elsewhere.

There is a Nirvana, a supreme bliss. But salvation is not “mystic,” a “leap into the void” having discarded reason, and Nirvana is not a place outside the world; it is a situation that includes the world within its bliss.Samsara cannot be distinguished from it. It is in Nirvana that samsara is embraced completely.In the ultimate reality, there is no duality of any sort, and samsara and Nirvana are the same actuality.

Tsong Khapa urges us to “listen with reverence” to the philosophy of enlightenment and yet we have discovered that the hermeneutical act of listening can only be performed by means of pure reason. The definitive teaching turns out ultimately to be sheer silence, an absolute negation of the ultimate expressibility of reality.

The Buddhist analysis of suffering and its origins, and of awakening and the paths to attain it, requires in-depth questioning of assumptions and beliefs. It also requires opening to a very different worldview - one in which the causes of our misery lie in our own mind and the path to bliss involves purifying the mind. Je Tsongkhapa’s clear explanation of this is a true light illuminating the darkness of our minds.

Most commentaries on the Essence place it in the context of the four traditional hermeneutical strategies called the “Four Reliances,” which are as follows:

a. rely on the teaching, not the teacher(’s authority);
b. rely on the meaning, not the letter;
c. rely on the definitive meaning, not the interpretable one;
d. rely on (non-conceptual) wisdom, not on (dualistic) cognition.

...concerned with the interpretation of contested sacred scripture, or sacred scripture in general...He is concerned with the interpretation of a received canon.

Chapter 9. Tsongkhapa’s Hermeneutics of the Perfection of Wisdom
by Gareth Sparham

“Tsongkhapa’s explicit contribution to hermeneutics is set forth in his Essence of Eloquence. There, his presentation... is of a hermeneutics based on the identification of definitive statements and provisional statements, those requiring interpretation. It is a magisterial presentation using traditional categories...In this work Tsongkhapa is not...

...nor of a subject, nor therefore of ‘I’ either”? Might I not ask: in what sense have you got what you are talking about and saying that only you have got it? Do you possess it? YOU DO NOT EVEN SEE IT! And this too is clear: if as a matter “matter of logic you exclude other people’s having something, it loses its sense to say that you have it.”

Quoting Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations:

“But when I imagine something, or even actually see objects, I have got something which my neighbor has not!” —I understand you. You want to look about you and say: “at any rate, only I have got THIS!” What are these words for? They serve no purpose. —Can one not add: “there is here no question of a ‘seeing’ and therefore none of a ‘having’—nor of a subject,...

If we understand this investigation, we will transform our understanding of everything. We will be transformed in our perceptions, thoughts, and responses. If we have not been transformed, we have not understood.

...it is a matter of hanging onto the high trapeze of his [Lama Tsongkhapa] thought for it to swing us out beyond our habitual image of ourselves as perplexed non-geniuses into the free flight of the wisdom that we all possess.

When we become confused, uncertain in our reading, we must therefore push ourselves first to think more deeply, and cannot easily sit back and find the fault in the writer or the text.

Tsong Khapa always felt deeply his debt to this great master [Buddhapalita], as it was while reading Buddhapalita’s book that he attained his highest enlightenment experience.

“One cultivates the gnosis of wisdom
through hearing, reflecting, and meditating on
the oral instructions passed one to another.
They’re the supreme coming from the supreme,
the Buddha’s eye, possessing the answer,
that has the means to to induce and apply
the yogini’s command...”

Tsongkhapa quoting with approval Kambala’s commentary on the Guhyasamaya text

...The problem with this system was that it was not immune to the reificatory mental habits that plague people and philosophers everywhere.

In Buddhist thought of his day, the refined science of the Abhidharma (itself merely a systematization of the Buddha’s critique of the naive realists) had ossified into a more subtle form of realism, a kind of reductionistic pluralism that took an atomistic form with the Vaibhashikas, the “Analysts,” and a nominalistic form with the Sautrantikas, the “Traditionists.”

The problem with this system was that...

...Like a nuclear reactor without any fuel, such a person will have no resource to utilize for the necessary transformations.

...just as we are the creator of all our own problems we are also the creator of our own liberation, and everything that is necessary for attaining this blissful liberation is contained in the body and mind we have right at this very moment.

The essence of tantra is dealing skillfully with pleasure. The person who qualifies for tantra is someone who can cope with pleasure, someone for whom dealing with pleasure becomes a conducive situation for achieving liberation. This is the tantric personality. If a person only knows how to be miserable then tantra will not work for him or her. Like a nuclear reactor without any fuel, such a person will have no...

...who get something really clear in their mind and then, the minute they understand it, put it directly into their heart- these are the people who are truly practicing. They are the ones who are getting the chocolate.

The most important thing about tantric practice is to get a taste, an actual experience, of something that has meaning for you. It doesn’t matter how small the piece of chocolate you get is; you taste it and you are satisfied. That is all. So those people...

Of course our rational mind-the gross mind that is caught up in society’s values-believes in the importance of everything we do. But we should not be fooled into believing that all this complicated thinking is the truth. There may be a lot of things we have to go along with in order to live our daily lives, but we don’t have to believe in them. And when we are being complicated we shouldn’t even believe in ourselves!

As we have discussed, renunciation, bodhicitta, and the correct view of emptiness are three of the prerequisites for the practice of tantra. This does not mean, however, that our realization of these three has to be complete and perfect before we can start following the tantric path. An approximate understanding is sufficient for us to begin.

...We cease to be tossed this way and that by the changing fortunes of our life and gain the space to begin tapping our inner potential.

When Buddhism speaks of taking refuge it is emphasizing the importance of breaking out of this desperate, unfulfilling search for satisfaction. Taking true refuge involves a changing of our attitude; it comes from seeing the ultimate worthlessness of the transitory phenomena we are ordinarily attracted to...

...the subject itself is subsumed by its object, emptiness, while the object arises as if is an aspect of the subject.