Mesoscope’s Reviews > Distinguishing the Views and Philosophies: Illuminating Emptiness in a Twentieth-Century Tibetan Buddhist Classic > Status Update

If I'm not mistaken, Bötrül states that the final view is deeply hidden, meaning that it is inaccessible to valid perception and indemonstrable through reason, and we must take the Buddha's word for it. That seems intensely problematic to me.

Bötrül's account of Geluk Madhyamaka is a bit of a caricature, as is Mipham's. They both frequently summarize the Geluk position as "A pot is not empty of pot, it is empty of inherent existence," Bütröl here, and Mipham in his commentary on the Madhyamakavatara. I don't believe this is an assertion that any Gelukpa would defend.

Many times in the Nyingma account of Madhyamaka, they take what is simple in the Gelukpa account and turn it into something extremely complicated.

I'm finding Bötrul's discussion of the two truths is much clearer if I look at the passages in Mipham's commentary to the Ornament of the Middle Way that they reference. It may function better as an amplification of that discussion than as a free-standing argument.

Fascinating to read this book after Rongzompa's Entering the Way of the Mahayana - you can clearly see the strong contribution Rongzompa made to Mipham's view, but here, it is reformulated in much more modern and familiar terms.