r0b’s Reviews > The Two Truths Debate: Tsongkhapa and Gorampa on the Middle Way > Status Update

Samsara and nirvana are both states of consciousness, as Tsongkhapa would agree, and for Gorampa all states of consciousness have their root in the alaya. Gorampas’ point is that the samsara-nirvana dichotomy is a duality, and from that perspective both are transcended in ultimate truth— clinging to the dif­ference is an obstacle to the nondual realization.

Gorampas account of enlightened wisdom— metaphysically absolute, non­ dual, and transcendent—arises from his efforts to graft the ālāyavijñāna, the foundation consciousness of Yogacara idealism, onto the Prasangika Madhyamaka system.

...success on the path, and that is why Tsongkhapa creates no hierarchy between them. One cannot eliminate negativity with­ out a proper appreciation for empirical cause and effect, and one cannot eliminate the root delusion about an essential self without penetrating the ultimate truth.

Tsongkhapas main purpose in attaining nondual knowledge is not to eschew the subject-object dichotomy. The purpose, as he sees it, is rather to purify deluded cognitive states and destroy ego-tainted emotions in the service of bodhicitta—the goal of attaining full enlightenment in order to free all beings from suffering and its causes. Both the dual and nondual per­spectives are required for...

Nondual transcendent wisdom is itself an empiri­cal phenomenon, and it is not therefore an empirically transcendent truth, as Gorampa would have it.

From his critics’ point of view, Tsongkhapa stands accused of advocating the doctrine of Madhyamaka nihilism. Gorampa, in the (Eliminating the Erroneous View), accuses Tsongkhapa of being “seized by demons” and in the (Distinguishing Views) decries him as a “nihilistic Madhyamika” who is spreading “demonic words”.

Tsongkhapa, on the other hand, does not equate emptiness with nothingness— yet he insists that it is possible, nev­ertheless, to achieve nondual awareness.

Mipham Rinpoche brands Gorampas view as nothing short of quietism—a view, also attributed to the Chinese Hva Shang, that takes cognitive disengagement to be a matter of ceasing all cog­nitive activities. To take the validity of meditative equipoise as consisting in seeing nothingness is equivalent, in Mipham Rinpoche’s view, to endors­ ing Hva Shang’s insistence on stilling thoughts and becoming almost zom­bie-like.

Modern scholars working on Madhyamaka philosophy tend to set aside anything related to meditative experiences. In my view, such an approach does a serious injustice to the epistemological systems of the Madhyamikas in general, and Tsongkhapa and Gorampa in particular.

Tsongkhapa argues for eradicating both the underlying reifying tenden­cies—the defilements—and the conceptually reified essence. Gorampa argues for eradicating not only the underlying reifying tendencies, but also the entire matrix of the conventional world. This disagreement about the scope of the objects of negation, as we will see, informs their disagreements on epistemology and soteriology.