r0b’s Reviews > Tsongkhapa: The Legacy of Tibet's Great Philosopher-Saint > Status Update

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.

...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...

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

...apply meta-awareness such that, during the reasoning of the absence of identity and difference and the concluding ascertainment resulting from it, no extraneous thoughts interrupt the process, and (b) the way to prevent mental laxity and excitation, follow the explanation given in the context of tranquil abiding practice. And as you meditate in this way, you will feel as if...

...Tsongkhapa states:

Then sustain the continuity of the ascertainment just arisen that nothing exists as perceived and apprehended by this sense of “I am,” and reinforce that strong ascertainment several times. Again, proceed like this: in subsequent [reinforcements of ascertainment], apply analysis with less force while sustaining ascertainment in a vibrant way. As to (a) the way to maintain mindfulness...

I have argued that in this debate [between Geluk and Nyingma scholars in Tibet], the Geluk tradition has things just right. Nonconceptual awareness makes perfect sense, so long as that of which one thereby becomes aware is also conceptualizable.

Chapter 3
On the Conceptualized Ultimate by Jay L. Garfield

“Ultimate truth is not ineffable, for definite scriptural texts and their verbal descriptions do embody its profound meanings.”

Tsongkhapa, Illuminating the Intent

“Ultimate truth is not ineffable, for definite scriptural texts and their verbal descriptions do embody its profound meanings.”

Tsongkhapa, Illuminating the Intent