American monk Tubten Pende gives an overview of the various interpretations of the Buddha’s teachings on emptiness. “…these philosophical views are different,” he says. “It’s not that they’re all one and they’re all the same; they’re saying something different.” Who’s right?

What is emptiness? We should ignore, first of all, how this word is used in, say, contemporary English. Emptiness doesn’t mean “a life without meaning.” Here it refers to ultimate reality. Ultimate reality is called emptiness because in reality things are not what they seem to be, they are empty of what you expected them to be. That’s the etymology of the word emptiness. To understand what emptiness means we have to understand the meaning of ultimate reality.

There are many schools of thought within Indian Buddhism regarding its meaning. One school, the Sautrantika or Traditionalist, has very concrete ideas and puts strong emphasis on action. For them, ultimate reality is anything that performs a function – that’s what’s real. A bus ultimately exists; if you don’t think so, stand in front of one!

Things that are permanent, however, are not considered by this school to be ultimately real. They are only superficially real, because things that are permanent are only made up by thought, just abstractions, like the type of space that is an absence of obstruction to extension and movement. That space is something that you can conceive of, but you can’t see it or hear it or smell it or taste it. It’s not something that is dynamic and functioning, it is just a mere absence of obstruction, and that’s something that you can only know by thought. You have to have a thought that thinks about movement, and then in relation to that movement you can determine whether there’s an obstruction or not. So something that’s permanent like that, the Traditionalists would say, it just a superficial reality. They don’t deny that it exists, because it matters whether there’s space or not.

For them, emptiness refers only to the person. The person is selfless or empty because although the person appears to be independent or outside of the complex of body and mind, it doesn’t exist that way. Such independent existence is implied by expressions like, “My body” and “My mind.” When we say these we exaggerate or overestimate the separation between oneself and one’s body and mind, as if it were an absolute separation and not just a conventional, relative separation. This school says that a person that exists independently of the body and mind doesn’t exist, because a person exists by depending upon the body and the mind.

The Cittamatrins (literally, mind only), the Buddhist idealists, however, assert that everything is of the nature of mind and nothing exists outside of mind. One reason for this is the common experience of different people viewing the same object in different ways. Take oatmeal for example. Some people hate oatmeal and some people love it. How can that be if the consciousnesses of everyone viewing oatmeal are informed by the same object? This school’s answer is that there is no such thing as an external object. Rather, everything is just an appearance in the mind. This whole physical world that we perceive around us is just appearances in the mind. There is no external physical world. There is only mind. The gap that appears to be there between us and the objects we perceive, as if objects are existing as separate entities from the perceiving subject, is an illusion; in reality things are empty of that. Reality is the emptiness of that substantial dichotomy. That’s emptiness to the Idealists.

Then there is the Madhyamika or Centrist school. The Centrists say there is nothing that exists in its own right because everything is dependently originated. Mind, for example, is a knower of objects, therefore mind cannot exist independently of objects. Conversely, objects of knowledge cannot exist independently of knowers, that is, minds that perceive those objects. Objects and mind thus have equal status. It’s not the case that the mind has a greater reality than the objects of the mind. They have equal status.

Centrists therefore differ from the Idealists. The Idealists say that the mind itself truly exists, but objects that are not the same substance as the mind don’t truly exist, and are false. The Centrist says, well, if external objects are false, then the internal perceiving subject is also false, because the two have equal reality. If the internal object is true, then the external object is true, because they have equal reality. So they choose a central path between the two extremes of denying or repudiating existence, and the reification of what doesn’t exist, i.e., taking things to exist that do not in fact exist.

There are subschools within the Centrists. In Tibet, for instance, the Svatantrika Madhyamika or Dogmaticist Centrist school, was initially very popular. It was introduced by Shantarakshita, the pandit and monk who brought monasticism to Tibet. It was the dominant school in Tibet for hundreds of years. Then when Atisha came to Tibet, during the New Translation period, there was excitement about the texts of the great Indian pandit Chandrakirti, the founder of the Prasangika or Dialecticist school of thought.

Such a proliferation of schools is not surprising, actually, because this is philosophy. Through philosophy one tries to reach an understanding of reality by using words, and there are many shades of meaning between words. So it’s difficult to get agreement amongst the different philosophers.

However, the point is that you have to arrive at a conclusion that you’re satisfied with, and then hold your mind to it. You direct your mind to it with intensity. Basically this means that you’re committing to that view of reality, and through your meditation practice you are trying to get a non-conceptual, beyond words, direct experience of the reality that you have decided on conceptually through the use of one’s intellect. By the time you get to the stage of single-pointed concentration, you’ve committed to some object, and your experience is going to be affected by that commitment.

There’s a lot of discussion about who’s got the actual right view here. The Dogmaticists, for instance, would say that all things are empty of true existence, as would the Dialecticists. But what does true existence mean for the Dogmaticists? They say that the way things actually exist is that they are established by means of designation by name and thought through appearing to a non-deceptive cognition, that is, one not mistaken with regard to its main object. When something appears to a non-deceptive cognition, there’s a designation “this exists” through the force of its appearance.

Take a mountain for example. Something appears to an undeceived visual consciousness and then comes the designation “mountain.” The mountain would truly exist if its existence were established without depending on such designation through the force of appearing to a non-deceptive mind. Accepting a truly existing mountain is called “naïve realism.”

When you look at a mountain, you see many things such as rocks, trees and so forth. There’s no mountain existing independently of all those rocks. And those rocks as well are not one thing, they are compositions. A mountain is just composed of all those rocks. So the homogeneity of that mountain is something that is not objectively established.

However, the Dogmaticists are saying there is something about that object, something objective there that justifies the designation “mountain” rather than something else. Take, for example, sugar and salt. When I put salt in my coffee instead of sugar, even though I designated the salt “sugar,” it didn’t stop it from being salt. Dogmaticists are saying that there is something objectively established there, some salt essence, and that is why when you designate salt “sugar” it doesn’t become sugar.

But if there’s already salt there, you may wonder, why do you have to designate “salt” for it to exist? That’s the point Dialecticists make. Dialecticists are saying that there’s no natural existence at all, there is no existence by intrinsic identity. Something comes into existence by designation – but of course the designation is contingent upon conditions. If you designate this striped colored rope as a snake, then you’re wrong, because it’s not the right basis for the designation “snake.”

The schools mentioned so far are presented in Indian texts. Tibetans didn’t stop there. The Tibetans were not mere copiers; they were innovators as well. There are schools of philosophical thought that have arisen in Tibet (although their roots may be traced elsewhere): they have their own notions about what ultimate and superficial reality are and what the meaning of emptiness is. These schools are not just existing in Tibet; there are upholders of these schools on the lecture circuit! We can come into contact with these views.

One of these views is known as Shen Tong, shen meaning other and tong meaning emptiness. And then there is Rang Tong: Own-emptiness. The Rang Tongpas and the Shen Tongpas are two teams competing in the Super Bowl of Tibetan Philosophy. But I’m not sure whether the final would be between these two because there are other schools too, like the Dzog Chenpas.

The point is these philosophical views are different. It’s not that they’re all one and they’re all the same; they’re saying something different. It’s not that what they’re saying is not useful, and not worth cultivating, but they are different, and by putting them into practice you therefore get different results. You might want to get all of the results, but you will get different results.

Consequently, when you get upholders of these different views coming together, they usually have something to talk about! Of course if they’re educated and their minds are subdued, they can talk with some humor. If they’re not educated, then often there’s a lot of emotion involved in the discussion. But generally speaking a person who is educated has developed the patience to be able to tolerate different ideas and has the humility that comes from facing the difficulty of knowing something completely. The process of studying philosophy is, after all, a way to uncover misconceptions within one’s own mind, a kind of therapy, whose varieties correspond to the varieties of mentalities.

They’re all pretty difficult to prove, finally. Jampa Sengge, a great geshe known as the Lion of Sera Monastery, was an excellent debater who couldn’t be defeated. He went to the West with Professor Tucci quite early and taught at a university in Rome. He married an Italian woman there and had lots of students. He once commented that there’s a big difference between debating skill and realization. He said that the Karmapa, for instance, wouldn’t stand a chance against him in a debating ring, not a chance. But when it comes to realizations, forget it! He said he prostrates to the feet of the Karmapa when it comes to realizations.

Debating is a good learning technique. Of course, if you lose you’ve got tremendous motivation to go back and study your books. Lama Yeshe used to say that he would return to his texts after being defeated in debate and study all the harder, plotting his revenge with different strategies – all in good fun and healthy competition (for the most part!).

In the process of all this study and debate you discover how little you know and how difficult it is to actually prove something. You can’t prove something by the force of your emotion, it takes quotations and logic. You have to cite scripture, that’s the basis you’re working with, and then you have to use logical reasoning. It’s difficult to cite scriptures, especially if you haven’t memorized them. There was one debater, I forget his name, who used to make up quotations to win a debate! So you have to know your stuff, but if you’re not educated in that system, then there’s a lot of room for ego and emotion. There is your view and there’s my view, and my view is correct because my guru told me. If you say anything different, then you’re drawing the blood of my guru!

I have a friend who’s a scholar and excellent in languages. She decided to study the Shen Tong view, the Other-emptiness school. I study the Rang Tong school, the Own-emptiness view. Whenever we meet we always debate, and it usually comes down to her saying, Oh you Gelugpas! And me saying, Oh you Kargyupas! But it’s always fun, we’re friends, and in the process we learn from each other.

In the Shen Tong view, ultimate reality is empty of superficial reality. Superficial reality is all of the objects of dualistic consciousness, and dualistic consciousness itself. Such consciousness hallucinates all of these objects, which obscure the ultimate reality – and ultimate reality is primordial consciousness, the clear light consciousness. We cannot realize this clear light consciousness until the superficial consciousnesses stop functioning. It’s very much a yogic approach, whereby one uses tantric techniques to generate this primordial consciousness, as a result of which no superficial consciousness can arise, and then one is free.

The Shen Tong school’s assertion that primordial consciousness is ultimate reality is based upon notions such as all phenomena ultimately arise from the fundamental mind of clear light. Emptiness is something that characterizes that primordial mind because it is empty of being a superficial consciousness, which includes all sense and conceptual consciousnesses.

This view of the Shen Tongpas that emptiness is the primordial consciousness – which is empty of conceptuality – means that emptiness, ultimate reality, is a positive phenomenon and not a mere negation as the other schools of Buddhist philosophy would say. The Dialecticists cite the great Indian master Nagarjuna, who holds that it is only in the sphere of emptiness – that is, meditation on the mere negation of intrinsic identity status – that fabrications can be eliminated. The Shen Tongpas would say that the mere arising of the primordial mind is enough for all fabrications to be eliminated.

This particular form of Shen Tong is similar to the form it took during Tsong Khapa’s time when it was known as the Jo Nangpa school, one of whose adherents was the great scholar Taranatha. Lama Tsong Khapa disagreed with that school and took pains to refute it in his writings. But this didn’t stop him from having gurus from that school, whom he studied the Kalachakra tantra with. It was the same with Atisha who had over 150 gurus, one of whom was the Centrist, Avadhutipa, whose view he adopted. But the one whom he regarded as the kindest of all of his gurus was Serlingpa, an Idealist, who taught him how to cultivate the spirit of enlightenment, bodhichitta.

It is interesting to note that the Shen Tong view of emptiness is not an example of emptiness for the followers of Tsong Khapa, even though they would accept a gross selflessness of the Traditionalist school as an example of emptiness. This is because the Shen Tongpa’s emptiness is in fact a consciousness, albeit a non-dualistic one.

Lama Tsong Khapa disagreed with the Shen Tong position for many reasons. He would say that, from the tantric point of view, in order to gain liberation it is insufficient merely to generate the most subtle mind of clear light. If it were possible to become liberated in this way, then liberation and supreme enlightenment would be attained effortlessly, because at the time of death the clear light mind occurs naturally.

In defense, the Shen Tongpas would have to say that when that clear light consciousness arises at the time of death, one doesn’t notice it. At that time it’s like you’re in deep sleep, you’re unconscious. It arises, but it arises too weakly to be ascertained.

Lama Tsong Khapa’s idea is to generate the clear light consciousness – and then to direct it towards reality, the mere negation of inherent existence, emptiness. (Therefore any teachings that help to cultivate this consciousness are welcome, including those of experienced yogis of the Shen Tong school.)

Lama Tsong Khapa bases his idea of reality on that of Nagarjuna, who was predicted by the Buddha in The Lankavatara Sutra to be the one who would explain reality in his absence. Nagarjuna wrote about emptiness in his Six Logical Treatises, one of which is Fundamental Wisdom, Prajna-namamula-madhyamakakarika.

He said that any object that appears to the mind of an ordinary person will appear distortedly to exist in its own right. Conceptual consciousness seizes on that distorted appearance and constructs a knot of conceptuality that adheres to the object as existing in the way that it appears. This false construction of inherent existence, like a knot, can only unravel in the space of emptiness, that is, when the mind is directed to and realizes emptiness of inherent existence.

Therefore, even the most subtle mind of clear light still needs to meditate on emptiness of inherent existence in order to eliminate the false appearance of inherent existence, and to prevent the erroneous constructions of inherent existence in thought. Tsong Khapa thoroughly believed this and put it into practice with intense effort. His followers do the same. We must also exert ourselves, not only in the cultivation of extraordinary consciousnesses but also in the correct understanding of emptiness by a thorough study of the logical treatises of Nagarjuna and his followers.