Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche

　　The Third Madhyamaka Analysis:

　　Seeking the Essential Nature

　　Let us discuss the third mode of analysis or examination found in the classical Indian commentaries which demonstrate emptiness.

　　This perspective was developed by Shantarakshita, a great Indian scholar and yogi who, through his practice, is said to have attained the ability not to age and extended his life to the age of 999 years old. During his long life he composed many commentaries on Buddhist philosophy and various sutrayana subjects; his most noted work being the Ornament to the Middle Way.

　　The tantra teachings were introduced into Tibet by Padmasambhava, but the sutra teachings were disseminated in Tibet primarily by Shantarakshita, who came before Padmasambhava and ordained the first monks in Tibet. The third Madhyamaka analysis of Shantarakshita is the examination of the essential quality, or intrinsic nature, in order to recognize its transcendence of conceptuality.

　　This method of Shantarakshita is the easiest way to understand fundamental emptiness. There is only one thing to understand - non-conceptuality. It is not necessary to approach the subject from many points of view; from this one perspective we can understand the emptiness of everything - the emptiness of mind, the emptiness of phenomena, the emptiness of the connection between mind and phenomena. In all contexts, emptiness can be understood from this one point of view. From this single perspective, emptiness can be understood in its totality without reference to the many different possible points of view. Mipham Rinpoche, the great Nyingma scholar, when writing his commentary to The Ornament to the Middle Way said that Shantarakshita”s single point of view is like the thunderbolt of Indra which he could hurl to earth destroying whole cities.

　　What we are going to consider is the essential quality of reality. We can see that if reality had an essence or an essential quality, this essential quality would have to be either unitary, i.e., there would have to be a single essential quality to everything, or it would have to be multiple. Nothing can be simultaneously unitary and multiple. Also, if there were any essential quality at all, to say that it was neither single nor multiple would be to deny the very essential quality that we were trying to affirm. Such a proposition would be self-contradictory. There are only two possibilities: that any essential quality be either unitary or multiple.

　　In looking for the essential quality of all compounded and all uncompounded things, which must be either unitary or multiple, we can see that multiplicity is based on units. We cannot have many things unless we first have one. A number of things is always composed of a number of single things; unless there were first one, then there could not be many. So first we will examine the question of whether or not there is any unitary essential reality to anything.

　　In general, every experience consists of the perception of appearances in an objectified frame of reference and the subjective experience of the mind. First, if we consider the appearances in an objective frame of reference, we can see that no appearance has unitary nature. If we look at a hill, for instance, it looks like a single hill, but actually it has a top and sides, trees and shrubs, and so on, that is to say, it is a composite with several items

　　Or we can examine something like a vase. A vase has a base and a neck and a top, so the notion that a vase is just a vase or that a hill is just a hill is basically a false intellectual concept. There is nothing we can designate as “a hill,” or “a vase,” or any other material object.

　　Or take the example of an elephant. While we might speak in general terms of there bei…

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