The intention of the Middle Way.
[Why being a diligent farmer to go the path is key. The importance of a good livelihood, as wisdom, (dharma teaching in practice), aware plumbing for mind, cause, conditions and effect].
Tsongkhapa emphasises dependent origination, emptiness, ethical discipline, and the gradual purification of the mindstream through properly cultivated causes and conditions.
Consider the following analogy:
When an orange is squeezed, only orange juice emerges. What appears at that moment was already latent within the fruit. Likewise, when life’s circumstances place pressure upon us, our speech, actions, and mental tendencies reveal the habitual imprints (saṃskāras) accumulated within the continuum of consciousness. If anger emerges, it indicates the presence of anger’s seeds. If patience emerges, it indicates the presence of patience’s seeds. Therefore, a practitioner cultivates virtue now, planting wholesome karmic seeds that will ripen in future moments of challenge.
In the same way, a flame burns according to its nature. Fire dispels darkness and consumes fuel. Through right mindfulness and wisdom, the practitioner applies the fire of discriminating awareness to the fuel of ignorance, attachment, aversion, pride, jealousy, and confusion. These afflictions sustain cyclic existence (saṃsāra) and propel beings through the six realms. By repeatedly recognising and abandoning afflicted mental states while cultivating virtue, compassion, and wisdom, the causes of suffering are gradually exhausted.
Je Tsongkhapa expounds liberation does not arise merely by concentrating upon a bodily centre, but through the union of ethical conduct, meditative stability, and wisdom realising emptiness. Mindfulness serves as the vigilant guardian that recognises wholesome and unwholesome states. Wisdom analyses the mode of existence of self and phenomena. Together they undermine ignorance, the root of saṃsāra.
Thus, the path is one of planting causes for awakening. Each moment of patience weakens anger. Each moment of generosity weakens grasping. Each moment of compassion weakens self-centredness. Each insight into dependent origination weakens ignorance. Through this gradual accumulation of merit and wisdom, the mindstream is transformed, and the seeds of complete awakening ripen into Buddhahood.
A concise aphorism inspired by Tsongkhapa may look like:
“When pressed by conditions, the mind reveals the seeds it has cultivated. Therefore cultivate virtue. With mindfulness guard the mind; with wisdom examine its nature. As fire consumes fuel, so the wisdom realising emptiness consumes ignorance. When ignorance is exhausted, the winds of saṃsāra lose their power, and the path to awakening becomes clear.”
The root of saṃsāra is ignorance grasping at inherent existence. Considering the “fire” analogy, the flame symbolises wisdom (prajñā) burning the fuel of ignorance, (rather than an “inherently” existing spiritual essence). This analogy aligns with Tsongkhapa’s presentation of the lamrim and Middle Way philosophy.
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The Fundamental Error
For Tsongkhapa, the fundamental error is not merely believing “I exist,” but grasping at the self, persons, and phenomena as possessing an independent, self-established nature from their own side. This is what he identifies as the root ignorance that sustains saṃsāra.
The fire analogy might therefore be expanded as follows:
The flame is wisdom realising emptiness. The fuel is ignorance. So long as fuel is supplied, the fire of saṃsāra continues to burn. But when the fire of wisdom is directed toward ignorance itself, it consumes the very basis upon which cyclic existence depends.
Just as darkness cannot remain where light directly shines, ignorance cannot remain where emptiness is directly perceived.***
Dependent Origination as the Meaning of Emptiness
One of Tsongkhapa’s greatest contributions was his insistence that:
“Whatever is dependently arisen is empty of inherent existence; whatever is empty functions through dependent origination.”
This means emptiness is not a void, annihilation, nothingness, cosmic consciousness, or a hidden spiritual substance.
A table can function as a table.
A person can function as a person.
Karma can function as karma.
Compassion can function as compassion.
Yet none of these possess an independent essence discoverable under ultimate analysis.
The person exists conventionally.
The person cannot be found inherently.
The same is true of all phenomena.
Thus, emptiness and appearance are not opposites.
Appearance proves emptiness.
Emptiness permits appearance.
This is why Tsongkhapa repeatedly praises dependent origination as the “king of reasonings.”
Why This Differs From Theistic Views
From a Madhyamaka perspective, any assertion of an eternally existing, self-established creator encounters the same analysis.
If a creator exists inherently:
- it cannot depend on causes;
- it cannot depend on parts;
- it cannot depend on designation;
- it cannot undergo change.
Yet anything functioning must depend upon causes, conditions, parts, and conceptual designation.
Therefore the very reasoning used to analyse the self is applied equally to all phenomena whatsoever.
Tsongkhapa would not say that God simply does not exist.
Rather, he would say that no phenomenon, whether person, world, deity, creator, consciousness, nirvāṇa, or Buddha, exists inherently.
Even Buddhas are empty.
Even enlightenment is empty.
Even emptiness itself is empty.
This is sometimes called the “emptiness of emptiness.”
The God Realms in Buddha Dharma Cosmology
Within Buddha Dharma cosmology there are celestial realms and highly exalted beings, including gods (devas) and Brahmās.
However:
- they arise through karma; [action of body, speech and mind]
- they abide through karma;
- they pass away when karma is exhausted.
They are therefore not omnipotent.
Not omniscient.
Not ultimate refuges.
Not creators.
They remain within conditioned existence.
Tsongkhapa repeatedly emphasises that even the highest formless attainments remain within saṃsāra if ignorance has not been uprooted through wisdom.
Thus a god realm may possess immense bliss and lifespan while still lacking liberation.
Actor, Action and Acted Upon
The ancient Indian Buddha Dharma presentation reaches its deepest expression in Madhyamaka.
Conventionally:
- there is an actor;
- there is an action;
- there is an object acted upon.
Without these, karma could not function.
But upon ultimate analysis:***
the actor cannot be found.
the action cannot be found.
the object cannot be found.
This does not mean they do not exist.
It means they cannot be established independently.
Each arises only in dependence upon the others.
Like the three legs of a tripod, each depends on the others for designation.
Therefore:
The actor is empty.
The action is empty.
The acted-upon is empty.
Yet precisely because they are empty, karma functions.
This is the Middle Way avoiding both eternalism and nihilism.
Direct Yogic Perception
Tsongkhapa is especially clear that merely understanding emptiness intellectually does not liberate.
First comes:
- Hearing the teachings.
- Reflecting upon their meaning.
- Developing inferential certainty.
Then, through meditation:
- Conceptual realisation becomes direct yogic perception.
At this stage the yogi does not merely think emptiness.
The yogi directly perceives emptiness.
When that direct cognition repeatedly familiarises itself with reality, the acquired afflictions are progressively eliminated.
Eventually even the most subtle obscurations are exhausted.
Mindstream and Awakening
From Tsongkhapa’s realisation, the perspective is awakening occurs neither through union with a creator nor through discovering an eternal self.
Rather:
The mindstream itself is purified of mistaken apprehension.
Nothing new is imported.
Nothing truly existing is uncovered.
Instead, ignorance is removed.
A traditional analogy is that of clouds and sky.
The sky was never stained by the clouds.
Likewise, the luminous knowing nature of mind was never transformed into ignorance.
Ignorance was adventitious.
When wisdom directly realises dependent origination and emptiness inseparably, the grasping to “I,” “me,” and “mine” collapses.
Then one sees:
The self exists conventionally but not inherently.
Phenomena appear but lack self-nature.
Cause and effect function unfailingly.
Emptiness and dependent origination are one taste.
Next consider Tsongkhapa’s celebrated insight:
“The appearance of dependent origination infallibly dispels the extreme of non-existence, and the emptiness of inherent existence dispels the extreme of existence. When these two are seen as inseparable, one has entered the intention of the Middle Way.”
For Tsongkhapa, this union of appearance and emptiness is the true fire that burns the fuel of ignorance, until no basis remains for the revolving wheel of saṃsāra.