The Wisdom Chapter Quotes

“On the basis of correct reasoning, beginners must achieve certainty that phenomena are without intrinsic being, and that “absence of real existence” and “dependent arising” are actually the same thing. It is of the highest importance simply to generate an extraordinary conviction that appearance and emptiness are inseparably united—just as with the moon reflected on the water. By relying on this and growing used to it, you will gain an understanding that will indeed correspond to the fundamental mode of being of things. Be that as it may, whatever is apprehended conceptually cannot go beyond the figurative ultimate. You should never say that this and this alone constitutes the meaning of the prajñāpāramitā and that there is no higher ultimate than this. If you do this, you will be taking as definitive what is but a semblance of prajñāpāramitā, the mere object of an ordinary consciousness. The result will be that you will not enter that wisdom that is utterly nonconceptual and is the authentic meaning of prajñāpāramitā, and you will be turning your back on the unmistaken way of penetrating it, namely, an uncontrived resting meditation in which nothing is removed and nothing is added. As long as you fail to relinquish your attachment to the supremacy of your view, actual primordial wisdom beyond all conceptual constructs will not take birth in your mind-stream.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Rāhula’s Praise to the Mother says: No name, no thought, no explanation is there for the Wisdom that has Gone Beyond; Unceasing and unborn, the very character of open space. It is the sphere of self-cognizing wisdom. To this, the mother of all Buddhas past, present, and to come, I bow.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“The ultimate is of two kinds: the figurative ultimate (rnam grangs pa) and the nonfigurative (rnam grangs min pa). The first is entirely an object of the (ordinary) mind. It is simply “emptiness of true existence” as a conceptual distinguisher (ldog pa) and is a specification made by the mind (blo’i bye brag); it is no more than an object of the conceptual intellect. It is not the actual, authentic ultimate in itself and yet, because it is the door to the realization of this same ultimate, it is referred to in the texts as the “concordant ultimate” or the “figurative ultimate.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Sūtrālaṅkāra: If you think the sense is just according to the words, You will be proud; your understanding will decline. Rejecting even what has been well taught, you will be lost, Obscured by anger toward the teaching.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“In all the sutras and shastras, it is said that, on the level of the conventional, the ultimate is knowable, it is an object, and so on. It is also taught how the nonconceptual primordial wisdom of meditative equipoise realizes it. And in harmony with the latter, it sets forth the ineffable profound meaning, completely free from the web of conceptual elaboration—such as the knowing mind and the knowable thing, the subject and the object. This ineffable meaning is to be recognized by the distinctly self-cognizing primordial wisdom.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Therefore, all phenomena have from the beginning subsisted “nondually” in the state of ineffable suchness,166 and it is owing to the power of delusion that they are not realized in this way. Once this failure is removed through familiarization with the path, the nature of phenomena will be directly seen. This is how the matter should be understood.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Since both positions are essentially in agreement, it goes without saying that for both traditions, there is, on the conventional level, a mind that realizes the ultimate. This mind, according to both traditions, has moreover the specific feature of being nondual. This being so, if the mind that directly realizes the ultimate were to be assessed in terms of its own mode of being, then—given that [at that level] there is neither an appearing aspect of the object nor an aspect of the mind related to it—it is evident how difficult it is to envisage, in conventional terms, a mind in which all mental elaboration has been stilled.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Moreover, whatever the object of elimination may be, it would not be feasible to eliminate its innate aspect without having first eliminated its imputed aspect. And within the innate aspect of what is to be abandoned, it is the obscurations, together with their seeds, that are eliminated, proceeding from the gross to the subtle, so that, by the end of this process, the extremely subtle habitual tendencies, which are like the trace of oil and the perfume of flowers, are exhausted and abandoned. And similarly, until manifest clinging to real existence, together with its seeds, has been eliminated, the habitual tendency to cling to real existence cannot be eliminated. This is all quite true. However, to say that until one is on the verge of eliminating these habitual tendencies, the cognitive obscurations can in no way be removed is not tenable—as I briefly explained above.136 And even though there is a lot that one might say on this topic, I shall not elaborate further.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“And when he spoke elaborately at length, He spoke of sixteen kinds of emptiness. When speaking briefly, he expounded four, And all of them the Mahāyāna teaches.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“The twofold view, the no-self of phenomena and persons, Was set forth to lead all wanderers to freedom.132”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“When this is demonstrated clearly by reasoned argument, it cannot be logically contradicted by the advocates of real existence who do, nevertheless, deny it. This being the case, one will understand that whereas the interrelation of agent and action, and the causal process itself, are utterly plausible in terms of emptiness, they are unintelligible in terms of truly existing entities.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“And so, once the perfect meaning (of no-self) is established by reasoning, it is through growing used to this that one comes to see it directly. Moreover, it is affirmed that it is through bringing this familiarization to perfection that the contrary position, the false imputation (of “I”), is arrested from its very foundation. We should be quite certain that this is how one trains on the perfect path.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Without a worker, there’s no work performed, And likewise without “I” there is no “mine.” Perceiving that both “I” and “mine” are void, The yogi will be utterly set free.124”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“May joy be mine, may suffering Not come to me”—this wish, This thought that thinks “I am” Defines the innate sense of sentient beings. One might think that if one clings to the aggregates of one’s continuum as being truly existent, how could the innate attitude of thinking “I am” not arise when, on the basis of these same aggregates, pleasure or pain is felt? Pleasure and pain are indeed experienced, but this is on the basis of the coarse aggregates and not on the basis of the partless particles. As long as the collection of impure aggregates is present, it is upon this basis that there is, unfailingly, the experience—but just the experience—of pleasure and of pain. It is not through this alone, however, that clinging to the “I” arises. For while it is possible for the experience of pleasure and pain to arise from aggregates of manifold items, it can be directly realized that there is no “I” or “mine” in them. When all thoughts that focus on the “I” have been exhausted, the pleasures and pains that arise within the aggregates are not identified as “mine,” because clinging to “mine” arises from clinging to “I.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Again, in the Yuktiṣāṣṭika it is said: No matter what position you adopt, You will be caught by writhing serpents of defilement. But they will not be caught Whose minds take no position.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“On the other hand, for those who have no clinging to the true existence of things (even though they appear), relative phenomena do not appear as truly existent. This may be understood from Chandrakīrti, when he says: And thus contrived, phenomena are “all-concealing.”93 Moreover, it is said in the Śunyatāsaptati:94 The things arising from both causes and conditions Are considered to be real, And this is ignorance, our Teacher said. From this the twelve links have arisen. Well, then, one might ask, do not such texts manifestly show that clinging to true existence is the root of samsara? As”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Whatever the case may be, all the cravings whereby karma is accumulated in the mind-stream of a single individual are elicited by a single innate ego-clinging and have the same object of focus and attitude. They are engaged in by just thinking “I will act to please myself.” They are not engaged in on the basis of the thought “I will act to please my self”—that is, a self understood in terms of qualifications like “permanent, independent” and so on. It is as it is said: And we may see that beings born as beasts for many ages Never apprehend a self unborn and permanent. And yet they clearly have a sense of “I.”82”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Generally, if one concludes that there is no liberation simply through the path of realizing impermanence and the rest of the sixteen aspects of the four noble truths, one is in contradiction with the sutra that says, “To understand the four noble truths and take them as one’s view: this is the chief protection,” as well as with countless other scriptural passages. One is also in contradiction with the method of constructing logical arguments as described in the “Authority Chapter” and elsewhere.59 This being so, if one denigrates other tenet systems, saying that they do not show the path to liberation (claiming that this is found by the Prāsaṅgikas alone), one is denigrating the path of the noble beings of the three times, and therefore one cannot but commit a root downfall of the Bodhisattva vow and so on.60 Therefore there is indeed liberation through the path of the four truths, which completely realizes the subtle no-self of the person.61 On the other hand, it is said that the proud and pretentious upholders (mngon pa’i nga rgyal can) of the Shrāvaka tenet systems,62 who have no understanding that the dependently imputed self is emptiness, are not liberated by the path of realizing the sixteen aspects of the four truths, which amounts, in their case, chiefly to an understanding of the coarse no-self.63 It is important to distinguish these two cases.64”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Now in the snowy land of Tibet, the great and venerable lord Tsongkhapa was unrivaled in his activities for the sake of the Buddha’s teaching. And with regard to his writings, which are clear and excellently composed, I do indeed feel the greatest respect and gratitude. Nevertheless, there are still some differences between his position and the view of the supreme and holy masters of the earlier tradition; and it is the responsibility of those who uphold that same tradition to treasure its teachings, establishing them by scripture and reasoning.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“I consider it an unacceptable fault to nourish the wrong attitude of angrily denigrating others, and I believe that it serves no purpose to speak about what one does not oneself find meaningful. And yet one only has to say something that diverges from the position of others, and the majority of people nowadays cling strongly and aggressively to their own side. They have no sense of impartiality. The readers of both the old and new traditions spend years squabbling over verbal formulations, squeezing every syllable of the words. Few are those who understand the profound key points correctly, whereas the ignorant majority think to themselves, “The teachings of Tsongkhapa and other great masters are being attacked even by this nonentity,” and they are full of indignation. For this reason, and because those who grasp the crucial points are few, I did not say much.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Nevertheless, given the various divergent positions that may be adopted, points that differ from others incidentally arise as one speaks about one’s own tradition. But however may be the assertions of the wise and accomplished masters of other schools, I have cultivated the attitude of thinking that they were made according to need and were meaningful for the training of their disciples.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“And I thought that those who are addicted to merely verbal disputation (the sphere of the ordinary intellect) would once again speak ill of the earlier tradition, being ignorant of its arguments. For they have cast away the unbroken transmission of the profound, essential instructions of the lineage of the learned and accomplished masters of India and Tibet; they reject the texts that explain the untarnished view thereof and hold in contempt the supreme and holy beings who upheld them. Seeing this, and wishing to be of assistance, I had no choice but to raise my voice, and I spoke generally of a few essential points—keeping my remarks to a strict minimum, despite the fact that there was a great deal to say. The reason for this is that, for my own part, I have an equal and impartial respect for all the excellent teachings of the holy masters of both our own and other schools.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“there is no difference between passing beyond suffering and not passing beyond it. For where nothing is bound, nothing is liberated.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, To say that things exist means grasping at their permanence. To say they don’t exist implies the notion of annihilation. Thus the wise should not remain In “this exists” or “this does not exist.”117”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“To abide in that primal wisdom, wherein all concepts have subsided, is the Great Madhyamaka, the Great Middle Way, free from all assertion.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Two sticks that when rubbed together produce a fire are themselves consumed by the blaze. Just so, the dense forest of all conceptual bearings, which posit phenomena as existent and nonexistent, will be totally consumed by the fires of the wisdom of ascertaining that all phenomena are without true existence.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Well then, one might ask, what is the point of meditating, telling oneself that phenomena do not exist, given that both their existence and their nonexistence are equally false and unreal? The Madhyamikas reply that it is our clinging to the inherent existence of phenomena, a habit acquired from time without beginning, that, for the moment, binds us in samsara. The antidote to this is quite simply to acquire the habit of considering that phenomena are without intrinsic being. However, both their existence and their nonexistence are equally unreal.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Madhyamikas have not, in fact, elaborated any system of tenets based on the true existence of a specifically locatable object called “emptiness,” regarded as something established by valid cognition. The reason for this is that, without referring to, or basing oneself on, a pot or some other actual object capable of being examined, it is not possible to conceive, in isolation, of a “nonthing” or a “nonexistent thing,” a “nonpot” or a “nonexistent pot.” For this reason, the empty pot, in the sense of the nonexistent pot, is a figurative, or lesser form of, emptiness. It is the aspect of the clearing away or eliminating what is “other,” the existent thing.114 Therefore, the Madhyamikas say that because things are deceptive or unreal in themselves, their nonexistence is also clearly and certainly unreal as well.115”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“The meaning of this is that yogis play and toy with the objects of their feelings, realizing that the latter have no real existence. Worldly people, on the other hand, race into the objects of their feelings and are lost in them.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva

“Even the infinitesimal particle does not exist. Who therefore, having once examined the true status of forms, which are dreamlike and devoid of real existence, can reasonably be attached to them? It makes no sense. And since the body is thus without inherent existence, what is the status of its particular character as man or woman? Neither category is real.”
― Jamgon Mipham, The Wisdom Chapter: Jamgön Mipham's Commentary on the Ninth Chapter of The Way of the Bodhisattva