Candrakirti's analogy doesn't apply. As for the Fa-tsang's Gold Lion Treatise it appears to me that you are unfamiliar with its important parts. My analogy fits perfectly insofar as Fa-tsang drew a distinction between the gold/noumenon and the lion shape/phenomenon. He described the noumenon as the substance or essence which is by nature clear and pure and all perfect, not to mention luminous. This substance he explains is Dharmata, the nature underlying all things.Astus wrote:And for that a good explanation is Candrakirti's sevenfold reasoning of the chariot. Or, to make it more complicated, there is Fazang's Treatise on the Golden Lion. Candrakirti shows how no essence can be established anywhere, Fazang shows how emptiness and phenomena are inseparable and interpenetrated.Koji wrote:A good analogy might be made of the difference between a pot of clay and clay itself or of a gold lion and gold.
As above, not established and interpenetrated. The dichotomy of samsara and nirvana is only a skilful means, but there is no nirvana outside of samsara.Reading your comments you seem to be championing samsara/conditionality and maculate minds over nirvana/unconditionality and immaculate minds.
As for your last remark "there is no nirvana outside of samsara," nirvana cannot exist in samsara because its own nature is unconditioned. Escape from all conditioned states is only possible because we have as our own nature that which is the antithesis of conditionality, namely, the unconditioned element (cp. Itivuttaka-atthakathâ II.2.6).