Matt J wrote: ↑Fri Dec 03, 2021 5:39 pm
Not sure if Mipham even had access to Gorampa.
Oh, yes. He most certainly did. He read him quite thoroughly.
Perhaps fitting him into such categories distorts what he writes. Mipham was not afraid to call scholars on their BS, even as he adopted similar media. He was clearly grounded not only in a rime approach, but also a practical, experiential one.
No. Mipham's commentaries are in the tradition of Gorampa. This is not even a question. It is just a fact.
And of course, there are no degrees of existence or emptiness, nor is there a separation between appearance and emptiness. No one suggested there was.
It sounds like these posts grant special privilege to physical objects. To some extent, it is an academic point given emptiness.
You have to understand, Mipham is responding to Gelukpas, since they indeed privilege the object-- for them the object is the truth, not the perception. Gorampa and Mipham both privilege the perception.
I don't defend ontological idealism either like neo-Advaitins. This is a category error. I'm simply forwarding epistemological idealism--- we don't really know what lies beyond mind. Failing to distinguish the two is problematic.
When it comes to the basis, the perception of ordinary beings, Madhyamaka in general does not forward epistemological idealism. Sapan summarizes this quite well:
With the intent of functioning in common with worldlings,
he that external objects exist,
but having in mind the reasoning
that investigates conventional reality,
he taught that phenomena are mind.
Again, having in mind ultimate reality,
he that that all phenomena are elaborationless.
So, it really all depends on whether what perspective you are addressing things from. The Gelug POV always takes into consideration common mundane convention as the baseline for discussion. But even they, when it comes to meditating the path in Vajrayāna, consider phenomena to be mind, and ultimately, free of proliferation.
What Gorampa, and later Mipham, are criticizing the Gelug point of view for, is granting an undue existential status that is not required at all to explain the conventional truth of ordinary persons, that is, the point of view of people who have not analyzed anything. Relative truth does not bear ultimate analysis, but on the other hand, claiming we cannot known anything of the world beyond our five senses is also not an argument that any Mādhyamika would seriously propose, since even Mādhyamikas admit that a sense consciousness will not arise in absence of a sense object, and that the two truths are objects of true and false cognitions. For example, Aryadeva clearly states:
Dependent on eye and form,
the mind arises like an illusion,
it is not reasonable to call
illusory that which has existence.
Yogic Deeds of Bodhisattvas, Sonam, Snow Lion, 1994, pg. 261.
This verse itself is sufficient to show that Mādhyamikas accept outer objects conventionally.