Malcolm wrote: ↑Wed Dec 16, 2020 12:25 pm
tobes wrote: ↑Wed Dec 16, 2020 5:21 am
Malcolm wrote: ↑Wed Dec 16, 2020 3:20 am
No, as Tsongkhapa’s reformulation of the twin negation shows.
IIf it were, Nagarjuna wound not have insisted on the fourfold negation.
It doesn't show this.
Only in the
cartoon Gelug presentation.....where this is all and only a philosophy glass bead game.
"You've left existence untouched!"
Well, no. If something is dependently arisen, it has
never existed. So, seeing appearances as dependent arisings after the negation of svabhava in no way implies existence.
All that is negated in the Gelug presentation is svabhava, not bhava, meaning that for them, the ultimate is a nonexistent and the relative is an existent. They never directly negate the table, only the table”s svabhava.
Tsongkhapa’s point of view is laid out very clearly in Lam Rim Chen mo. What I am saying is noncontroversial
In fact, Tsongkhapa makes this the key point of his system, claiming that one should not use the coarse object of negation, existence (contra Candra), and only the subtle object of negation, inherent existence. This why his view slides towards the extreme of nonexistence, just as gzhan stong slides towards the extreme of existence, and is why the two positions are reflections of each other,
Yes, but if the subtle of object of negation is successfully negated, then the course one cannot still abide.
The idea that it somehow still can, is - as I have been suggesting at length - grounded in an entirely outsider/critics approach, based entirely on
reading texts such as the Lam Rim Chen Mo, divorced from any real practical Gelug context. It is actually very tiresome. It is not different, in my opinion, to a Theravada or Zen practitioner coming onto the Dzogchen thread and making all sorts of claims based on their reading of Dzogchen texts......whilst having no DI or authentic relationship to the tradition. One can only say: this is a very fabricated conceptual proliferation.
In reality, Gelug Madhyamaka is
transmitted, not merely read, not merely studied textually. And it will be transmitted in
different ways depending on the dispositions of the disciple. This is why the cartoon version does not fly: it refuses upaya even though all this questions are, in the final analysis, matters of upaya.
And: anytime I have received a transmission,
the table goes. Full stop. No one leaves the existence of the table untouched, no matter how much you keep reasserting this.