Chapter 7. The Madhyamaka debate: self-emptiness and other-emptiness¶

No debate in Tibetan Buddhist philosophical history has been more enduring, more profound, or more entangled with politics than the dispute between "self-emptiness" (rang stong) and "other-emptiness" (gzhan stong). On the surface, it is a dispute over Madhyamaka interpretation: how exactly should emptiness be understood? In substance, it reaches the foundations of Buddhist soteriology. When we say that all phenomena are "empty," what exactly are they empty of? After this "emptiness," what remains?

Earlier chapters have touched on the dispute in different places. Essay 7, on tathāgatagarbha thought, laid out its scriptural foundations. Essay 5, on Madhyamaka, established its philosophical language. Chapter 11.6 of this Part, on Gelug, explained that school's position and its suppression of Jonang. This chapter develops the dispute in full.

1. The framework of the dispute¶

The meaning of the two terms¶

Self-emptiness (rang stong, rangtong) literally means "empty of itself": each phenomenon is empty of its own nature (svabhāva, intrinsic nature). This is the most basic proposition of Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka. All phenomena lack intrinsic nature, including emptiness itself, which is also empty, and tathāgatagarbha or the dharmadhātu, if they exist. Self-emptiness leaves nothing existent at the ultimate level. All phenomena, whether conventional or "ultimate," are empty of intrinsic nature.

Other-emptiness (gzhan stong, zhentong) literally means "empty of the other." Ultimate reality (the Dharma body, tathāgatagarbha, or dharmadhātu) is empty of "other" things, namely illusory, impermanent, conventional phenomena. It is not empty of the innumerable buddha-qualities it inherently possesses. Other-emptiness makes a fundamental ontological distinction between illusory conventional phenomena and true ultimate reality. Everything conventional is self-empty and has no reality; the ultimate, the Dharma body or tathāgatagarbha, is real and not empty. It is empty only of the false conventional realm.¹

This distinction is crucial. Self-emptiness says, "empty all the way down, with nowhere to stand." Other-emptiness says, "what is empty is the illusory; the real is ultimately there."

The dispute over Indian sources¶

Both sides claim to be interpreting the meaning of Nāgārjuna and Maitreya.

The principal Indian sources cited by proponents of other-emptiness include the Ratnagotravibhāga (Maitreya/Sāramati, discussed in 7.2). It describes tathāgatagarbha as possessing buddha-qualities such as the thirty-two excellent marks and as not empty of its pure intrinsic nature. They also cite the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra and its "nonempty tathāgatagarbha," which "possesses innumerable, inconceivable buddha-qualities, more numerous than the sands of the Ganges, inseparable, inseverable, and nondifferent." Another source is the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, with its four qualities of permanence, bliss, self, and purity. Proponents of other-emptiness read "self" in particular as pointing to ultimate reality. They also draw on descriptions of tathāgatagarbha in the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra.

Proponents of self-emptiness, chiefly Gelug, cite above all Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: all phenomena are empty, including emptiness itself, and "those who see emptiness as existent cannot be taught by the buddhas." They also cite Candrakīrti's Madhyamakāvatāra, a systematization of Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka, and the Heart Sūtra: "form is emptiness; emptiness is form." Even nirvāṇa is no exception.

Each side's response to the other's texts centers on a hermeneutical question. Are descriptions of tathāgatagarbha's positive qualities in works such as the Ratnagotravibhāga "definitive," expressing the true meaning, or "provisional," skillful teachings? Proponents of other-emptiness take them as definitive. Proponents of self-emptiness regard them as provisional teachings intended to guide beings attached to a substantial self, rather than direct expressions of ultimate truth.

2. Dolpopa: the systematization of other-emptiness¶

Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (Dol-po-pa Shes-rab-rgyal-mtshan, 1292 to 1361) was the great systematizer of other-emptiness and Jonang's most important thinker. His account is an internally coherent philosophical system, not an arbitrary assertion.

Central claims¶

Dolpopa divides all phenomena into two levels:

The conventional or phenomenal level (conventional truth). Everything at this level, including the five aggregates, twelve sense bases, eighteen elements, and even the nirvāṇa of śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, is relative, temporary, and impermanent. In this sense it is "self-empty," empty of its own nature. This accords with Madhyamaka's basic judgment.

The ultimate or dharmadhātu level (ultimate truth). This is the level of the Dharma body and tathāgatagarbha. Here Dolpopa differs sharply from proponents of self-emptiness: ultimate reality is not "empty of intrinsic nature," not self-empty. It is empty of "other" things, false conventional phenomena, but itself possesses real, permanent, pure buddha-qualities. Four qualities really exist in ultimate reality: permanence (eternity), bliss (well-being), self (a pure true self, distinct from the false self), and purity.²

The philosophical logic is this: if ultimate reality were "self-empty," it would be relative, impermanent, and dependent on conditions, just like conventional phenomena. But how could a conditioned nirvāṇa be true liberation? Liberation requires a stable ultimate support that does not change with conditions. Otherwise, "liberation from saṃsāra" would merely exchange one form of dependence for another. Other-emptiness provides soteriology with a "solid endpoint": there is something real there, not blankness.

Dolpopa's principal work, Mountain Doctrine: Ocean of Definitive Meaning (Ri chos nges don rgya mtsho, c. early 1330s), is the most systematic statement of other-emptiness.²

The appeal of other-emptiness¶

Other-emptiness has real soteriological appeal: it answers the question "where does practice lead?" Practice is directed toward the Dharma body with its real qualities, avoiding empty nothingness. It also offers a more intuitively accessible foundation for compassion and the generation of bodhicitta. Beings inherently possess tathāgatagarbha. This innate treasure is both the endpoint of practice and the source of compassion, which sees that beings already possess a treasure but do not know it.

Other-emptiness also resonates with practice in Tibetan Buddhism. Positive descriptions of "primordial awareness" (rigpa) or the "nature of mind" in Kagyu Mahāmudrā and Nyingma Dzogchen are close, in both experience and language, to other-emptiness's "nonempty ultimate." Although Kagyu and Nyingma do not always accept its complete philosophical system, this proximity has given other-emptiness an influence extending beyond Jonang itself.

3. The self-emptiness rebuttal: Tsongkhapa's central criticisms¶

First criticism: positing something existent at the ultimate level violates Madhyamaka¶

Tsongkhapa's central argument is that Madhyamaka's analysis of emptiness applies impartially. Whether the object analyzed is a conventional table or the "ultimate Dharma body," if it is claimed to be "established by its own characteristics," to exist with intrinsic nature, the reductio of the four modes of arising and other Madhyamaka arguments can refute it.

Tsongkhapa's actual refutation turns the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, on which Jonang relies, against its interpretation, using that sūtra's own definition of the perfected nature. If the text is accepted as definitive, its statement must be accepted: the perfected is only the dependent nature free of the imagined, not free of the dependent nature as well. Beyond this, his general form of argument can be taken a step further. Dolpopa says that the Dharma body and tathāgatagarbha "really exist" and "possess permanent qualities." What do "really exist" and "permanent qualities" mean here? If they are established by their own characteristics, they fall into the kind of existence Madhyamaka denies. If they are established only by linguistic convention, they are self-empty like conventional phenomena, and Dolpopa's distinction cannot stand. On Tsongkhapa's general form of argument, Dolpopa thus faces a dilemma: either admit that the Dharma body is established by linguistic convention, which yields self-emptiness, or admit that it is established by intrinsic nature, which yields eternalism. This dilemma is this book's reconstruction; it has not been found in Tsongkhapa's own text.³

Second criticism: reading nirvāṇa as "permanent, blissful, self, and pure" mistakes a skillful teaching for definitive meaning¶

The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra ascribes the four qualities of permanence, bliss, self, and purity to nirvāṇa. Proponents of other-emptiness read "self" (ātman) as pointing to a real, pure self. Tsongkhapa objects that this is provisional language used to counter beings' excessive attachment to no-self when it leads to annihilationism. It does not mean that nirvāṇa contains a substantial self established by intrinsic nature. Mistaking a skillful teaching for definitive meaning is a hermeneutical error.

Third criticism: other-emptiness is a form of eternalism¶

Tsongkhapa judges other-emptiness a form of "eternalism" (śāśvatavāda) because it posits a permanent, unchanging entity at the ultimate level: the Dharma body, possessing real qualities. Structurally, this resembles Brahman in the Brahmanical tradition or ātman in the Upaniṣads: a permanent, real ultimate endowed with qualities. Of the two extremes Madhyamaka most rigorously seeks to avoid, eternalism and annihilationism, other-emptiness falls toward eternalism.

The other-emptiness response¶

To present the debate fairly, the Jonang position must also be set out. The views of Dolpopa and the later Tāranātha (1575–1634) provide a basis for responding to the preceding criticisms. The following reconstruction has three main points.^{2 4}

First, consider the dilemma. The dilemma reconstructed here from Tsongkhapa’s general form of argument presupposes the Gelug framework: anything existent is either established by its own characteristics and refuted by Madhyamaka arguments, or established by linguistic convention and self-empty like conventional phenomena. Jonang rejects this very premise. Within the other-emptiness framework, the ultimate is not one phenomenon among others and does not fall within the scope of conceptual analysis. Madhyamaka reductio arguments target entities that concepts can posit. Since the Dharma body is beyond language and thought and can be directly realized only through nonconceptual wisdom, it lies outside their range. Saying that the Dharma body "really exists" does not use the kind of existence Madhyamaka denies.

Second, regarding the judgment of "eternalism." Jonang points out that other-emptiness also accepts the self-emptiness of everything concepts can reach; on this there is no disagreement with self-emptiness. The disagreement concerns only whether, after conceptual analysis is exhausted, room remains for something warranted by direct realization. Eternalism means imputing a self to the aggregates and taking conceptually posited phenomena as permanent. In other-emptiness, however, tathāgatagarbha is precisely not a conceptually posited phenomenon, nor is it an individual "self." The analogy with Brahman and ātman therefore fails. Other-emptiness understands itself as affirming "appearance after negation," not "an entity that has not undergone negation."

Third, the appeal to scripture and direct realization. Jonang regards descriptions of tathāgatagarbha's positive qualities in the Ratnagotravibhāga, the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra, and other texts as definitive, and holds that direct yogic realization can confirm them. Classifying them all as skillful teachings requires an argument; it cannot rest merely on the assumed priority of Madhyamaka analysis.

Gelug offers a further rebuttal. Declaring something "beyond language" does not exempt claims about it from examination. "The Dharma body really exists" is itself a conceptual claim: it must either accept analysis or amount to saying nothing. At this point, the disagreement no longer concerns a particular argument but a metaphilosophical question. Can a domain beyond language be asserted, and whose direct realization can warrant it? This is also the deeper reason the debate has persisted for centuries without resolution through argument. It forms the background to the analysis in Section 5 below.

4. Intermediate positions and plural interpretations¶

Not every thinker stands at the extreme of either self-emptiness or other-emptiness:

Śākya Chokden (Śākya-mchog-ldan, 1428 to 1507) was a Sakya scholar who criticized Gelug Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka without fully accepting the Jonang account of other-emptiness. He considered other-emptiness a valid perspective from which to describe ultimate reality, but held that it had to be understood together with Madhyamaka analysis of emptiness. He engaged in fierce written disputes with Gelug scholars and was a highly controversial figure in Tibetan history.⁵

The Eighth Karmapa, Mikyö Dorje (1507 to 1554), systematically criticized Tsongkhapa's interpretation of Madhyamaka. He argued that some of Tsongkhapa's interpretations at times leaned toward Svātantrika rather than following Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka. His work represents a philosophical challenge to Gelug philosophy from within the Kagyu school.

The distinctive Nyingma position. Nyingma thinkers do not usually identify themselves directly as proponents of other-emptiness, but the language of Dzogchen has considerable affinities with it. Examples include primordial awareness and the positive qualities of primordial purity. Mipam Rinpoche (Ju Mipam Gyatso, 1846 to 1912) adopted a synthetic position: he accepted the Madhyamaka framework of self-emptiness at the level of linguistic convention while retaining the positive language of other-emptiness in accounts of meditative experience and in ultimate descriptions. He engaged in written debates of a high philosophical standard with Gelug scholars.⁶

5. The philosophical depth of the dispute¶

Taking the philosophical implications of this debate a step further brings us to a fundamental question that every account of liberation must face: what is the endpoint of liberation?

The answer of self-emptiness: liberation is the cessation of all mistaken views and afflictions; no separate entity waits there as the final destination. In Tsongkhapa's formulation, liberation cuts through the fundamental ignorance that "sees things in terms of intrinsic nature," and nothing remains. This is a thoroughly negative account of liberation. Its strength lies in its thoroughness. Its difficulty is that it is hard, intuitively, to find a positive direction for practice: where is one to go?

The answer of other-emptiness: liberation is a return to the Dharma body, to the pure qualities inherent in tathāgatagarbha. It is the manifestation, once obscurations have been removed, of what has always been there. This is a positive account of liberation, which gives practice a clear direction. Its difficulty is the philosophical risk of establishing an "entity" at the ultimate level, creating tension with the thoroughness of Madhyamaka emptiness.

Essay 7, on tathāgatagarbha, has already identified the Indian source of this tension. The tathāgatagarbha tradition after the Ratnagotravibhāga never fully resolved the question of how pure tathāgatagarbha and the afflictions of ignorance can coexist. To a considerable extent, the Tibetan debate over self-emptiness and other-emptiness brought this unresolved tension into more rigorous philosophical argument.

This book observes that the debate continued for five or six centuries without a conclusive resolution. Both sides had ample textual support and internally consistent arguments. This book regards the lack of resolution as a signal in itself. The two positions represent orientations in the theory of liberation that cannot be fully reduced to one another: a thoroughly negative account (self-emptiness) and a positive, affirmative account (other-emptiness). They give structurally different answers to the question of where liberation leads. For either side to prevail completely would require abandoning a real intuition about liberation.

6. Politics entangled with philosophy: the suppression of Jonang¶

During the Fifth Dalai Lama's rule under the joint Gelug-Mongol regime, the Jonang school suffered substantial political suppression: its monasteries were forcibly converted to Gelug, and considerable numbers of Jonang monks were forcibly relocated.

This was a distinctive situation in the history of Tibetan Buddhism: a philosophical debate was "ended" by political power rather than philosophical argument. Self-emptiness did not defeat other-emptiness in the debating courtyard; Jonang monasteries were closed or converted by administrative force.

This historical fact shows two things. First, Gelug rulers saw the danger of other-emptiness as lying in its religious consequences as well as its philosophical errors. Second, philosophical truth is vulnerable when political conditions change. However consistent a tradition's internal philosophy may be, changes in political power can bring about its suppression.

After its expulsion from central Tibet, Jonang survived chiefly in the Dzamthang region of what is now Sichuan Province, sustaining a small but persistent lineage. Since the late twentieth century, the school has attracted a measure of renewed attention and scholarly study, and its tradition remains alive today.²

7. The Rimé movement: an ideal of scholarship across sectarian boundaries¶

The Rimé movement (Ris-med, "nonsectarian") emerged in eastern Tibet, in Kham, during the nineteenth century. It sought to cross the sectarian barriers between Gelug, Kagyu, Sakya, and Nyingma, studying and preserving their teachings and texts with greater openness.

Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye (1813 to 1899) compiled the vast Treasury of Precious Treasures (Rinchen Terdzö) and Treasury of Instructions (Gdams ngag mdzod), bringing together transmissions of practice from the different schools. He was sympathetic to other-emptiness, holding that it differed from self-emptiness in perspective but did not fundamentally contradict it in the ultimate reality it expressed.

Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo (1820 to 1892) was another central figure in the Rimé movement. His extensive work in preserving texts made an important contribution to the history of Tibetan Buddhism.

Mipam Rinpoche (1846 to 1912), whose background was Nyingma, was the Rimé movement's most prolific philosophical author. His works offered systematic philosophical criticisms of the Gelug interpretation of Madhyamaka while accepting other-emptiness to a degree. His written debates with Gelug scholars rank among the exchanges of the highest standard in the modern history of Tibetan philosophy.⁶

The Rimé movement provided a coherent framework for preserving the other schools' traditions at a time when Gelug political dominance was relatively secure. This was its historical significance. It also offered a comparatively neutral scholarly setting for the debate over self-emptiness and other-emptiness. Discussion was no longer determined by rulers suppressing dissent; scholars from the different schools continued it within a framework of comparative study.

The diagram labels Dzamthang as Kham. Chapter 6 and its source note locate the surviving Jonang centers in Amdo, while this chapter identifies the area as present-day Dzamthang in Sichuan. Chapter 6 distinguishes the doctrinal conversion of the monastery in 1650 from the expulsion of its monks and further institutional changes in 1658.

Appendix: relationships among the Tibetan schools¶

The diagram below presents the relationships among the main schools of Tibetan Buddhism along two dimensions: philosophical positions (self-emptiness and other-emptiness) and historical relations (transmission, absorption, suppression, and Rimé cooperation):

Labels in the Chinese diagram, "Relationships among the schools of Tibetan Buddhism": the purple field denotes a tendency toward other-emptiness; the blue field denotes a self-emptiness position. The school panels read: - Nyingma, the Old Translation school: early-diffusion transmission; Dzogchen and treasure texts. - Kagyu, an oral transmission: Marpa (1012); Mahāmudrā and the Six Dharmas of Nāropa. - Jonang: Dolpopa (1292–1361); other-emptiness and Kālacakra; suppressed in the seventeenth century. - Sakya: established in 1073; Lamdré; tending toward self-emptiness. - Kadam: Dromtön (1057); absorbed into Gelug. - Gelug, New Kadam: Tsongkhapa (1409); self-emptiness; geshe education; Dalai Lama lineage. - The Rimé movement, nineteenth century: brings together Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, and Jonang in an ideal of learning across schools.

The legend distinguishes purple for an other-emptiness tendency, blue for a self-emptiness position, and yellow for an absorbed school (Kadam → Gelug). Gold arrows represent historical transmission or absorption; purple dashed arrows represent affinity in practice or tradition; red dashed arrows represent political suppression; blue dashed arrows represent philosophical proximity or influence.

The purple link between Nyingma and Kagyu is labelled "similarity of practice temperament." Each is also linked toward Jonang by a purple dashed line labelled "other-emptiness / Mahāmudrā affinity." Blue links join Jonang with Sakya and with Gelug, labelled "philosophically close, politically divided"; another blue arrow runs from Sakya toward Gelug. Gold arrows run from Kadam toward Sakya and toward Gelug, the latter labelled "Kadam absorbed into Gelug." A red dashed arrow runs from Jonang toward Gelug and is labelled "political suppression, seventeenth century." The lower gold dotted line, with upward ends below Kagyu and Gelug, is labelled "the treasure tradition has broad influence." Purple dashed curves connect the Rimé panel with the groupings to its left and right.

This is a transcription of the diagram's labels and connections, including its inconsistencies. The red arrow is reversed relative to the prose: Chapter 6 describes suppression of Jonang by Gelug authorities, not Jonang suppression of Gelug. Chapter 7 presents their positions as opposed in the self-emptiness/other-emptiness debate; the blue "philosophically close" link does not resolve that opposition. The Nyingma–Kagyu link concerns affinity in practice, not absorption of one school by the other. Other ambiguous connectors do not establish direct teacher-to-disciple transmission. Chapter 2 distinguishes the beginning of construction at Reting in 1056 from the arrival of disciples in 1057; the Kadam panel's single date does not replace that distinction. Read transmission, affinity, absorption, and political suppression as separate relationships according to the chapter's explanations.

8. Its place in intellectual history¶

The debate over self-emptiness and other-emptiness is an area of concentrated philosophical argument in the intellectual history of Tibetan Buddhism. Its distinctive features are these:

It is a real philosophical dispute, not merely a disagreement over interpretation. The disagreement is not confined to how a particular scriptural sentence should be read. It reaches the fundamental question of whether some positive reality exists at the endpoint of liberation. Such a dispute could arise in any tradition centered on liberation. It arose in Tibet and left an exceptionally rich body of philosophical literature.

Its entanglement with politics is part of the historical reality. Philosophical argument and political power were intertwined here, not independent of each other. The suppression of Jonang cannot be whitewashed as merely the "outcome of philosophical debate," nor can it be reduced to purely "political persecution." Both were real elements in it.

It remains unresolved today. The contemporary revival of other-emptiness shows that the tension over liberation represented by this debate will not disappear through political suppression or philosophical criticism. It may be a permanent internal fissure in the Buddhist account of liberation, with different traditions finding their positions on either side.

Further reading¶

• Karl Brunnhölzl. In Praise of Dharmadhatu: Nagarjuna and the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje. Ithaca: Snow Lion, 2007. (Kagyu acceptance of other-emptiness and its relation to Madhyamaka.)

References¶