Twentieth This seems to contradict Nagarjuna’s statement that all phenomena are dependent-arisings, but Döl-bo-ba explains that it does not, first by showing that the ultimate is necessarily not impermanent and deceptive and then by indicating that Nāgārjuna’s reference is to all conventional phenomena, the noumenon. The mutuality of dependent-arising and emptiness has to be to self-emptiness, not other-emptiness.  The ultimate is other than lowly conventionalities, their otherness eliminating the possibility that the two truths are un-differentiable. Rather, an ultimate truth is not a conventional truth, and a conventional truth is not an ultimate truth. The two truths are different and are also not the same entity.  Hence, the two truths are neither one nor one entity. They are different, though not different entities, since that they are different merely means that they are not the same entity. Furthermore, though the two truths are different, their difference is not that conventionalities are appearances and their emptinesses are ultimate truths, since the ultimate also appears to pristine wisdom and since conventionalities are self-emptinesses.  Since the ultimate, although without the phenomena of cyclic existence, is replete with beneficial qualities, it is not a mere absence. In the Ocean of Definitive Meaning, Döl-bo-ba identifies the ultimate nine times as an affirming negative, something that indicates a positive in place of the negation; for instance: Similarly, those who assert that in the mode of subsistence, except for exclusions and non-affirming negatives, there are not at all any inclusions, positives, and affirming negatives are extremely mistaken because I have repeatedly explained and will explain that:  Natural exclusion, negation, and abandonment are complete in the mode of subsistence, since all flaws are naturally non-existent and non-established in the mode of subsistence. Natural realizations of the inclusionary, the positive, and affirming negatives are primordially complete [in the mode of subsistence], since all nominal qualities are naturally complete in their basis.  and because the master, the great scholar Jinaputra’s commentary on the Praise of the Three Jewels by the master Mātṛcheța also says: Therefore, the negative term “does nor

Nineteenth Two Truths Self-emptiness is not the ultimate truth, which is of a different order of being. Döl-bo-ba describes self-emptiness as meaning that phenomena that cannot withstand analysis and are subject to disintegration are empty of their own nature. All conventionalities are self-empty, or self-emptinesses-the two terms being used interchangeably-and thus self-emptiness is a conventionality, not the ultimate. The actual ultimate truth is able to bear analysis, is permanent, and is definitive. Thorough-going release is brought about through the wisdom of other-emptiness. Döl-bo-ba rejects the notion that the ultimate also could be self-empty, since then the ultimate would not exist at all. The mere finding that some phenomena are empty does not make all phenomena, such as the great liberation, also empty of themselves. The great liberation is empty of defects which are other than itself and do not exist in reality-but it itself is not empty of itself, just as a house is empty of humans but is not emptyof itself. The great liberation does not melt under examination; it can bear analysis. In this sense, other-emptiness, the thoroughly established nature, ultimately exists.  In Döl-bo-ba’s system the ultimate is true ultimately, and conventional truths are true conventionally. The body of the basic element of attributes exists in the dispositional mode of subsistence, but no conventionalities do. “Existing in the dispositional mode of subsistence” is the meaning of ultimately existing. Conversely, since other powered natures phenomena produced through the power of other causes and conditions are not the ultimate nature, they are empty of their own entities; they are selfs-empty,  they do not exist in the dispositional mode of subsistence. The ultimate is beyond the temporary nature of other-powered natures, which, like hail-stones, may appear solid but quickly disappear.  For Döl-bo-ba, dependent-arisings are limited to impermanent phenomena produced from causes and conditions, and, therefore, the ultimate cannot be a dependent-arising. Thus the ultimate truth-knowing itself by itself, devoid of the extremes of existence and non-existence-has a nature that is beyond the phenomena of dependent-arising, does not deteriorate from its own

Seventh  “Forms and so forth. Why? Because of being the phenomena of apprehended-object and apprehending-subject.” This clears away the assertion by some that the meaning of being pure is to be empty of its respective entity because although all phenomena of apprehended-object and apprehending-subject, which have a nature of the two obstructions, are empty of their own respective entities, they are not pure. Consequently, with good differentiation to realise being and not being primordially naturally pure, it is necessary to realise the difference between the matrix-of-one-gone-to-bliss and adventitious defilements, and it is also necessary to realise well their modes of being empty. Though the noumenal versions of the six perfections and so forth abide without difference in buddhas and sentient beings, their attainment or non-attainment is due to having separated or not having separated from adventitious defilements upon having stopped or not having stopped the winds of the twelve time-cycles . The bifurcation of ultimate and conventional factors is clear.  In this way, the forms and so forth of the ultimate matrix-of-one-gone-to-bliss-attained through ceasing the continuum of the forms, and so forth, of adventitious defilements, which have an essence of impermanence, misery, emptiness, selflessness, impurity, ignorance, and so forth-are other than external and internal conventionalities. They are said to be essences of Vrasattva and Vajrapadma, vajra semen and particles, vajra moon and sun, vajra knower and known, vajra vowels and consonants, and so forth essences of the syllables exam, which is the primordially un differentiable mixture into one taste of the five immutable great emptinesses and the six immutable empty drops.

Twelfth  by asking whether “the factors of appearance are empty or not empty, and by citing the statement in Nagarjuna’s Essay on the Mind of Enlightenment that: Conventionalities are described as emptinesses. Just emptinesses are conventionalities. and the statement in the Heart Sutra that “Form is emptiness; emptiness is form.” The equation of ordinary forms with self-emptiness requires that they are not the ultimate, and the corresponding equation of the ultimate with other-emptiness requires that the matrix-of-one-gone-thus and all the ultimate buddha qualities of body, speech, and mind inhering in it are ultimate and are other-emptiness. He holds that it is an extreme of non-existence to claim that ultimate other-emptiness is self-empty. Whereas the part less, omnipresent pristine wisdom of the element of attributes always abides pervading all, the extreme of non-existence is the deprecation that it does not exist and is not established and is empty of its own entity. That which is the middle devoid of those extremes is the basis devoid of all extremes such as existence and non-existence, superimposition, and deprecation, permanence and annihilation, and so forth, due to which it is the final great middle. It is non-material emptiness, emptiness far from an annihilator emptiness, great emptiness that is the ultimate pristine wisdom of superiors, five immutable great emptinesses, six immutable empty drops, a which is the supreme of all letters, buddha earlier than all buddhas, primordially released one-gone-thus, causeless original buddha, aspect-lessens endowed with all aspects-insuperable and not fit to be abandoned. Not to be deprecated, it is the inconceivable element of attributes beyond phenomena of consciousness and not in the sphere of argument; it is to be realised in individual self-cognition by yogis. Consequently, those who come to the conclusion that: *The “middle” is solely designated to the mere voidness of all extremes. *”Even the middle is empty of the middle.” *”Even the ultimate is empty of the ultimate.” and so forth do not accord with the thought of the conqueror because, for the character of the emptiness that is the final mode

Part Ten  Since endowment with pre-existent ultimate buddha qualities does not eliminate the need for practice of the path, when describing the final Buddha-qualities, he titles the section on the path “Explaining how effects of separation and of production are attained through the path.” As Taranatha, second only to Döl-bo-ba in importance in Jo-nang, says: Therefore, newly attained effects that are to be produced through cultivating the path are produced effects, due to which they do not truly exist, whereas the primordially abiding buddha is merely separated through cultivating the path from the covering over that buddha, due to which it is called an “effect of separation” and the path also is called a “cause of its separation.” These [effects of separation] are merely imputed cause and effect, not actual cause and effect. These effects of separation also are not the analytical separations described in Manifest Knowledge, “Separation is a mental extinguishment.” Rather, it is an ultimate effect of separation and an ultimate true cessation in accordance with the statement in the Questions of King Dharanishvara Sutra, “Since it is primordially extinguished, it is called ‘extinguishment.’ In this way, the natural lineage is called a “cause” but does not produce effects, and the body of attributes is called an “effect” but it is not produced. Two Emptinesses Since the matrix-of-one-gone-thus, also called the immutable thoroughly established nature, is empty of all compounded phenomena but replete with the ultimate phenomena, or attributes, of enlightenment, it is not self-empty. If the matrix-of-one-gone-thus were self-empty, it would not exist at all (213). Rather, the matrix-of-one-gone-thus is empty in the sense of being empty of the other two natures, imputations and other-powered natures respectively conceptually dependent factors and phenomena produced by causes and conditions. In this way, Döl-bo-ba recognises two important types of emptiness-self-emptiness and other-emptiness. He calls the first “empty-emptiness” and the second “non-empty-emptiness (213, 252, 301). Self-emptiness means that an object is empty of its own entity. A table is entity; a mind is empty of its own entity, and so forth.