TANTRIC BUDDHISM (INCLUDING CHINA AND JAPAN)puru:ja of cognition and consciousness then exists alone. When nothing else
appears any more, the Sarpkhya holds that Liberation has been obtained.^60
Similarly, the Jo nan pas also consider that the Essential-disposition of all
dharmas, though existing permanently from the outset, is not seen because of
conceptual-inclination (abhinivesa). Then when one perceives through the prac-
tice of yoga that they have the proper-nature of a mirage (marlci), of smoke,
etc.,^61 he obtains ultimate Awakening (sans rgyas); the permanent tathatii alone
appears then, and nothing else appears. Whereas the saiJlvrti and the ran stan are
nothing but total non-existence (ye medIa soli ba), when nothing but the solitary
absolute-Meaning appears Awakening is obtained.
The two preceding systems are thus quite similar; and there is not the slight-
est difference of superiority or inferiority between them, as any intelligent
person who examines them will understand.
Moreover, the Jo nan pas maintain that the whole of the octad [of vijfianas]
consisting of the present iilayavijiiiina etc. possesses an impure proper-nature
(tshogs brgyad 'dus pa 'di dag dri ma 'iran biin can), and in this they resemble
the Mimarpsaka who accepts impurety as the proper-nature of the mind [7a].
The impurity penetrates into the nature of the mind; therefore, though one may
try to remedy it so as to eliminate it, this is really useless. Hence, although they
have a theory of liberation, it is the cycle-of-existence (saiJlsiira) that they have
really established!
Moreover, the Jo nan pas, inasmuch as they maintain that the things which
belong to relativity are only illusory appearances (' khrul snali), admit that the
permanent absolute-Meaning is established if it differs from this [relativity].
Now this theory is comparable to that of the different tlrthikas who advocate the
Vedanta and who affirm that this ( 'di) is just an erroneous appearance; that the
permanent and omnipresent knowledge (ses pa) which includes no duality
between subject and object finds itself when separated from this (' di nas logs
na) in the proper-nature of Liberation; and that the many separately existing
selves of the creatures are absorbed in the essence of the great Self when they
obtain liberation. This is so because, except for a mere difference in terms, they
both hold in reality that liberation is permanent and because their systems of lib-
eration (grol tshul) and of[bondage in the] cycle-of-existences (' khor tshul) are
similar.
The theory proposed by the Jo nan pas in this respect proves to incur besides
the twin fault of etemalism and nihilism. For by holding that the proper-nature
of the absolute-Meaning exists as a permanent proper-nature, they fall into the
extreme of the eternal (siisvatiinta); and by accepting that the relativity which
exists beforehand in the sarpsaric condition no longer exists when one is Awak-
ened, they fall into the extreme of nihilism (ucchediinta).
* * *
To support their doctrine of the gian stan which is truth of absolute-Meaning
(paramiirthasatya), permanent, stable and eternal, and which pervades all the