You taught your students well exactly what you yourself had realized:
The suchness of profound interdependence free from the eight extremes,
Ultimate peace—the complete pacification of all elaborations.
To you, highest of the Shākyas, supreme among speakers, I respectfully bow.
You are the embodiment of the wisdom that knows everything without obstruction.
Wielding the sword that cuts through ignorance
And a volume of scripture of the profound meaning,
You hold the secret of the speech of all victorious ones.
Eldest of the victors’ heirs, protector Mañjushrī, I place the crown of my head at your feet.
You attained the ground Supreme Joy and were prophesied
By the victorious Transcendent Conqueror in many sūtras and tantras:
The Great Drum,60 Great Clouds,61 the Descent into Laṅka,62
The Root Tantra of Mañjushrī,63 and others.
Great charioteer, venerable Nāgārjuna, I respectfully bow to you.
With the light of the moon,64 the excellent tradition of the Consequentialists,
You clearly illuminated the intention of Nāgārjuna on the high peak of the mountain of freedom from extremes—
Fearless scholars whose renown fills the world,
Buddhapālita and Chandrakīrti, I bow at your feet.
All the rivers of practice and study descending from those masters
Flow into the great ocean of the Buddha’s teachings
That combines them into one: the glorious Takpo Kagyü.
Extractor of that ocean’s jewels of definitive meaning, Könchok Yenlak, I bow to you.
Eternally you build your abode on the snow mountain of discipline.
You clothe your body with the garments of the three baskets
And, with your sharp fangs and claws of scripture and reasoning,
You defeat the elephants, your dialectic opponents’ pride.
Lord of lions, my spiritual tutor Namgyal Drakpa, may you be victorious.
Karmapa of great compassion with lotus in hand,65
The eighth lord, adorned with the crown of the victor Akṣhobhya,66
Assimilated in his mind the ultimate intention of all sugatas.67
Then, relying on the supreme text68 of the glorious Chandrakīrti,
He explained this intention with the great Chariot of the Takpo Kagyü Siddhas,
A chariot that blissfully leads one down the vast and profound path of excellent nonabiding—
The Middle Way, the peak of all vehicles.
Here, in an honest fashion, I will teach in a way that pulls that Chariot along.
You who desire liberation, take this deathless nectar
And pour it into the vase of your discriminating intelligence.
Completely purifying all illnesses of reification (ngö-dzin/dngos ’dzin),
Touch the genuine states of purity, self, bliss, and permanence!
Our Teacher, Shākyamuni, buddha of the fortunate eon and supreme light of the world, possesses not even the slightest fault and is fully endowed with all excellent qualities. In this world he set into motion all of the limitless dharma wheels (chökyi korlo/chos kyi ’khor lo), dharma discourses (chökyi tam/chos kyi gtam), and dharma gates (chökyi go/chos kyi sgo)69—both the topics expressed and the means of expression. If classified into succinct categories, there are those that are known as the three wheels of the teachings (ka korlo sum/bka’ ’khor lo gsum),70 the three discourses (tam sum/gtam gsum), the eighty-four thousand gates of dharma, and, the category that subsumes all of those, the twelve branches of scripture.71 Thus it is said in Nāgārjuna’s Verses on the Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Mulamādhyamakakārikā, Uma Tsawa Tsikle-ur Jepa Sherab/dbu ma rtsa ba tshig le’ur byas pa shes rab):
The buddhas impute a “self,”
Teach “selflessness,”
And teach that there is neither
Self nor selflessness.72 (18.6)
Also, the victorious Ajita (Mapampa/ma pham pa)73 said (Highest Continuum, Uttaratantra, Gyü Lama/rgyud bla ma):
Knowing the methods of the terms
Of impermanence, suffering, selflessness, and peace,
The Buddha enabled sentient beings
To engender sadness toward the three realms and excellently enter the path of nirvāṇa.
To those who had already entered this path of peace in a complete way
And had an outlook (du-she/’du shes) focused on attaining nirvāṇa,
The Buddha, in the White Lotus of Genuine Dharma (Saddharmapuṇdārika, Damchö Pema Karpo/dam chos padma dkar po) and other sūtras,
Taught the suchness of phenomena.
Through this, he reversed beings’ previous forms of fixation.74
Uniting skillful means and knowledge,
He ripened them into the supreme vehicle
And prophesied their attainment of supreme enlightenment.
The master Āryadeva said (The Four Hundred Verses, Chatuḥshataka, Shibgyapa/bzhi brgya pa):
In the beginning one reverses nonvirtue.
In the middle one reverses the view of a self.
In the end one reverses all views.
Those who know this way are wise.75 (8.15)
All of the approaches to the dharma mentioned above join students with the two paths of the higher realms (ngönto/mngon mtho)76 and definite excellence (ngeleg/nges legs).77 From among those approaches, it is not necessary for an individual who has a disposition toward only the paths of the higher realms to receive teachings on personal and phenomenal selflessness, emptiness, the supreme knowledge (prajñā, sherab/shes rab) that realizes emptiness, and the yoga of special seeing (vipashyanā, lhaktong/lhag mthong) that gives rise to such supreme knowledge in one’s mindstream. However, for an individual to traverse the path of definite excelence, if their path does not rely on the teachings on selflessness, it will certainly be incapable of bringing about definite excellence. The sūtras say:
Not knowing the way of emptiness, peace, and nonarising,
One wanders in saṃsāra.
And from Nāgārjuna’s Praise of the Transcendent (Lokātītastava, Jikten Detö/’jig rten ’das bstod):
You taught that there is no liberation
Without realizing the absence of characteristics.
Therefore, in the Mahāyāna,
You taught it in a comprehensive way.
The extensive teachings on emptiness are thus presented in the precious scriptures of the Mahāyāna —those of the Middle Way and of the Mind Only school—and in the limitless scriptures of tantra. From among all of these, emptiness is presented in an extremely clear fashion in all of the sūtras (ka/bka’) and treatises of the Middle Way. This is so because this tradition teaches all conceptual fabrications (trötsen/spros mtshan) as emptiness without leaving behind even the slightest remainder. It presents the full body of emptiness.
One may wonder, “Who founded this tradition that is known as the ‘Middle Way?’” This tradition was well founded by the great master, the venerable Nāgārjuna, who was prophesied by the Victorious One himself. After Nāgārjuna came his students Āryadeva (Phagpa Lha/’phags pa lha, ca. third century), Āchāryashūra (Lobpön Pawo/slob dpon dpa’ bo, second century),78 Shāntideva (Shiwa Lha/zhi ba lha, ca. eighth century) and others.79 Since there is no disagreement about these early masters being Followers of the Middle Way, they are known as the Middle Way Progenitors (Shung Chimö Umapa/gzhung phyi mo’i dbu ma pa).80
Later on, the master Bhāvaviveka opposed the explanation of the meaning of the Middle Way that was set forth by the master Buddhapālita. Since that opposition in turn also contained elements that required analysis, the master Chandrakīrti arrived in this world and, in order to investigate those points further, extensively taught on the meaning of the freedom from extremes. Since that time, there have been limitless other masters of the Middle Way who explained the view slightly differently from Chandrakīrti, in such texts as the Ornament to the Middle Way,81 the Light of the Middle Way,82 and Distinguishing the Two Truths.83 However, there is not even the slightest difference between them with respect to their final view being the intention of the Middle Way. They all speak of nothing other than the Middle Way itself. As it is said:
The teachings of the eighty-four thousand
Classes of dharma
All lead to emptiness.
Limitless such statements have been made. Yet some talkative scholars here in Tibet assert that, regarding the tenets by which the view is realized, there is a difference between such masters as Chandrakīrti and Bhāvaviveka, that one’s view is good and the other’s bad, one’s high and the other’s low. Their assertions are untenable.
If such differences existed, whoever held the lower view would not even be a Follower of the Middle Way. They and their views would merely bear the name of “Follower of the Middle Way” and “the Middle Way,” but they would not fulfill the objectives of the Middle Way at all. Their scenario would be just like that of the False Aspectarian Followers of the Middle Way.84
One may wonder, then, “Who among these great masters is endowed with the greatest power of intelligence by which they may quickly vanquish the pride of the Buddhist and non-Buddhist tīrthikas85 through explaining the intended meaning of the Middle Way?”
Addressing this question, the glorious Dipaṃkara86 said, “The venerable master Chandrakīrti is without peer,” and what he said is certainly true. The master Chandrakīrti composed several texts on the Middle Way, compositions that were entirely his own as well as commentaries on the works of others. Here, I wish to offer a summary of one of his independent compositions, The Entrance to the Middle Way.