Illuminating the Intent

This has four parts: (1) refuting reflexive awareness as the proof of dependent nature, (2) how the Cittamātra standpoint falls short on both levels of the two truths, (3) therefore it is logical to follow Nāgārjuna alone, and (4) how negating dependent nature is not similar to rejecting worldly convention.

The first has four parts: (1) asking for the proof of dependent nature and showing how it is unsound, (2) rejecting the opponent’s response that reflexive awareness is indeed tenable, (3) demonstrating through other arguments how reflexive awareness remains untenable, and (4) stating that intrinsically existing dependent nature is akin to the son of a barren woman.

Having demonstrated how consciousness without external reality is impossible, the following refutes intrinsic existence of the entity, the dependent nature itself, without qualifying it in terms of the absence of an external reality: