Appendix B: Glossary

Abandonment. The ending of the afflictions, possible only because they are empty.

Afflictions (kleśa). States that disturb the mind and drive suffering: craving, aversion and delusion.

Apoha. Exclusion. On Dharmakīrti's account, a universal is understood by excluding what it is not, rather than by pointing to a common essence.

Avikalpa. Non-conceptual awareness: registering what presents without the names, categories and part-whole structure that thought adds.

Basis (gzhi). In Dzogchen, the original condition of every being, out of which the path and its fruit are said to unfold; recognising it is rigpa. Longchenpa treats it as a ground only from a relative perspective, empty of being a ground in the true nature of reality. This book reads the basis as the emptiness of appearing, not as a ground behind appearances. See the Note on Method. Source: the Wikipedia "Ground (Dzogchen)" article, summarising Longchenpa.

Clarity (gsal ba). In Dzogchen, the clear nature (rang bzhin) of the basis, one of its three aspects together with its empty essence (ngo bo) and its unobstructed compassion (thugs rje). In this book, the knowing clarity of appearing itself, not a substance behind it. See Luminosity. Source for the three aspects: Rangjung Yeshe Wiki, "primordial ground" and "ngo bo rang bzhin thugs rje gsum", where Longchenpa's three factors appear as an empty essence, a clear nature and an unobstructed radiance of compassion. The book's own gloss is stated as a gloss.

Conditions (pratyaya). What something arises in dependence on. The Abhidharma listed four kinds.

Contrivance (in this book). The same unfixed appearing, met with the habit of fixing still operating. Its counterpart is openness. This is a term of the book's own, not a standard Dzogchen term.

Conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya). The level of valid designation, in which causal explanation and the words "why" and "because" are usable.

Dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda). Things appear only in dependence on other things, and on the way they are picked out.

Dependent designation. Things are named and known in dependence on the conditions and the naming itself. Dependent designation is not a compromise between existence and non-existence.

Dharmatā (chos nyid). In the standard sources, the true nature of phenomena, often explained as the unchanging nature (svabhāva) of dharmas, beyond all discrimination. This book uses "nature" for the way things are, when they are not reified, in a narrower sense than that gloss. It avoids the term for emptiness itself. The difference is stated where the term is first used.

Elaboration (prapañca). The mind's spinning-out of "is" and "is not" around something it takes to be there.

Eight extremes. Arising and ceasing, permanence and annihilation, coming and going, identity and difference.

Emptiness (śūnyatā, stong pa nyid). The lack of intrinsic nature. Not a separate reality behind phenomena, and not itself a hidden substrate. Emptiness has no intrinsic nature of its own, and this book does not call it open, closed or luminous in itself.

Implicative and non-implicative negation. Non-implicative negation (prasajya-pratiṣedha) denies without installing a replacement. Implicative negation (paryudāsa) denies and installs a positive ground in its place.

Lhun grub. Spontaneous presence. What dependent arising looks like once no producer is sought. Not an uncaused ground. In Higgins's account (via KMaps), spontaneous presence is the form in which the basic openness of awareness surges forth as luminosity. The book does not read this as an awareness from which luminosity issues; luminosity is the clarity of appearing itself.

Luminosity (od gsal). In Dzogchen, a term that is categorised under the clarity aspect of the nature of mind, and related to lhun grub. In this book, the knowing clarity of appearance, not a substance behind it. Rangjung Yeshe gives stong pa'i 'od gsal as "empty luminosity" and "the luminosity of emptiness." The book uses the first sense only: luminosity is empty, and emptiness has no luminosity of its own (see Emptiness). See Clarity.

Non-arising (anutpāda). No arising found from a thing's own side. This is not the same as no causes.

Openness (in this book). The way unfixed appearing meets when it is seen without fixing. It is not a property of emptiness or of the basis, and it does not explain why appearing occurs. Its counterpart is contrivance. This is a departure from the sources. In the sources, openness appears as a characterisation of the ground and of awareness: rig stong (cognitive intensity and openness) and gsal stong (luminosity and openness, or the unity of clarity and openness), both linked to lhun grub. The book's usage is narrower. Confirmed: Higgins's usage via KMaps; Rangjung Yeshe for gsal stong.

Own-nature (svabhāva). A nature a thing would have from its own side, apart from everything else. Defined in MMK 15.2 as non-contingent and not dependent on anything other than itself. Madhyamaka argues that nothing has it, and that emptiness is not one either. Distinguish from nature as the way things are (dharmatā). The Tibetan rang bzhin is used for both, and in Dzogchen also for the ultimate nature, unaltered because the basis is spontaneously accomplished. The book distinguishes these by context.

Primordial purity (ka dag). The Dzogchen description of the basis as pure from the beginning, and a way of signifying emptiness. In this book, read as the unfixed character of appearing, not as an uncaused source. Confirmed: Higgins (via KMaps) gives "a term signifying primordial purity as a way of signifying emptiness," unique to rNying ma tantric literature. Namkhai Norbu describes the basis as "uncreated, ever pure, and self-perfected, not something that has to be constructed," which supports "unproduced" in this sense. The Buddha-Nature site glosses it as the empty nature of phenomena, and Tshig mdzod chen mo defines it as pure from the beginning, free from stain.

Rang grol. Self-release: thought dissolves when it is not followed or fixed. The term is standard in Dzogchen and Mahāmudrā (Wikipedia, "Dzogchen"; Studybuddhism glossary).

Rang rig. Self-cognizing awareness (Sanskrit svasaṃvitti). The Dzogchen position on it is debated: Mipham's Beacon of Certainty (Pettit 1999) defends Dzogchen in Madhyamaka terms, and Higgins (2013) reads Longchenpa as rejecting self-reflective awareness. Chapter 19 presents these readings and the Madhyamaka objection.

Recognition (ngo shes; rang ngo shes for self-recognition). In Dzogchen, the central term of the path. Knowledge of the basis (rigpa) comes from recognising it, and recognition is often identified with awakening: the recognition of the basis is "awakening" in the Dzogchen sources as summarised by Wikipedia. The book does not dispute that recognition is decisive. Its chapter title, "Recognition, Not Effort" (Chapter 23), means only that recognition is not produced by effort or accumulated as a state. See the Note on Method, fourth departure.

Reification. Taking an abstraction, or an appearance, to exist as a thing in its own right, standing beneath the particulars.

Rigpa (rig pa). In Dzogchen, the knowledge of the basis, and the pristine awareness that is the basis itself. The book does not take awareness as a basis; see the Note on Method. Its opposite is ma rigpa, ignorance, the failure to recognise the basis. Sanskrit vidyā ("knowledge"). The book's "knowing clarity" is a gloss on this, not a translation. Ācārya Malcolm Smith translates rigpa as vidyā, prefers to leave it untranslated, and holds that rendering it as "awareness" is wrong (quoted in his DharmaWheel posts and the Wisdom Podcast). Confirmed by Wikipedia's Rigpa article: "knowledge of the ground," opposite ma rigpa.

Svalakṣaṇa. The particular, what characterises itself alone, in Dignāga's and Dharmakīrti's epistemology. Candrakīrti's first chapter answers a view closely resembling Dignāga's (Arnold 2003, "Candrakīrti on Dignāga on Svalakṣaṇas," JIABS). See Chapter 5.

Ultimate truth (paramārtha-satya). Not a higher world, but the emptiness of the conventional one.

Unobstructed (ma 'gags pa). Nothing blocks the display, and there is no store behind it from which the display comes. Not that something lasts for ever.

Vikalpa. Conceptual construction: the mode of mind that divides, names and asks which part carries identity.