Profound Instruction on the View of the Middle Way by Mipham Rinpoche

Profound Instruction on the View of the Middle Way

by Mipham Rinpoche

Namo Mañjuśrīye!

Having first undergone thorough purification through analysis, When certainty reaches the crucial point Regarding the way the person is devoid of self:

Just as what is called the “self” is imputed In dependence upon the aggregates By unexamined conceptual thought, Likewise, all phenomena—the five aggregates and the unconditioned— Are conceptually imputed as “this” and “that” And apprehended as all manner of different phenomena.

Yet when the referent of these imputations is sought, It cannot be found. Even down to the ultimate limit of the two indivisibles, Not even the most subtle is established.

Whatever appears does so by the force of dependent arising: Entities arise in dependence, And non-entities are imputed in dependence. Whether entity or non-entity, Whatever is grasped unexamined as this or that, When subjected to examination and analysis, Is found to be baseless and rootless— Appearing though nonexistent, like an illusion or dream, A moon reflected in water, an echo, a city of gandharvas, A visual aberration, a mirage, and the like. Empty yet appearing, appearing yet empty— Meditate on appearance and emptiness as illusion-like.

This is the categorized ultimate: Although it is the stainless prajñā— Endowed with the certainty of a comprehending mind And seeing the illusion-like mode in post-meditation— It is not free from focus on an apprehended object, Nor has the apprehending aspect dissolved. Because it has not gone beyond discursive conceptualization, The dharmatā free from elaboration is not seen.

When this kind of certainty has arisen, Even grasping as mere illusion Is conceptually imputed and grasped; yet The nature of the apprehended object is not established, And the apprehending mind too cannot be found. So rest, free from grasping, in the relaxed basic condition.

When resting in this way, all outer and inner appearances Do not cease. Yet in the fundamental mode of being free from grasping them, Since all things designated as phenomena Have, from the very beginning, neither arisen nor ceased, They are equal in the expanse of equality That is free from the apprehended and the apprehender. Free from assertions such as “exists” and “does not exist,” Within the natural state of inexpressible actuality, An experience free from doubt dawns.

This is the dharmatā of all phenomena, The uncategorized ultimate, To be known individually, each for oneself: The nonconceptual jñāna of meditative equipoise.

As familiarity develops within that state, The union of emptiness and dependent arising, The actuality in which the two truths are inseparable— This is the yoga of the Great Middle Way.

That actuality—the nondual jñāna Free from the domain of mind— If one wishes to make it manifest swiftly, Meditate on the pith instructions of Mantra.

Since this is the ultimate profound key point Of the stages of meditation on the Middle Way, First thoroughly purify conduct; Then progressively reach decisive ascertainment through experience. With certainty that appearance and emptiness are illusion-like, The meaning is that nothing is to be removed or added on the path. Within the expanse of the Perfection of Wisdom, There is complete liberation in equality.

Wherever there is the torment of thirst, Though one understands that water exists, thirst is not dispelled. Therefore, just as drinking dispels thirst, The sūtras say it is likewise with understanding and experience.

Therefore, as for parched understanding In which one becomes exhausted by extensive reasoning, There is no need for sporadic practice. If one meditates progressively, One will swiftly gain acceptance of the profound.

Jampal Gyepe Dorje, On the twenty-ninth day of the eleventh month of the Water Dragon year, Wrote this down just as it arose. Through this, may all beings realize The meaning of the profound Middle Way! Maṅgalam!

Translation Note This English revision uses Mipham Rinpoche’s Tibetan text as the controlling source. Adam Pearcey’s English translation was consulted as a secondary comparator rather than as the basis for source decisions. The revision deliberately preserves several technical distinctions in the Tibetan, especially prajñā (ཤེས་རབ་, shes rab) and jñāna (ཡེ་ཤེས་, ye shes), as well as the categorized and uncategorized ultimate. How this revision differs from Adam Pearcey’s English translation (Lotsawa House, version 2.3–20250115): The points below identify deliberate differences in source handling. They are not meant to imply that every freer choice in Pearcey’s translation is mistaken; his version is generally more interpretive and idiomatic, whereas this revision gives greater priority to explicit Tibetan roles, relations, lexical families, and unresolved textual uncertainty. 1. Opening and self-imputation. Pearcey recasts the opening in direct second-person instructional English and smooths the transition into the self-imputation example. This revision stays closer to the Tibetan conditional architecture and explicitly retains that the imputed self is designated in dependence upon the aggregates, a dependency that is less explicit in Pearcey’s wording. 2. Scope and order in the appearance/emptiness stanza. Pearcey reverses the order of the paired line on emptiness and appearance. This revision follows the Tibetan sequence stong bzhin snang / snang bzhin stong as “Empty yet appearing, appearing yet empty,” and retains the source’s entity/non-entity and totality relations more explicitly. 3. Simile vocabulary. Where Pearcey naturalizes some images—for example the gandharva-city and mig yor imagery—this revision keeps “a city of gandharvas” and “a visual aberration” so that distinct Tibetan simile terms are not collapsed into more general English imagery. 4. Prajñā and jñāna. Pearcey commonly renders both shes rab and ye shes with the broad English word “wisdom.” This revision preserves the distinction as prajñā for independent ཤེས་རབ་ and jñāna for ཡེ་ཤེས་ because the Tibetan itself changes terms between the categorized and uncategorized stages. A conventional compound is treated as an explicit exception rather than mechanically dismantled: ཤེས་རབ་ཕ་རོལ་ཕྱིན་པ་ (shes rab pha rol phyin pa) remains “Perfection of Wisdom” (Prajñāpāramitā). 5. Post-meditation, nominal structure, and apprehended/apprehending roles. Pearcey’s syntax can make the illusion-like quality sound attached to post-meditative experience itself and often naturalizes the subject-object vocabulary as perceiver/perceived or subjective mind. This revision attaches rjes thob to the seeing/prajñā relation, keeps the categorized-ultimate passage as one main concessive nominal structure rather than two coordinate predicates, and retains the technical “apprehended / apprehending” architecture more explicitly. 6. Categorized versus uncategorized ultimate. Pearcey paraphrases the later ultimate as one that cannot be conceptualized. This revision deliberately keeps the paired technical terminology “categorized ultimate” and “uncategorized ultimate” so the contrast with the earlier rnam grangs pa’i don dam is visible to the reader. 7. Source-absent intensifiers and labels. Pearcey uses expressions such as “ordinary mind” and “Secret Mantra.” At these loci the Tibetan has sems (mind) and sngags (Mantra) without those extra qualifiers, so this revision uses “mind” and “Mantra” rather than importing the added adjectives. 8. Certainty versus decisive ascertainment. Pearcey renders gtan la dbab in the practice stanza with the language of arriving at certainty. This revision reserves “certainty” for the repeated Tibetan nges shes and renders gtan la dbab as “reach decisive ascertainment,” preserving two different epistemic expressions used by the source. 9. Thirst analogy and closing practice stanza. Pearcey adds contextual language about drought/dehydration and expands the closing stanza with explanatory English. This revision keeps the analogy closer to the Tibetan’s direct contrast between understanding that water exists and actually drinking, renders go skom as “parched understanding” so the immediately preceding skom (“thirst”) imagery remains audible, and keeps res ’jog (“sporadic practice”) distinct from the following rim bsgoms (“meditates progressively”). 10. Textual uncertainty at gsal bzhag / bsal bzhag. Pearcey presents the familiar remove/add sense directly. This revision retains that reader sense only provisionally because the current Lotsawa Tibetan reads གསལ་བཞག་ (gsal bzhag), while the familiar technical expression is བསལ་བཞག་ (bsal bzhag). The discrepancy is therefore disclosed rather than silently normalized. 11. Colophon and Gregorian date. Pearcey supplies a Gregorian year in parentheses and smooths the colophon into modern English order. This revision keeps the Tibetan lunar date and source order, leaves the Gregorian year out of the translated body, and renders shar mar bris as “wrote this down just as it arose.” 12. gshis, gshis lugs, and rang babs. The Tibetan uses three distinct expressions in close succession. This revision now keeps them recoverably distinct as “basic condition” (གཤིས་), “fundamental mode” (གཤིས་ལུགས་), and “natural state” (རང་བབས་), rather than allowing two different source terms to collapse into the same English phrase. Source-critical and display note: The opening དཔྱོད་པ་རྣམ་སྦྱོང་ (dpyod pa rnam sbyong) admits more than one reasonable relation in English and stands in a conspicuous near-homophone parallel with the later སྤྱོད་པ་རྣམ་སྦྱངས་ (spyod pa rnam sbyangs) concerning conduct; the body’s “purification through analysis” is therefore a contextual rendering, not a claim that the instrumental parse is uniquely certain or that authorial wordplay can be proved. At རྟོགས་པའི་བློ་ (rtogs pa’i blo), the controlling current Lotsawa witness has rtogs pa, whereas Jacob D. Fisher’s transcription of the 2007 edition reports rtog pa (“conceptual mind”) at the same locus. The body follows the controlling witness with “a comprehending mind,” keeping this lexically distinct from the later གོ་ (go) family of intellectual understanding without implying nonconceptual realization; the stanza itself explicitly says that the dharmatā free from elaboration is not seen at this stage. At རྟོག་པས་བརྟགས་ཏེ་གཟུང་མོད་ཀྱི་, the controlling Lotsawa witness has bzung mod kyi (“although grasped”), whereas Fisher’s transcription reports bzung med kyi, changing the clause to a negative reading. The body therefore retains the controlling affirmative-concessive polarity (“is conceptually imputed and grasped; yet”) and does not import the secondary witness’s negative. At ཡེ་ནས་མ་སྐྱེས་མ་འགགས་པས་, current Lotsawa has the causal ending -pas, whereas Fisher reports ma ’gag la, a coordinative relation; the body accordingly retains the controlling causal architecture (“Since … have … neither arisen nor ceased”). At སོ་སོ་རང་གི་རིག་བྱ་བ་, the controlling current Lotsawa witness has rang gi, while Fisher’s transcription reports rang gis. Both witnesses retain rang; the variant changes the syntactic relation, not the presence of the reflexive. The body therefore retains “To be known individually, each for oneself,” preserving the distributive and reflexive force without choosing the secondary witness’s explicit instrumental/self-cognizing analysis. At དེ་ཡི་ངང་ནས་གོམས་པ་ན་, current Lotsawa has ngang nas (“from/within that state”), whereas Fisher reports ngang la; “within that state” is retained as an idiomatic rendering of the controlling ngang nas, not as adoption of Fisher’s case relation. At ཀུན་ཏུ་རྟོག་ (kun tu rtog), “discursive conceptualization” is used to keep this source expression perceptibly distinct from nearby རྟོག་པ་ (rtog pa) without asserting a specific Sanskrit reconstruction such as parikalpita. Other minor inflectional or orthographic witness differences that do not change the selected renderings are not treated as separate body decisions. The 76-line root verse is displayed here in semantic cards for readability rather than as a claim about source stanza boundaries. Card 1 maps root lines 1–3 as a semantic unit, but its second and third displayed English lines correspond to source lines 3 and 2 respectively; the card-range attribute therefore does not claim one-to-one displayed-line order. Each card carries a data-tibetan-lines range so the underlying source mapping remains auditable. This is a source-controlled translation and comparison, not a critical edition. Textual note: at the line concerning the path, the current Lotsawa House Tibetan transcription reads གསལ་བཞག་ (gsal bzhag). The familiar “nothing to remove or add” sense corresponds to the well-attested expression བསལ་བཞག་ (bsal bzhag). An earlier review had cited an additional corroborating Lotsawa transcription, but that witness could not subsequently be freshly re-verified and is therefore not relied upon in the present apparatus. Because no printed facsimile of the cited Tibetan editions was directly inspected in this round, the Tibetan has not been emended; the body retains the traditional technical sense provisionally, and the locus remains unresolved. Calendrical note: the Tibetan colophon gives the twenty-ninth day of the eleventh month of the Water Dragon year. No Gregorian year has been inserted into the translation. Source: Tibetan text. Secondary comparator: Adam Pearcey’s translation, Lotsawa House, version 2.3–20250115. Textual-witness comparator: Jacob D. Fisher, “The Tibetan Traditions of Guides to the Madhyamaka View (dbu ma’i lta khrid): The Schooling of View with Meditation”, Journal of Indian Philosophy 53 (2025), corrected online version. The Lotsawa House translation is licensed CC BY-NC 4.0.