The Mahāyāna is called the "Great Vehicle" precisely because it is founded upon bodhicitta. Bodhicitta is the watershed that distinguishes the Mahāyāna from the Theravāda. But have we ever paused to ask why?
A simple answer might be: because Mahāyāna bodhicitta brings immense benefit by liberating sentient beings, whereas the Theravāda tradition does not aim to do so. However, if we wish to answer the question more thoroughly, we inevitably arrive at a more fundamental issue: Why is it said that the realization of Mahāyāna emptiness necessarily requires the generation of bodhicitta? What is the logical relationship between the two? Can one realize emptiness without generating Mahāyāna bodhicitta?
This is a profound question. Mipham Rinpoche once critiqued Tsongkhapa's position on precisely this issue. According to the Gelug tradition, arhats have realized the great emptiness; they enter nirvāṇa simply because they lack the vast bodhicitta of the Mahāyāna. Mipham Rinpoche, however, maintained that arhats realize only the emptiness of the self of the person, but have not realized the emptiness of phenomena.
In his Beacon of Certainty, Mipham Rinpoche devoted the second major topic to the question of whether the disciple of Buddha (Śrāvakas) and solitary realizers (Pratyekabuddhas) have realized the Mahāyāna emptiness, offering a detailed critique of Tsongkhapa's interpretation.
Of course, Tsongkhapa was an extraordinarily great master—a fully enlightened Buddha in his own right. His presentation that arhats realize the great emptiness arose within a particular historical and pedagogical context, as a skillful means for guiding certain disciples. When such great masters appear to debate doctrinal issues, such activity plays a vital role in deepening our study and contemplation of the Dharma.
In fact, if one receives an authentic and profound pith instruction, it is entirely possible to attain realization simply by relying upon that instruction in practice, even without extensive study and contemplation. However, if one wishes to follow the path that unites both scriptural learning and experiential realization, then one must gradually approach emptiness through careful reasoning, which requires first accumulating the necessary intellectual foundations.
For this reason, there are numerous Madhyamaka treatises, such as the Six Treatises of Nāgārjuna, The General Exposition of Madhyamaka, The Four Hundred Verses, Introduction to the Middle Way, Beacon of Certainty, Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness, Pulverizing the Categories, The Twelve Gate Treatise, and many others.
In truth, if you fully understand even one of these works, you can come to understand emptiness. Then why study so many of them repeatedly?
Because, in the early stages of Madhyamaka practice, the primary method is analytical contemplation. Such contemplation requires supporting material and multiple perspectives. For this reason, the great masters of the past deliberately presented these philosophical debates, guiding us to examine emptiness again and again from different angles. For ordinary beings like ourselves, whose minds are full of conceptual discrimination, this repeated contemplation gradually leads us toward a direct realization of emptiness.
Now let us return to the original question: Why must one generate Mahāyāna bodhicitta in order to realize emptiness? Can emptiness be realized without Mahāyāna bodhicitta?
As practitioners of the Nyingma tradition, I have read the respective explanations given by both traditions on this issue. Personally, I find Mipham Rinpoche's presentation to be the more measured and well-founded.
According to this view, an arhat enters nirvāṇa precisely because the ultimate realization of emptiness has not yet been fully completed. The nirvāṇa entered by an arhat is, in essence, the absorption of cessation (nirodha-samāpatti). If one had completely realized emptiness—if one had truly realized that "form is emptiness"—then saṃsāra itself would be nirvāṇa, and there would be no necessity to enter a separate state called nirvāṇa.
An arhat has not yet reached this realization. Therefore, phenomena—including indivisible particles and indivisible instants—still retains the capacity to harm him. Consequently, nirvāṇa becomes necessary as a refuge from these appearances.
One might ask, "Hasn't an arhat already realized selflessness? Why would there still be any need to avoid harm?"
The reason is that the arhat can fully actualize selflessness only through entering nirvāṇa. This does not mean that a living arhat has failed to realize selflessness. On the contrary, while still alive, an arhat has already eliminated the manas-consciousness (kliṣṭa-manas). However, because the emptiness of indivisible particles and indivisible instants has not yet been fully realized, the residual force of the mental continuum still remains.
For this reason, while alive, an arhat is said to abide in nirvāṇa with remainder (sopadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). After death, when the physical body has completely ceased and one enters the absorption of cessation, this is called nirvāṇa without remainder (nirupadhiśeṣa-nirvāṇa). It is precisely because the emptiness of all appearances has not yet been fully realized that this distinction remains necessary. Had all appearances been completely recognized as empty, there would be no need to enter such a nirvāṇa at all.
——Excerpted and compiled from The Genuine Bodhicitta and Conceptual Bodhicitta.
This article is a preliminary translation draft and has not yet been reviewed or proofread by the speaker.
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