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Read more about [[Books/When the Clouds Part/Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha''|Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha'']] by Karl Brunnhölzl.
::[[Books/When the Clouds Part/Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha''#Explanations_of_Tathāgatagarbha_in_Indian_Texts|Explanations of Tathāgatagarbha in Indian Texts]]
::[[Books/When the Clouds Part/Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha''#Tathāgatagarbha as the Emptiness That Is a Nonimplicative Negation|Tathāgatagarbha as the Emptiness That Is a Nonimplicative Negation]]
::[[Books/When the Clouds Part/Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha''#Tathāgatagarbha as Mind’s Luminous Nature|Tathāgatagarbha as Mind’s Luminous Nature]]
::[[Books/When the Clouds Part/Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha''#Tathāgatagarbha as the Ālaya-Consciousness|Tathāgatagarbha as the Ālaya-Consciousness]]
::[[Books/When the Clouds Part/Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha''#Tathāgatagarbha as a Sentient Being|Tathāgatagarbha as a Sentient Being]]
::[[Books/When the Clouds Part/Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha''#Tathāgatagarbha as the Dharmakāya, Suchness, the Disposition, and Nonconceptuality|Tathāgatagarbha as the Dharmakāya, Suchness, the Disposition, and Nonconceptuality]]
::[[Books/When the Clouds Part/Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of ''Tathāgatagarbha''#Tibetan Assertions on Tathāgatagarbha|Tibetan Assertions on Tathāgatagarbha]] +
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There is no monolithic Shentong School but a great variety of ways in which different Tibetan masters understand this term and how they formulate the associated view. A text by the twentieth-century Kagyü scholar Surmang Padma Namgyal (Zur mang pad ma rnam rgyal n.d., 60.3–61.6) lists seven different kinds of views held by various Jonang, Sakya, Kagyü, and Nyingma masters on the distinction between rangtong and shentong (I am indebted to Anne Burchardi for drawing my attention to this text and providing me with a copy of it). According to this text, (1) Dölpopa and his followers hold consciousness to be rangtong and wisdom to be shentong. (2) Śākya Chogden considers phenomena—appearances—as rangtong and the nature of phenomena—luminosity—as shentong. (3) Sabsang Mati Paṇchen maintains subject and object to be rangtong and expanse (dbyings) and wisdom to be shentong. (4) The Thirteenth Karmapa considers saṃsāra to be rangtong and nirvāṇa to be shentong. (5) The Eighth Karmapa and his followers take the pure kāyas and wisdom to be rangtong in terms of their actual mode of being and to be shentong in terms of the way they appear. (6) The Eighth Situpa considers the side of negation as rangtong and the side of affirmation as shentong. (7) The Nyingma master Gédsé Paṇchen from Gaḥto Monastery (Tib. Kaḥ thog dge rtse paṇ chen, 1761–1829) regards the phase of conclusive resolve during meditative equipoise to be rangtong and the phase of clearly distinguishing during subsequent attainment to be shentong. Among these seven views, Padma Namgyal explicitly considers views (4), (6), and (7) to be good positions. Summarizing the seven into three, Padma Namgyal says that Dölpopa asserts wisdom to be shentong, Śākya Chogden holds the expanse to be shentong, and all others take both wisdom and the expanse to be shentong. When summarized into two, the first five are said to present rangtong and shentong mainly by way of what is to be determined, while the latter two do so primarily by way of the means to determine that. Note though (and this complicates matters further) that these seven distinctions are obviously based on three very different categories of comparison in terms of what rangtong and shentong mean. The first—and most common—category takes rangtong and shentong to refer to phenomena as belonging to two different levels of reality (seeming and ultimate), which underlies views (1)–(5). The second category refers to rangtong and shentong as two approaches to conceptually determine the subject in question (6). The third category considers rangtong and shentong as distinct (nonconceptual) experiences or phases in the process of attaining realization (7). - Karl Brunnhölzl, ''[[When the Clouds Part]]'', p. 1018, nt. 532.