So this next section of text (27-35) gets at the heart of why I thought it might be useful to blog about this text . Technically, it is a very basic: it discusses shidrup (gzhi grub, categories of existence), one of the basic introductory subjects that young monks (usually 13-year old boys) first study. Yet, for western audiences it can be exceedingly difficult to follow and understand, because it relies on basic general knowledge that a Tibetan monk would be expected to have, but basically only a PhD would
This debate hinges on the relationship between shidrup (I will use the Tibetan term, because it will be easier than repeating “categories of existence”) and correct reasons ( tak yang dak , rtags yang dag). As the book mentions (32-33), it is axiomatic (accepted as true) in Tibetan Buddhist logic that shidrup and correct reasons are synonymous. Why would that be? Well, what is shidrup synonymous with? “Thing” ( chu , chos) and “existent” ( yöpa / yupa , yod pa), meaning anything that exists is shidrup . So
So therefore, when at the beginning of this debate, the questioner says “It follows that whatever exists must be a perfect reason” (27), the respondent must answer yes ( dö / doh , ‘dod). But this immediately raises a problem, because, logically, shidrup cannot be synonymous with correct reason, because shidrup is the largest category of things: if you think of it as a pyramid chart, shidrup —existing—must be the largest category, because it includes all existing things. So that “all existing things” can be