IDMT Year Three: The Radiant Ground: Emptiness and Buddha Nature

Term 3

This year’s journey will weave together the profound view of Madhyamaka, as presented by Nāgārjuna and his successors, with the compassionate vision of Tathāgatagarbha, the Buddha-nature teachings that reveal our deepest potential for awakening. Far from abstract philosophy, these teachings offer a radical reorientation of how we perceive ourselves and the world—pointing us beyond habitual grasping to a space of clarity, openness, and profound compassion.

Having cultivated the foundational practices of shamatha and vipashyana in the first year and explored Yogācāra’s profound psychology of ignorance and awakening in the second, we now turn to the very heart of Tibetan Buddhism: the nature of emptiness and the luminous potential that resides within every living being.

Guiding us in this exploration will be core texts from India and Tibet. Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā will serve as a central pillar, systematically dismantling the illusions of inherent existence. In dialogue with this, we’ll study…