Suddhasattva, I have a feeling you are referring to Zhentong in the Tibetan tradition, which got the Jonang in trouble with the other mainstream approaches that always held that the self is empty. Regardless, it is distinctly different than being ego-centered.
Kemble, out of respect for your general wherewithal I'd like to invite you to a debate on this topic in the 1 on 1 section, so as to not debate in the DIR (after this post
). Alternately, we could open this up to "Is there an self-worship gap in the LHP traditions?" thread in the so-called same faith debates section.
In regards to the post, my reference is not just to the zhentong, though that would be included. The "mainstream approach(s) [sic] that you refer to is actually the singular gelug interpretation of prasangika madhyamaka, with the gelug becoming militarily and politically dominant in benighted Tibet and thus imposing their orthodoxy on the rest of us.
One does not need to take the zhentong view to understand the doctrine of the Self as per:
- the nikayas & abhidharma
- the prajnaparamita cycle
- the tathagatagarbha cycle
- the intermediate cycles
- yogacara
- madhyamaka (including both rangtong and zhentong interpretations)
- tantra, and its own (and many) philosophies of the Self, which very between cycles (eg: mengagde) and specific tantras even within a given cycle.
In my opinion zhentong as commonly interpreted among jonangpas and their apologists is too extreme (at least standing in itself), whereas dolpopa's original exposition is more in line with a view that doesn't suffer from needless reconciliation, or accept erroneous understandings as divergent in the first place.
Emptiness is not merely other-empty, it is empty of itself, being the self of the void.
<TLDR version>
The void alone paints with the colors of space and time, energy and matter, shadows and light, sun and moon, devouring its own phantasms before they're created, perpetually giving rise to only itself, nothingness, sovereign lord of things.
And this rather is the point.
LHP approaches in the Eastern traditions had more to do with achieving non-dualty and dropping the self through breaking taboos. Still pretty RHP.
Even if your claims are accepted at face-value, does it occur to you that this is cultural misappropriation? Long before the idea of a lefthand path entered anyone's head in the Western esoteric tradition - at least to the point of recording it as such, it was a central idea in Indian esotericism, both Hindu and Buddhist with a corresponding Taoist equivalent as well.
...Which you are now recasting in the new terminology as "RHP." It lacks reason.
That said, 'non-duality' is so very nuanced and overlaid with the understanding of a supreme selfhood which the aspirant identifies with as the core of self-awareness, free from the conceit fractured "I am" internal dialogue, (though "I am" in a pure, para-vocative sense: 'Aham' has enormous significance in of itself, particular in the Hindu tantric tradition).
Simply put, (Buddhist) tantric conceptions of nonduality do not involve the surrendering of the self, but rather its revelation as the supreme being. Oneself is that, sovereign and enlightened as all beings. In this way it can be said to be an expansion of the intermediate cycle, ie the lankavatara, the lotus & especially the avatamsaka.
In regards to the desires, these are not suppressed in the LHP traditions, but used as potent means of self-recognition.
Further, there are many tantric traditions which do not care so much for nonduality by way of union, but are instead engaged in the project of isolation or separation. Yogic traditions were, from their inception, rooted around this principle; it is called saṃkhya and underlies the doctrine of shramana, and revolves in disentangling the sovereign self from the webs of all phenomenon, until purusha (self) stands alone as the cosmic being, unlimited by space, time or atomicity, and unburdened of notions of mystic union, or any other compromise of consciousness.
