འཕགས་པ་ཆས་ཡང་དག་པར་སྡད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 1.23

1.23

It is consciousness that approaches and enters form, and consciousness that approaches sensation, approaches perception, and approaches formations. It is consciousness that depends on them, observes them, and enters them. An unsupported consciousness would not enter for even a moment. Because transmigration upon death occurs in the same way as any persisting phenomenon arises—like a seed and a sprout—it is a conventional teaching.

“How is the teaching on the peace of nirvāṇa a conventional teaching? Nirvāṇa does not ultimately exist. The pacification of saṃsāra is called nirvāṇa. Saṃsāra is not itself nirvāṇa, nor is nirvāṇa distinct from saṃsāra. Saṃsāra, like a dream or an illusion, neither exists nor does not exist, nor does it arise because of being both existent and nonexistent. Just as saṃsāra does not exist or not exist and does not arise through being both existent and nonexistent, it does not cease because of not existing, not not existing, or being both existent and nonexistent. Alternatively, the cessation of perception and sensation is called nirvāṇa. Perception is just like a mirage; sensation is like a water bubble. Just as a mirages and water bubbles arise and cease, so it is with saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. Therefore, the teaching on the peace of nirvāṇa is a conventional teaching.

“Bodhisattvas should understand these ten as the conventional teachings of the thus-gone, worthy, completely perfect buddhas.

“Child of good family, bodhisattvas should understand emptiness through ten approaches to the way of the Dharma. What are these ten? (1) The absence of self, (2) the absence of beings, (3) the absence of life, (4) the absence of a person, (5) the absence of a governing power, (6) the absence of birth, (7) the absence of cessation,