Bhashya
ननु नास्त्येव धिया समानम् अन्यत् धियोऽवभासकम्आत्मज्योतिः, धीव्यतिरेकेण प्रत्यक्षेण वा अनुमानेन वा अनुपलम्भात्- यथा अन्या तत्काल एव द्वितीया धीः ।यत्तु अवभास्यावभासकयोः अन्यत्वेऽपि विवेकानुपलम्भात् सादृश्यमिति घटाद्यालोकयोः- तत्र भवतु, अन्यत्वेन आलोकस्योपलम्भात् घटादेः, संश्लिष्टयोः सादृश्यं भिन्नयोरेव ; न च तथा इह घटादेरिव धियोऽवभासकं ज्योतिरन्तरं प्रत्यक्षेण वा अनुमानेन वा उपलभामहे ; धीरेव हि चित्स्वरूपवभासकत्वेन स्वाकारा विषयाकारा च ; तस्मात् नानुमानतः नापि प्रत्यक्षतः धियोऽवभासकं ज्योतिः शक्यते प्रतिपादयितुं व्यतिरिक्तम् ।यदपि दृष्टान्तरूपमभिहितम्-अवभास्यावभासकयोर्भिन्नयोरेव घटाद्यालोकयोः संयुक्तयोः सादृश्यमिति -तत्र अभ्युपगममात्रमस्माभिरुक्तम् ; न तु तत्र घटाद्यवभास्यावभासकौ भिन्नौ ; परमार्थतस्तु घटादिरेव अवभासात्मकः सालोकः ; अन्यः अन्यः हि घटादिरुत्पद्यते ; विज्ञानमात्रमेव सालोकघटादिविषयाकारमवभासते ; यदा एवम्, तदा न बाह्यो दृष्टान्तोऽस्ति, विज्ञानस्वलक्षणमात्रत्वात्सर्वस्य ।एवं तस्यैव विज्ञानस्य ग्राह्यग्राहकाकारताम् अलं परिकल्प्य, तस्यैव पुनर्विशुद्धिं परिकल्पयन्ति ।तत् ग्राह्यग्राहकविनिर्मुक्तं विज्ञानं स्वच्छीभूतं क्षणिकं व्यवतिष्ठत इति केचित् ।तस्यापि शान्तिं केचिदिच्छन्ति ; तदपि विज्ञानं संवृतं ग्राह्यग्राहकांश-विनिर्मुक्तं शून्यमेव घटादिबाह्यवस्तुवत् इत्यपरे माध्यमिका आचक्षते ॥
In plain words
Here comes the objection. Surely, someone says, there is no separate light of the Self standing behind the mind the way you claim — because nobody ever catches, by seeing or by reasoning, anything beyond the mind itself. It's exactly like looking for a second mind watching the first one at the same moment: you never find it. Now, about that earlier comparison to a pot and its lamplight — the claim that they only seem similar to mind-and-self because we fail to notice they're different — fine, let that stand for pot and lamp, because there we genuinely do see the light as something apart from the pot; things that are joined can still be two things. But mind and self aren't like that at all. We never catch, by any means, a light standing apart from the mind the way lamplight stands apart from a pot. The mind itself, precisely because it shines by its own conscious nature, is quite capable of appearing as both the knowing subject and the known object all on its own. So neither reasoning nor direct experience can ever pin down some further light distinct from the mind. And as for that pot-and-lamp example we used — that was only ever a debater's concession, not our real position. Because really, at the deepest level, even the pot and its light were never two separate things: the pot itself just is an appearance, lit up as part of what it is. A fresh pot arises fresh each instant; what's really there is only cognition, appearing in the shape of 'pot-with-light.' Once you see that, there's no example left outside cognition to point to — everything, without exception, is just its own passing flash of awareness. Building on this, some teachers grant cognition a double face, knower and known folded into one flash, and then go further, imagining that flash purified — cleared of that very subject-object split, transparent, momentary, and still somehow standing. Others push past even that and say the flash itself eventually dies out altogether. And still others, the Mādhyamikas, go further still: even that so-called pure cognition is just a convenient fiction, no more real than the subject and object it was supposed to be free of — empty, plain and simple, exactly as empty as the pot people think is sitting out there in the world.
Close to the Sanskrit
Objection: There is indeed no other light of the Self, comparable to the intellect, which illumines the intellect, because of the non-apprehension, by either direct perception or inference, of anything apart from the intellect — just as there is no second intellect apprehended at that same moment. As for what was said — that even though the illumined and the illuminator are different, there is similarity, because of non-perception of the distinction, as in the case of the pot and the light — granted, in that case; because the light is perceived as different from the pot, the similarity belongs precisely to the two that are joined yet distinct. But it is not so here: we do not perceive, by direct perception or by inference, as we do in the case of the pot, any other light, distinct from the intellect, which illumines the intellect. For the intellect itself, by virtue of being the illuminator whose own nature is consciousness, has both its own form and the form of the object. Therefore, neither by inference nor by direct perception can a light distinct from the intellect, which illumines the intellect, be shown to be establishable. And as for what was stated in the form of an illustration — that there is similarity between the illumined and the illuminator, namely the pot and the light, which, though conjoined, are indeed distinct — there, only a concession was made by us. But in fact the pot, as illumined, and the light, as illuminator, are not there distinct; rather, in ultimate reality, the pot itself, being of the nature of appearance, is accompanied by light. For a different pot is produced at every instant; it is cognition alone that appears in the form of the object 'pot-with-light'. This being so, then there is no external illustration, because everything is merely of the nature of cognition's own particular character. Thus, having fully postulated for that very cognition the state of having the form of the graspable and the grasper, they further postulate, for that same cognition, purification. That cognition, freed from the graspable and the grasper, having become transparent, momentary, subsists — so say some. Some hold that even that comes to cessation. That cognition too — conventional, freed from the portion of grasper and graspable, simply empty, like an external thing such as a pot — thus others, the Mādhyamikas, declare.