"Alas, if there is no sentient being,
From where have the Buddhas in the Three Times come?
If there are no causes there will be no effects.
In the sense of Mundane Truth
Both Samsara and Nirvana exist.
This is said by Buddha Shakyamuni himself.
The existence and the non-existence,
The entities and the emptiness,
The manifestations and the reality,
Are identical and of one taste.
In essence there is no difference between them at all.
There is no self-awareness nor other-awareness,
All and all are absorbed in the great two-in-one.
The sages who have realized this truth
See no consciousness but wisdom.
The sages who have realized this truth
See no sentient beings but Buddhas,
See no Dharma Form but Dharma Essence.
They are neither true nor false
One should not fall into these views."

Sentient beings and materials are all produced through respective causes and conditions; they are consolidated through conceptualization; therefore, they are not real, nor have they any substantiality. In other words, all beings are void in their self-nature in the sense of the actual existence of self-essence. If there were an independently-solid self-nature in beings there would be no need for depending on any cause or conditions (to form the beings themselves). Thus there never existed even an atom of sense-data (outer-object) upon which the Clinging of Existence arises[r_nar:54].

This very truth does not impair the order and functions of the causation-bound events in Samsara and Nirvana; as dream, magic, and shadow, all the transpiring events manifest. Based on this view, one should know that those who claim the Voidness as the non-existence of the horn-of a-rabbit [i.e. the non-existence of false notions Ed.] are mistaken. One should also know that those who claim nonexistence of the delusory snake-perception arising from the rope, are also wrong. Thus, one should know that this absolute non-existence of the sensedata upon which the Clinging of Existence arises is the correct understanding of Sunyata. Without such a horse-of-right-understanding, even if one rides on a horse-of-Buddha, one will not be able to cross the stream of Samsara.

Says the Tantra of Rdo-rje-bgur:

"In order to destroy the clinging of ego,
The Buddhas have preached the teaching of the Voidness."

This means that in order to destroy the Clinging of Ego and the Clinging of Dharma, Buddhas have preached the philosophy of the Voidness. Though the principle of the Transcendental Truth is as mentioned above, even in the