Three levels of Realities

 Philosophy:- 1) Advaita Vedanta (Non-Dual) School of Hinduism 2) Yogachara School of Mahayana Buddhism 3) Madhyamaka School of Mahayana Buddhisim [A] Three levels of reality from a Vedantist (Hinduism Philosophy) point of view: 1) Paramarthika (Paramartha, Absolute):- Perspective of absolute space. The reality that is metaphysically true and ontologically accurate. It is the state of experiencing that which is absolutely real and into which both other reality levels can be resolved. This reality is the highest, it can't be subsumed (assimilated) by any other. 2) Vyavaharika (Vyavahara) or Samvriti-Saya: Perspective of the combination of five senses(human body). Consisting of the empirical or pragmatical reality. It is ever changing over time, thus it is empirically true at a given time and context but not metaphysically true. It is "our world of experience, the phenomenal world that we handle every day when we are awake". It is the level in which both living creatures or individual souls and Personal God are true; here, the material world is also true, but this is an incomplete reality and is sublatable/subsumable. 3) Prathibhasika (Apparent Reality):- This is a reality based on imaginations, ideas, thoughts and concepts. It is the level of experience in which the mind constructs its own reality. Well-known examples of Pratibhasika are the imaginary reality such as the "roaring of a lion" fabricated in dreams during one's sleep, and the perception of a rope in the dark as being a snake. Advaita Vedanta acknowledges and admits that from the empirical perspective there are numerous distinctions. It states that everything and each reality has multiple perspectives, both absolute and relative. All these are valid and true in their respective contexts, states Advaita, but only from their respective particular perspectives. This "absolute and relative truths" explanation, Advaitins call it the "two truths" doctrine. For example, The relationship between light and darkness. From the sun's perspective, it neither rises nor sets, there is no darkness, and "all is light". From the perspective of a person on earth, sun does rise and set, there is both light and darkness, not "all is light", there are relative shades of light and darkness. Both are valid realities and truths, given their perspectives. Yet, they are contradictory. What is true from one point of view is not from another. To Advaita Vedanta, this does not mean there are two truths and two realities, but it only means that the same reality and one truth is explained or experienced from two different perspectives.

[B] The Three Natures and Emptiness of Yogacara Philosophy:

Yogacara works often define three basic modes or "natures" of experience. These three "natures" are all one reality viewed from three distinct angles. They are the appearance, the process, and the emptiness of that same apparent entity. All things which can be known can be subsumed under these Three Natures. Since this schema is Yogacara's systematic explanation of the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness, each of the three natures are also explained as having lack of their own nature.

 Vasubandhu's Trisvabhava Nirdesa gives a brief definition of these three natures: "If anything appears, it is imagined. The way it appears is fabricated as a reas duality. What is the consequence of its nonexistence? The fact of non-duality! What is the imagination of the non-existent? Since what is imagined absolutely never exists in the way it is imagined, it is the mind that constructs that illusion."

In detail, three natures (Trisvabhava) are:

1) Parikalpita Svabhava (the "fully conceptualized" nature):- This is the "imaginary" or "constructed" nature, wherein things are incorrectly comprehended based on conceptual construction, through the activity of language and through attachment and erroneous discrimination which attributes intrinsic existence to things. It also refers to the appearance of things in terms of subject-object dualism (literally "grasper" and "grasped"). The conceptualized nature is the world of everyday, unenlightened people, and it is false and empty, it does not really exist. There is the absence of existential nature due to its very defining characteristic". Because these conceptualized natures and distinct characteristics are wrongly imputed not truly real, "they are like mirages and blossoms in the sky."

2) Paratantra Svabhava (literally, "other dependent"):- Which is the dependently originated nature of Dharmas, or the causal flow of phenomena which is erroneously confused into the conceptualized nature. It is "the basis for the erroneous partition into supposedly intrinsically existing subjects and objects which marks the conceptualized nature." Also, it is "the causal process of the thing’s fabrication, the causal story that brings about the thing’s apparent nature." This basis is considered to be an ultimately existing (Paramartha) basis in classical Yogacara. However, this nature is also empty in that there is an "absence of existential nature in conditions that arise and perish". That is, the events in this causal flow, while "seeming to have a real existence of their own" are actually like magical illusions since "they are said to only be hypothetical and not really exist on their own." As we are thinking of it at all, even if only as the non-dual flow of impressions only, we are still conceptualizing it.

3) Parinispanna-Svabhava (literally, "fully accomplished"):- The "consummated nature" or the true nature of things, the experience of Suchness or Thatness (Tathata) discovered in meditation unaffected by conceptualization or language. It is defined as "the complete absence, in the dependent nature, of objects that is – the objects of the conceptualized nature". What this refers to is that empty, non-dual experience which has been stripped of the duality of the constructed nature through yogic practise. This is "what has to be known for enlightenment" and it is "just pure seeing without any attempt at conceptualization or interpretation. Now this is also empty, but only of itself as an interpretation. That is, this mode of cognition is devoid of all concepts, and so is empty of being of the nature of the perfected. Nothing can be said or thought about it, it is just pure immediacy." It has the "absence of any existential nature of ultimate meaning" since it is "completely free from any clinging to entirely imagined speculations about its identity or purpose. Because of this, it is conventionally said that it does not exist. However, it is also not entirely without a real existence."

The central meaning of emptiness in Yogacara is a two-fold "absence of duality." The first element of this is the unreality of any conceptual duality such as "physical" and "non-physical", "self" and "other". To define something conceptually is to divide the world into what it is and what it is not, but the world is a causal flux that does not accord with conceptual constructs. The second element of this is a perceptual duality between the sensorium and its objects, between what is "external" and "internal", between a subject (grasper) and an object (grasped). This is also an unreal superimposition since there is really no such separation of inner and outer, but an interconnected causal stream of mentality which is falsely divided up.

The two truths

The two truths doctrine states that there are two truths.

1) Provisional or conventional truth (Samvrti Satya), which describes our daily experience of a concrete world. The conventional truth may be interpreted as "Obscurative/dubious truth" or "that which obscures the true nature" as a result, It is constituted by the appearances of mistaken awareness. Conventional truth would be the appearance that includes a duality of apprehender and apprehended, and objects perceived within that Conventional truth (everyday common-sense reality) and ultimate truth (emptiness). Finally, Madhyamaka argues that all phenomena are empty of nature and only exist in dependence on other causes, conditions and concepts. Conventionally, Madhyamaka holds that beings do perceive concrete objects which they are empirically aware of. In Madhyamaka, this phenomenal world is the limited truth – Samvrti Satya, which literally means "to completely cover, conceal, or obscure" and arises due to ignorance. This seeming reality does not really exist as the highest truth realized by wisdom which is Paramartha Satya (Parama is literally "Supreme or Ultimate," and Artha means "Meaning, Sense or Essence), and yet it has a kind of conventional reality which has its uses for reaching liberation. This limited truth includes words, the meaning of words, teachings and arguments. 

The limited, perceived reality is an experiential reality or a nominal reality which beings impute on the ultimate reality, it is not an ontological reality with substantial or independent existence. Hence, the two truths aren't two metaphysical realities, but the two realities refer to just what is experienced by two different types of beings with different types and scopes of perception. 

This means that the distinction between the two truths is primarily epistemological and depending on the cognition of the observer, not ontological. There are "two kinds of world", "the one of yogis and the one of common people." The seeming reality is the world of Samsara because conceiving of concrete and unchanging objects leads to clinging and suffering.

2) Ultimate truth (Sanskrit, Paramartha-Satya), which describes the ultimate reality as Sunyata, empty of concrete and inherent characteristics. Ultimate truths are phenomena free from the duality of apprehender and apprehended. Nagarjuna associates emptiness with the ultimate truth, but his conception of emptiness is not some kind of Absolute, but rather it is the very absence of true existence with regards to the conventional reality of things and events in the world. Because the ultimate is itself empty, it is also explained as a "transcendence of deception" and hence is a kind of apophatic truth which experiences the lack of substance.

Because the nature of ultimate reality is said to be empty, even of "emptiness" itself, along with the very framework of the two truths are also conventional realities, and not part of the ultimate. This is often called "the emptiness of emptiness" and refers to the fact that even though Madhyamikas speak of emptiness as the ultimate unconditioned nature of things, this emptiness is itself empty of any real existence.

The two truths themselves are therefore just a practical tool used to teach others, but do not exist within the actual meditative equipoise that realizes the ultimate. As Candrakirti says: "the noble ones who have accomplished what is to be accomplished do not see anything that is delusive or not delusive." From the experience of the enlightened ones, there is only one reality which appears non-conceptually, as Nagarjuna says in the sixty stanzas on reasoning: "that nirvana is the sole reality, is what the Victors have declared.

Atisha describes the ultimate as "here, there is no seeing and no seer, no beginning and no end, just peace... It is non-conceptual and non-referential... It is inexpressible, unobservable, unchanging, and unconditioned."Because of the non-conceptual nature of the ultimate, the two truths are ultimately inexpressible as "one"or "different."

Chandrakrti suggests three possible meanings of Samvrti :- 

1) Complete covering or the 'screen' of ignorance which hides the truth

2) Existence or origination through dependence, mutual conditioning

3) Worldly behaviour or speech behaviour involving designation and designatum, cognition and cognitum.