Within the Tibetan landscape, the Jonang tradition is distinctive for its strongly affirmative understanding of buddha-nature, articulated through the view known as *zhentong* or “empty of other.” According to this perspective, all conditioned and defiled phenomena are indeed empty of inherent existence, yet the ultimate reality—buddha-nature itself—is not reduced to mere absence. Rather, buddha-nature is said to be empty only of what is “other” than it: the adventitious stains and impermanent, relative phenomena that obscure it. It is described as permanently present, unconditioned, and fully endowed with enlightened qualities such as wisdom and compassion, functioning as the actual *dharmakāya* already abiding in every sentient being. The spiritual path, from this standpoint, is less a matter of constructing enlightenment and more a matter of uncovering what is already complete.

Other Tibetan schools, especially those that emphasize *rangtong* or “empty of self,” tend to frame buddha-nature in more strictly apophatic terms. In these interpretations, ultimate truth is the emptiness of inherent existence of all phenomena, buddha-nature included, and any talk of a truly existent, permanent ground is treated with great caution. Buddha-nature is often explained as the mind’s potential for awakening or as the emptiness of the mind itself, rather than as an ultimately real, enduring essence. Even when other traditions speak of luminosity, awareness, or the inseparability of emptiness and clarity, they generally avoid affirming a permanent, truly existent ultimate in the strong ontological sense that Jonang does. From their vantage point, to assert such a ground risks sliding into a subtle form of eternalism.

The contrast, then, lies not in whether all agree that every being possesses buddha-nature, but in how that presence is philosophically understood. Jonang presents buddha-nature as a positive, stable ultimate reality that is empty only of what obscures it, while many other Tibetan schools interpret buddha-nature as a way of speaking about emptiness and potential, without positing an ultimately existent essence. This divergence shapes both their scriptural priorities and their meditative emphases, giving rise to distinct ways of contemplating what it means for awakening to be already present yet still to be realized.