A recurring misunderstanding portrays the Jonang tradition as having vanished from the Tibetan landscape, as though it were extinguished rather than transformed. Historical pressures did lead to the conversion of major Jonang monasteries in Central Tibet and to severe restrictions on their activities, which easily gives rise to the impression of total suppression. Yet the lineage, texts, and practices continued in other regions, where communities quietly preserved and transmitted their teachings. To imagine Jonang as a relic of the past is therefore to overlook a living continuity that simply shifted its geographical and institutional center of gravity.

Another persistent misconception concerns the Jonang understanding of emptiness. Because this school articulates the shentong view—“empty of other”—some assume it rejects śūnyatā altogether or falls into a crude substantialism. In fact, Jonang thinkers affirm the emptiness of all conditioned and relative phenomena, while describing buddha‑nature as empty only of adventitious defilements, not of its own enlightened qualities. This has led some critics to equate their view with a Hindu‑style ātman or to label it non‑Buddhist, but such readings ignore the careful distinction Jonang authors make between conventional phenomena and the ultimate, which they describe as beyond the usual extremes of existence and non‑existence. The language of permanence, purity, or “self” in this context functions as a technical way of speaking about the unconditioned nature of mind, not as a claim about an individual soul.

Misreadings also arise around Jonang’s relationship to other Buddhist philosophies and practices. It is sometimes assumed that shentong is simply identical with Yogācāra or “Mind‑Only,” or that Jonang stands in opposition to Madhyamaka as such. The tradition, however, presents its view as a particular interpretation of Prajñāpāramitā and tathāgatagarbha teachings, closely linked with its reading of the Kālacakra corpus, and regards itself as articulating the highest form of Madhyamaka rather than abandoning it. Likewise, the strong association with Kālacakra has led some to think Jonang is concerned only with a single tantric system or, conversely, only with abstract philosophical debate. In reality, its philosophical vision and its tantric praxis—especially the sixfold vajrayoga—are understood as mutually supporting, with the shentong view intended to orient and deepen meditative realization rather than to remain a merely scholastic exercise.