«Dharmas, because they are empty, cannot even be apprehended: this seems to go beyond denying both perceiver and sense-object to deny even the act of perception. Such a claim seems odd, but we find it also in Nāgārjuna. In his case the denial of perception is based upon the fact that our understanding of perception is dependent upon the reality of the perceiver and the perceived, both of which he also denies. For Nāgārjuna, the relativity of perceiver, perceived, and the act of perception entails the unreality of all of them, that is, their lack of self-existence. This does not, however, support the claim that we must “transcend” perception for the sake of some other kind of apprehension. Nāgārjuna is rejecting perception as we understand it, the dualistic act in which two self-existing entities are related together. This raises the question whether what we have been describing as “nondual perception” should be called perception at all. If the bare nirvikalpa sensation does not provide some knowledge to someone about something (and it cannot, since any inference is savikalpa), perhaps the term perception no longer applies and should be reserved only for thought-determined savikalpa percepts. This may explain why some texts (such as the above) deny there is perception, some assert there is nondual perception, and others paradoxically recommend perceiving without perception — which may all be different ways of describing the same sense-experience.»