Fifteenth-century Buddhist scholar Gorampa challenged his contemporaries' thinking about the fundamental concept of "emptiness," pioneering an approach that avoided what he critiqued as the traps of eternalism and nihilism. "Freedom from Extremes" is his powerful polemic on the subject. This critical edition of a book renowned for its conciseness, lucidness, and profundity provides students and scholars with direct access to Gorampa's own words. The authors offer illuminating context in an extensive introduction on his life and work, along with an overview of Tibetan polemical literature.

Jose Ignacio Cabezon is XIVth Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara. He studied physics as an undergraduate at Caltech, trained as a monk at Sera Monastery in India, translated for the Dalai Lama into Spanish, and in 1987 earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Before coming to Santa Barbara, he was on the faculty of the Iliff School of Theology in Denver from 1989-2001. Cabezon is the author or editor of a dozen books and many more articles on various aspects of Tibetan religion and religious studies, with research interests as diverse as Madhyamaka philosophy, Buddhism and sex, and Tibetan ritual. His latest publication, the Sera Project, is a peer-reviewed database of essays, over 1400 images, and an interactive map of Sera Monastery in Lhasa, Tibet.

The late Geshe Lobsang Dargyay was trained at Drepung Monastery in Tibet. He got his doctorate in Buddhist and Tibetan Studies from the Ludwig Maximilians Universitat and held teaching and research positions in Vienna, Hamburg, and Calgary. Geshe-la was the first Tibetan to receive a doctorate from a Western university. He passed away in 1994.