The criticism that nondual original enlightenment thought undermines proper distinctions between good and evil is not something peculiar to this doctrine but has recurred throughout the history of the Mahāyāna. The Mahāyāna denial of duality aims at liberation from attachment by undercutting notions of self-existing entities to which one might cling; in repudiating the idea that there can be “self” independent of “other,” it also serves to foster responsibility and compassion. Its denial of “good” and “evil” as independent ontological entities is not a denial of morality; from the perspective of conventional truth, good and evil must be distinguished. But the Mahāyāna rhetoric of nonduality, such as “saṃsāra is nirvāṇa” and “the defilements are enlightened insight,” has at times been taken as a license to commit evil and exposed the tradition to criticism. (Page 360)