lower or flawed understanding. The Rimé approach cautions against developing that viewpoint, while at the same time appreciating that the debate and discussion is important and that arguing which views are higher and lower is still valid discourse. Jamgon Kongtrul pointed out the necessity of each practitioner to have a strong foundation in one school: The scholars and siddhas of the various schools make their own individual presentations of the dharma. Each one is full of strong points and supported by valid reasoning. If you are well grounded in the presentations of your own tradition, then it is unnecessary to be sectarian. But if you get mixed up about the various tenets and the terminology, then you lack even a foothold in your own tradition. You try to use someone else's system to support your understanding, and then get all tangled up, like a bad weaver, concerning the view, meditation, conduct, and result. Unless you have certainty in your own system, you cannot use reasoning to support your scriptures, and you cannot challenge the assertions of others. You become a laughing stock in the eyes of the learned ones. It would be much better to possess a clear understanding of your own tradition. In summary, one must see all the teachings as without contradiction, and consider all the scriptures as instructions. This will cause the root of sectarianism and prejudice to dry up, and give you a firm foundation in the Buddhas teachings. At that point, hundreds of doors to the eighty-four thousand teachings of the dharma will simultaneously be open to you. A rimé practitioner may take empowerments from numerous lineages and living masters, though it is not a requirement to do so. Non-sectarianism prior to the 19th century According to tibetologist Sam van Schaik:This ideal of nonsectarianism – of not just tolerance, but a genuine appreciation and support for all schools of Tibetan Buddhism and Bon – was not unique to Derge. In Tibet’s ‘golden age’ of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, nonsectarianism was the norm throughout Tibet, and figures such as Longchenpa and Tsongkhapa expected to study with teachers from different schools. The change began with the great sectarian wars that blighted Central Tibet in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, setting the Kagyu schools against the Gelug. The final victory of the Gelug school, on the shoulders of the Qoshot Mongol armies, sounded the death knell of