Jnana wrote: If you want dhammas to have sabhāva -- even though the Paṭisambhidāmagga explicitly states that dhammas are empty of sabhāva -- then that's fine by me.
whats it mean to be empty of svabhava? for example what is the emptiness of a cup?
In essence, sabhava means that something really does exist, even if it only comes into existence momentarily. It doesn't mean it posses a self, but that it just really does arise.
Thus, the emptiness of persons is based on this concept. Rupa, real; nama, real. But the conceptual objects of nama, not always real, mostly illusory, ie. the perception that there are beings, or whole objects aside from the rupa that forms "them", which exist at an ultimate level.
Therefore, no persons or selves, just seperate arising dharmas which we consider to for some larger whole which has a self essence, wrongly. No concept has a self essence on the ultimate level, neither does any paramattha dhamams, but the paramattha dhammas to have sabhava, ie. they arise for real.
But I can't get into this conversation, because Geoff will insult me.