The lecture looks at some soteriological implications of the principal Tibetan Rdzogs chen distinction between dualistic mind (sems) and primordial gnosis (ye shes) through the lens of Rnying ma path summaries. It approaches this topic through a comparative analysis of Rnying ma path hermeneutics that examines the major exegetical and interpretive problems confronting authors of path summaries during the classical period (11th to 14th centuries) and some of the distinctive strategies by which the Rnying ma authors sought to resolve them. These problems centred around the challenge of how to reconcile both in theory and practice the complex variety of intellectual/spiritual approaches that Buddhism had become by the time of its reception in Tibet. Buddhism had by this stage become less a single creed that is the same for all than a graded series of distinctive vehicles – as many as nine or sixteen are presented in the Tibetan doxographical literature – formulated to meet the varying needs and interests of its aspirants at different stages of their intellectual, moral and spiritual itinerary. Fundamental to these late Indian and early Tibetan classification schemes was the idealized doxography of three vehicles – Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna – reflecting divergent ethical norms, ideals, world-views, exemplary lifestyles, and conceptions of the path. I argue that the Rdzogs chen distinction between dualistic mind (sems) and primordial gnosis (ye shes) provides a hermeneutical key to understanding how Rnying ma authors sought to reconcile these different, and at times seemingly contradictory, models of the Buddhist path within a single framework of study and practice.