Basics of Buddha-Nature: Mipham's Roaring Lions Public

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Basics of Buddha-Nature: Mipham's Roaring Lions Public
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Dr. Pettit speaks about the basics of Buddha-Nature (bde gshegs snying po’i rigs = sugatagarbhagotra) according to Mipham Rinpoche, with additional reference to some Pāli Suttas, Nāgārjuna’s Praise of Dharmadhatu, and the Uttaratantra. He bases his remarks on Mipham’s text, The Lion’s Roar: Exposition on Buddha Nature (bde gshegs snying po stong thun chen mo seng ge nga ro). John Whitney Pettit holds graduate degrees from Harvard University and Columbia University in the study of World Religions and Buddhist Studies. He has been the student of the previous Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche and also heard or translated teachings from prominent masters representing the Nyingma tradition and the other schools of Tibetan Buddhism. He is the translator and author of Mipham’s Beacon of Certainty (1999) and of a forthcoming anthology volume on the subject of Buddha-nature. Since 1998 he has lived in or near New York’s Hudson Valley, working on occasional translations, carving mani stones and communing with the genius loci. He spoke with students at RYI on the 27th of March, 2019. (Adapted from Source Aug 13, 2020)

Sources Mentioned

Text
Mipam Gyatso: bde gshegs snying po'i stong thun chen mo seng+ge'i nga ro
Mipam lays out his view of buddha-nature in a short text called Lion's Roar: Exposition of Buddha-Nature, which draws on another of the five treatises of Maitreya, the Sublime Continuum. Here he presents three main arguments showing why all beings have buddha-nature. He also distinguishes his view of buddha-nature, which he portrays as the unconditioned unity of emptiness and appearance, from other traditions' views. Namely, he contrasts his view with traditions that maintain buddhanature as truly real and not empty (Jonang), traditions that hold buddhanature to be simply the mind's absence of true existence (Geluk), and traditions that maintain that the cognitive quality of buddha-nature—the element that is in unity with emptiness—is impermanent (a Sakya view). (Source: Duckworth, Douglas. Jamgön Mipham: His Life and Teachings. Boston: Shambhala Publications, 2011: p 58.)
Text
Maitreya, Asaṅga: Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra
The Ratnagotravibhāga, commonly known as the Uttaratantra, or Gyu Lama in Tibetan, is one of the main Indian scriptural sources for buddha-nature theory. It was likely composed during the fifth century, by whom we do not know. Comprised of verses interspersed with prose commentary, it systematizes the buddha-nature teachings that were circulating in multiple sūtras such as the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, and the Śrīmaladevisūtra. The Tibetan tradition attributes the verses to the Bodhisattva Maitreya and the commentary to Asaṅga, and treats the two as separate texts, although this division is not attested to in surviving Indian versions. The Chinese tradition attributes the text to *Sāramati (娑囉末底), but the translation itself does not include the name of the author, and the matter remains unsettled. It was translated into Chinese in the early sixth century by Ratnamati and first translated into Tibetan by Atiśa, although this text is not known to survive. Ngok Loden Sherab translated it a second time based on teachings from the Kashmiri Pandita Sajjana, and theirs remains the standard translation. It has been translated into English several times, and recently into French. See the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā, read more about the Ratnagotravibhāga, or take a look at the most complete English translation in When the Clouds Part by Karl Brunnholzl.
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Nāgārjuna: Dharmadhātustava
Also known as the Dharmadhātustotra, it is a praise written in verse attributed to Nāgārjuna. A Sanskrit manuscript found in Tibet was recently published in 2015. However, before this it was only extant in Tibetan and Chinese translations, though fragments of this text were found to be quoted in other Sanskrit texts. It is notable as perhaps the only work of Nāgārjuna that takes a positivistic view of emptiness and the existence of wisdom, in this case represented by the dharmadhātu. In fact much of the language echoes descriptions of buddha-nature. Though modern scholarship has thus called the attribution of this text to Nāgārjuna into question based on its contents, Tibetan scholars have utilized the text as a support for works that promote or defend tathāgatagarbha and it is especially prominently featured in works on other-emptiness (gzhan stong) and Great Madhyamaka.

People Mentioned

Mipam Gyatso
1846 ~ 1912

Related Multimedia

Audio
Buddha Nature in Tibet: Transformation of the Ground: Talk by Douglas Duckworth
This talk will address syntheses forged in Tibet among the doctrines of Madhyamaka, Yogācāra, and buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha). Buddha-nature is a distinctively Mahāyāna Buddhist doctrine, taking a place along side of the Yogācāra doctrine of the basic consciousness (ālayavijñāna) and the universal emptiness (śūnyatā) of Madhyamaka. In Tibet we see buddha-nature converge with and transform these central Mahāyāna doctrines. Paired with buddha-nature, the doctrine of emptiness in Madhyamaka pivots from a “self-empty” lack of intrinsic nature to an “other-empty,” pure ground that remains. In narratives of disclosure characteristic of the doctrine of buddha-nature, we see parallel shifts in the foundations of Yogācāra, as grounds of distortion like the basic consciousness, the dependent nature, and self-awareness are reinscribed into a causal story that takes place within a pure, gnostic ground. (Source Accessed July 15, 2020)
Duckworth, Douglas S. "Buddha Nature in Tibet: Transformation of the Ground." Recorded 2017 at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Nepal. Audio, 1:24:26. https://soundcloud.com/rangjung-yeshe-institute/dr-douglas-duckworth-buddha-nature-in-tibet-transformations-of-the-ground.

About the recording

Featuring John W. Pettit
Creator Rangjung Yeshe Institute
Related Website https://www.ryi.org/
Citation Pettit, John W. "Basics of Buddha-Nature: Mipham's Roaring Lions Public." Recorded March 27, 2019 at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Nepal. Audio, 1:14:20. https://soundcloud.com/rangjung-yeshe-institute/basics-of-buddha-nature-miphams-roaring-lions-public.

sugatagarbha - Literally, the "essence" or "heart of the Bliss Gone One(s)," a synonym for tathāgatagarbha that is likewise often rendered into English by the term buddha-nature. Though it is often back translated into Sanskrit as sugatagarbha, this term is not found in Sanskrit sources. Skt. सुगतगर्भ Tib. བདེ་གཤེགས་སྙིང་པོ་

byams chos sde lnga - This refers to a series of five texts that, according to the Tibetan tradition, Asaṅga received directly from Maitreya in the pure realm of Tuṣita. Tib. བྱམས་ཆོས་སྡེ་ལྔ་

An important sūtra source for the Ratnagotravibhāga, particularly for its discussion of the nine examples that illustrate how all sentient beings possess buddha-nature.

"This sūtra became an important scriptural source for the discussion of buddha-nature in China and is famous for associating the term buddhadhātu with tathāgatagarbha.

Bodhisattva - A person who seeks enlightenment for the sake of others. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, a Bodhisattva is a compassionate being who is training on the path to Buddhahood and aspires to eliminate the suffering of all beings and take all sentient beings to the state of enlightenment. The Mahāyāna sūtras including those on buddha-nature generally have Bodhisattvas as the main audience or interlocutors for the Buddha's discourses. Skt. बोधिसत्त्व Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་སེམས་དཔའ། Ch. 菩薩

byams chos sde lnga - This refers to a series of five texts that, according to the Tibetan tradition, Asaṅga received directly from Maitreya in the pure realm of Tuṣita. Tib. བྱམས་ཆོས་སྡེ་ལྔ་

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