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རེད་མདའ་བ་གཞོན་ནུ་བློ་གྲོས་
Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö(1349 - 1412) 
The Treasury of LivesBuddhist Digital Resource Center

Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö was a highly distinguished Sakya scholar who is credited with reviving Madhyamaka studies in Tibet. A holder of the Kadam teachings, he was a teacher of Tsongkhapa, as well as hundreds of others, and is counted as seventy-fourth in the line of Lamrim lineage.

Library Items

Book
The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows
With its emphasis on the concept of buddha-nature, or the ultimate nature of mind, the Uttaratantra is a classical Buddhist treatise that lays out an early map of the Mahāyāna path to enlightenment. Tsering Wangchuk unravels the history of this important Indic text in Tibet by examining numerous Tibetan commentaries and other exegetical texts on the treatise that emerged between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. These commentaries explored such questions as: Is the buddha-nature teaching found in the Uttaratantra literally true, or does it have to be interpreted differently to understand its ultimate meaning? Does it explicate ultimate truth that is inherently enlightened or ultimate truth that is empty only of independent existence? Does the treatise teach ultimate nature of mind according to the Cittamātra or the Madhyamaka School of Mahāyāna? By focusing on the diverse interpretations that different textual communities employed to make sense of the Uttaratantra, Wangchuk provides a necessary historical context for the development of the text in Tibet. (Source: SUNY Press)
Wangchuk, Tsering. The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows: Tibetan Thinkers Debate the Centrality of the Buddha-Nature Treatise. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2017.
Text
Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö: Summary of the Ultimate Continuum: Clarifying the Meaning of Buddha-Nature
In this short work, the famous Sakya scholar Rendawa presents his interpretation of and positions on the main topics covered by the Ultimate Continuum. While summarising the text, he points out how buddha-nature is to be understood as the luminous nature of the mind, and not as an absolute nature separate from the luminous aspect of the mind. He argues that buddha-nature, which is present in all sentient beings, is endowed with the universal quality of luminosity of the mind but not with the specific enlightened qualities of the Buddha. Thus, employing the common hermeneutic tools of reference,་purpose and direct contradiction, he considered the teachings on buddha-nature to be provisional teachings, which are not to be taken literally.
Text
Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö: The Jewel Lamp Illuminating the Definitive Meaning of the Glorious Kālacakra
In the Jewel Lamp Illuminating the Definitive Meaning of the Glorious Kālacakra, Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö presents the content of Kālacakra tantra using the scheme of the causal continuum or the ground nature, the method continuum or the path, and the resultant continuum or the all pervading adamantine body of the Buddha. Though not a polemical work, he repeatedly refutes the position holding buddha-nature and resultant Buddha body to be identical, absolute and eternal. He provides a very clear and comprehensive presentation of the causal continuum through conventional and ultimate types of the ground nature, the method or path continuum by discussing the six limbs of yogic applications in Kālacakra, and the resultant state by discussing its nature, cause, duration, forms and qualities.

On the topic of this person

Video
Khenpo Ngawang Jorden at the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
Khenpo Ngawang Jorden discusses Gorampa’s interpretation of the concept of buddha-nature presented in his Supplement to the Three Vows. In particular his presentation is focused on Gorampa's refutation of the Jonang view of buddha-nature, as represented by the writings of Dolpopa and his zhentong philosophy.
Jorden, Khenpo Ngawang. "Revisiting Gorampa on Buddha Nature." Paper presented at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 45:05. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmhgtw5HwCE.
PhD Diss
Wangchuk, Tsering: The Uttaratantra in the Age of Argumentation: Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen and His Fourteenth-Century Interlocutors on Buddha-Lineage
This dissertation examines the intellectual history of the Uttaratantra in Tibet from the 12th century to the early 15th century. It is between these centuries that the text, which is one of the most authoritative works on the notion of tathāgata-essence, takes its shape in Tibet through the writings of some of the most formidable Tibetan thinkers of the time.
Wangchuk, Tsering. "The Uttaratantra in the Age of Argumentation: Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen and His Fourteenth-Century Interlocutors on Buddha-Lineage." PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2009.
Book
The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows
With its emphasis on the concept of buddha-nature, or the ultimate nature of mind, the Uttaratantra is a classical Buddhist treatise that lays out an early map of the Mahāyāna path to enlightenment. Tsering Wangchuk unravels the history of this important Indic text in Tibet by examining numerous Tibetan commentaries and other exegetical texts on the treatise that emerged between the eleventh and fifteenth centuries. These commentaries explored such questions as: Is the buddha-nature teaching found in the Uttaratantra literally true, or does it have to be interpreted differently to understand its ultimate meaning? Does it explicate ultimate truth that is inherently enlightened or ultimate truth that is empty only of independent existence? Does the treatise teach ultimate nature of mind according to the Cittamātra or the Madhyamaka School of Mahāyāna? By focusing on the diverse interpretations that different textual communities employed to make sense of the Uttaratantra, Wangchuk provides a necessary historical context for the development of the text in Tibet. (Source: SUNY Press)
Wangchuk, Tsering. The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows: Tibetan Thinkers Debate the Centrality of the Buddha-Nature Treatise. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2017.

Philosophical positions of this person

Is buddha-nature considered definitive or provisional?
Provisional 
Do all beings have buddha-nature?
 
To which "turning of the wheel" do the buddha-nature teachings belong?
  Third Turning

"As for whether the Uttaratantra is definitive or provisional, Rendawa does not explicitly identify it either as definitive or provisional in the texts that I have consulted. However, Khedrup, a student and a junior contemporary of Rendawa, mentions in his Presentation of the General Tantric Systems (rgyud sde spyi rnam), "Lama Jé [that is, Rendawa] asserts that the Uttaratantra is a commentarial work on last-wheel teachings, explicating the view of the Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.

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Is buddha-nature equated with emptiness or alayavijnana?
  Yogācāra
  • "As for whether the Uttaratantra is definitive or provisional, Rendawa does not explicitly identify it either as definitive or provisional in the texts that I have consulted. However, Khedrup, a student and a junior contemporary of Rendawa, mentions in his Presentation of the General Tantric Systems (rgyud sde spyi rnam), "Lama Jé [that is, Rendawa] asserts that the Uttaratantra is a commentarial work on last-wheel teachings, explicating the view of the Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.
  • Though Rendawa's personal view is explained by Wangchuk as, "Rendawa argues that only Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka system presents the correct ultimate view, not Asanga's Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 87.
  • However there is a possibility that he had a change of heart later in life, as Wangchuk sites the Blue Annals as stating, "The Venerable Red-mda'-pa believed at first the Uttaratantra to be a Vijñānamātra work, and even composed a commentary from the standpoint of the followers of the Vijñānamātra school. Later, when he became a hermit, he used to sing: "It is impossible to differentiate between the presence and absence of this our Mind. The Buddha having perceived that it penetrated all living beings, as in the example of a subterranean treasure, or the womb of a pregnant woman, had proclaimed all living beings to be possessed of the Essence of the Sugata." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.
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Do buddha-nature teachings belong to the zhentong or rangtong view of emptiness?
 
Are there one or three vehicles on the path to buddhahood?
 
Do the author's writings belong to the analytic or meditative tradition of Uttaratantra exegesis?
 
What is Buddha-nature?
 
Does the author advocate the Svatantrika or Prasangika view of emptiness?
 

Affiliations & relations

  • Sakya · religious affiliation
  • Sa bzang ma ti paN chen blo gros rgyal mtshan · teacher
  • Thogs med bzang po · teacher
  • G.yag ston sangs rgyas dpal · teacher
  • Tsong kha pa · student
  • mkhas grub rje · student
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