Sheehy, M.

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Michael Sheehy

Michael R. Sheehy is a Research Assistant Professor in Tibetan and Buddhist Studies, Director of Scholarship at the Contemplative Sciences Center, and affiliated faculty with the Tibet Center at the University of Virginia. He has conducted extensive fieldwork in Tibet, including three years training in a Buddhist monastery in the far eastern cultural domain of Golok. Michael’s research interests include Buddhist philosophy of mind, practices of contemplation, and the history of thought and science in Tibet. His writings and translations have given attention to histories of marginalized lineages in Tibet, most notably the zhentong (gzhan stong) and Kālacakra lineages of the Jonang order of Tibetan Buddhism.

For over a decade, through extensive collaborations with monastic communities, Michael worked on-the-ground to digitally preserve rare Tibetan manuscripts across the plateau. From 2008 to 2016, he was the editor-in-chief and research director at the Buddhist Digital Resource Center (formerly the Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center, TBRC). He worked closely with the late Tibetologist E. Gene Smith (1936-2010) to digitize Tibetan literature, develop scholarly resources, and architect the encyclopedic digital library. In 2004, together with Jonangpa exemplars, he founded the Jonang Foundation, an international nonprofit that preserves and promotes research on the Jonang order of Tibetan Buddhism.

Michael’s current research focus is contexts and dynamics of Tibetan contemplative practices. Most broadly, his interest lies in questions about how Buddhism, and Tibetan contemplative traditions more specifically, can contribute to discourses in the humanities, cognitive science, and cultural psychology about consciousness and its transformations. He is particularly interested in Tibetan contemplative practices of attention, dream, imagination and visualization, and embodiment as detailed in Tibetan yoga and meditation manuals.

He recently coedited with Klaus-Dieter Mathes (Vienna University) the book, The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet (SUNY Press 2019), an anthology of scholarship on the history, literature, and philosophy of zhentong in Tibet. With David Germano, he is Series Editor of the Traditions and Transformations in Tibetan Buddhism and the Contemplative Sciences book series published by the University of Virginia Press.

Recent publications include:

  • "The Philosophical Grounds and Literary History of Zhentong." 2019. Co-authored with Klaus-Dieter Mathes. In The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet. Edited by Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus Dieter-Mathes. State University of New York Press. (Click here to read)
  • "The Dharma of the Perfect Eon: Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsan’s (1292-1361) Hermeneutics of Time and the Jonang Doxography of Zhentong Madhyamaka." 2019. In The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet. Edited by Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus Dieter-Mathes. State University of New York Press.
  • "The Zhentong Lion Roars: Dzamthang Khenpo Lodro Drakpa (1920-1975) and the Jonang Scholastic Renaissance." 2019. In The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet. Edited by Michael R. Sheehy and Klaus Dieter-Mathes. State University of New York Press.
  • "Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen on Refraining from Meat." 2019. In The Faults of Meat: Tibetan Buddhist Writings on Vegetarianism. Edited by Geoff Barstow. Boston: Wisdom Publications.
  • "Traversing the Path of Meditation." 2017. In A Gathering of Brilliant Moons: Practice Advice from Rimé Masters of Tibet. Ed. Holly Gayley and Joshua Schapiro. Wisdom Publications: Boston, MA.

Library Items

Book
A Gathering of Brilliant Moons
A collection of essays and translations featuring advice and instructions of prominent 18-19th century Tibetan masters.
Gayley, Holly, and Joshua Schapiro, eds. A Gathering of Brilliant Moons: Practice Advice from the Rimé Masters of Tibet. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017.
Buddha Nature Across Asia
The tathāgatagarbha or buddha nature doctrine is centered on sentient beings’ potential for buddhahood—sometimes understood in the sense that all beings already contain a “buddha within.” This notion is found through various strands of early Mahāyāna sources that, notwithstanding their complex and interwoven development, came to share enough common features to summarize them under the doxographical category of Tathāgatagarbha. The chapters contained in this volume represent the latest research into buddha nature theory that covers a range of topics across major Buddhist traditions. These contributions were originally presented as papers during the symposium “Tathāgatagarbha across Asia: The Reception of an Influential Mahāyāna Doctrine in Central and East Asia,” held at the University of Vienna in 2019. This symposium brought together academic scholars focusing on religio-historical developments of buddha nature theory as well as traditional teachers and monastics who offered emic perspectives on the relevance of the concept within the context of their own tradition. The resulting volume, therefore, aims at contributing to the overall better understanding of tathāgatagarbha doxography, both historically and in living Buddhist communities. (Source: WSTB)
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter, and Casey Kemp, eds. Buddha Nature Across Asia. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 103. Vienna: Arbeitkreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien, University of Vienna, 2022.
Article
Elucidating the Zhentong View: A Condensation of the Threefold Nature of Reality
Sheehy, Michael R., trans. "Elucidating the Zhentong View: A Condensation of the Threefold Nature of Reality." By Tsen Kawoche (btsan kha bo che). JonangFoundation.org, n.d. https://jonangfoundation.org/sites/default/files/translation-elucidatingzhentong.pdf.
Sheehy, Michael R., trans. "Elucidating the Zhentong View: A Condensation of the Threefold Nature of Reality." By Tsen Kawoche (btsan kha bo che). JonangFoundation.org, n.d. https://jonangfoundation.org/sites/default/files/translation-elucidatingzhentong.pdf.
Video
Michael Sheehy at the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
Michael Sheehy explores the “images of emptiness” or expressions of emptiness in the Kālacakra Tantra. He discusses how these were interpreted by Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292-1361) and his immediate disciples to be direct expressions of tathāgatagarbha.
Sheehy, Michael. "Tantric Zhentong Visions of Tathāgatagarbha in Tibetan Kālacakra Yoga Manuals." Paper presented at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 46:01. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm7z5pR1EGA.
Article
The Essence of Zhentong
The following translation is based upon the ‘Dzam thang edition of the Gzhan stong snying po.
Sheehy, Michael R., trans. The Essence of Zhentong. By Jetsun Tāranātha. With Khenpo Kunga Sherab Saljay Rinpoche. JonangFoundation.org, 2008. https://jonangfoundation.org/sites/default/files/jf_snying%20po_final.pdf
PhD Diss
Sheehy, M.: The Gzhan stong Chen mo
A dissertation on the Jonang position of other-emptiness (gzhan stong) as represented by work of the modern scholar 'Dzam thang Mkhan po Ngag dbang Blo gros grags pa (1920-75).
Sheehy, Michael. "The Gzhan stong Chen mo: A Study of Emptiness according to the Modern Tibetan Buddhist Jo nang Scholar 'Dzam thang Mkhan po Ngag dbang Blo gros Grags pa (1920-75)." PhD diss., California Institute of Integral Studies, 2007.
Book
The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet
This book brings together perspectives of leading international Tibetan studies scholars on the subject of zhentong or “other-emptiness.” Defined as the emptiness of everything other than the continuous luminous awareness that is one’s own enlightened nature, this distinctive philosophical and contemplative presentation of emptiness is quite different from rangtong—emptiness that lacks independent existence, which has had a strong influence on the dissemination of Buddhist philosophy in the West. Important topics are addressed, including the history, literature, and philosophy of emptiness that have contributed to zhentong thinking in Tibet from the thirteenth century until today. The contributors examine a wide range of views on zhentong from each of the major orders of Tibetan Buddhism, highlighting the key Tibetan thinkers in the zhentong philosophical tradition. Also discussed are the early formulations of buddhanature, interpretations of cosmic time, polemical debates about emptiness in Tibet, the zhentong view of contemplation, and creative innovations of thought in Tibetan Buddhism. Highly accessible and informative, this book can be used as a scholarly resource as well as a textbook for teaching graduate and undergraduate courses on Buddhist philosophy. (Source: SUNY Press)
Sheehy, Michael R., and Klaus-Dieter Mathes, eds. The Other Emptiness: Rethinking the Zhentong Buddhist Discourse in Tibet. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2019.

Affiliations & relations

  • University of Virginia · workplace affiliation
  • Jonang Foundation · secondary affiliation
  • Jonang · religious affiliation
  • http://www.michaelrsheehy.com · websites
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