Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa'i kar TIka chen mo

དམ་ཆོས་དགོངས་པ་གཅིག་པའི་ཀར་ཊཱིཀ་ཆེན་མོ།

Karmapa's Great Commentary on the the Sacred Teaching of the Single Intention

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The 8th Karmapa's commentary on the famous treatise, the Sacred Teaching on the Single Intention (Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa) by Drikungpa master Jikten Gönpo. The Single Intention is a compendium of critical philosophical, soteriological, and moral positions taught by Jikten Gönpo and written down by his disciple and nephew Sherab Jungne. The text contains 150 critical vajra words (རྡོ་རྗེའི་གསུང་) in seven groups (ཚོམས་), along with another 47 appended points (ལྷན་ཐབས་). The root text composed by Sherab Jungne has seen several commentaries, including one by the first Drikung Chungtsang Chökyi Drakpa. This extensive commentary by the 8th Karmapa Mikyö Dorje is perhaps the only long commentary by Karma Kagyu master on the Single Intention.

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Recensions of This Text

Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa'i kar TIka chen mo. (The Karmapa's Great Commentary on the the Sacred Teaching of the Single Intention). Recension information:
Tibetan	Mi bskyod rdo rje, (Karmapa, 8th). དམ་ཆོས་དགོངས་པ་གཅིག་པའི་ཀར་ཊཱིཀ་ཆེན་མོ།. (Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa'i kar TIka chen mo). In Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa'i kar TIka chen mo, Vol. 5: 267-454. Gayu thog rnam rgyal dgon: gayu thog rnam rgyal dgon bshad gr+wa thub bstan lung rigs dga' tshal gling, n.d. In Gsung 'bum mi bskyod rdo rje, Vol. 6: 728-944. Lhasa: s.n., 2004. In 'Bri gung bka' brgyud chos mdzod chen mo, Vol. 83: 1-290. Lhasa: 'Bri gung mthil dgon, 2004.

Philosophical positions of this text

Is buddha-nature considered definitive or provisional?

Definitive

Does this text belong to definitive or provisional meaning?

Definitive

Do all beings have buddha-nature?

Yes

To which "turning of the wheel" do the buddha-nature teachings belong?

Third Turning

Is buddha-nature equated with emptiness or alayavijnana?

Madhyamaka

Do buddha-nature teachings belong to the zhentong or rangtong view of emptiness?

Rangtong

Are there one or three vehicles on the path to buddhahood?

1

Do the author's writings belong to the analytic or meditative tradition of Uttaratantra exegesis?

Analytic Tradition

What is Buddha-nature?

Tathāgatagarbha as the Unity of Emptiness and Luminosity

Text Metadata

Text exists in	~ Tibetan
Literary Genre	~ Commentaries - 'grel pa
Commentary of	~ Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa

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Eighth Karmapa Mikyö Dorje

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Dgongs gcig gi gsung bzhi bcu pa'i 'grel pa-cover.jpg

This paper addresses the age-old question of how buddha nature (tathāgatagarbha) relates to Yogācāra psychology, focusing on the Eighth Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje’s (1507-1554) responses to this question. In the centuries following the first appearance of tathāgatagarbha doctrines in India (circa 2nd c. CE), opinions became divided over whether buddha nature should be identified with or distinguished from the Yogācāra idea of a substratum consciousness (ālayavijñāna). The topic attracted a great deal of discussion and debate among Buddhist scholars, both within and beyond the borders of India. At stake were a set of specific doctrinal issues as to whether and how the Yogācāra ālayavijñāna-vāsanā model could be reconciled with [1] buddha nature theory [2] tantric buddha nature proxies such as the unconditioned ground (gzhi) and causal continuum (rgyu rgyud) [3] Indian and Chinese Buddhist conceptions of an immaculate consciousness (amalavijñāna) and [4] certain anti-foundationalist strains of Middle Way (Madhyamaka) philosophy that rejected any transcendental basis of consciousness. The Karma pa’s repeated forays into these contested subject areas reveal time and again his commitment to reconcile two contrasting lines of Buddhist thought and praxis: [1] the affirmative appraisal of the nature of mind and reality emphasized in Yogācāra and tathāgatagarbha classics, the tantras, and the songs and writings of the Buddhist mahāsiddhas and [2] the metaphysically disinclined stance of the Middle Way (Madhyamaka) philosophy that avoided extremes of affirmation and denial, existence and nonexistence. To adequately appreciate his contributions to such issues, I will first sketch in rough strokes the historical evolution of the ālayavijñāna doctrine and its complex confrontations with tathāgatagarbha doctrine in India. Against this backdrop, attention will turn to the Karma pa’s contextualist framing of the ālayavijñāna-tathāgatagarbha relationship in terms of a progressive understanding that begins with differentiation and culminates in unity. His is a view that stresses the need to initially distinguish between conditions of spiritual awakening (such as tathāgatagarbha) and delusion (such as ālayavijñāna) in order to eventually realize their underlying unity (zung ’jug) by recognizing buddha nature as an ever-present continuum (rgyud) of awareness that is a precondition of the substratum consciousness that derives and deviates from it. In his attempts to strike a balance between traditional differentiation and unity models, we encounter a thinker who was as confident about the mind’s ability to discover its own unborn and nonconceptual nature as he was skeptical about its ability to discover any underlying metaphysical foundation. (Source: Peeters Online Journals)

Higgins, David. "Buddha in the Storehouse: Mi bskyod rdo rje on the Relationship between Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 42 (2019): 169–230.

Higgins, David. "Buddha in the Storehouse: Mi bskyod rdo rje on the Relationship between Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 42 (2019): 169–230.;Buddha in the Storehouse: Mi bskyod rdo rje on the Relationship between Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna;Buddha in the Storehouse: Mi bskyod rdo rje on the Relationship between Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna;The doctrine of buddha-nature in Tibetan Buddhism;tathāgatagarbha;ālayavijñāna;Yogācāra;Karmapa, 8th;David Higgins; &nbsp

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Dam chos dgongs pa gcig pa'i kar TIka chen mo

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