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Revision as of 15:58, 17 July 2020
Books
Jamgön Kongtrül Lodrö Thayé. A Selection of Texts on the Intention of the Final Turning of the Dharma Wheel. Rigpe Dorje Institute Series- Vol. 6. Rigpe Dorje Publications, 2008.;འཁོར་ལོ་ཐ་མའི་དགོངས་དོན་གཅེས་བཏུས།;jam mgon kong sprul;Third Turning;Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Taye;འཇམ་མགོན་ཀོང་སྤྲུལ་;'jam mgon kong sprul;blo gros mtha' yas;yon tan rgya mtsho;'jam mgon chos kyi rgyal po;pad+ma gar dbang blo gros mtha' yas;pad+ma gar gyi dbang phyug rtsal;pad+ma gar dbang phrin las 'gro 'dul rtsal;བློ་གྲོས་མཐའ་ཡས་;ཡོན་ཏན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་;འཇམ་མགོན་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ་;པདྨ་གར་དབང་བློ་གྲོས་མཐའ་ཡས་;པདྨ་གར་གྱི་དབང་ཕྱུག་རྩལ་;པདྨ་གར་དབང་ཕྲིན་ལས་འགྲོ་འདུལ་རྩལ་;'khor lo mtha ma'i dgongs don gces btus
Notes
- Following Paul Harrison, I employ the term 'buddhology' (written in lower case) to refer to theories on and conceptions of the nature of a "buddha" (i.e., Buddhahood), while reserving 'Buddhology' (capitalized) for an alternative designation for Buddhist Studies. See Harrison 1995, p. 24, n. 4.
- In the present study I differentiate between a buddha (i.e., written in lower case and italicized), a title referring to any unspecified awakened person, and Buddha (i.e., written in roman and capitalized), a title referring to Śākyamuni Buddha or any other particular awakened person. (The same convention has been employed in the case of other titles: for example, bodhisattva versus Bodhisattva.) This differentiation is particularly important for the discussion of buddhology, or conceptions of Buddhahood, since some such conceptions (particularly the earlier ones) are clearly only associated with the person of the historical Buddha, while others, which commonly represent later developments in which a plurality of buddhas is affirmed, concern all awakened persons. To be sure, often there is no clear-cut borderline. In such cases I have employed both forms as alternatives.
- A considerably revised and enlarged version of the thesis is currently under preparation for publication in the near future.
Depuis la publication de Nanjio, l'étude critique du « Tripiṭaka » chinois se poursuit sans cesse et grâce à Sylvain Lévi, Édouard Chavannes, Paul Pelliot, Henri Maspero et d'autres savants nous possédons aujourd'hui une base solide pour l'étude du « Tripiṭaka » chinois, indispensable pour la connaissance de la littérature bouddhique dans tout son ensemble.
Dans le présent travail, je mé propose de dresser un inventaire complet du « Tripitaka » chinois suivant les époques. Bien des traductions antérieures à l'époque des Souei et des T'ang sont perdues. C'est pourquoi j'ai pensé qu'il ne serait pas inutile de rendre compte, non seulement des textes que nous possédons actuellement, mais aussi de ceux qui ne sont pas parvenus jusqu'à nous, car ce n'est qu'ainsi qu'on peut arriver à comprendre l'activité des missionnaires bouddhiques en Chine. Les diverses missions en Asie centrale, ont déjà rapporté des textes que les éditions officielles de Chine et de Corée n'avaient pas conservés Couvreur, mais les index remédieront peut-être aux difficultés qui pourraient éventuellement s'en suivre.
Je ne veux pas laisser paraitre ce travait sans exprimer ma reconnaissance, à mes mattres et à mes amis qui m'ont prêté leur précieuse assistance. Mes relations avec M. et Mme Sylvain Lévi me sont aussi chères que ma vie. Les jours inoubliables que j'ai passés avec eux dans l'université de Santiniketan, dans la vallée du Nepal, en Extrême-Orient et ensuite en France ont été la plus grande joie de ma vie, une inépuisable source de consolation dans des moments douloureux et m'ont encouragé à pousser ce travail jusqu'au bout. Je ne saurais jamais exprimer suffisamment la reconnaissance que je leur dois. Mme Sylvain Lévi m'a aidé inlassablement pour la rédaction définitive de ce travail.
Je tiens également à remercier M. Paul Pelliot dont les avis m'ont été infiment précieux et M. Henri Maspero qui a bien voulu parcourir les épreuves de ce travail et me donner ses utiles conseils.
Je remercie cordialement mes amis Mme Nadine Stchoupak et M. Jules Bloch, dont l'encouragement sympathique m'a été très précieux.
Je ne saurais jamais remercier suffisamment Rabindranath Tagore qui a toujours pris un intérêt personnel de me mettre pour travail et dont la bienveillance m'a permis de me mettre pour la première fois en contact avec mon maître.
J'ai contracté une grande dette de reconnaissance envers S. A. Mahárájá Chandra Shamsher Jung, premier ministre et maréchal du Royaume Gourkha. Depuis mon séjour au Népal avec M. Sylvain Lévi il n'a pas cessé de témoigner l'intérêt le plus bienveillant et le plus généreux pour mon travail.
Sir Atul C. Chatterjee, High Commissioner for India à Londres a bien voulu m'accorder, une subvention qui m'a permis d'achever la publication du présent ouvrage. Je le prie de trouver ici la faible expression de ma profonde reconnaissance.
L'Université de Calcutta m'a généreusement donné les moyens de continuer mes études en Extrême-Orient et en Europe et m'a fait l'honneur d'accepter mes ouvrages au nombre de ses publications.
Avant de terminer je dois exprimer les sentiments de ma reconnaissance à mon camarade d'études M. R. Yamada de l'Université Impériale de Tokyô et M. Song Kouo-tch'ou qui m'ont beaucoup aidé pour ce travail. (Bagchi, foreword, i–iv)The Dudjom lineage, based on the terma, or hidden treasures, revealed by Dudjom Lingpa and his immediate rebirth, His Holiness Dudjom Rinpoche (1904–1987), late head of the Nyingma school of Buddhism, is one of the principal modern lineages of Dzogchen transmission.
This new paperback edition includes the Tibetan text as edited by H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche and features an expanded glossary that incorporates equivalent English terms of present-day teachers and translators of Dzogchen. (Source: Back Cover)
This doctrine has played an important role in the history of Buddhism. Although rudimentary elements of this doctrine can be identified already within the Pāli canon,[1] those passages relating to the natural luminosity of the mind, which is said to be temporarily stained by adventitious mental afflictions, required the emergence of the Mahāyāna movement before developing into a fully fledged doctrine in its own right. Since it is supported by a number of sūtras[2] and śāstras (i.e. the Buddhist canon composed of the Buddha’s sermons and the Indian commentarial literature), it can be regarded as a third school of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist thought, the other two being Madhyamaka and Yogācāra. However, the concept of buddha-nature reached its apogee not in India but in East Asia and Tibet where it became a cornerstone for Buddhist philosophy and religious practice. In Tibet, in particular, this concept was treated diversely by many scholars, all of whom were ambitious to fit it into the philosophical framework of their own respective schools. Rong-ston Shes-bya kun-rig (1367–1449) of the Sa-skya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism figures among the most influential of these scholars. In general, his commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga, the main Indian śāstra on buddha-nature, and in particular, a translation of his exposition of the subject by means of ten categories, will be the focus of this work.
In the first chapter I will introduce the doctrine of buddha-nature, giving a brief account of its sources and formation. The second chapter will deal with the main treatise on buddha-nature, the Ratnagotravibhāga. Here, I will present the text itself, discuss the question of its authorship, as well as its transmission in India and early reception in Tibet. This chapter will also include a brief overview of previous studies on the Ratnagotravibhāga and the doctrine of buddha-nature. The third chapter will be devoted to the author of our treatise and his presentation of the subject. The final and main part of the work will consist of an annotated translation of a selected passage of his abovementioned commentary.
Throughout this work I have used the transliteration system of Turrell Wylie for the Tibetan. (Bernert, introduction, 5–6 )
Notes
- For example in AN I.v, 9: “This mind, O monks, is luminous! But it is defiled by adventitious defilements.” (After Mathes 2008: ix.) See also Takasaki 1966: 34–35.
- A prevalent doxographical classification of Buddhist sūtras distinguishes between the so called “three turnings of the Dharma-wheel” (a concept introduced in the Sandhinirmocanasūtra). Scriptures of the first turning fundamentally discuss the four noble truths as expounded in Nikāya Buddhism which represents the common ground for all traditions and the basic framework for all Buddhist teachings. Sūtras from second turning emphasise the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) as expounded in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, and those of the third teach the about the three natures (trisvabhāva), the latter two being classified as belonging to the Mahāyāna corpus. The sūtras on buddha-nature are generally regarded as belonging to the third turning.
- As Seyfort Ruegg (1969: 2) remarks, the language used in the tathāgatagarbha treatises differs noticeably from that of the other two schools, and even comes suspiciously close to that of the Vedānta. Indeed, a number of modern scholars have accused this doctrine to be alien to Buddhist thought, an accusion refuted by others. For a collection of articles on this topic see Hubbard and Swanson 1997.
- Cf. Wylie 1959.
The objective of this thesis is to investigate the multivariant levels of interpretation within selected Caryās. The Caryās selected depict Buddha Nature as it was understood in tāntric Buddhism in the area of Bengal. There are three levels of interpretation. The first level is the blatant meaning, and is outlined in the translation section of the songs. The second level is the anuyoga/Mother tāntra meaning. A comparison is made between the interpretations of selected scholars. The final level is the Mahāmudra meaning. This level is inferred from various textual sources.
Given the disregard many lamas and yogis have had towards the soteriological efficacy of epistemology, one may come to the false conclusion that epistemology is only relevant to the context of debate, without any application to meditation practice and the path to liberation. However, one can clearly see that this is not completely true, since Dharmakīrti (c. 600 CE), who is arguably Buddhism’s most influential epistemologist, provides an account of how a practitioner may attain the liberative cognition known as yogic direct valid means of cognition (rnal ’byor mngon sum tshad ma, hereafter referred to as yogic perception). In Tibet, the dGe lugs pa-s are particularly known for their soteriological use of epistemology, which is unsurprising given their emphasis on scholarship, but there are even thinkers in the meditation- oriented bKa’ brgyud school who have a soteriologically-oriented take on epistemology.
The aim in thesis is to show how bKa’ brgyud epistemologists’ (most notably, the Seventh Karma pa’s (1454-1506)) view on yogic perception differs from that of Dharmakīrti and the dGe lugs pa-s, since most western scholarship on Buddhist epistemology has focused on them. Like Dharmakīrti and the dGe lugs pa-s, the Seventh Karma pa describes the gradual path to attaining yogic perception through inference and familiarization, although there are striking differences in their understandings of the nature of what is observed in this type of perception. His epistemology is not only relevant to the scholarly path of inference, as one finds with most epistemologists, however. His view on reflexive awareness represents a common ground between the theory attached to Mahāmudrā, and pramāṇa, which allows for an epistemological explanation of the Mahāmudrā method of “taking direct perception as the path.” Through showing first, how his view of yogic perception differs from Dharmakīrti and the dGe lugs pa-s,and secondly, how his view concerning reflexive awareness is connected to Mahāmudrā, I wish to show the unique characteristics of the Seventh Karma pa’s brand of soteriological epistemology.
Volume 12
The Nirvana Sutra deals with the teachings given by Śākyamuni shortly before his death (mahāparinirvāṇa). Nirvāṇa means "extinguishing the flames of passion and attaining the state of enlightenment." Since Śākyamuni attained enlightenment at the age of 35, he did in fact already enter nirvāṇa at this time. But because it was considered impossible to completely extinguish the passions while retaining a physical body, Śākyamuni’s death came to be called mahāparinirvāṇa, i.e. "the state of great serenity in which the flames of passion have been completely extinguished." The sūtra gives the teachings expounded by Śākyamuni immediately before his death. As it contains episodes relating to events before and after his death, it also has value as historical source material.
Source
Skt. Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, translated into the Chinese by Dharmakṣema as Da banniepan jing (大般涅槃經). 40 fascicles. (Source: BDK America)This recognition of our essential human goodness may be the most radical act of healing we can take. “The gold of our true nature can never be tarnished,” says Tara Brach. “In the moments of remembering and trusting this basic goodness of our Being, we open to happiness, peace, and freedom.”
In Trusting the Gold, Tara draws from more than four decades of experience as a meditation teacher and psychologist to share her most valuable practices for reconnecting with the beauty of our humanity―from timeless Buddhist wisdom to techniques adapted to the specific challenges of our modern age. Here you’ll explore three pathways of remembering and living from your full aliveness:
• Opening to the Truth of the present moment
• Turning toward Love in any situation
The present dissertation identifies the ontological presuppositions and the corresponding soteriological-epistemological principles that sustain and define the Mahāyāna Buddhist belief in the inherent potentiality of all animate beings to attain the supreme and perfect enlightenment of Buddhahood. More specifically, the study establishes a coherent metaphysic of Absolute Suchness (Tathatā), synthesizing the variant traditions of the Tathāgata-embryo (Tathāgatagarbha) and the Storehouse Consciousness (Ālayavijñāna).
The dissertation interprets the Buddhist enlightenment as the salvific-transformational moment in which Tathatā "awakens" to itself,
comes to perfect self-realization as the Absolute Suchness of reality, in and through phenomenal human consciousness. It is an interpretation of the Buddhist Path as the spontaneous self-emergence of "embryonic" absolute knowledge as it comes to free itself from the concealments of adventitious defilements, and possess itself in fully self-explicitated self-consciousness as the "Highest Truth" and unconditional nature of all existence; it does so only in the form of omniscient wisdom.
Aside from Ruegg's La Theorie du Tathāgatagarbha et du Gotra and Verdu's study of the Ālayavijñāna in Dialectical Aspects in Buddhist Thought, Western scholarship treating of the subject is negligible. And while both sources are excellent technical treatises, they fail to integrate in any detailed analysis the dual concepts as complementary modes of each other. Thus, the dissertation, while adopting the
methodology of textual analysis, has as its emphasis a thematic-interpretive study of its sources. Conducting a detailed analysis into the structure of the texts, the dissertation delineates and appropriates the inherent ontological, soteriological and epistemological foci which they themselves assume as their natural form.
Structurally, the dissertation is divided into three major parts. The first focuses on the Tathāgatagarbha, the second on the Ālayavijñāna, the third on their relation and deeper significance in the human thought tradition. The first two parts are sub-divided into seven and four chapters respectively. The former seven chapters establish the ontological identity of the Tathāgata-embryo (Tathagātagarbha) through a critical examination of the major sūtral authority for the concept, i.e., the Śrī-Mālā-Sūtra, and the primary śāstral elaboration inspired by it, viz., the Ratnagotravlbhāga.
Following the same pattern, the four chapters of part 2 note the role of the Laṅk¯āvatāra Sūtra as a principal scriptural advocate for the theory of the Storehouse Consciousness (Ālayavijñāna), while detailing the scholastic amplification of it in Hsüan Tsang's Ch'eng Wei-Shih Lun. Part 3 concludes the study by recapitulating the principal developments in the emergent complementarity of the two concepts, arguing that any adequate
discussion of the Buddha Nature must be informed on the one hand by the theory of the Tathāgatagarbha which grounds and authenticates its ontological status, and on the other by the Ālayavijñāna, its noetic-cognitive determination. While the former tends to elucidate the
process towards, and experience of enlightenment as a function of Absolute Suchness (Tathatā), the latter adopts the reciprocal perspective and examines the subject in the light and function of phenomenal consciousness.
By way of comparison with Western thought, the chapter likewise demonstrates the analogous dynamic in the bilateral theory of the Tathāgatagarbha-Ālayavijñāna and the Hegelian Absolute Spirit in-and-for-itself. Focusing upon The Phenomenology of Spirit, the chapter notes that the self-becoming process in and through which consciousness realizes its own plenitude is strikingly homologous to the theory of Buddhist enlightenment presented through the concept of the Tathāgatagarbha-Ālayavijñāna. It suggests that these two representative thought systems
The book follows the original Indian sources as well as the standard commentaries on Madhyamaka in the Kagyü School of Tibetan Buddhism. At the same time, these materials are adapted for a contemporary audience, combining the familiar sharpness of Madhyamaka reasonings (launching a massive assault on our cherished belief systems) with exploring the practical relevance of the Madhyamaka way of mind training.
Part One of the book, "The General Presentation of Madhyamaka in the Kagyü Tradition," provides an overview of the transmission of Madhyamaka from India to Tibet and its relation to Vajrayāna and Mahāmudrā, followed by a general presentation of Madhyamaka in terms of ground, path, and fruition. Further chapters are devoted to the Autonomist-Consequentialist distinction, the controversial issue of "Shentong-Madhyamaka," the distinction between expedient and definitive meaning, and a penetrating presentation of the major differences between the Eight Karmapa's and Tsongkhapa's interpretations of Madhyamaka.
Part Two consists of a brief introduction to the Bodhicaryāvatāra and a translation of the Second Pawo Rinpoche's commentary on its ninth chapter (on knowledge).
(Source: book jacket)Buddha Nature or Tathāgatagarbha is a complex phenomenon that has been the subject of discussion in Buddhist cultures for centuries. This study presents for the first time a survey of the extent of Tibetan commentarial literature based upon the Indian Tathāgatagarbha Śāstra, the Ratnagotravibhāga, as well as a comparison of passages of Tibetan interpretations upon The Three Reasons given for the presence of Tathāgatagarbha in the Ratnagotravibhāga. Furthermore, attention is drawn to the inconsistencies regarding the dating, authorship, structure and content of this source text within the Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan traditions.
Thereby the present study addresses primarily the need for an overview of the Tibetan commentarial literature upon this important Śāstra, by surveying more than forty Tibetan commentaries. This survey will facilitate contextualization of future studies of the individual commentaries. Secondarily it addresses the need for documentation and interpretation of precise concepts and arguments, by presenting line for line comparison of passages of interpretations by four different authors, Rngog Blo ldan shes rab (1059-1109), Dol po pa shes rab rgyal mtshan (1292-1361), Rgyal tshab dar ma rin chen (1364-1432) and Mi pham phyogs las rnam rgyal (1846-1912). This comparison will trace divergent traditions of Tathāgatagarbha interpretation based on the Ratnagotravibhāga in Tibet.
It becomes apparent that the main divergence in these four authors' Tathāgatagarbha exegesis hinges on their interpretation of Dharmakāya and the role it plays as the first supporting reason for the presence of Tathāgatagarbha. Where some interpret Tathāgatagarbha as being "empty", others maintain that it is "full of qualities", apparent contradictions that however, are based upon the same scriptural passages of the source text, the Ratnagotravibhāga. That the ambiguous nature of the source text accommodates such seemingly contradictory interpretations should be kept in mind when studying Tibetan interpretations so as to avoid dismissal of certain interpretations in favour of others.
In East Asia perhaps the most important countercurrent of influence came from Korea, the focus of this volume. Chapters examine the role played by the Paekche kingdom in introducing Buddhist material culture (especially monastic architecture) to Japan and the impact of Korean scholiasts on the creation of several distinctive features that eventually came to characterize Japanese Pure Land Buddhism. The lives and intellectual importance of the monks Sungnang (fl. ca. 490) and Wonch’uk (613–696) are reassessed, bringing to light their role in the development of early intellectual schools within Chinese Buddhism. Later chapters discuss the influential teachings of the semi-legendary master Musang (684–762), the patriarch of two of the earliest schools of Ch’an; the work of a dozen or so Korean monks active in the Chinese T’ient’ai tradition; and the Huiyin monastery. Source: University of Hawai'i Press
The book’s thirty-two chapters help redress the dearth of source materials on Korean religions in Western languages. Coverage includes shamanic rituals for the dead and songs to quiet fussy newborns; Buddhist meditative practices and exorcisms; Confucian geomancy and ancestor rites; contemporary Catholic liturgy; Protestant devotional practices; internal alchemy training in new Korean religions; and North Korean Juche (“self-reliance”) ideology, an amalgam of Marxism and Neo-Confucian filial piety focused on worship of the “father,” Kim Il Sung.
Religions of Korea in Practice provides substantial coverage of contemporary Korean religious practice, especially the various Christian denominations and new indigenous religions. Each chapter includes an extensive translation of original sources on Korean religious practice, accompanied by an introduction that frames the significance of the selections and offers suggestions for further reading. This book will help any reader gain a better appreciation of the rich complexity of Korea’s religious culture. (Source: Princeton University Press)
Gorampa's text is polemical, and his targets are two of Tibet's greatest thinkers: Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelug school, and Dolpopa, a founding figure of the Jonang school. Distinguishing the Views argues that Dolpopa has fallen into an eternalistic extreme, whereas Tsongkhapa has fallen into nihilism, and that only the mainstream Sakya view—what Gorampa calls "freedom from extremes"—represents the true middle way, the correct view of emptiness. Suppressed for years in Tibet, this seminal work today is widely regarded and is studied in some of Tibet's greatest academic institutions.
Gorampa's treatise has been translated and annotated here by two leading scholars of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and a critical edition of the Tibetan text on facing pages gives students and scholars direct access to Gorampa's own words. José Cabezón's extended introduction provides a thorough overview of Tibetan polemical literature and contextualizes the life and work of Gorampa both historically and intellectually. Freedom from Extremes will be indispensable for serious students of Madhyamaka thought. (Source: Wisdom Publications)Négation pure et simple des Idées - platoniciennes, cartésiennes ou «modernes» -, cet idéalisme singulier n'est pas le contraire du matérialisme car, s'il ramène effectivement l'être au concept et les choses à la pensée, il n'admet pas non plus la réalité ultime de la conscience ni de tout ce qui entre dans les catégories du spirituel : il s'agit plutôt, comme l'ensemble de la philosophie bouddhiste, d'une dénonciation rationnelle des limites et dangers du réalisme naïf qui semble dominer la pensée humaine.
Manuel de réalisation intérieure, le Lankâ décrit la vacuité de la matière, où il ne voit que les représentations, et la vacuité du psychique, lequel peut se ramener à autant d'idées fictives, avant de proposer une méthode contemplative radicale, fondée sur la «nature de bouddha» en tant que «claire lumière naturelle de l'esprit», dont le chan/zen et le tantrisme sont les applications les plus abouties.
La présente traduction, réalisée sur la version chinoise de Shikshânanda (702), est agrémentée de quelques indispensables notes que devraient compléter les brillantes remarques de Fazang du Huayan, assistant styliste du traducteur, dans ses Mystères essentiels de l'Entrée à Lankâ, à paraître prochainement. (Source: Fayard)This dissertation begins with definitions of the term "tathāgatagarbha" and some of its synonyms which are followed by a brief review of the historical development of the Tathāgatagarbha theory from India to China. With these as the background knowledge, it is easier to point out the fallacies of the two Japanese scholars' criticism on this theory. A key issue in their criticism is that they viewed the Tathāgatagarbha theory as the ātman of the Upaniṣads in disguise. It is therefore necessary to discuss not only the distinction between the ātman mentioned in the Tathāgatagarbha theory and that in the Upaniṣads but also the controversy over the issue of ātman versus anātman among the Buddhist scholars.
In the discussion to clarify the issue of ātman in the Tathāgatagarbha theory, it is demonstrated that the ātman in the Tathāgatagarbha theory is not only uncontradictory to the doctrine of anātman in Buddhism but very important to the Bodhisattva practices in the Mahāyāna Buddhism. It functions as a unity for the Bodhisattvas to voluntarily return to the world of saṃsāra again and again. Furthermore, the purport of the entire theory, that all sentient beings are endowed with the essence of the Buddha, supports various Bodhisattva practices such as the aspiration to save all beings in the world, the six perfections, etc. In a word, the Tathāgatagarbha theory is an excellent representative of the soteriology of the Mahāyāna Buddhism. Included in the end of this dissertation is an annotated translation of the Tathāgatagarbha-sūtra. (Source Accessed May 26, 2020)
This dissertation examines the notion that not only sentient beings but also insentient
ones, e.g., flora, mountains, rivers, and manmade objects, have Buddha-nature. Employing an
exegetical approach, I investigate Jingxi Zhanran’s (711-782) theory of the Buddha-nature of
insentient beings. Emphasizing the all-pervasiveness of Buddha-nature and the nonduality of
mind and material, he eliminates the absolute distinction between sentient and insentient beings
and contends that Buddha-nature includes all beings. Additionally, insisting on the Tiantai notion
of mutual inclusion, which reveals a two-way relationship between sentience and insentience,
Zhanran reverses the positions of the subjective observer and the objective phenomenon,
subjectifying insentient beings.
In addition to examining the theoretical profundity of Zhanran’s theory, my study examines the issues of sentience versus insentience and Buddha-nature that took place before Zhanran and discusses the subsequent Tiantai concerns with the Buddha-nature of insentient beings. Through textual analysis, I reexamine the emergence of the Chinese thought that connects Buddha-nature to insentient things, initially presented by Jingying Huiyuan (523-592) and Jiaxiang Jizang (549-623). I also illustrate that the concept of the Buddha-nature of insentient beings is implied in Zhiyi’s (538-597) thought by interpreting Zhiyi’s teachings that inspired Zhanran’s advocacy. Furthermore, I analyze, on doctrinal grounds, Chinese Tiantai descendants’ endorsement of Zhanran’s theory, contrasting it with their Japanese counterparts’, the latter who found it difficult to conceptualize how insentient beings’ spiritual cultivation might occur.
Venerable Cheng Chien lucidly introduces the reader to the meaning of Buddhahood and explains the origin, transmission, and special features of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra. He presents us with an understanding of the stature of the "Manifestation of the Tathāgata" chapter in the context of the entire sūtra, as well as its relation to other scholastic texts. (Source Accessed Nov 23, 2020)
Not only was the unsurpassed Longchen Rabjam one of the most prolific Buddhist authors of the 14th century, he was a fully realized practitioner who relied on his own incisive knowledge to compose many unparalleled shastras or enlightened commentaries. He composed the Seven Treasures as his crowning achievement, and the Jewel Treasure of the Dharmadhatu is the pinnacle of them all. This astonishing masterpiece sets forth the structure and practice of the Great Perfection path known as trekcho, cutting through to original purity. The root verses are presented in poetically rhythmic, profound, and alluring verses that have been recited from memory by distinguished Dzogchen masters of the Great Perfection lineage for centuries up to the present time.
This publication also includes Omniscient Longchenpa’s autocommentary called A Treasury of Citations, which is an indispensable guide to the root verses that are woven throughout this shastra, to illuminate how they refer to the context of the ground, path, and fruition, as well as the view, meditation and conduct of this exceptional Great Perfection path. True to the title, this commentary disseminates the most crucial information by citing the original speech of Buddha Vajradhara found in the seventeen Great Perfection upadesha tantras, as well as including many quotations from the sutras, tantras, and shastras in general. In short, for trekcho and togal practitioners of the quintessential Heart Essence cycle of Atiyoga, this text clarifies the necessary stages to realize and accomplish complete enlightenment in a single lifetime, at the moment of death, in the dharmata bardo, or in a natural nirmanakaya pure realm. (Source: Berotsana Publications)Gendun Chopel was a prolific writer during his short life. Yet he considered that manuscript, which he titled Grains of Gold, to be his life’s work, one to delight his compatriots with tales of an ancient Indian and Tibetan past, while alerting them to the wonders and dangers of the strikingly modern land abutting Tibet’s southern border, the British colony of India. Now available for the first time in English, Grains of Gold is a unique compendium of South Asian and Tibetan culture that combines travelogue, drawings, history, and ethnography. Gendun Chopel describes the world he discovered in South Asia, from the ruins of the sacred sites of Buddhism to the Sanskrit classics he learned to read in the original. He is also sharply, often humorously critical of the Tibetan love of the fantastic, bursting one myth after another and finding fault with the accounts of earlier Tibetan pilgrims. Exploring a wide range of cultures and religions central to the history of the region, Gendun Chopel is eager to describe all the new knowledge he gathered in his travels to his Buddhist audience in Tibet.
At once the account of the experiences of a tragic figure in Tibetan history and the work of an extraordinary scholar, Grains of Gold is an accessible, compelling work animated by a sense of discovery of both a distant past and a strange present. (Source: University of Chicago Press)This one-volume edition contains Thomas Cleary's definitive translation of all thirty-nine books of the sutra, along with an introduction, a glossary, and Cleary's translation of Li Tongxuan's seventh-century guide to the final book, the Gandavyuha, "Entry into the Realm of Reality." (Source: Shambhala Publications)
The essential initiatory experience of Zen, satori is believed to open up the direct perception of things as they are. "Even if you sit until your seat breaks through, even if you persevere mindless of fatigue, even if you are a person of lofty deeds and pure behavior, if you haven't reached this realm of satori, you still can't get out of the prison of the world." Deliberately cultivated and employed to awaken the dormant potency of the mind, satori is said to be accessible to all people, transcending time, history, culture, race, gender, and personality.
Attributed to the thirteenth-century Zen Master Keizan (1268–1325), Transmission of Light (along with The Blue Cliff Record and The Gateless Barrier) is one of three essential koan texts used by Zen students. Techniques for reaching the enlightening experience of satori are revealed through fifty-three short tales about the awakenings of successive generations of masters, beginning with the twelfth-century Zen master Ejo, dharma heir to Dogen.
The translator's introduction establishes the context for Transmission of Light within the Zen canon and elucidates central themes of the work, including the essential idea that genuine satori "is not the end of Zen; it is more properly the true beginning." (Source: Shambhala Publications)Echoing the Sutra of the Ten Lands, the Sutra of the Unveiling of Deep Meaning is part of the logic of a collection which aims to introduce lovers of wisdom to the jewels of Buddhist thought and mysticism.
The translation presented in this volume was made from the Tibetan version of the eighth century. (Source: Fayard)Each one of us has this bright, inherent “Buddha-nature” within us, and through it we are connected to all the universe. But it’s up to us to discover this connection. It’s up to us to live in tune with this inherent treasure. We have to figure out how this plays out in our life.
The first step is simply trusting this non-dual nature. Know that you have it, have faith that it’s connected to everything you’re going through, and entrust everything there. Keep doing this and observing. Let go of your opinions like this. Let go of what’s going well like this. Let go of what’s going badly like this, and the whole time, keep paying attention.
Step forward bravely, holding onto your bright, inherent nature, and a new world will begin to reveal itself.
This is a collection of the Dharma talks by Daehaeng Kun Sunim previously published in Korean-English editions, as "Turning Dirt into Gold," and "Dancing on the Whirlwind." (Source: Hanmaum Publications)In this sparkling collection from one of the most vital teachers of modern Korean Buddhism, Zen Master Daehaeng shows us that there is no raft to find and, truly, no river to cross. She extends her hand to the Western reader, beckoning each of us into the unfailing wisdom accessible right now, the enlightenment that is always, already, right here.
A Zen (or seon, as Korean Zen is called) master with impeccable credentials, Daehaeng has developed a refreshing approach; No River to Cross is surprisingly personal. It’s disarmingly simple, yet remarkably profound, pointing us again and again to our foundation, our “True Nature”—the perfection of things just as they are. (Source: Wisdom Publications)This excellent work, throwing a new light on the contacts between Indian and Chinese philosophers and theologians at the court of the Tibetan king, at the peak of his power in the middle of the eighth century, contains the following chapters: l) Translation of the Chinese record of the debate between the representative of the Chinese Buddhist philosophers, a Chinese Ch'an (Zen) master having the pretentious name Ta-ch'êng (Mahāyāna, Great Vehicle), and the representative of the Indian Buddhist philosophers, Śāntarakṣita's disciple Kamalaśīla, who was hostile to Ch'an doctrines and charged the Chinese Ch'an monks with neglect of morality and with graded spiritual exercises and gradual progress on the path to Sainthood (ārya-mārga); 2) Translations of memorials, records, letters, prayers and poems, written by Chinese officials and Buddhist monks in Tibetan-occupied West China during the eighth century; 3) Translations of the first and third chapters of Kamalaśīla's work entitled Bhāvanā-krama ("The Stages and Grades in the Spiritual Exercises," extant in Sanskrit (manuscript discovered by the late E. Obermiller in 1935, Journal of the Greater India Society, II, 1-11), the Tibetan Tanjur, and the Chinese Buddhist Canon (Taishā Daizōkyō, No. 1664). Almost half of Demiéville's book consists of copious notes with references to Chinese and Tibetan historical documents, annals and records, and Tun-huang manuscripts (Pelliot Collection, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris), filling many gaps left by the printed Chinese Buddhist texts. The Tun-huang manuscript (Pelliot Coll., No. 4646) translated in the first chapter of the book under review has been reproduced in facsimile (32 plates) and bears the title Judgment on the True Principles of the Great Vehicle of Sudden Enlightenment. The doctrines of the Chinese opponent of Indian gradualism in this court symposium led by the Tibetan king are largely identical with those of the Chinese Ch'an masters Hui-nêng and his disciple Shên-hui (praised as a "political genius" and the Seventh Patriarch by Hu Shih in Philosophy East and West, III, 6-13), whose Discourses have been translated by J. Gernet (Publications de l'ecole française d'Extrême-Orient, Vol. 31, Hanoi, 1949) and whose more important Sermon delivered on a Platform (T'an-yü)has just been translated by the expert in the history of the Ch'an school, W. Liebenthal (Asia Major, III (1953), 132-155). Demiéville's book is indispensable for those who want to compare Indian and Chinese national traits and attitudes. His documents show a contrast between the Chinese ideal of the conquest of time (totum simul), expressed in the proverb, "He lays down the butcher's cleaver, and immediately becomes a Buddha" (quoted by Hu Shih op. cit., p. 11), and the Indian patient, disciplinarian, and pedestrian stress on training, gradual cultivation, nurture, and educational processes. -Johannes Rahder, Yale University.
(Chinese characters in original unavailable)Volume 56
This work is a commentary on the Śrīmālā-sūtra (Taisho No.16), and is considered to be the earliest of the "Commentaries on Three Sūtras" (Jp. San-gyō-gi-sho) composed by Prince Shōtoku. The Nihon-shoki ("Chronicles of Japan") records that Prince Shōtoku gave a discourse on the Śrīmālā-sūtra for Empress Suiko. It is considered that Prince Shōtoku chose this particular sūtra as the subject of his discourse to the Empress probably because the protagonist of the Śrīmālā-sūtra is a woman, Śrīmālā, and Empress Suiko was the first Empress in Japanese history. The present work was then put together in book-form in Chinese at a later date. Be that as it may, there is no changing the fact that this was the first written work composed by a Japanese.
Source
In pithy verses, Distinguishing the Middle from Extremes employs the principle of the three natures to explain the way things seem to be as well as the way they actually are. Unraveling the subtle processes that condition our thinking and experience, Maitreya’s teaching reveals a powerful path of compassionate vision and spiritual transformation.
Distinguishing the Middle from Extremes is presented here alongside commentaries by two outstanding masters of Tibet’s nonsectarian Rimé movement, Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham. (Source: Shambhala Publications)The Ornament provides a comprehensive description of the bodhisattva’s view, meditation, and enlightened activities. Bodhisattvas are beings who, out of vast love for all sentient beings, have dedicated themselves to the task of becoming fully awakened buddhas, capable of helping all beings in innumerable and vast ways to become enlightened themselves. To fully awaken requires practicing great generosity, patience, energy, discipline, concentration, and wisdom, and Maitreya’s text explains what these enlightened qualities are and how to develop them.
This volume includes commentaries by Khenpo Shenga and Ju Mipham, whose discussions illuminate the subtleties of the root text and provide valuable insight into how to practice the way of the bodhisattva. Drawing on the Indian masters Vasubandhu and, in particular, Sthiramati, Mipham explains the Ornament with eloquence and brilliant clarity. This commentary is among his most treasured works. (Source: Shambhala Publications)
Abstract
The Tathāgatagarbha in Tibetan Buddhism.
The Tathāgatagarbha concept is a fundamental philosophical question of Buddhism. Tathāgatagarbha (Sanskrit) has the original contextual meaning of "embryonic Buddha" (Tib: bade gashegas snginga po) or "Buddha heart". Mahāyāna Buddhism, Vajrayana Buddhism, and particularly the Prāsangika school expresses the term as "Buddha nature". Within the three surviving nikayas[1] of Theravada Buddhism, there are several ways of understanding tathāgatagarbha and according to different sutras. The most significant doctrines lie in the Tathāgatagarbha, Lankavatara, Mahaparinnirvana, Maharatnakuta, Mahabheri Haraka Parivarta, and Angulinalya sutras, which define tathāgatagarbha as a monism and something permanent. Prāsangika and Tibetan Buddhism schools (Nyingma, New Bön, Kadam, Sakya, Jonang, Gelug, Kagyu) meanwhile, see tathāgatagarbha as an expression of the concepts of pratīyasamutpāda (dependent arising) and sūnyatā (emptiness). Many researchers believe that the Tibetan Buddhist practice of mahasampanna (Eng: Dzogchen, Tib: rdzogas chena) and Mahamudra (Eng: the Great Seal, Tib: phyga rhy chen mo) are based on the concept of an "absolute" tathāgatagarbha.
In this paper I focus on the Tibetan Buddhist interpretation of tathāgatagarbha and argue that its concept concerns "emptiness" and "dependent arising" but nothing else. I have five main arguments: 1) All Tibetan Buddhist schools, in theory and practice, assert that they follow Mahāyāna Buddhism and its Prāsangika school; Tibetan Buddhism is enshrined in the doctrines of both Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti who both stated that ultimate truth is sūnyatā but not atman (infinite, ego-less, svabhava); 3) Nagarjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārika declares: "whatever is relational origination [pratītyasamutpāda] is sūnyatā" which means that all phenomena (dharmas) are sūnyatā including Buddha nature; 4) The Tibetan Buddhist schools insist that all Buddhist sutras be explained in terms of Nāgārjuna’s theory and wisdom. The Buddha himself prognosticated Nāgārjuna as his re-disseminator and this is recorded in several scriptures, for instance Tsongkhapa's In Praise of Dependent Arising; and 5) Tibetan Buddhist schools agree on the tathāgatagarbha concept and this understanding corresponds with the principles of Buddhist scripture, in particular the "revelation of the whole truth" and "partial revelation of the truth", the four seals of Buddha truth (chatur udan) and the four reliances (catrari pratisaranan).
Tibetan Buddhist schools stress that in the three turnings of the wheel of the Buddha's doctrine (tridharmachakra), the second teaching of the "perfection of wisdom" (prajna) or "wisdom of emptiness" is central, the Heart Sutra (Prajnapramit-hridaya Sutra ) containing the wisdom of salvation. Tathāgatagarbha is the main teaching of third of the tridharmachakra and should be combined with the wisdom of emptiness. Hopkins [1973:p323] states: "The prasangikas say that this teaching [of the concept of tathāgatagarbha] is an example of giving to the cause the name of effect; for, the emptiness of the mind of each sentient being is what allows for change of that sentient being’s mind, and this emptiness if being called a fully enlightened Buddha".
In conclusion, I am arguing that the concept of tathāgatagarbha in the Tibetan Buddhist schools – being simply emptiness and dependent arising – includes the view of the Tibetan Buddhist Dzogchen school and its gazhanastaonga (Eng: wrong view concerning unrealness of the attributes) text and tradition. In this vein, Tibetan Buddhist sects also contend that several Mahayana Buddhist scriptures such as the Mahaparinirvana, Tathāgatagarbha, Srimladevimhanada and Mahayana Angulimaliya sutras, which describe tathāgatagarbha as omniscient, eternal, infinite, pure, benevolent, nurturing, ultimate nature, unconditioned, changeless, virtuous or ineffable are to be understood as only "partial revelation of the truth" and not "revelation of the whole truth". After all, tathāgatagarbha in Tibetan Buddhism is emptiness or wisdom of emptiness but nothing else. In fact, according to Tibetan Buddhism, the two-in-one (yuganaddha, Tib: zunga vajuga;) of emptiness and bodhicitta, means that we can attain the final Buddhist goal of enlightenment. This is why tathāgatagarbha is the cornerstone of all Buddhist teaching.
Notes
- The three nikayas or monastic fraternities are Theravada, in Southeast Asia; Dharmaguptaka in China, Korea and Vietnam; and Mulasarvastivada in the Tibetan
Mipam ( 'ju mi pham rgya mtsho, 1846–1912) is one of the most prolific thinkers in the history of Tibet and is a key figure in the Nyingma tradition of Buddhism. His works continue to be widely studied in the Tibetan cultural region and beyond. This book provides an in-depth account of Mipam’s view, drawing on a wide range of his works and offering several new translations. Douglas S. Duckworth shows how a dialectic of presence and absence permeates Mipam’s writings on the Middle Way and Buddha-nature.
The Buddha taught buddha nature in three steps, each more profound than the previous one. The last step is regarded by most Tibetan Buddhist schools as the most profound teaching of the sutras, the very essence of what the Buddha was trying to communicate to his followers. It is the same teaching as found in Mahamudra and Dzogchen, so is important for all Buddhists to understand, but especially for those who are studying the Mahamudra and Dzogchen teachings.
The very learned Nyingma teacher Ju Mipham Namgyal gave a teaching that clearly showed this ultimate non-dual buddha nature. It was recorded and published by his students in a text called The Lion's Roar that is A Great Thousand Doses of Sugatagarbha which forms the basis of this book. The text needs clarification, so a very extensive explanation has been provided by the author of the book, the well known Western Buddhist teacher and translator, Tony Duff. As with all of our books, and an extensive introduction, glossary, and so on are provided to assist the reader.The book emphasizes the Kagyu approach in particular. The author has received teachings from many Kagyu masters and used his knowledge of the tradition as a basis for making this book. He selected teachings from Gampopa and other early masters to set the basis for explaining meditation. Then he added other, necessary teachings according to the extensive teachings he has received over many years from many different Kagyu masters, such as Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Mingyur Rinpoche, and others. The result is a book that explains how to do a complete session of meditation in the style of the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions.
The book begins with a lengthy introduction by Lama Tony which is a teaching in its own right. He writes a lengthy piece about what can and cannot usefully be obtained from science in terms of dharma practice. Following the introduction, there are two chapters on the buddha nature, the second of which uses a significant portion of Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen’s explanation of the ground in his famous Mountain Dharma text. This is the first time that this part of Dolpopa’s text has been fully translated and published. After that are several chapters on the various steps of a complete session of meditation. Anyone who practises meditation will find this book useful in many ways.
The book contains a translation of the following text: “Mountain Dharma, An Ocean of Definitive Meaning” by Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsan, ground section
(Source: Padma Karpo Translations)Other emptiness has usually been thought of amongst Westerners who have heard of it as a very complicated and difficult philosophy. It is subtle, that is true, because it describes what it is like to be in wisdom. However, it was not taught as a difficult philosophy. Rather, it was taught as a practical teaching on how to enter non-dual wisdom. The book explores this point at length.
The book was written to be useful for all levels of reader. It starts simply, giving a clear explanation of the Buddha’s non-dual teaching and how the other emptiness teaching is part of that. Then it goes into details about the history and teaching of other emptiness. Finally, it goes in to great technical detail concerning the other emptiness teaching, and supports that with extensive materials from various Tibetan teachers. Unlike many of the books on other emptiness that have appeared, this book does not only present the theory of other emptiness but keeps a proper balance between showing the theory of other emptiness and presenting the practice-based reality of the teaching.
The book is divided into four parts, each one a set of presentations from someone knowledgeable of the subject. The first part is several chapters written by the author in plain English in order to get the reader under way. Following that, there are sections embodying the explanations of Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso, and Jamgon Kongtrul the great. Ample introductions, glossaries and so on are provided.
Aside from many oral explanations, the book contains translations of the following texts:
- A Brief Discussion of The Rise of the Other Emptiness Middle Way Called "The Music of Talk on the Definitive Meaning" by Khenpo Tsultrim Gyatso (previously not seen in English)
- Introductory Section from A Complete Commentary to the Great Vehicle Treatise The Highest Continuum which Connects to Heart Meaning using the Explanation System of the Path of Direct Perception, Called "The Lion’s Roar of the Non-Regressing" by Jamgon Kongtrul the Great
- The Treasury which is an Encyclopædia of Knowledge on Thorough Ascertainments of Provisional and Definitive Within the Three Wheels, and of the Two Truths by Jamgon Kongtrul the Great
- Instructions for Practising the View of the Other Emptiness Great Middle Way, "Light Rays of Stainless Vajra Moon" by Jamgon Kongtrul the Great (Source: Padma Karpo Translation Committee)
More specifically, my objective has been to make a contribution to the ongoing investigations into the history of Buddhist philosophy by focussing on one Buddhist author's interpretation of a specific topic— the doctrine of anātma— and providing an analysis of it in relation to the views of several other Buddhist schools. I have attempted to demonstrate how Acarya Candrakirti's theory of self is significantly different from the generally accepted Buddhist explanation of this topic. In doing so, several relevant areas of Candrakirti's overall system are also examined. With regard to his Prasangika views on logic, I have introduced new material from the writings of Svatantrika scholars for the purpose of further clarifying the nature of the differences between these two Madhyamika schools of thought.
Part Two consists of a translation of Candrakirti's most comprehensive discussion of his views on the self. This text was not previously available in English. In several instances my translation also corrects misinterpretations that occur in the incomplete French translation of Professor Louis de la Vallée Poussin. The text consists of a section of the sixth chapter from Acarya Candrakirti's Madhyamakāvatārabhāṣya. Since the original Sanskrit is not extant, my translation is based on the Tibetan translation. For a manuscript I have used the 1912 edition prepared by Professor Poussin and published by the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences as Volume IX of the Bibliotheca Buddhica series. In preparing the English translation, Professor Poussin's French translation as well as a partial Sanskrit reconstruction by N. Aiyaswami Sastri were consulted; however the most useful aid proved to be the Tibetan translation of a 12th century Indian commentary to Candrakirti's text composed by a certain Jayānanda and entitled Madhyamakāvatāratīka. This work provides a literal explanation for almost every word of Candrakirti's text and was extremely helpful for understanding numerous obscure passages.
Although several of the texts cited in Part One of the dissertation can be found in translations prepared by other scholars, I have presented my own version for all these quotations in order to maintain a consistency of style and terminology. The one exception occurs in the chapter on Prasangika logic, for which ample explanation is given there. (Engle, preface, iii–v)
Lion of Speech: The Life of Mipham Rinpoche offers a translation of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’s biography of Mipham Rinpoche, left behind in Tibet when Khyentse Rinpoche went into exile in 1959 and lost for eighty years before its discovery by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune. The biography is written as a traditional namthar, an account of the “life and liberation” of a man who is widely considered to be among the greatest scholars and accomplished masters in the history of Tibetan Buddhism. One of the striking features of Khyentse Rinpoche’s account is that it downplays the “miraculous” aspects of Mipham’s life and activities—perhaps as a means of bringing into sharper focus the effect that Mipham had on his contemporaries as a spiritual master, scholar, and teacher.
This first part of the Trilogy of Rest sets the foundation for the following two volumes: Finding Rest in Meditation, which focuses on Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice, and Finding Rest in Illusion, which focuses on post-meditation yogic conduct. The Padmakara Translation Group has provided us with a clear and fluid new translation to Finding Rest in the Nature of the Mind along with selections from its autocommentary, The Great Chariot, which will serve as a genuine aid to study and meditation.
Here, we find essential instructions on the need to turn away from materialism, how to find a qualified guide, how to develop boundless compassion for all beings, along with the view of tantra and associated meditation techniques. The work culminates with pointing out the result of practice as presented from the Dzogchen perspective, providing us with all the tools necessary to traverse the Tibetan Buddhist path of finding rest.
Shambhala PublicationsFrauwallner's way of translating was straightforward: to remain as close as possible to the original text while presenting it in a clear and readable way in order to convey an accurate impression of its meaning. For technical terms in the source materials he maintained a single translation even when various meanings were suggested. For clarity regarding such variations of meaning he relied on the context and his explanation.
The same approach was taken by the translator of the present book. Although his translation attempts to be faithful to the 1994 edition of Die Philosophie des Buddhismus, he inserted helpful additional headlines into the text and considerably enlarged the index. All other additions by the translator are given within square brackets. Besides this, he created an Appendix, which contains one of Frauwallner's more important articles "Amalavijnana and Alayavijnana" (1951) to complement the long Yogacara section of the book, a bibliography of selective publications after 1969. The URLs for many of the source materials were also conveniently provided. (Source: Motilal Banarsidass)The rDzogs Chen tradition is an extremely innovative philosophical and contemplative system originating out of Buddhist Tantric mysticism within the 8th-10th centuries, and in many ways is quite unusual in the context of normative Indo-Tibetan Buddhism. While its origins remain controversial, we currently possess only a large body of canonical and exegetical literature in what claim to be Tibetan translations, as well as an extensive secondary literature that developed in Tibet from the 10th-20th centuries. The tradition is especially striking in its implicit development of a model of rigorous philosophical thought that refuses to be reduced to syllogistic reasoning (though utilizing it as a secondary hermeneutical tool) or dismissed as mere "aesthetics" as it treats Buddhist Tantra as a serious philosophical innovation that must be utilized to reinterpret previous traditional scholasticism, in stark contrast to the trend to extend traditional scholastic methodologies into Tantra, and deny the revolution of "poetic thought" they may embody. In addition, its complex evolutionary emphasis and description of a non-reified intelligence operative at every level of the Universe is strikingly similar to recent developments in modern scientific research. Finally, it would seem that the Great Perfection represents the most sophisticated interpretation of the so-called "Buddha nature" tradition within the context of Indo-Tibetan thought, and as such, is of extreme importance for research into classical exoteric philosophic systems such as Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, while also providing fertile grounds for future explorations of the interconnections between Indo-Tibetan and East Asian forms of Buddhism, as well as between Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and contemporary Indian developments such as the tenth century non-dual Shaivism of Abhinavagupta.
Though this tradition is by no means homogenous, one can readily distinguish out a classical system encapsulated by "eleven adamantine topics" (rDo rJe'i gNas bCu gCig), which together constitute a wide ranging journey spanning the early history of the Universe to the climaxing heights of a Buddha's full enlightenment. This system is most brilliantly articulated by the fourteenth century Tibetan scholar kLong Chen Rab 'Byams Pa (1308-1363) in his The Seven Treasuries (mDzod bDun) and The Seminal Heart-Essence in Four Parts (sNying Thig Ya bZhi), which contain some of the world's most profound poetic and philosophic masterpieces. This dissertation thus bases itself on Longchenpa's corpus, and his own textual sources, namely The Seventeen Tantras, The Seminal Heart-Essence of the Sky Dancer (mKha' 'Gro sNying Thig) by Padmasambhava, and The Seminal Heart-Essence of Vimalamitra (Bi Ma sNying Thig) by Vimalamitra and other early non-Tibetan figures in the tradition. In particular, it focuses on kLong Chen Rab 'Byams Pa's The Treasury of Words and Meanings (Tshig Don mDzod) which is directly structured on the aforementioned eleven topics, and is his most succinct yet extensive exposition of the tradition of the Great Perfection in its entirety. Part I is an overview of these eleven topics in general, as well as in the context of The Treasury of Words and Meaning's corresponding eleven chapters; Part II consists of a translation of the first five chapters from The Treasury of Words and Meanings (centering on the primordial
nature of the Universe, the early history of its exteriorization into space and time, the
origination of alienation, evolution, and a subtle analysis of the energetics of human existence);
and Part III provides a very lengthy commentary on those five chapters in the form of running
annotations (the bulk of the thesis thus occurs in Part Ill). In Part Ill, the above texts are
systematically analyzed in relation to Longchenpa's discussions of a given issue, and many lengthy passages extracted from them are translated therein, along with extensive interpretative
comments.
Although some scholars have attempted to marginalize the tradition in relation to Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, in fact the Great Perfection can be understood as its culmination, since in its seamless blend of the exoteric and esoteric it overcomes many of the limitations inherent in the "normative" traditions' sterile division between "philosophy" and the esoteric practices/theory of Tantra. This dissertation clarifies the essential structure, orientation, and content of the tradition, as well as providing a very detailed explication of the first five of the eleven topics
This definitive composition of Mahāyāna teachings was imparted in the fourth century by Maitreya to the famous adept Asanga, one of the most prolific writers of Buddhist treatises in history. Asanga’s work, which is among the famous Five Treatises of Maitreya, has been studied, commented upon, and taught by Buddhists throughout Asia ever since it was composed.
In the early twentieth century, one of Tibet’s greatest scholars and saints, Jamgön Mipham, wrote A Feast of the Nectar of the Supreme Vehicle, which is a detailed explanation of every verse. This commentary has since been used as the primary blueprint for Tibetan Buddhists to illuminate the depth and brilliance of Maitreya’s pith teachings. The Padmakara Translation Group has provided yet another accessible and eloquent translation, ensuring that English-speaking students of Mahāyāna will be able to study this foundational Buddhist text for generations to come. (Source: Shambhala Publications)The factors contributing to this change in the nature and place of East Asian Buddhist Studies are too numerous to list in their entirety, and it is likely that not all of them are yet fully understood. No doubt influential are the new definitions of Religious and Intellectual History that have been entertained throughout the academy. New designs of advanced graduate training in the relevant disciplines and areas have surely also had their effects. However, two rather more specific factors deserve special notice, particularly in view of their relevance to the work here at hand. The first of these that needs to be appreciated is the extent to which western scholars of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean Buddhism have put themselves wisely in debt to Japanese scholarship. The Japanese have led the field of East Asian Buddhist Studies for several generations, and in recent decades they have succeeded in adding to the breadth and depth of their traditional learning in the subject a measure of critical sophistication in Philology and History that has set the standard which all others in the field must match. No
serious work on East Asian Buddhism is now being done in Europe or America that has not been deliberately
informed by the Japanese model. The other particular factor to be noted is the importance of the discovery
and exploitation of previously unknown or very little known primary sources of information. Foremost among
these, of course, are the manuscripts and xylographs of the now well known Tun-huang trove. Of a significance for the study of East Asian Buddhism comparable to the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the early history of Judaism and Christianity, these texts have had especially revolutionary effects upon our
knowledge of the origins and early phases of Ch'an (Zen). Again, it has been Japanese scholars who have
taken the lead in editing, analyzing, and interpreting the hundreds of these texts in Chinese and Tibetan that bear on the early history of Ch'an, but now French scholars are also making very important contributions, and for some years yet to come the study of early Ch'an will continue to be one of the most exciting frontiers of advancement in East Asian Buddhist Studies wherever conducted. Also to be considered are the many other primary sources, apart from the Tun-huang materials, that have come to light in the past forty years or so and are now attracting scholarly attention. One thinks particularly of texts discovered in Korean monastic libraries or in hitherto little explored Japanese collections. These too have helped stimulate the growth and redefinition of East Asian Buddhist Studies that is currently underway.
It is the belief of the editors of the present volume that the essays which comprise it exemplify the trends sketched above. They either broach new topics or address older topics from new theoretical and methodological perspectives, and they are based in large measure on primary literature—much of it from the Tun-huang collection—which has been only recently discovered or which has previously eluded extended investigation. Moreover, all five of the essays are written by scholars who owe much to their Japanese teachers and who try to emulate those teachers in philological and historiographical rigor.
Ch'an and Hua-yen (Kegon) Buddhism have been chosen as the dual focus of this group of studies essentially for three reasons: First, because they
are major traditions of East Asian Buddhist thought and practice which were roughly contemporary with each
other in their origins and which influenced each other in important ways during the early centuries of their
development. Second, because they both loom large as examples of the East Asian transformation of Buddhism, i.e., of the remarkable process by which that originally Indian tradition took on the shape and substance first of a Chinese, and later of a Korean and a Japanese, religion; as such they serve as valuable
The articles by Broughton, Gómez and McRae deal with early Ch'an and are based on texts in Chinese and Tibetan that were found among the Tun-huang manuscripts. All three shed substantively new light on the rise of what was to become one of the most crucial East Asian developments of Buddhism. The articles by Gregory and Gimello treat somewhat of Ch'an but mostly of Hua-yen—the latter especially in its "classical" phase during the eighth and ninth centuries, although they give some attention also to its later influences in other traditions of East Asian Buddhism. The Hua-yen articles are based primarily on materials which have long been available in standard editions of the Chinese Buddhist canon but which have been studied hardly at all in the West and only in the most preliminary way even in Japan. It is hoped that they will show, among other things, that the Hua-yen tradition is something more than its conventional reputation as a purely theoretical and rather cerebral form of Buddhism might lead one to believe.
Four of the five articles are much revised and expanded versions of papers delivered in 1980 at a Conference on East Asian Buddhism held in Los Angeles under the sponsorship of the Kuroda Institute for the Study of Buddhism and Human Values. The fifth, that by Luis Gómez, was especially solicited for the volume well after the conference. All of the articles were designed to comprise a collection that would serve not to introduce, survey, or sum up a field of study but to communicate new and ongoing advanced research. This will be the purpose also of the series, Studies in East Asian Buddhism, which this volume inaugurates. (Gimello, preface, 1983)
The first edition of this Buddhist Bible was published in 1932. When the need of a new edition became evident, it was decided to enlarge it so as to include other Scriptures of like importance so as to make it more comprehensive. This involved making a number of new translations for which we are indebted to Bhikshu Wai-tao. We are also indebted and are very grateful to a number of other Buddhist Scholars for permission to use their translations, as noted in the Appendix.
The compiling of a Buddhist Bible is a very different matter from compiling the Christian Bible. In the first place, there is no Hierarchy or Ecclesiastic Council to pass upon the authenticity of different scriptures, and as to their canonicity. In the second place, Christian Scriptures are a closed system of doctrines and dogmas that have been inspired by the Holy Spirit and are to be accepted in faith. Buddhism, on the contrary, is looked upon as a growing organism whose scriptures are of many kinds as the organism has developed under different racial, temporal and cultural conditions. As disciples follow the Buddha's Noble Path and practice dhyana concentration and intuitive meditation they have an unfolding experience of spiritual insight and grace which any one of them may describe and elucidate. Some of these expediences are of highest value, some of less value. Some are concerned with
the Dharma, some have to do with the rules of the Brotherhoods, some are philosophical, some psychological, some are commentaries and some are commentaries on commentaries. In the third place, there is the difference of quantity. In the Christian Bible there are sixty-six titles; Buddhist scriptures number over ten thousand, only a fraction of which have thus far been translated. In the Sung Dynasty about 972 AD a Chinese version of these scriptures was published consisting of 1521 works, in more than 5000 volumes, covering 130,000 pages.
The nearest approach to canonicity is the Pali Tripitika. That was the earliest collection and was supposed to be limited to the words of Buddha. Southern Buddhists are passionately devoted to these Pali Scriptures and are inclined to disparage and dispute the more philosophical scriptures of the Northern School that developed later after Buddhism had come in contact with other world religions in Persia, Palestine, Egypt and Greece. Under these conditions there developed in Northern India, and Kashgar, a succession of very able minds,
Ashvaghosha, Nargajuna, Vasobandhu and his brother Asangha from whose writings and teachings there developed various important schools of philosophical thought that profoundly changed the understanding of Buddha's Dharma.
Later on as Buddhism spread into China and came under the influence of its immemorial culture and practical good sense, it took on forms of Taoist naturalism and kindly humanism, and there developed forms of "salvation by faith in Amitabha's mercy" and rebirth in his Pure Land. While in Tibet, coming in contact with its ancient Bon religion, and
under the climatic conditions of its high altitudes, it took on forms of strenuousness and magic and tantric conceptions. Later on in Japan owing to political and social conditions incident to the presence of a limited but powerful noble class dominating a suppressed peasantry, which had developed extremes of loyalty and obedience and self-control, it took on forms of concentrative meditation known as Zen, and a still more widely divergent type of the True Pure Land Sect.
Naturally among these diverse conditions Buddhist scriptures vary widely, and the quantity of them being so enormous, they have become segregated into different groups as they are favored by different schools of thought and practice. The Tien-tai favor the more philosophical scriptures, the Shingon, the more esoteric, the Ch’an (Zen), the more intellectual, and the Pure Land, the more emotional. The present editor has been guided in his selection of scriptures for this Buddhist Bible by a sincere purpose to make the selection as comprehensive as possible within its limits and to represent as truly as possible the original teachings of the Blessed One both as understood by the Southern and more primitive school and by the Northern and more philosophical interpreters. He has also humbly tried to have the choice vouched for by his own spiritual experience in his practice of the Noble Path and especially during its Eighth Stage of intuitive Dhyana.
It follows, therefore, that the scriptures thus selected are the generally accepted scriptures of the Dhyana Sects—Ch’an in China, Zen in Japan and Kargyupta in Tibet. Of course among so enormous a collection of scriptures there are others that are favorites also, notably the Saddharma-pundarika (Lotus of the Perfect Law), and the Avatamsaka, said to be the grandest religious document ever written, but these are very large books in themselves. The late W. E. Soothil of London left a very careful translation of the Lotus that still waits a publisher. Dr. Suzuki of Kyoto has made a translation of the Gandhavyuha sections of the Avatamsaka that is now in process of being published. The inclusion of Laotzu’s Tao-teh-king is open to question as it is not strictly a Buddhist
text, but its teaching has such a close affinity to Buddhist teaching and nearly all early Chinese Masters of Buddhism were Taoist scholars who, upon becoming Buddhists, did not give up their Taoist conceptions and terms, and because the Laotzuan teaching in the Tao-teh-king has had such a wholesome
influence on the development of Chinese Buddhism, and, in later years, wherever the Tao-teh-king is held in reverence, it has tended to restrain individual pride of egoism, religious ceremonial, ecclesiasticism, priestcraft and insincerity generally, we make no apology for including it. In fact, it is our earnest wish that the Tao-teh-king may become one of the foundation stones of American and European Buddhism.
Further introductory notes are reserved for the Appendix
under the heads of the individual Scriptures, as are also -grateful appreciation to those who have contributed to the preparation and publication of this Bible, especially to those Buddhist scholars who have courteously granted the Editor permission to use their translations for this purpose
Just a closing word as to the rules that have guided the
Editor in his choice and handling of textual material. He has always kept in mind the spiritual needs of his readers. This Buddhist Bible is not intended to be a source book for critical literary and historical study. It is only intended to be a source of spiritual inspiration designed to awaken faith and to develop faith into aspiration and full realization. The original texts having for centuries been carried in memory and transcribed by hand by scribes who were often more loyal to their Master than to historical exactness, are often overloaded with interpolations and extensions, and in places are confused and obscure. To carry out the design of the Editor, he has omitted a great deal of matter not bearing directly upon the theme of
the particular Scripture, and has interpreted occasionally where it seemed necessary and advisable, in order to provide an easier and more inspiring reading. The need for this course will become apparent to every earnest minded disciple.
In these days when Western civilization and culture is buffeted as never before by foreboding waves of materialism and selfish aggrandisement both individual and national, Buddhism seems to hold out teachings of highest promise. For two thousand years Dhyana Buddhism has powerfully conditioned the cultural, ethical and spiritual life of the great Oriental nations. It well may be the salvation of Western civilization. Its rationality, its discipline, its emphasis on simplicity and sincerity, its thoughtfulness, its cheerful industry not for profit but for service, its love for all animate life, its restraint of desire in all its subtle forms, its actual foretastes of enlightenment and blissful peace, its patient acceptance of karma and rebirth, all mark it out as being competent to meet the problems of this excitement loving, materialistic, acquisitive and thoughtless age.
Its basic principle of an eternal process based on unchanging law and operating in eternal recurrence, leading to mind-control, to highest cognition, to purest conceptions of love and compassion, to ever clearing insight, to highest perfect wisdom, to the self-giving of Bodhisattvas, and Buddhas, to blissful peace, is worthy of confidence; and its Noble Path worthy of
The theme of this Buddhist Bible is designed to show the unreality of all conceptions of a personal ego. Its purpose is to awaken faith in Buddhahood as being one’s true self-nature; to kindle aspiration to realize one’s true Buddha-nature; to energize effort to follow the Noble Path, to become Buddha. The true response to the appeal of this Buddhist Bible is not in outward activities, but in self-yielding, becoming a clear channel for Buddhahood's indrawing compassion, that all sentient beings may become emancipated, enlightened and brought to Buddhahood. (Goddard, preface, v–viii)
This thesis explores the development of an important Indian Buddhist scripture. the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra, and the tradition of exegesis and practice based upon it. It consists of an edition and translation of the first four chapters of the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra, as well as a translation of the corresponding portion of Tsongkhapa's Total Illumination of the Hidden Meaning, a Tibetan commentary on this scripture. These texts are contextualized via efforts to define "Tantric Buddhism" as it is understood by the tradition itself, and via explorations of both the intellectual and socio-historical contexts within which Tantric Buddhism developed, and the ways in which different subtraditions within it were elaborated and categorized.
It is argued that a common element of Tantric traditions is their resistance to the hegemonic ideology of caste. An exploration of this ideology and Buddhist resistance to it is undertaken. Tantric discourse was deployed as a form of resistance against caste ideology, but also constituted a counter ideology, which centered around the figure of the guru as a nexus of power and authority, and articulated in the model of the maṇḍala.
Chinese Buddhist thought. Unlike other more technical expositions of Buddhist teachings, Inquiry into the Origin of Humanity (Yuan Jen lun) does not presuppose a detailed knowledge of Buddhist doctrine. In a brief and accessible fashion, it presents a systematic overview of the major teachings within Chinese Buddhism. The organizational framework used by Tsung-mi, moreover, represents one of the primary methods devised by Chinese Buddhists to organize and make sense of the diverse body of teachings they received from India. Finally, Tsung-mi's essay is especially noteworthy in that it sheds light on the interaction of Buddhism with the
indigenous intellectual and religious traditions of Confucianism and Taoism. Peter N. Gregory's commentary, which follows a running translation of the work, will help bridge the temporal and cultural gap separating contemporary Western readers from the text's intended medieval Chinese audience. (Source: back cover)The book shows that Buddhist thinkers were driven, when theorizing about Buddha, by a basic intuition that Buddha must be maximally perfect, and that pursuing the implications of this intuition led them into some conceptual dilemmas that show considerable similarity to some of those treated by western theists. The Indian Buddhist tradition of thought about these matters is presented here as thoroughly systematic, analytical, and doctrinal.
The book's analysis is based almost entirely upon original sources in their original languages. All extracts discussed are translated into English and the book is accessible to nonspecialists, while still treating material that has not been much discussed by western scholars.
(Source: back cover)Unlike the recluses and eccentrics that have so often attracted Western readers of Buddhism, Ryogen was a consummate politician and builder. Because he lost his major monastic sponsor at an early age, he was forced to find ways to advance his career with little support. His activities reveal much about the path to success for monks during the tenth century. Skill in debate, the performance of Esoteric Buddhist ritual, and strategic alliances with powerful lay and monastic figures were important to his advance. In 966 Ryogen was appointed head of the Tendai School and served until his death nineteen years later. He has been vilified at times for his loyalty to his own faction within Tendai at the expense of other groups. Careful analysis of the political and social factors behind his attitudes, however, places his activities in their appropriate context.
The study concludes with a discussion of the ordinations and roles of nuns during the early Heian period. An examination of Ryogen's close relation with his mother helps define the ambiguities of a school that prohibited women from the precincts of its temple yet performed rituals to insure safe childbirth and frequently attracted their patronage. A number of primary sources are translated in the appendices. (Source: University of Hawai'i Press)
As Chögyam Trungpa writes in his foreword: "It is in the flow of karma that this book materialized in 1959 on the very eve of the destruction of the spiritual land of Tibet. Professor Guenther was instrumental in making available the only commentary and guide in English to the bodhisattva tradition of Tibet, Japan, and China. The book remains the classic text of all Buddhists."
sGam.po.pa, who lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, was the organizer of the Kagyü order of Tibetan Buddhism.
Herbert V. Guenther is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan.
(Source: back cover)Volume 32
This treatise, The Awakening of Faith, sometimes known by the longer title of The Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana, presents a concise synopsis of both the theoretical and practical aspects of the central ideas of Mahāyāna Buddhism, and has therefore been widely read as an introduction to this branch. A short work, it remains extremely important in the history of Buddhism, having exerted influence in China and Japan on the schools of Hua-yen (Jp. Kegon), T'ien-t'ai (Jp. Tendai), Chan/Zen, Pure Land (Ch. Jìngtǔzōng; Jp. Jōdo Bukkyō), Chên-yen (Jp. Shingon), and more.
However, many questions remain concerning the author and place of composition, including whether it was composed in India or China, and whether the attributive author Aśvaghoṣa lived before or after Nāgārjuna.
Source Skt. *Mahāyānaśraddhotpāda-śāstra, attributed to Aśvaghoṣa. Brought into the Chinese by Paramārtha as Dasheng qixin lun (大乘起信論). 1 fascicle.
Editor’s Note: This is a reprint of the sutra as translated by the late Dr. Yoshito S. Hakeda and originally published by Columbia University Press. This reprint edition retains Dr. Hakeda's chapter and subdivision headings and his commentaries, which are set in italicized paragraphs within the text itself. (Source: BDK America)The work is a comprehensive summary of the essentials of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the product of a mind extraordinarily apt at synthesis. It begins with an examination of the nature of the Absolute or enlightenment and of the phenomenal world or nonenlightenment and discusses the relationships that exist between them; from there, it passes on to the question of how man may transcend his finite state and
participate in the life of the infinite while still remaining in the midst of the phenomenal order; it concludes with a discussion of particular practices and techniques that will aid the believer in the awakening and growth of his faith. In spite of its deep concern with philosophical concepts and definitions, therefore, it is essentially a religious work, a map drawn by a man of unshakable faith, which will guide the believer to the peak of understanding. But the map and the peak are only provisional symbols, skillful and expedient ways employed to bring men to enlightenment. The text and all the arguments in it exist not for their own sake but for the sake of this objective alone. The treatise is, indeed, a true classic of Mahāyāna Buddhism. (Hakeda, introduction, 1–2)
The original text, beautifully translated and introduced by Sarah Harding, is further brought to life by an in-depth commentary by the contemporary master Thrangu Rinpoche. Key Tibetan Buddhist fundamentals are quickly made clear, so that the reader may confidently enter into tantra’s oft-misunderstood “creation” and “completion” stages.
In the creation stage, practitioners visualize themselves in the form of buddhas and other enlightened beings in order to break down their ordinary concepts of themselves and the world around them. This meditation practice prepares the mind for engaging in the completion stage, where one has a direct encounter with the ultimate nature of mind and reality. (Source: Wisdom Publications) By down-playing the late commentorial traditions, the author attempts a general reappraisal of the epistemological and ontological writings of Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga and Vasubandhu. He concludes that the overlap in all areas of doctrine is significant, but particularly with respect to the teachings on the levels of truth, the enlightened and unenlightened states, the status of language and the nature of reality
See especially chapter 10, Bhavaṅga and the Brightly Shining Mind.
In a careful analysis of the historical and rhetorical basis of the literature, Steven Heine demonstrates that the Mu version of the case, preferred by advocates of the key-phrase approach, does not by any means constitute the final word concerning the meaning and significance of the Mu Koan. He shows that another canonical version, which gives both "Yes" and "No" responses, must be taken into account. Like Cats and Dogs offers critical insight and a new theoretical perspective on "the koan of koans." (Source: Oxford University Press)
The second dharmachakra, also referred to as the 'middle turning' or the 'dharmachakra of no-characteristics', demonstrated the illusory nature of everything and placed the teachings of the first dharmachakra in a much less concrete perspective; suffering was no longer something to be doted with existential reality and the fundamental statements of voidness (śūnyatā) - 'form not existing', 'sound not existing' etc. - were postulated to show the void nature of everything. In the third dharmachakra the 'true nature' of everything was explained - not just voidness, in the sense of complete absence or
negation, but a void nature, resplendent with all qualities, naturally present, which is the essence of all beings; their buddha-nature. Since this is the very nature of all beings then by working on it anyone of them can reveal the enlightened wisdom that is inherent to that
nature.
The subject matter of these three dharmachakras was commented upon and cross-referenced in the many treatises (śāstra) composed by
buddhist scholars after the Buddha's parinirvāṇa. Maitreya composed five encyclopaedic śāstra of which this Mahāyāna Uttara Tantra Śāstra is one. Its teachings are those of the third dharmachakra. Many commentaries have been written for Maitreya's text, transmitted into
This new and refreshingly accessible translation is accompanied by a commentary based on the explanations of the most learned contemporary masters of the Kagy Tradition. It provides an introduction for those new to buddha nature as well as a major and essential reference work, to which one can return again and again for inspiration and guidance.
(Source: back cover)In particular she does this with reference to the only surviving Indian commentary on the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, the Ratnagotravibhaga. This text addresses itself directly to the issue of how to relate the doctrine of emptiness (the illusory nature of the world) to that of the truly existing, changeless Absolute (the Buddha Nature).
This is the first work by a Western writer to present an analysis of the Shentong tradition based on previously untranslated sources. The Shentong view rests on meditative experience that is inaccessible to the conceptualizing mind. It is deeply rooted in the sutra tradition of Indian Buddhism and is central to an understanding of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions and Tantric practice among the Kagyupas and Nyingmapas.
(Source: SUNY Press)Through a close examination on three Sanskrit compounds — i.e., tathāgatanairātmyagarbha, tathāgatagarbhālayavijñāna and pariniṣpannasvabhāvas tathāgatagarbhahṛdayam — in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, this thesis will demonstrate how the tathāgatagarbha thought in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra is significantly enriched by Yogācāric influence.
First, in regard to tathāgata-nairātmya-garbha, a doctrinal review of the term "nairātmya" is necessary, because its definition differs according to different traditions. In primitive Buddhism, the term "nairātmya" is a synonym of the term "anātman" (non-existence of a substantial self), which indicates that in the realm of suffering and the impermanence of life phenomena that arise according to the principle of co-dependent
origination/ pratītyasamutpāda, no eternal and dependent ātman can be found. According to
the Madhyamaka School, the term "nairātmya" is a synonym of the term "niḥsvabhāva" (no
Secondly, in regard to tathāgatagarbhālayavijñāna, a doctrinal development is promoted owing to the identification of tathāgatagarbha with ālayavijñāna, which according to the Yogācāra School is also named "sarvabīljavijñāna" (cognition as the seed of everything). This latter synonym references its function of bringing forth all beings just as a giant tree originates from a seed. As a result of its identification with the ālayavijñāna, the tathāgatagarbha is said to be endowed with the function of bringing forth all forms of existence and thus becomes the "producing cause" of all. This interpretation is not seen in earlier scriptures wherein the tathāgatagarbha is described simply as a static substance supporting all beings.
Thirdly, in regard to pariniṣpannasvabhāvastathāgata-garbhahṛdayam, the implication of the tathāgatagarbha was expanded substantially by declaring that pariniṣpannasvabhāva is the very essence of tathāgatagarbha. The term "pariniṣpannasvabhāva" according to some important Yogācāra texts is defined as tathatā (ultimate realm of suchness). The combining of pariniṣpannasvabhāva with tathāgatagarbha that had formerly focused on the subjective potential of realizing wisdom, shifts the doctrinal emphasis toward the objective realm of realized perfection.
This thesis reveals that, having assimilated the Yogācāric doctrine of dharmanairātmya, ālayavijñāna and pariniṣpannasvabhāva, the tathāgatagarbha thinking in Laṅkāvatārasūtra presents the comprehensive and distinctive features in comparison to the scriptures that preceded it.
I focus particularly on Yinshun's text A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha, for it serves as a concise statement of his interpretation of the tathāgatagarbha and its relationship to emptiness. In this text, Yinshun continually asserts the doctrine of emptiness as the definitive expression of Buddhist truth and relegates the tathāgatagarbha to the category of expedient means. He does this by examining the development of the tathāgatagarbha emphasizing particularly its evolution within pre-Mahāyāna and Mahāyāna textual sources said to have had their genesis in India such as the Āgamas, the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras and the Ratnagotravibhāga. For Yinshun, to regard the tathāgatagarbha as the ultimate truth rather than as an expedient means can only result in misguided practice and confusion about how to attain enlightenment.
I conclude by asking a number of general questions about Yinshun's thought and its relationship to the early to mid-twentieth century intellectual milieu in China. I also inquire about how Yinshun's ideas have contributed to the development of contemporary Chinese Buddhist movements flourishing in Taiwan today. (Source: Worldcat Library Materials Online)
Contemporary scholars have widely mis-understood the Buddhist Centrist teaching of emptiness, or selflessness, as either a form of nihilism or a radical skepticism. Yet Buddhist philosophers from Nāgārjuna on have shown that the negation of intrinsic reality affirms the supreme value of relative realities if accurately understood. Gyaltsap Darma Rinchen, in his Supercommentary, elucidates a highly positive theory of the “buddha-nature,” showing how the wisdom of emptiness empowers the compassionate life of the enlightened, as it is touched by its oneness with the truth body of all buddhas. With his clear study of Gyaltsap’s insight and his original English translation, Bo Jiang, Ph.D. completes his historic project of studying and presenting these works from Sanskrit and Tibetan both in Chinese and, now, English translations, in linked publications.
This doctoral dissertation studies the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra), the only surviving Indian Buddhist treatise on the Buddha-essence doctrine, by way of one of its major Tibetan commentaries, rGyal-tshab Dar-ma-rin-chen (1364-1432)'s Theg pa chen po rGyud bla ma'i ṭīkā. This project consists of three parts: a special edition of the first chapter of the Theg pa chen po rGyud bia ma'i ṭīkā, an English translation of the selected sections of that commentary, and a comparative analysis which follows six distinct lines of inquiry.
The six lines are: rGyal-tshab's doctrinal classification of the text; his critiques of absolutism, skepticism, and quietism in connection with diverse interpretations of the Buddha-essence doctrine in Tibetan traditions as well as a tentative comparison with critiques of the theory of "Original-enlightenment" in modern Chinese Buddhism; his analysis of the title of Tibetan version and the structure of the text; rGyal-tshab's
This comparative approach will provide a broader synthetic understanding of the role that Buddha-essence played as a doctrinal genre in Tibetan intellectual history.
Notes
1. Bull. LSOS, VIII, pp. 77-89. My reconstruction was only partially successful, the transliteration being imperfect and leaving much to guesswork.
2. The full name is shown by the MSS. as well as by the Tibetan and Chinese translations to be Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra; the second part is merely descriptive of the scope of the work, and the first, being the proper title, is used throughout hereafter in place of the hitherto accepted Uttaratantra.
The tathāgatagarbha doctrine of Mahāyāna Buddhism affirms the existence of some permanent, significant content of sentient beings that is of the same character as a Buddha. While this alone was an important innovation within Buddhist thought, some of its authors ventured further to deem this significant content an ātman: a ‘self’, in apparent contradiction to the central Buddhist teaching of the absence of self (anātman) in the constitution of all beings.
The aims of this thesis are two. Firstly, to examine usage of the term ātman in the Indian tathāgatagarbha sources which develop use of this expression. This entails a close reading of relevant sources (primarily Mahāyāna sūtra literature), and attention to how this term is used in the context of each. These sources present different perspectives on the tathāgatagarbha and its designation as a self; this study aims to examine significant differences between, and similarities across, these texts and their respective doctrines.
The second aim is to attempt an account of why authors of these texts ventured to designate the tathāgatagarbha with the term ātman, especially when some of our sources suggest that this innovation received some opposition, while others deem it in requirement of strong qualification, or to be simply inappropriate. It is not my objective to account for whether or not the tathāgatagarbha is or is not implicitly what we may deem ‘a self’ on the terms of Buddhist tradition; rather, I am concerned with the manner in which this expression itself was adopted, and – in light of clear difficulties raised by it – what may have motivated those authors responsible.
I argue not only that we can trace the development of this designation across the tathāgatagarbha literature, but also that those authors responsible for its earliest usage adopted an attitude towards non-Buddhist discourses on the self that requires special attention. This, I believe, had its roots in an account of the Buddha and his influence that advances our understanding of one tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhology, and its ambition to affirm its superiority over other Indian religious traditions. (Source Accessed October 29, 2019)
Part I, the historical and doctrinal background, consists of six chapters: Chapter 1 describes the authorship and the history of the transmission of the RGV in India, using Indian and Tibetan materials. Chapter 2 studies six different Tibetan translations of the RGV, clarifying how the RGV was transmitted from India to Tibet. Chapter 3 outlines rNgog's life and writings. Chapter 4 presents rNgog's philosophical positions taught in his RGV commentary. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the impact of his interpretations on the later Tibetan doctrinal developments, and reactions to them. Part II is a critical edition of rNgog-lo's RGV commentary, Theg chen rgyud bla ma'i don bsdus pa (1a-46a5 and 65a5-66a4), preceded by an explanation of textual materials and an outline of the whole text. Part III presents an annotated translation of that commentary.
Appendix A presents a diplomatic edition of rNgog-lo's “topical outline” of the RGV, his other work related to the RGV (discovered at Kharakhoto and preserved in the British Library). Appendix B presents a critical edition of a versified summary of the RGV in Sanskrit, the Mahāyānottaratantraśāstropadeśa composed by the Kashmiri Paṇḍita Sajjana, a teacher of rNgog-lo. Appendix C provides another Sanskrit commentary on the RGV, Vairocanarakṣita's Mahāyanottaratantraṭippaṇī, while appendix D presents translations of relevant passages from the Sākārasiddhi and Sākarasaṃgraha of Jñānaśrīmitra. Appendix E presents rNgog-lo's identification of the passages of the RGVV that refer to the Nidānaparivarta (“introductory chapter”) of the Dhāraṇīśvararājasūtra, as well as a topical outline of this chapter of the sūtra. Appendix F investigates the dating of Blo-gros-mtshungs-med, who among later Tibetans criticized rNgog-lo's position most severely. Appendix G presents a list of commentaries on the RGV. Appendix H lists
records of the RGV's transmission lineage from gsan yigs. (Kano, introduction, 12-13)Volume Volume 31
A Mahayana Demonstration on the Theme of Action
Despite its brevity, A Mahayana Demonstration on the Theme of Action (Karmasiddhi-prakaraṇa), attributed to Vasubandhu and translated into Chinese by the scholar-monk Xuanzang, is a densely packed philosophical argumentation on the correct interpretation of scriptural references about the three kinds of actions of body, speech, and mind. The text reflects Yogācāra philosophy, including discussion of the storehouse consciousness (ālayavijñāna).
Source
Skt. Karmasiddhiprakaraṇa, translated by Xuanzang into the Chinese as Dasheng chengye lun (大乘成業論). 1 fascicle.
Translator(s): John P. Keenan
Taishō 1858 Volume Volume 45
Essays of Sengzhao
Sengzhao’s Essays (Zhao lun) comprise an introductory chapter, four essays, and an exchange of letters. The work can be seen as an extended meditation on sagehood, a perennial theme in Chinese religio-philosophical thought. These writings offer an original response to a set of concerns unique to Sengzhao, his community, and his times, and are an important voice in the religious speculation of early medieval China. Includes Zongmi’s annotations.
Source
Ch. Zhao lun (肇論).1 fascicle.
Translator(s): Rafal Felbur
Taishō 1886 Volume Volume 45
Treatise on the Origin of Humanity
The Treatise on the Origin of Humanity (Yuanren lun) by the Huayan patriarch Zongmi classifies various teachings of Buddhism on a scale of relative profundity, and specifically critiques the weaknesses of the teachings of Confucianism and Daoism, which he regards as inferior to Buddhism. This work formed the basis for some of the arguments in later East Asian history on the relationship of the three teachings.
Source
Ch. Yuanren lun (原人論). 1 fascicle.
Translator(s): Jan Yün-hua
(Source: BDK America)Volume 16
The basic sūtra of the Faxiang School, The Scripture on the Explication of Underlying Meaning expounds the thought of the Yogācāra or Mind-Only School (Vijñānavāda), stating that all phenomena are manifestations of the mind. It belongs to the middle period of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism and is considered to have been composed at the start of the fourth century A.D. It is divided into eight chapters, and gives a detailed exposition of the philosophy of the Yogācāra School. Judging from the fact that the greater part of this sūtra is quoted in the Yogācārabhūmi (Taishō 53), and that numerous citations from it are to be found in such works as the Mahāyānasaṃgraha (Taishō 57) and Jō-yui-shiki-ron (Taishō 54), it is clear that it exerted considerable influence in later times.
Source
(Source: BDK America)
I begin with showing two contrary interpretations of Paramârtha's notion of jiexing 解性. The traditional interpretation glosses jiexing in terms of "original awakening" (benjue 本覺) in the Awakening of Faith and hence betrays its strong tie to that text. In contrast, a contrary interpretation of jiexing is preserved in a Dunhuang fragment Taishō No. 2805 (henceforth abbreviated as T2805).
The crucial part of this dissertation consists in demonstrating that T2805 and the Awakening of Faith represent two competing lineages of the interpreters of Paramârtha. The first clue is that modern scholars have voiced objection to the traditional attribution of the Awakening of Faith to Paramârtha. In addition, I discovered that striking similarities exist between T2805 and Paramârtha's corpus with respect to terminology, style of phrasing, and doctrine. I further draw attention to the historical testimonies about two different doctrinal views held by Paramârtha's interpreters. Therefore, I argue that there were two lineages in the name of Paramârtha's disciples around 590 CE: the indirect lineage interpreted Paramârtha through the lens of the Awakening of Faith; and the direct lineage—represented by T2805—preserved Paramârtha's original teachings but died out prematurely. Later Chinese Buddhist tradition mistakenly regards the indirect lineage as Paramârtha's true heir and attributes the Awakening of Faith to Paramârtha.
This implies that Paramârtha may have agreed with Xuanzang 2T5c (600–664) much more than scholars used to assume. For example, Xuanzang's characterization of the notion of "aboriginal uncontaminated seeds" looks very similar to how Paramârtha depicts jiexing. It also implies that we should distinguish the strong sense of the notion of "tathāgatagarbha" in the Awakening of Faith from its weak sense. The fact that even Vasubandhu endorses the weak sense of "tathāgatagarbha" strongly challenges the received wisdom that Yogâcāra and Tathāgatagarbha were two distinct and antagonistic trends of thought in India.
Engaging with the digitalized Chinese Buddhist canon, Ching Keng draws on clues from a long-lost Dunhuang fragment [T2805] and considers its striking similarities with Paramārtha's corpus with respect to terminology, style of phrasing, and doctrines. In this cutting-edge interpretation of the concept of jiexing, Keng demystifies the image of Paramārtha and makes the case that the fragment holds the key to recover his original teachings. (Source: H-Net)
The tathāgatagarbha is an intrinsically luminous consciousness naturally inscribed with the complete knowledge of the Buddha along with infinite Buddha-virtues and the potential to attain them. Studies in the past have focused on its potential aspect and negated it as an ontological entity. In this dissertation I examine it as a true self of sentient beings arguing that being beginningless, unborn, unconditioned, eternally unchanging, enduring and imperishable, it qualifies as true self. Also, the Mahāyāna-Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra unhesitatingly acknowledges it as true self, and its features conform to the definition of the true self of this sūtra and of Bhāvaviveka. I find ample support for its interpretation as true self in the sūtras on this doctrine. Besides, its features correspond with the features of the Brahmanic, Sāṅkhya and Jaina true selves. The Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine is recognized as a provisional teaching. The centrality of the doctrines of śūnyatā, tathatā, darmadhātu, dharmakāya and nirvāṇa suggest that it is truly Mahāyāna in spirit. According to the Ratnagotravibhāga, without realizing the emptiness of own being, nirvāṇa is not attained. This “Ultimate Doctrine”, it adds, is taught to remove the five defects. The defects, I find, are connected with not knowing emptiness or understanding the dharmakāya of the Tathāgata nihilistically. As a corrective to the nihilistic understanding of the Mahāyāna Doctrine, it qualifies as an ultimate teaching. I study the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine from the following perspectives: the tathāgatagarbha as true self; the all-pervading, undifferentiated Essence of Buddhahood as Cosmic Self; and the concept of liberation. I also compare this doctrine to the doctrines of the above-mentioned three traditions and study their concepts of true self, the concepts of Cosmic Self of the Brahmanic and Early Sāṅkhya doctrines; and the concepts of liberation of these three doctrines. I follow the trajectory of thought of the Ratnagotravibhāga and the Tathāgatagarbha group of texts.
Rinpoche gave these teachings on the Uttaratantra at the Centre d’Etudes de Chanteloube in Dordogne, France during the summers of 2003 and 2004, after completing a four-year teaching cycle on Chandrakirti’s Madhyamakavatara. He has often emphasised the value of a grounding in the Madhyamika or ‘Middle Way’ philosophy of emptiness, as without this foundation beginners can easily misunderstand Buddha’s teaching that all sentient beings have buddhanature. For example, many of us who have grown up in a Western cultural context can easily confuse buddhanature with ideas like God or a personal soul or essence. These teachings allow us to dispel these kinds of misunderstanding. And despite their very different presentations, both the Madhyamika and Uttaratantra are teachings on the buddhist view of emptiness. As Rinpoche says, “You could say that when Nagarjuna explains the Prajñaparamita, he concentrates more on its ‘empty’ aspect (“form is emptiness” in the Heart Sutra), whereas when Maitreya explains the same thing, he concentrates more on the ‘ness’ aspect (emptiness is form).” In showing us how emptiness and buddhanature are different ways of talking about the same thing, this text gives us the grounding we need to understand buddhanature.
In this way, the Uttaratantra gives us another way to understand the Four Seals that comprise the buddhist view, which Rinpoche teaches in his book “What Makes You Not a Buddhist.” It also offers a way to make sense of what modern physics has discovered about the magically “full” quality of “empty” space (e.g. vacuum particles and quantum optics). But like all buddhist philosophy, it is not intended simply to provoke an academic discussion that we leave behind as we return to our everyday lives. It is taught as a path for us to attain liberation. For practitioners, the Uttaratantra clearly explains what it means to accumulate merit and purify defilements, and it offers a safety net to protect our path from falling into all-too-common eternalist or nihilist extremes. It also tackles many of the basic questions that practitioners ask as they consider the nature of the path, questions like: What is the ultimate destination of this path? Who is this person travelling on the path? What are the defilements that are eliminated on the path? What is experience of enlightenment like? Rinpoche answers these questions and many others in this commentary on the Uttaratantra-Shastra. (Source: Siddhartha's Intent)The Kālacakra, or “wheel of time,” tantra likely entered Indian Mahayana Buddhism around the tenth century. In expounding the root tantra, the Indian master Puṇḍarīka, one of the legendary Kalkī kings of the land of Shambhala, wrote his influential Stainless Light. Ornament of Stainless Light is an authoritative Tibetan exposition of this important text, composed in the fifteenth century by Khedrup Norsang Gyatso, tutor to the Second Dalai Lama.
One of the central projects of Kālacakra literature is a detailed correlation between the human body and the external universe. In working out this complex correspondence, the Kālacakra texts present an amazingly detailed theory of cosmology and astronomy, especially about the movements of the various celestial bodies. The Kālacakra tantra is also a highly complex system of Buddhist theory and practice that employs vital bodily energies, deep meditative mental states, and a penetrative focus on subtle points within the body’s key energy conduits known as channels. Ornament of Stainless Light addresses all these topics, elaborating on the external universe, the inner world of the individual, the Kālacakra initiation rites, and the tantric stages of generation and completion, all in a highly readable English translation. (Source: Wisdom Publications)This dissertation provides a comprehensive study and complete translation of Tao-sheng's Commentary on the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra (CSPS). This document occupies an important place in Chinese Buddhist literature. Its significance in the study of Chinese Buddhism can be described in two ways. Firstly, the CSPS was the first commentary ever written on the Lotus Sūtra, which was to become a scripture of fundamental importance on the Far Eastern Buddhist scene, especially for the later Chinese Buddhist schools. Furthermore, it was the first commentary on any Buddhist scripture that was written in Chinese and structured in fully developed commentarial form. The CSPS set a pattern in many ways for later Buddhists to follow in terms of both structure and ideology.
Secondly, the CSPS is a rich source of Tao-sheng's seminal ideas. Tao-sheng (ca. 360-434) has been regarded, both in his time and subsequently, as a uniquely creative and prophetic thinker. The CSPS, the only writing of Tao-sheng preserved in complete form, is essential to any study of Tao-sheng's own original thought. Most of his theses and arguments, which were controversial in his day, were originally propounded in his other writings, but the commentary may provide at least the general structure of Tao-sheng's thought.
The thesis is composed of two main portions: "Study" (Part I-IV) and "Translation" (Part V). Part I sets out and clarifies the problems involved in the study of Tao-sheng, the aims and method of the present study. Part II as the introductory step to the main task involving the CSPS extensively examines Tao-sheng as a whole as reflected in other sources, in terms of his background, historical and biographical, his works, his doctrines, and his influence. Part III is devoted to a critical examination of the CSPS proper. Here I undertake an in-depth analysis in several different ways in respect with both form and content, or language and ideology. The analysis focuses on how Tao-sheng renders, successfully or otherwise, the ancient Indian system of religious thought into the current Chinese language, which was already laden with indigenous philosophical connotations. Here I also trace and reconstruct Tao-sheng's thought incorporated in the commentary in accordance with his distinct themes. Part IV reviews the findings and significance of the study conducted. In brief, the thesis is the first full-scale study of Tao-sheng and the commentary.
Finally, a complete translation of the text is presented along with detailed annotations including the classical sources of Chinese philosophical terms used and numerous corruptions of the text. In light of the significance of Tao-sheng and the CSPS, the translation answers the need for a complete translation of the text into a modern language and will serve as a basis for further study.
In addition, she refutes the accusations that the idea of Buddha nature introduces a crypto-Atman into Buddhist thought, and that it represents a form of monism akin to the Brahmanism of the Upanisads. In doing this, King defends Buddha nature in terms of purely Buddhist philosophical principles. Finally, the author engages the Buddha nature concept in dialogue with Western philosophy by asking what it teaches us about what a human being, or person, is. (Source: back cover)
i. The Wish-fulfilling Meru: A Discourse Explaining the Origination of Madhyamaka (dBu-ma'i byung-tshul rnam-par bshad-pa'i gtam yid-bzhin lhun-po),
ii. Drop of Nectar of Definitive Meaning: Entering the Gate to the Essential Points of the Two Truth[s] (bDen-pa gnyis-kyi gnas-la 'jug-pa nges-don bdud-rtsi thigs-pa), and
iii. Great Ship of Discrimination that Sails into the Ocean of Definitive Meaning: A Treatise Differentiating the Tenets of Prāsaṅgika and Svātantrika Madhyamaka (sBu-ma thal-rang gi grub-mtha'i rnam-par dbye-ba'i bstan-bcos nges-don gyi rgya-mtshor 'jug-pa'i rnam-dpyod kyi gru-chen).
The Wish-fulfilling Meru attempts in presenting in a lucid and concise way the Madhyamaka view including the Tantrik-madhyamaka, and its spread in India and Tibet. Drop of Definitive Meaning, through its brief yet succinct explanation guides us in entering the spheres of definitive meaning by means of understanding the two truth[s]—the conventional truth and the ultimate truth. Great Ship of Discrimination that sails into the Ocean of Definitive Meaning extensively explains the divergence of Madhyamaka into Svātantrika and Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka, their philosophical views, and their interpretation of various concepts. In all, this anthology gives a general presentation of Madhyamaka schools and their views according to the great Sakyapa master. (Source: back cover)More specifically, this study will explore the relationship between the theory and practice of the two truths and the Buddha-nature. In these two significant components of Chi-tsang's thought, one can see the synthesis of the Prajñāpāramitā doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā) and the Buddha-nature theory of "not-empty" (aśūnya). In combining these two major doctrinal trends of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Chi-tsang's thought is innovative and constitutes an important phase in Chinese intellectual history. (Koseki, introduction, 1)
Notes
- Biographical data on Chi-tsang can be found in the Hsü Kao-seng-chuan (T5O, 513c-515a). The material selected by Tao-hsüan explains that Chi-tsang was a third generation Chinese whose ancestors originally came from Parthia {An-hsi). Passing through what is now North Vietnam, his family eventually settled in Chin-ling {Nanching), where Chi-tsang was born. According to the biography, Chi-tsang's countenance was Central Asian, but his speech was Chinese, and he apparently never forgot his ethnic background. Many of his works are often signed, "Hu Chi-tsang," again indicating his Central Asian origins. Chi-tsang came from a family of Buddhists; his father was also a monk who took the name, Tao-liang. Two points in the biography are rather hazy. First, the biography states that Chi-tsang became a novice under Fa-lang (507–581) when he was seven. Material on Fa-lang indicates that he left Mt. She, the center of San-lun studies in the south (Chiang-nan), in 558 to reside at the Hsing-huang ssu in Chien-k'ang (Nanching). At that time, Chi-tsang was ten or eleven. Second, the biography also notes contact with Paramārtha, the Tripiṭaka-master, who arrived in China in 546. According to Kanakura Enshō, Paramārtha entered Chin-ling in 548 and immediately left the following year. Chi-tsang may have received his name from Paramārtha, but during Paramārtha's brief stay in Chin-ling, Chi-tsang_probably had not made his appearance in the world. See Kanakura Enshō, Sanron Gengi (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1941), pp. 191–92. In addition to the primary material, see, also, Ōchō Enichi, "Eon to Kichizō," Bukkyō Shisō-shi Ronshū (Tokyo: Daizō Shuppansha, 1964), pp. 433–450; Hirai Shunei, Chūgoku Hannya Shisō-shi Kenkyū (Tokyo: Shunjū-sha, 1976), pp. 346–50. For a discussion of the three Mādhyamika texts (Sanlun), translated by Kumārajīva (Middle Treatise, Twelve Topic Treatise, and the Hundred Treatise by Āryadeva), see Richard Robinson, Early Mādhyamika in India and China (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1967), pp. 28–39.
- In addition to these six essays, two additional essays have been added, a content analysis of sūtras and śāstras. The material in these sections is taken from Chi-tsang's other work, the Sanlun-hsüan-i. The essay on the two truths is similar in content to an independent work on the two truths, the Erh-t_i-i. Material on ekayāna is also similar to his large work on the Lotus Sūtra, the Fa-hua-hsüan-lun. The essay on the "Two Knowledges" draws much of its material from a large commentary on the Vimalakīrti-sūtra, the Ching-ming~hsüan-lun. Finally, the essays on Buddha-nature and nirvāṇa are independent works and do not overlap with his other writings. The origins of the essay on the "Eight Negations" is not clear. Ui Hakuju, for example, believes that this essay was not written by Chi-tsang. Early Sanron scholars such as Chinkai also question the authenticity of this essay (cf. Daijo genron mondō, T70, 572c- 573a). Whether Chi-tsang actually wrote this essay still remains a question, and the most common answer given is that this essay was written by Chi-tsang's contemporary, Chün-cheng. Chün-cheng is the author of another Sui Sanlun work, the Ta-ch'eng-ssu-lun-hsüan-i. Despite the problem of authorship, Hirai believes that the Hsüan-lun as a whole is a work written by Chi-tsang (or compiled by a disciple). The content of the essays is consistent with Chi-tsang's other works, and all the Japanese catalogs and commentators agree that it is a work written by the "Great Master of Chia-hsiang ssu," Chi-tsang's posthumous title. Ui also noted that the text was known as the Ta-ch'eng-hsüan-i or the Ta-ch'eng-hsüan-chang; he also referred to a twenty chüan version of the text, but did not give his source. Again, the Japanese catalogs and commentators all agree that the text was written in five chüan. See Ui Hakuju, "Daijo genron kaidai," Kokuyaku Issaikyō, Shoshubu I (Tokyo: Daitō Shuppansha, 1965), pp. 67–73. See, also, Hirai Chūgoku Hannya, pp. 356; 378.
- The Sanskrit for Buddha-nature (buddha-dhātu or buddha-gotra) follows Takasaki Jikidō, Nyoraizo Shisō no Kenkyū (Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1974), p. 11. See, also, his article, "Nyoraizō-Busshō shisō," Kōza Bukkyō Shisō, vol. 3 (Tokyo: Risōsha, 1975), pp. 101–133. Further, see Ogawa Ichijō, Nyoraizo-Busshō no Kenkyū (Kyoto: Buneidō, 1974), pp. 62–66.
Second only to the famous Rin chen bzang po (958–1055) in receiving the title of a "Great Translator" (lo chen) during the period of the "Later Propagation" (phyi dar) of Buddhism in Tibet, rNgog lo tsā ba Blo ldan shes rab (or rNgog lo) was one of the most influential figures in the establishment of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism. After having devoted seventeen years of his life to the study of Sanskrit under scholars in Kashmir, India and Nepal, he became renowned for his more than fifty painstaking translations and revisions of Buddhist scriptures. Apart from being the foremost Tibetan translator of works on Buddhist logic and epistemology (Pramāṇa), rNgog lo’s activities as a commentator and teacher are regarded as fundamental for the later development of this field of learning in Tibet, and his tradition came to be well-known in Tibetan literature as the "rNgog tradition" (rngog lugs). This book presents a detailed examination of rNgog lo's life based on the available Tibetan accounts, including his biography (rnam thar) written by Gro lung pa Blo gros 'byung gnas (fl. late 11th to 12th c.). Annotated translations of great parts from the latter work (one of the earliest surviving examples of the rnam thar genre, possibly unique regarding its complicated and elegant style) are included in the book. rNgog lo's oeuvre as a translator and writer is dealt with in detail, making the book an important source on this hitherto little studied scholar and his tradition. (Source Accessed July 24, 2020)
As for Kong-an, the subject matter employed here are all concerning Master Bodhidharma, the first Patriarch of Chinese Ch’an Buddhism and the 28th Patriarch of in India. These three Kong-ans are:
1. The Mind is Nowhere to be found
2. The Patriarch’s Quatrain for advanced practice
3. Bodhidharma’s Skin, Flesh, Bones, and Marrow
After reading these, you would have a pretty clear picture about Kong-an and how to make contemplation on it, as well as about the over-all quintessence of fountainhead of Ch’an Buddhism.
The second renowned genre of contemplation in Ch’an Buddhism is Hua-to. Hua-to is, as it were, a diminutive of Kong-an. Or to put it this way, Kong-an is a novel, a long story, while Hua-to is a novelette, a short story. But both of them are stories. By the same token, the Kong-an is a long contemplative material, containing a story with a complete plot––the beginning, the middle, and the denouement (ending)––for its body. Whereas the Hua-to would not have a plot; it consists only of a sentence, or a phrase. Therefore, in comparison with Kong-an, it is similar to a Kong-an in miniature, or a compressed Kong-an, for the general effect resulted in contemplating on Hua-to was supposed to be the same in contemplating on Kong-an. The instance of Hua-to scrutinized here is “Who is saying ‘Namo Amito-Fo’ (or 'Namo Amitabha Buddha')?”
The third genre of contemplation in Ch’an Buddhism is one based on the Text of the Sutras. And under this rubric, the one cited and examined here is just a very prestigious one, if not the most renowned; it is called “The Seven Inquiries to locate the Mind,” from The Surangama Sutra. With the knowledge and skills built up in learning to contemplate on the first two genres, the Kong-an and Hua-to, one would then be able to go on to learn and practice the contemplation of this genre. And having learned about the three genres of contemplation presented in this book, one would virtually have covered the most predominant contemplations in Ch’an Buddhism. (Source Accessed Mar 12, 2020)The second reason for my changing the original title of my dissertation, is that I felt obliged to change its scope. The vast literature on Tibetan Buddhist epistemology, which has become available during the last few years, necessitated such a curtailment. Especially the presently available Dga'-ldan-pa contributions by Rgyal-tshab-rje and Mkhas-grubrje, in particular, need to be properly assessed, and this takes time. Moreover, much but not all of the subsequent Sa-skya-pa literature in this area by Go-ram-pa and Gser-mdog Pan-chen must be read with the particular theories of these Dga'-ldan-pa philosophers in mind. To undertake such a comparative study cannot be done in a hurried fashion. Some references to the Dga'-ldan-pa contributions have, however, been made in the course of this paper on the basis of my original access to but a limited number of their writings. Nonetheless, a significant portion of my dissertation that deals with the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, has been included in the footnotes of the present paper where I was concerned with historical or bio-bibliographical details. (van der Kuijp, preface, vii)
Read more here . . .
Consolidating the intent of Buddha Shakyamuni’s teachings into a unified body of text books, it is the philosophical backbone of the living tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. This rich source book embodies the basics of Prajnaparamita and Madhyamika as well as the Abhidharma from both the Mahayana and Hinayana perspective. Every volume in this series includes the Tibetan text and the English translation on facing pages.
The student of The Gateway to Knowledge can begin to comprehend the meaning of the major works on Buddhist philosophy and of the traditional sciences. When you want to extract their meaning you need an “expert system,” a key. The Gateway to Knowledge is like that key, a magical key – it opens up the treasury of precious gemstones in the expansive collection of Buddhist scriptures. (Source: Rangjung Yeshe Publications)The author, Tsele Natsok Randröl, was born in the snowy land of Tibet. It was through study and reflection that he first unraveled the key points of everything that there is to know. Having brought forth realization through meditation training, he became known as a great pandita and siddha, a learned and accomplished master.
Among his various instructions, The Heart of the Matter is both concise and comprehensible. Not only does it contain all the vital points of the Buddha's words but, in particular, it lucidly and precisely covers the definitive meaning of the view, meditation, conduct and fruition, in their entirety, so that their practice can take effect and mature in our minds. (Source: The Heart of the Matter, introduction, 7–8)I considered that this explanation of the bardos would benefit everyone interested in the dharma. The words are clear and easy to understand, and lengthy scholarly expositions are not emphasized. This text, easy to comprehend and containing all the key points and very direct instructions, results from following the oral advice of a qualified master. Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
The author, Tsele Natsok Rangdröl, was renowned as one of the most learned and accomplished masters of seventeenth-century Tibet. His other books include Heart Lamp and Empowerment. (Source: Rangjung Yeshe Publications)towards revealing the complex historical development of Ch'an theory and practice both in China and Tibet.
The papers on China reveal Ch' an not as a single line of transmission from Bodhidharma, but as a complex of contending and even hostile factions. Furthermore, the view which sees Ch'an as the sinicization of Buddhism through Taoism is questioned through an examination of the Taoism that was actually prevalent during the establishment of Ch' an
in China.
The papers on Tibet take us to the heart of the controversies surrounding the origins of Buddhism in that country, based on exciting research into the
Tunhuang materials, the indigenous rDzogs-chen system, and the 'Sudden vs. Gradual Enlightenment' controversy.
Of particular note in this volume is the inclusion of several translations of papers by noted Japanese scholars who have led the way in this type of research,
However, historically, China did mysteriously seem to lose her sense of proportion in what may be regarded as her "medieval", or, better, Buddhist period, roughly from the fourth to the tenth centuries A.D. At that time, China showed she was capable of all the extravagance of the spirit that one, for better or for worse, still associates with the word "religious."
By the twelveth or thirteenth century, during the Sung period (960-1279 A.D.), China regained her sense of proportion and came down to earth once more. The Sung Neo-Confucian triumph was not simply due to the institutional strength of the literati alone, as has been so often argued. The same literati only a short while earlier embraced wholeheartedly the Buddhist mysteries. The Neo-Confucian triumph was due to new spiritual insights into the nature and destiny of man and the priorities of life. It is the Neo-Confucian polemics against the Buddhist that still cloud modern Chinese views of the Buddhist tradition. The anticlerical attitude of modern Western humanism introduced into China during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries does not help much to correct these long-cherished Neo-Confucian opinions. Even the more objective Sinologist still follow
Dr. Hu Shih's interpretation that Buddhism was ultimately an alien plague or anomaly that led China astray from her "predestined" humanism.1
In many studies on Chinese Buddhism, the emphasis has been put on the so-called "Sinicization" process and on the confrontation between Chinese and Indian "essences." For example, emphasis has been placed on how "otherworldly" Indian Buddhism was transformed by the Chinese "essence" of "worldliness." The assumption that cultures may be described in terms of "essences" oversimplifies the complex human issues. Additionally, too strong a focus on the dynamics of "acculturation" can misconstrue the religious elements involved. I would prefer to look at the issue from
a slightly different perspective. The question I raise is not how China was "Indianized'", as Hu Shih would put it, but how the Chinese were converted to the Buddhist Dharma (Law) and came to recognize the truth in it.1 Nor is it a question of how an Indian religion was "Sinicized" but how the Buddhist sangha (fellowship) in China underwent self-transformation, drawing upon inspirations from within the Buddhist tradition itself. For example, the turn towards the world or the rejection of otherworldliness or, better, "othershoreliness" was already in the Mahayana tradition itself as in the dictum "Samsara is nirvana, nirvana is samsara." The Buddhist tradition is never simply "otherworldly mystical"
but contains within itself a wealth of teachings providing a whole range of orientations towards the world. As the Buddhist sangha matured in China, the Chinese Buddhists merely developed those elements in the Mahayana tradition closest to her "native" heart.
The phenomenon of "Sinitic Mahayana" should therefore be objectively analyzed as a cultural phenomenon and also sympathetically appreciated in its own religious terms. Just as Christianity is considered to be a creative synthesis of the Classical and the Hebraic tradition, Sinitic Mahayana should also be seen as a proud and independent offspring of the Indian and Chinese confluence. The Hebraic concept of the Messiah and the Greek idea of the Logos merged into the Christian notion of Christ as the Word of God. Similarly, it can be shown that the mature Chinese Buddhist concept of li (principle) as it was used by the Hua-yen school, was a union of the Buddhist Dharma and the Chinese Tao. Li synthesized the original meanings of Dharma and Tao, both symbols for "Transcendence", and articulated their structural interrelationship in a manner unknown before in India or China. The Sinitic understanding of the Mahayana Dharma is comparable to the Christian Church's proclamation (kerygma) concerning God—it is a new insight into an eternal truth.
The approach outlined above· would seem to be the natural and proper approach in the understanding of Chinese Buddhism. However, for some reasons, scholars have not yet followed such paths of investigation. I hope the thesis' attempt to combine the traditional sectarian Buddhological approach (which sees all Chinese Buddhist innovations to be solidly grounded in sacred Indian scriptures) and the modern critical historical analysis can reveal more faithfully the dynamics of the Buddhist faith in Chinese history.1 The larger issues mentioned in the preface here form the backdrop for the more specific study of one Chinese Buddhist text in the body of the thesis. I am interested in the "emergence of Sinitic Mahayana" ca. 600 A.D. in China and in the role the Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun) played in bringing it about.1 (Lai, preface, i–v)
Notes
(As numbered in the original manuscript)
1. Hu Shih, "The Indianization of China: A Case Study in Cultural Borrowings," Independence, Convergence and Borrowing in Institutions, Thought and Art (Cambridge: .
Harvard Tercentenary Publication, 1937). Kenneth Ch'en, in his book The Chinese Transformation of Buddhism (Princeton: 1973) follows explicitly Hu Shih's approach.
1 See Wilfred Cantwell Smith, The Meaning and End of Religion (New York: 1972). The Dharma is "Truth" and it is no more Indian than the Christian God is Jewish.
The earliest extant translation of part of the text into Chinese was by Guṇabhadra between A.D. 435 and 443. But, as the text was a source for Asaṅga whose works are known in Chinese in 413–421, a date second to third centuries A.D. is reasonably proposed (p. 24–5)
In his preface M. Lamotte has discussed the texts and commentaries, the title, the importance of the text by reason of its early date and position between the Prajñāpāramitā texts and those of the Vijñānavāda, and has given a detailed analysis of the contents. The author has p. 7 himself rightly recognized how little satisfactory literal renderings of Buddhish technical terms are. (H. W. Bailey, Review of Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra. L'Explication des Mystères. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 8 , no. 4 (1937): 1157.)This dissertation seeks to locate the place of Taehyŏn 大賢(ca. 8th century CE), a Silla Korean Yogācāra monk, within the broader East Asian Buddhist tradition. My task is not confined solely to a narrow study of Taehyŏn’s thought and career, but is principally concerned with understanding the wider contours of the East Asian Yogācāra tradition itself and how these contours are reflected in Taehyŏn’s extant oeuvre. There are problems in determining Taehyŏn's doctrinal position within the traditional paradigms of East Asian Yogācāra tradition, that is, the bifurcations of Tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra; Old and New Yogācāra; the One Vehicle and Three Vehicles; and the Dharma Nature and Dharma Characteristics schools. Taehyŏn's extant works contain doctrines drawn from across these various divides, and his doctrinal positions therefore do not precisely fit any of these traditional paradigms. In order to address this issue, this dissertation examines how these bifurcations originated and evolved over time, across the geographical expanse of the East Asian Yogācāra tradition. The chapters of the dissertation discuss in largely chronological order the theoretical problems involved in these bifurcations within Yogācāra and proposes possible resolutions to these problems, by focusing on the works of such major Buddhist exegetes as Paramārtha (499-569), Ji 基 (632-682), Wŏnhyo 元曉 (617-686), Fazang 法藏(643-712), and, finally, Taehyŏn.
There are major differences between our Sanskrit text of the Ratnagotravibhāga and its classical Chinese translation, which had an immeasurable influence on East Asian Buddhist thought and has yet to be fully explored. No commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga in Chinese Buddhism has survived, so scholars have maintained the opinion that it was not regarded too much in Chinese and East Asian Buddhism. However, the findings of my research show that the Chinese translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga had more influence than previously imagined in East Asian Buddhist intellectual history.
I explore the ideological background of the classical Chinese translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga, with reference to the Pusa dichi jing 菩薩地持經, several commentaries on the Śrīmālā-sūtra, the Da boniepan jing 大般涅槃經 and the Rulengqie jing 入楞伽經. In comparison to the surviving Sanskrit text, the Chinese version of the Ratnagotravibhāga downplays the significance of the expression gotra and instead reflects a strong interest in zhenru 真如 (Skt. tathatā) and foxing 佛性 (Buddha-nature) – for instance, 'zhenru foxing' becomes the foundation or reason for transmigration in the world. In this context, reality (Skt. tathatā) acts like a conditioned dharma, an idea that deeply influenced later understanding of Buddha-nature in East Asian Buddhism. I furthermore discuss the relationship between the Ratnagotravibhāga and other significant East Asian authors and teachings, such as Paramārtha 真諦 (499-569), the Dasheng qixin lun 大乘起信論, Fazang 法藏 (643-712), the Sanjie school 三階教, and trace the influence of the Ratnagotravibhāga beyond China into the writings of Wonhyo 元曉 (617-686) in Korea and the Japanese authors Juryō 寿霊 and Chikei 智憬 in Nara era (710-784). (Source Accessed May 25, 2021)
The Fundamental Potential for Enlightenment sets forth an analysis of the natural and developed potential within all of us from the perspectives of the two main schools of mahayana thought–the Mind-Only school and the Middle Way school. It explains how this potential is transformed into the state of enlightenment and gives comprehensive definitions and explanations clearly establishing the existence and nature of the various facets of enlightenment.
(Source: back cover)Cette traduction de l’Insurpassable Continuité est le fait d’un disciple-traducteur de Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rimpoché. A ce titre elle ne prétend pas à l’orientalisme, à l’érudition du pur spécialiste, même si la fréquentation des textes tibétains depuis 20 ans, au hasard des stages avec Rimpoché a sans doute laissé quelques traces. Mais dans la mesure où Rimpoché a bien voulu en son temps en désigner le traducteur pour animer des groupes de réflexion autour de ce texte, celui-ci en tire un peu d’assurance pour présenter son travail.
S’il y a bien quelque chose que celui-ci a compris aussi -qu’il aurait dû comprendre en tous cas - grâce au Dharma, c’est que l’on est rien sans les autres, et cela est valable pour ce travail qui sans les apports de Katia et Ken Holmes, de Rosie Fuchs, de François Chenique, et d’autres contributeurs plus épisodiques (Jim et Birgit Scott, Ari Goldfield…) n’aurait jamais vu le jour.
Pour reprendre la formule classique, s'il subsiste des fautes, et elles ne manqueront pas, celles-ci sont donc bien miennes. On pourrait dire aussi, à la suite d’Auguste Comte je crois, qu’il n’y a pas de vérité première, seulement une erreur ultime. Tandis que de mon côté, je me sens soulagé en pensant qu’un site web permet de revenir à l’ouvrage, le lecteur trouvera là de son côté un travail qu’il aura toute latitude, et l’envie, je l’espère, d’améliorer.
Ceci dit, celui-ci vise un public ouvert, personnes raisonnablement cultivées mais ordinaires, qui, faute de pouvoir passer autant de temps que cela le nécessite à étudier la philosophie indo-tibétaine, ont besoin d’un accès direct et plaisant si possible à ce texte essentiel de la tradition kagyupa. En conséquence un certain nombre de choix ont été fait à partir de cette volonté d’accessibilité en terme de présentation, de style et de cheminement des idées.
Jamgœun Kongtrul Lodreu Thayé utilise souvent la particule ”etc.“ (particule, on peut s’en douter, pratique quand tous les textes étaient gravés à la main) : nous avons rétabli dans la mesure du possible la liste des mots concernés. Par exemple, si le texte tibétain dit : "Le désir, etc.,", nous avons pris sur nous de compléter : "Le désir, [la haine, l’ignorance]".
Traduire en donnant, sinon tous son sens, du moins du sens au texte racine, pour ceux qui ne voudraient lire que lui, sans l"éventer" l’apport du commentaire n’est pas la moindre difficulté. Toujours dans une recherche d’équilibre, nous avons quelquefois inséré un détail fourni dans le commentaire. Par exemple, la stance 118 traduite textuellement dit : "[..] en les êtres ordinaires sont enterrés sous les tréfonds de la tendance habituelle à l’ignorance…". "êtres ordinaires" est trompeur dans la mesure où il est question, suivant l’enseignement de KTGR (Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rimpoché), des Vainqueurs de l’ennemi (arhat), précision que nous avons donc ajoutée au texte racine. On ne saurait au passage trop rappeler la nécessité, et l’intérêt, d’aborder les textes sous la tutelle d’un lama formé, qui en donnera une explication enracinée dans une tradition précise, le style "télégraphique" du tibétain se prêtant autrement à toutes les interprétations imaginables.
De plus en plus de pratiquants ayant des notions de tibétain, nous avons inséré à l’occasion entre parenthèses certaines translittérations en wylie. autant pour renseigner, il est vrai, le lecteur que pour faire comprendre nos choix de traducteurs, question sur laquelle nous reviendrons occasionnellement.
Dans le chapitre des neuf exemples de l’élément en particulier, le lecteur pourra s’agacer des répétitions quasi au mot près d’une stance à l’autre. L’étude textuelle et historique démontre que le texte racine est constitué d’un certain nombre de stances très anciennes autour desquelles des écrivains non identifiés ont greffé au fil des siècles d’autres vers visant à commenter d’une manière analytique ces premiers écrits. On en trouvera la liste à la fin du LMDFB. Ce que l’on veut dire ici c’est que le commentaire dans cette tradition littéraire n’était pas ennemi de la simple répétition, dans la mesure où il n’y avait rien de plus à comprendre (?). Les stances primitives sont assez significatives en elles-mêmes pour qu’on en repère la plupart même sans cette information philologique.
La traduction est toujours un délicat équilibre, comme le remarque si bien Elizabeth Callahan, entre le mot à mot et le sens, peut-être plus encore dans ce genre de śāstra qui croise logique et poétique bucolique. D’un côté nous avons le texte racine, qui est indéniablement un poème, ce que nous avons restitué avec une versification simple.
Même si celle-ci est très basique, l’extrême concision que demande une poésie, à travers en particulier l’usage de l’ellipse, rejoint quelquefois d’une manière saisissante l’expression tibétaine. Par exemple, on trouvera "le corps de réalité, mûrissement..". La prose française oblige tôt ou tard à faire savoir si le corps de réalité, dans cet exemple, est le fruit du mûrissement ou l’agent du mûrissement, problème qui n’apparaît pas en tibétain, et que selon notre expérience, la concision poétique permet d’éviter. Nous rejoignons S.Arguillère quand il revendique, dans un de ses travaux mis à disposition on line : "L’expression française que j’ai choisie me paraît […] suffisamment littérale pour n’ajouter à l’indétermination de la formule tibétaine nulle précision arbitraire." Par ailleurs, cette versification vise à permettre une lecture scandée, voir chantée, du texte suivant en cela la plaisante méthode transmise à nous par Rimpoché, pour faciliter mémorisation et pratique.
L’approche du commentaire de JKLT est, quant à elle, celle de la scolastique avec un recours aux outils de la logique. (Il est d’autant plus émouvant de constater que JKLT ne peut s’empêcher d’y déroger lorsqu’il s’agit de combattre l’obscurantisme et l’intolérance, circonstances où sa langue devient plus émotionnelle). Il a fallu là aussi procéder à un certain nombre de choix. JKLT appose, pour commenter un mot, son synonyme. Prenons l’exemple d’une phrase qui dirait : "Le chat noir est sur la table". JKLT commenterait, suivant en cela une technique très répandue chez les lettrés tibétains : "Le chat, félin, animal, noir, de couleur sombre, est sur un meuble, la table", alors que le bon usage du français semble requérir un minimum d’enrobage stylistique tel que : "le chat, ce noir félin repose sur un des meubles, la table". Nous avons donc enrobé. Il utilise aussi beaucoup la formule : “Soit le chat noir, il est sur la table. La table est un meuble, donc le chat noir est sur un meuble". Le mot phyir, "parce que", intervient 500 fois dans le texte. Nous avons donc là aussi un peu changé la syntaxe. (Au passage,je remercie ma chatte, source d’inspiration illimitée de ce genre de constats).
Si le texte racine a droit à un certain hermétisme, hermétisme, je crois, qui a permis aux différentes traditions tibétaines de faire leur ce texte de manière variée, le commentaire doit être clair.
S’adressant à un public de moines et de disciples, JKLT utilise, peut-être à titre de consigne de mémorisation, environ 85 fois la formule : "Il faut savoir (shes bya)". Nous les avons omises assez souvent. Enfin, l’auteur emploie dans la fameuse partie des neuf exemples 50 fois le mot "voile". Si cela correspond à la rigueur logique de la démonstration tibétaine, en français il n’y a guère danger d’induire une incompréhension en traduisant dgrib, utilisé dans un sens très simple, par des variantes un peu plus plaisantes : "enterré", pour voilé par la terre, "enduit" pour voilé par l’argile, "enserré" pour voilé par les pétales d’un lotus, etc. C’est là un exemple des libertés que nous avons prises. Il y aurait d’autres exemples de ce type. Pour aller au plus simple, disons que nous ne nous sommes pas montrés les partisans d’un mot à mot millimétré quand le sens n’en souffrait pas.
Il est dans un sens dommage d’avoir à rendre accessible un texte ; on sent bien le risque de le dénaturer. Non seulement le commentaire de JKLT, s’il était traduit au mot près, ressemblerait à une suite indigeste de syllogismes, mais de plus nous sommes loin, oh combien, d’avoir une exacte science du glossaire épistémologique et ontologique des penseurs tibétains. Exemple pris au hazard, le lecteur pourra se demander pourquoi la vérité ultime est, comme le dit le texte, "au délà de l’analyse étymologique", juxtaposition d’idées étrangère à nos représentations de la vie spirituelle (à l’exception peut-être de la kabbale). Dans ce cas, nous pouvons risquer l’explication suivante. Même si le bouddhisme n’est pas en lui-même "égotiste", c’est toujours dans un cadre méthodologique d’origine indienne qu’il opère pour défendre sa position vis à vis de ses détracteurs. Or une école indienne d’importance posait, à la croisée de la grammaire et de la métaphysique, que le nom des choses ayant une existence propre, accéder à l’étymologie d’un mot, c’était se rapprocher de la réalité ultime du phénomène illustré par ce mot. Cette notion d’étude étymologique, même si le bouddhisme se l'est appropriée dans un but différent, est donc restée d’importance comme moyen d’accéder à la connaissance du réel.
Les penseurs tibétains ont même enrichi et donné de nouveaux développements aux sciences logiques, épistémologiques, etc.,par rapport à leurs maîtres indiens.
Il faut donc trouver quelque consolation dans l’idée que l’on était voué dès le départ à une demi-mesure. Ajoutons au passage qu’à cet éclairage, le travail décrié (pour cause d’hermétismes fréquents) d’un chercheur comme Stéphane Arguillère, prend toute sa valeur.
Quant à nous, nous nous sommes autorisés à insérer au début de certains chapitres des remarques en quelques lignes facilitant la compréhension de concepts originaux selon notre expérience de l’enseignement de KTGR.
On s’attend à ce que le lecteur ait lu auparavant, le Précieux Ornement de la libération, ouvrage dont Rimpoché juge acquise la connaissance avant d’enseigner la Continuité, ou du moins un ouvrage d’introduction générale, un lam rim, de la voie bouddhiste. La Continuité ne revient plus sur des données telles que les trois poisons, les cinq chemins, les dix terres, etc.
Puisse ce travail bénéficier à tous, en ces temps troublés.
Etienne L. Sarlat, France, janvier 2007. (Source Accessed June 15, 2020)La besogne, à dire vrai, n'était pa si facile. Je ne disposais que de la copie exécutée, sous ma surveillance, par le Pandit Kulamāna, reproduction fidèle d'un original assez bon dans l'ensemble, mais parsemé de menues fautes dues principalement a la confusion de lettres analogues dans la devanāgari du Népal. Cette copie, sur papier népalais (gris au recto, jaune au verso), occupe 123 feuillets, à neuf lignes par page. L'ouvrage est complet: la seule lacune étendue se place à la suite du vers 2 de la llesection: deux feuillets avaient à cet endroit disparu de l'archétype; pour dissimuler la lacune, le copiste ancien a recouru à un procédé assez usuel ; il a copié ailleurs deux autres feuilles qu'il a insérées à la place des feuillets manquants. Je n'ai pas pu arriver à déterminer la provenance exacte de cette interpolation; mais elle vient sans aucun doute de quelque çāstra étroitement apparenté au Mahāyāna Sūtrālaṃkāra par le sujet et par le lexique. J'ai donné en Appendice à la suite du texte le contenu de ces deux feuilles: un chercheur plus heureux réussira probablement à les identifier. Les autres lacunes sont de peu d'étendue : XI, 5, une ligne; 51, deus lignes; XI, 70, deux ou trois lignes; XII, 7, un hémistiche.
La traduction chinoise, due à I'Hindou Prabhākara mitra (entre 630 et 633 J.-C.), comble heureusement toutes ces lacunes; sans elle, j'aurais dû renoncer même à éditer ce texte. C'est par une collation constante de la version chinoise que j'ai réussi—si j'y ai réussi— à dégager de mon unique manuscrit un texte acceptable et intelligible. Je n'ai pas cru devoir, sous couleur d'une « acribie ». intransigeante, étaler au bas des pages toutes les lectures vicieuses du manuscrit; Je ne les ai rapportées que dans les rares cas où ma correction affectait l'ensemble d'un mot. Je laisse à ceux qui voudront bien se référer à la copie de Kulamāna le soin de juger ce qu'a pu coûter d'efforts la constitution d'un texte présentable.
C'est de propos délibéré que je me suis refusé a faire disparaître les irrégularités d'orthographe et de sandhi de mon manuscrit. La tradition des scribes népalais a ses usages constants, par exemple la réduction du groupe ttva à ttva (bodhisatva, tatva, etc.), l'interchange des sifflantes palatale et dentale (kuçīda, kusīda, etc.); pour les textes qu'ils sont seuls à nous avoir conservés, il me paraît préférable de se conformer à leurs usages plutôt que de leur imposer les rigueurs d'un purisme théorique. le sancrit a bien assez d'uniformité pour qu'on n'aille pas effacer de parti pris les rares particularités de temps ou de lieu qui ont pu y marquer leur empreinte. Quant au sandhi, I'application mécanique des règles risque le plus souvent d'anéantir des nuances de ponctuation et de pensée exprimées justement par des infractions à ces règles.
Si j'ai préféré donner le texte en caractères devanāgarī, malgré les avantages pratiques de la transcription au point de vue occidental, c'est que nos éditions d'ouvrages bouddhiques ont chance d'atteindre une catégorie de lecteurs que nous me prévoyons pas assez peut-être tt qui mérite pourtant d'être prise en considération. Au Népal même, et par delà le Népal, dans le monde si peu accessible encore des Lamas, nous pouvons apporter ainsi à de bonnes âmes un aliment de piété qui se convertira peut-être en amorce de science: l'exemple donné par les éditeurs européens peut provoquer là-bas une imitation féconde, sauver de la destruction ou rappeler au jour des textes menacés, et activer ainsi le progrès des connaissances. L'indianisme n'est point un vain exercice de dilettantisme: derrière nos problèmes de linguistique, de philologie, d'histoire politique, religieuse ou sociale, il faut entrevoir les centaines millions d'êtres vivants que ces problèmes conditionnent à leur insu, et dont le sort est lié aux solutions qui doivent triompher.
Je manquerais à un réel devoir de gratitude si je n'exprimais pas ici mes remerciements à tous ceux qui ont collaboré à l'impression de ce livre, aux typographes de l'Imprimerie nationale, au Directeur des travaux, M. Héon, et surtout à M. Guérinot, de qui les corrections minutieuses m'ont valu des épreuves presque parfaites. Mon ami et collègue M. Finot a pris la peine de relire aussi toutes les épreuves. S'il reste encore des fautes, et je sais pertinemment qu'il en reste (un erratum sera donné à la fin de la traduction), responsabilité n'en saurait incomber qu'à moi, et à la faiblesse de la nature humaine. (Lévi, foreword, i-iii)
L'Indien Prabhâkara-mitra, auteur de la traduction chinoise (entre 630 et 633 J. C.), assigne le M. S. A. à Asaṅga, qu'il qualifie expressément de « Bodhisattva ». La préface de là traduction, due à Li Pe-yo (l'auteur du Pe-Tsin chou) répète et confirme cette attribution, sans faire allusion à une révélation surnaturelle. Mais, à cette époque même, Hiuan-tsang apprend dans les couvents de l'Inde à classer le M. S. A. parmi les textes sacrés révélés à Asaṅga par Maitreya. Jusque-là, au témoignage de Paramârtha et des traducteurs chinois du vc siècle, le Saptadaçabhûmi çâstra (ou Yogâcâryabhûmi çâstra) avait seul passé pour révélé.
Un demi-siècle après Hiuan-tsang, Yi-tsing, qui n'est pas comme Hiuan-tsang un adepte de l'école Yogâcâra, continue à classer le M. S. A. parmi « les huit branches » (pa tchi) d'Asanga, où il fait entrer pêle-mêle et de son propre aveu plusieurs traités de Vasubandhu.
Chez les Tibétains[1], le M. S. A. est unanimement rangé dans les « Cinq çâstras de Maitreya », et il en ouvre la série. Mais les vers seuls sont attribués à Maitreya ; la prose qui commente ces vers est tenue pour un ouvrage à part, sous le titre de Sûtrâlaṃkâra-bhâṣya, attribué à Vasubandhu. La traduction tibétaine est due à Çâkyasiṃha l'Indien, assisté du Lotsava grand réviseur Dpal brcogs et autres. Je n'ai pas d'informations sur ces personnages; mais, quelle que soit leur date, Prabhâkara mitra leur est certainement antérieur ; avant le milieu du VIIc siècle, le Tibet, à peine ouvert à la civilisation, n'avait ni traducteurs, ni traductions. Nous sommes donc fondés à considérer l'ouvrage entier, prose et vers, comme dû à un seul auteur, Asaṅga. Au reste, si le tibétain distingue dans l'ouvrage deux parties, texte et commentaire, avec deux auteurs différents, le Tche-yuen lou chinois (Catalogue comparé des Livres Bouddhiques compilé dans la période Tche-yuen 1264–1294) donne à l'ouvrage entier, en tant qu'oeuvre du Bodhisattva Asaṅga, le titre fan (c.-à-d. sanscrit) de : Sou-tan-lo A-leng-kia-lo ti-kia, transcription de Sûtrâlaṃkâraṭîkâ « Commentaire du Sûtrâlaṃkâra » (Tche-yuen lou, chap. IX, in°.); en fait, cette désignation de ṭîkâ ne peut s'appliquer pourtant qu'à la prose explicative qui accompagne les vers ou kârikâs.
Le texte sanscrit est divisé en adhikâras ou « chapitres » régulièrement numérotés jusqu'au quinzième ; à partir de là les chapitres ne portent plus d'indication numérique jusqu'au chapitre final ; mais celui-ci est désigné comme le vingt et unième. Les sections marquées dans l'intervalle sont seulement au nombre de quatre ; il manque donc une unité pour parfaire le chiffre de 21. Il est probable que le dernier chapitre est à partager en deux sections, entre le vers 42 et le vers 43. Les dix-neuf derniers vers, avec leur refrain uniforme, constituent une unité bien nette comme hymne de conclusion.
Le tibétain[1] reproduit exactement les divisions du manuscrit sanscrit. Le chinois[2] représente un autre partage de l'ensemble. Le texte y est divisé en treize grandes sections, découpées d'une manière assez irrégulière en vingt-quatre chapitres. (Lévi, "Le Mahâyâna Sûtrâlaṃkâra," 7–9)
Notes
1. Outre Târanâtha, v. aussi Bouston traduit par Stcherbatzkoï, La littérature Yogâcâra d'après Bouston, Muséon, 1905, II. Il est assez surprenant de voir que les Tibétains comptent comme l'oeuvre personnelle d'Àsaṅga le (Saptadaça-)bhûmi çâstra, le seul ouvrage que la tradition ancienne assigne à Maitreya. En dehors de cet ouvrage (et, naturellement, des sections détachées qui en ont été traduites à part: Nanjio 1170, 1083,1086, 1096, 1097, 1098, 1200, 1235), le Canon chinois n'attribue à Maitreya que le Madhyânta-vibhaṅga(Nj. 1245, traduit par Hiuan-tsang), également compté comme une oeuvre de Maitreya par les Tibétains [Je laisse en dehors l'insignifiant opuscule : Sarvaçiksàsthitanâmârtha çâstra (Nj. 1315) traduit par Che-houentre 980 et 1000]. Le cas du Mahâyânasaṃparigraha çâstra offre un intérêt tout particulier. Le premier en date des trois traducteurs chinois, Buddhaçânta, en 531, présente l'ouvrage comme une « oeuvre d' A-seng-kia », dans le texte de l'édition de Corée ; mais les éditions proprement chinoises ont remplacé cette mention par « composition de Wou-tcho p'ou-sa [equals] Asaṅga bodhisattva ». La préface qui accompagne la traduction de Paramârtha, en 563, déclare que « le çâstra original (pen loun) a été composé par A-seng-kia, maître de la loi (fa che). » Hiuan-tsang, enfin, qui donne une traduction en 648, traduit fidèlement un colophon qui dit : « Moi, A-seng-kia, j'ai fini d'expliquer brièvement le Mahâyâna-saṃparigraha çâstra dans les sûtras du Grand Véhicule de l'Abhidharma », mais il présente le texte comme « la composition de Wou-tcho p'ou-sa [equals] Asanga bodhisattva ».
Wassilieff (Notes sur Târanâtha, p. 315 sq.) a tort de dire que « les cinq textes de Maitreya manquent tous [sämmtlich] chez les Chinois ». J'ai déjà signalé la traduction chinoise du M. S. A. et celle du Madhyânta-vibhâga. La version chinoise de l'Uttaratantra a échappé jusqu'ici aux recherches, parce qu'elle ne porte pas de nom d'auteur. C'est le Mahâyânottaratantraçâstra (Nj. 1236; éd. Tôk. XIX, 2) des catalogues chinois, traduit par Ratnamati en 508. Restent le Dharmadharmalâ-vibhaṅga et l'Abhisamayâlaṃkâra qui n'ont pas de correspondant connu ou reconnu en chinois. A propos des oeuvres d'Asaṅga conservées en chinois, j'ajoute encore que le Choun tchong louen (Nj. 1246; Tôk. XIX, 2), dont le titre sanscrit est restitué par Nanjio sous la forme : Madhyântânugama çâstra, est en fait — comme le titre chinois l'exprime exactement — un commentaire sur le Madhyamakaçâstra de Nâgârjuna, interprété au point de vue de la doctrine Yogâcâra.
1. La traduction tibétaine se trouve dans le Tanjour, Mdo. vol. XLIV (phi), le texte en vers va de 1 à 43b; le « bhâṣya » termine le volume, de la page 135 à la fin.
Volume 48
The Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch consists of a record of the teachings of Hui-neng, the Sixth Patriarch of the Chan School in China, recorded by his disciple Fahai, and is known by several abbreviated titles such as Platform Sūtra or Platform Sūtra of the Dharma Treasure. It proclaims the independence of the Southern School of Chan from the Northern School on such subjects as "sudden enlightenment" (Ch. dun-wu) and the external expression of one's real nature (Ch. jian-xing).
Source
1. T. = Turnour MS. (written in Siṅhalese character)* in the India Office Library.
2. Ba. = No. 2276 (in Siṅhalese writing) of the Oriental MSS. in the Library of the British Museum.
3. Bb.= No. 2412 (in Siṅhalese character) of the same collection.
4. Ph = Phayre MS. (in Burmese writing), in the India Office Library.
5. Com. (1.) Buddhaghosha's Commentary (Turnour collection), in the India Office Library.
6. ,, (2.) A manuscript of the above work in my own collection. It is of the same type as the Turnour copy.
7. Corn. (3.) Buddhaghosha's Commentary), prepared for me with great care by Subhûti Unnânsê. It is a very valuable and accurate manuscript, and contains many variations from (1.) and (2.).
8. D. = A MS. in my own collection purchased from Dr. Rhys Davids.
9. Tr. = A transcript (unpunctuated) of the Copenhagen MS. by Dr. Trenckner.
10. P = Paris MS. used only in the Uddânas.
Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 are all in Siṅhalese writing.
11. There is a ṭīka or subcommentary in the British Museum collection but it has not afforded me any help in
settling the text of the Aṅguttara. It contains the first nipâta and the beginning of the second.
There is a very close agreement between the Siṅhalese and Burmese versions of the Aṅguttara-Nikâya; but where they essentially differ, I have, in nearly every case, given the preference to the Siṅhalese readings.
The Siṅhalese manuscripts, as Professor Fausböll long ago pointed out (Ten Jātakas, p. x), often retain older
forms and expressions, which the Burmese replace by more modern, more common, and more regular ones. A few instances of this kind occur in the Aṅguttara.- Thus, for bhecchati (I. v. 1}, Ph. reads bhijjissati, and for paligheda (II. iv. 6) cleverly substitutes baligedha, in which ball gives some sense, though not the exact meaning required.
In one instance I have found in the Phayre MS. a reading borrowed from the explanation in the Commentary (See III, 65, 3, footnote 5).
In difficult or doubtful passages the Burmese manuscripts
rarely render us any trustworthy assistance. Thus, for saṅkasâyanti (III. iv. 9) the reading of all the Siṅhalese copies, and sanctioned by the Saṃyutta-Nikâya, Pk reads saṅghâmayanti. l venture to think that the Siṅhalese reading is the correct one, and that it is not a mistake for saññâyanti
In some few cases the Commentary differs from the received text as in the reading atīthâtuṃ for atīyātum (II. iv. 9), and okkâcita for ukkâcita (II. v. 7). In
other cases it has given us a better reading than that of the received text. See saṅkhepa, III. 62, 3.
The Chinese are said to have a work answering to the
Aṅguttara-Nikâya, which Professor Beal calls the "Add-0ne-Āgama."1 We have, however, no means of verifying this statement, as we have no published specimens of a Chinese Aṅguttara to compare with the Pāli version.
In Professor Beal's "Catena of Buddhist Scriptures from the Chinese," we have some quotations from a work called the "Sian-chi-Kwan," written by Chi-kai, the founder of the Tian-tai sect. The extract on p. 258, entitled "On Chiding the Evil Desires," resembles very closely the first ten suttas of the Paṭhana-vagga (pp. 1, 2) mixed up with some commentator's remarks and illustrative stories; but the Chinese stories are not the same as those told by
Buddhaghosha. The chapter on p. 261, "Casting Away Hindrances," looks much like an expansion of the Nirvāṇapahâna-vagga (I. ii. 1-10).
The Chinese may have had an Aṅguttara, but it probably bore no closer likeness to the Pāli work so called than the Dhammapada translated by Professor Beal resembles the text edited by Professor Fausböll.
In the Samacitta-vagga (II. iv. 2) of the Aṅguttara there is a very interesting little sutta on filial piety in which it is insisted that no adequate return can be made by children to their parents, even though they should perform for them the most menial offices. The sutta also points out the duty of children to look after the spiritual welfare of their parents. (see also III. 31). There seems to be some reminiscence of a northern version of this sutta in Japanese Buddhist books. The San-kai-ri quotes the Bussetsu Ko-ko-kio as the authority for the following piece of advice to dutiful children:—"Although a man should provide for his parents a hundred kinds of the choicest food suited to the palate, and though he caused their bodies to be arrayed in magnificent garments, and though he bear them on his
shoulders from place to place, and furnish them with every sort of amusement and happiness, . . . beyond all this they should ever seek to induce them to render due homage to the three precious things—Buddha, Buddhist rites, and the priests—and also realize clearly their future destination."
In regard to this subject the Fubo-on Ju-kió has a remark that I have met with somowhere in Pāli, "that if one were to estimate the value of one sho (about a quart and a half) of the mother's milk, it would be more than ten thousand eight hundred and fifty kokus of rice; and if estimated in rice stalks, it would make twenty-three thousand bundles; and if calculated in linen cloth, it would be more than three thousand three hundred and seventy steps or measure" (The Chrysanthemum, a monthly magazine for Japan and the Far East, April 1882 pp. 172, 173).
In the Pāli Text Society's Journal for 1885 I have
discussed the modern versions of the interesting story of "Death's Messengers" in the Devadûta-vagga III. 35, 1–4.
But of these and other interesting matters I shall have more to say when the Aṅguttara-Nikâya is completed ; the present installment, however, will show the necessity of publishing the whole as soon as possible.
The Siṅhalese MSS. contain, at the end of the Tika-nipâta, Uddânas for the first three nipâtas. The Phayre MS.
has an Uddânas only for the Tika-nipâta.
The text of these Uddânas is corrupt in many places, and though it has been compared with the vaggas themselves, it is still not free from error.
The Tika-nipâta Uddâna does not go beyond the Maṅgala-vagga.
The Acelaka-vagga probably included only suttas 151, 152; so that the ten suttas 153-162 made a second vagga, while No. 163 constituted a third vagga, a mere "tag", as at the end of the Atthavasa-Vagga, II. xvii, 3, 4, 5, p. 100. (Morris, preliminary remarks, vii–xii)
Notes
1. An edition of the first two nipātas was issued by the Pāli Text Society among the publications of 1883; but it was not well received on account of the numerous contractions used in the text. In the present work only a few po's or . . . . have been employed.
Composed in China around 420, the Brahmā’s Net Sutra is based on various contemporary Mahayana and Hinayana vinaya writings and includes extensive discussion of indigenous Chinese moral concepts such as filial piety, etc. The text is based in the same mainstream Mahayana thought of the Flower Ornament Sutra (Huayan jing), the Nirvana Sutra (Niepan jing), and the Sutra for Humane Kings (Renwang jing). In fact, the extent of the Brahmā's Net Sutra's agreement with the Flower Ornament Sutra is so pronounced that it is regarded as the "concluding sutra" of the latter.
Long thought to be the Skt. Brahmajāla-sūtra translated by Kumārajīva into the Chinese as Fanwang jing (梵網經), the work is now seen within modern scholarship as composed in China around 420, based on various Mahayana and Hinayana vinaya writings available at that time. 2 fascicles. (Source: BDK America)So begins THE GREAT MEDICINE: A Remedy that Conquers Clinging to Reality, a moving text written in verse by Shechen Gyaltsap Gyurme Pema Namgyal. Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche's commentary explores the foundation of awakened mind, the inner workings of loving kindness and compassion, the view of emptiness, and the practical applications of this understanding on the path. Rinpoche's teaching style is refreshing and direct, using examples from his own experience and anecdotes about his teachers and the lineage to illustrate the importance of mingling the Buddhist teachings into ones own life.
"We need to gain real experience with these valuable instructions and integrate them into our lives. Doing so is the only reason to study them. The result of spiritual practice should be our inner transformation into a better human being. After years of practice we should gain a sense of inner peace and become less vulnerable to outer circumstances. Inner freedom, relaxed and open happiness, as well as joy will arise when negative emotions and mental confusions disappear. In contrast, we will have missed the point of the practice if our mental poisons remain all-powerful, torment us constantly, and cause us to remain preoccupied with ourselves."
Shechen Gyaltsap Gyurme Pema Namgyal, (1871-1926) was one of the most learned and accomplished practitioners of his time. His 13 volumes of writings contain many lucid and profound commentaries. He was the root teacher of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche.
The 7th Shechen Rabjam Rinpoche, born in 1966, is the grandson and spiritual heir of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. He is the abbot of Shechen Monasteries and Nunnery in Nepal, India, and Bhutan and the founder of a number of on-going humanitarian projects. (Source: Back Cover)This thesis gives an account of Yogācāra Buddhist thought as presented in the works of Sthiramati, a leading sixth-century thinker in the Yogācāra tradition, along with a translation of his commentary on the Chapter on Enlightenment of the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra. The thesis introduces Sthiramati's life and times, and discusses the authorship and authenticity of works attributed to him.
Sthiramati's viewpoint is placed in the overall context of Yogācāra ontology. The thesis elucidates the fundamental categories of Yogācāra ontology, giving an analysis of the three identities (trisvabhāva) and their interrelationships, the connection between the three identities and the principle of representation-only (vijñaptimātra), and an account of basis-transformation (āśrayaparāvṛtti). This provides a philosophical foundation for interpreting the Yogācāra concept of Buddhahood, bringing out the intrinsic link between ontological realization and soteriological attainment in the Yogācāra system.
The thesis traces the Yogācāra account of Buddhahood in both its essence and its manifestation: Buddhahood is shown as both the absolute ground of being and as the locus for innumerable pure qualities and forms of mastery through which enlightenment is communicated to ordinary sentient beings. In this connection, the thesis presents the Yogācāra analysis of the Three Bodies of Buddha (Dharmakāya, the Truth-Body; Sambhogakāya, the Enjoyment-Body; Nirmāṇakāya, the Emanation-Body), which encompass both the essential being and the manifest functioning of Buddha. The three Budda-bodies are correlated with the four liberative wisdoms (jñāna) of the Buddha (the Mirror-like Wisdom, the Equality Wisdom, the Analytical Wisdom, and the All-Accomplishing Wisdom). The thesis recounts the classic Yogācāra discussion of the attributes of Buddhahood in terms of unity and multiplicity, and the nature and scope of Buddha's salvific activities.
The aims of the thesis are (1) to present Yogācāra Buddhology in its own terms; (2) to clarify the conceptual structure of Yogācāra Buddhology and the relationship in Yogācāra thought between Buddha and the phenomenal world, and between Buddha and the minds of sentient beings; and (3) to facilitate cross-cultural comparisons between Buddha and concepts of the Absolute in other religious traditions by providing a reliable presentation of the ontological, epistemological, and soteriological aspects of Yogācāra Buddhology.
It is about the fundamental intention that underlies all the Buddha’s teachings and unites all the categories of Buddhist concepts within one central principle – the “actual reality of the nature or state of all phenomena.” One of the main messages is the universal validity and unchangeable nature of virtue and non-virtue, which means that no one can bypass the foundational practices and the observance of disciplined conduct..
(Source: Garchen Stiftung)Each chapter is started with the Leading Case (本則, Honsoku), Background (機縁, Kien), Dharma Discourse (提拮, Nentei), and Verse (古頌, Juko). When Keizan mentioned each Patriarch he began with the most important point. First, the key tenet as Leading Case (Honsoku). Next, he indicated the background (Kien) of each Patriarch. Some backgrounds are minutely detailed while others are brief and sparse. After a discussion about background, Keizan presented a lengthy interpretation about the Patriarch as Dharma Discourse (Nentei). He followed with his own Verse (Juko) as a short conclusion.
Short stories of each Patriarch are given in this manner so it is easy to follow the accomplishment of each Patriarchs life. Honsoku as Leading Case is the area which indicates the Enlightenment and level of transmission of the Patriarch, while Kien as Background describes the process by which the Patriarch is enabled to practice the transmission. Nentei as Dharma Discourse clarifies the Enlightenment of the Patriarch. Here Keizan teaches the students various interpretations of the Dharma. Finally, Juko (Verse) expresses the spirit of the chapter. Though not necessarily connected with the surface meaning of the chapter, it does express the essence and the conclusion. By making use of the Leading case, background, and dharma discourse, Keizan demonstrates the spiritual tenets which lead to the actual stage of being a Patriarch. In other words, it portrays the Way of Enlightenment. (Nishiyama, introduction, 3–4)Bu-ton's History of Buddhism proper is divided into the following principal parts: —
I. The Life of the Buddha Çākyamuni, the narrative of the so-called 12 Acts of the Buddha (mdzad-pa bcu-gñis), or rather of the 12 principal events in his life. The account of the first eleven, ending with the first "Swinging of the Wheel of the Doctrine" (chos-kyi ḥkhor-lo bskor-ba = dharma-cakra-pravartana) represents a summary of the Lalita-vistara-sūtra and contains numerous verses from it. Then, after a short indication of the Second and the Third Swingings (i.e. of the Scripture of the intermediate and the later period), there follows the story of the Buddha's attainment of Nirvāṇa. It is taken from the Vinayakṣudraka (tib. Ḥdul-ba-phran-tshegs, Kangyur ḤDUL, XI), being a summary of the corresponding part of the latter.
II. The Rehearsals of the Buddhist Scripture. This part begins with the account of the first Rehearsal (Mahākāçyapa, Ānanda, Upāli), of the death of Kāçyapa and Ānanda, and of the second Rehearsal (Yaças, Kubjita, Revata, etc.). The only source here is likewise the Vinaya-kṣudraka, the corresponding text of which is rendered in an abridged form, all the verses being quoted at full length. As concerns the 3d Rehearsal and the 18 Sects, the texts referred to on this subject are: —
1. The Nikāya-bheda-upadarçana-saṁgraha of Vinītadeva (Tg.
MDO. XC.).
2. The Bhikṣu-varṣāgra-pṛcchā. of Padmākaraghoṣa (Ibid).
3. The Prabhāvati of Çākyaprabha. (Tg. MDO. LXXXIX.)
4. The Tarkajvālā of Bhāvaviveka. (Tg. MDO. XIX.)
Ill. The different theories concerning the time of duration of the Buddhist Doctrine. Here we have quotations from the Karuñā-puṇḍarīka, from Vasubandhu's Commentary on the Akṣayamati-nirdeça-sūtra (Tg. MDO. XXXV.), the Commentary on the Vajracchedikā. (Tg. MDO. XVI), the Commentary on the 3 Prajñāpāramitā-Sūtras (Tg. MDO. XIV), etc. We have likewise the chronological calculations of the Sa-skya Paṇḍita and others concerning the time that has passed since the death of the Buddha.
IV. The "prophecies" concerning the persons that have furthered the spread of Buddhism. The most important are those contained in the Lankāvatāra, the Mahākaruṇā-puṇḍarīka (Kg. MDO. VI), and the Mañjuçrī-mūlatantra. (Kg. RGYUD. XI. Narthaṅ edition, or XII. Derge edition) A separate prophecy referring to the Tantric Ācāryas, that of the Kālacakra-uttaratantra (Kg. RGYUD. I) and the Mahākāla-tantra-rāja (Kg. RGYUD. V), is given at the end of this part. It is especially the Mañjuçrī-mūla-tantra which is to be regarded as a source of the greatest importance, not only for the History of Buddhism, but for the historiography of India in general. The most interesting is that part of it which refers to the Indian kings, — Açoka, Virasena, Nanda, Candragupta, etc. Noteworthy is the passage concerning Pāṇini who is spoken of as the friend of the king Nanda. — A detailed analysis of the historically important parts of all these texts will be published by me before long. —
V. The biographies of the celebrated Buddhist teachers, viz. Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva, Candragomin, Candrakīrti, Āryāsanga, Vasubandhu, Sthiramati, Dignāga, Dharmakīrti, Haribhadra, Çāntideva, etc. Each of these is followed by a list of the works composed by the teacher in question. An indication of the volumes of the Tangyur (Sūtra and Tantra) in which the works are contained is always given in the notes.
VI. A short summary of the history of the grammatical literature, or rather of the legends referring to it, viz. the stories about Bṛhaspati, Pāṇini, Sarvavarman (alias Çarvavarman, Saptavarman, or lçvaravarman), etc. After that comes an enumeration of the kanonical texts (Sūtra and Tantra) which have been lost or have not been translated into Tibetan. —
VII. Prophecies of an apocalyptic character foretelling the disappearance of the Buddhist Doctrine. Among these, that of the Candragarbha-paripṛcchā is quoted at full length with a very few abbreviations. This prophecy is treated in the Kangyur as a separate work (Kg. MDO. XXXII). In this place the text of the Lhasa block-print of Bu-ton's History contains a great number of mistakes in the proper names, which are sometimes quite illegible (e.g. Akandradha instead of Agnidatta !). A correct rendering of these names has been made possible with the help of the Derge (Sde-dge) edition of the Kangyur.
VIII. The History of Buddhism in Tibet. It begins with the genealogy of the early legendary Tibetan kings, commencing with Ña-ṭhi-tsen-po. Next come the legends about Tho-tho-ri-ñen-tsen and Sroṅ-tsen-gam-po. These are followed by a more detailed account concerning the spread of Buddhism in Tibet during the reign of Ṭhi-sroṅ-de-tsen, viz. the activity of Çāntirakṣita (called the "Ācārya Bodhisattva"), the selection of the first 7 Tibetan monks [Sad-mi mi bdun], the dispute between the adherents of Kamalaçīla and of the Chinese Hva-çaṅ Mahāyāna (the Tsen-min and the Tön-mün), etc. Then we have a brief account of the reign of Ral-pa-can, of the persecution by Laṅ-dar-ma, and of the restauration of the Church by the 10 monks of Ü and Tsaṅ, an indication of the monasteries and monastic sections founded by the said monks and their pupils and, finally, a narrative of the events that followed, viz. the arrival of Dīpaṁkaraçrījñāna (Atīça) in Tibet and the subsequent propagation of Buddhism. In particular we have an enumeration of the texts translated by some of the Lotsavas from the Sanskrit. It may be noted that, with very few exceptions, the texts mentioned belong to the Tantric parts of the Kangyur and Tangyur. Here ends the history proper. It is followed by a list containing the names of all the Paṇḍits and Lotsavas who have acted in Tibet, beginning with Çāntirakṣita and Padmasaṁbhava. With it ends the 3d Chapter (leḥu) of Bu-ton's text: "The History of the Doctrine in Tibet".
The last part is a systematical Index of all the Buddhist literature which has been translated from the Sanskrit by the Lotsavas and Paṇḍits. It is divided into 1. Sūtra Scripture (including the Vinaya, Prajñāpāramitā, Avataṁsaka, Ratnakūṭa, and Sūtra sections of the Kangyur), 2. Sūtra Exegesis, 3. Tantra Scripture, and 4. Tantra Exegesis. This Index, as well as the list of the Lotsavas and Paṇḍits, arranged in the alphabetical order, will form a separate 3d part which is to contain numerous other Indices and Appendices besides.
The part now published, similar to the first, includes a great number of smaller chapters and subdivisions. The system according to which these have been designated, is the same as in the first part, and is directly connected with the latter. A full table of the contents is given at the end. — (Obermiller, introduction, 3–6)
His work has not failed to attract the attention of European scholarship. Wassilieff quotes it in the first volume of his Buddhism, Sarat Candra Das has translated some excerpts out of it. I myself have published a translation in French, in the Muséon 1905 ("Notes de littéature buoddhique. La littérature Yogācāra d'après Bou-ston"),
ston"), of the part devoted to the litterature of the Yogācāra school, and, in English, of the part dealing with the Abhidharma Iitterature of the Sarvāstivādins, included in Prof. Takakusu's work on the Abhidharma Iitterature of the Sarvāstivādins. In the years 1927 and 1928 I have interpreted the work to my pupil E. E. Obermiller making it the subject of our seminary study. He then has made an English translation which was revised by me and is now published, thanks to the kind attention accorded to it by the Heidelberg Society for the Investigation of Buddhist Lore and by its president Professor M. Walleser.
The translation of the first part, now published, was not an easy task, since it consists predominantly of quotations, many of them having the form of mnemonic verse (kārikā's). They had to be identified and their commentaries consulted. With very few exceptions all has been found out by E. E. Obermiller in the Tanjur works. The high merit of this self-denying, absorbing and difficult work will, I have no doubt, be fully appreciated by fellow scholars who have a personal experience of that kind of work.
Budon Rinpoche was a native of Central Tibet. He lived in the years 1290–1364. He consequently belongs to the old school of Tibetan learning, the school which preceded the now dominant Gelugpa sect (the yellow-caps) founded by Tsoṅkhapa. Besides the History he has written many other works. A full block-print edition of all his works in 15 volumes has recently appeared in Lhasa. No copy of it has as yet reached Leningrad. Among his works there is one on logic, Tshad-ma-rnam-ṅes-pai-bsdus-don = Pramāṇa-viniçcaya-piṇḍārtha, with his own commentary. A block-print containing his biography (rnam-thar) is in my possession. It will be analyzed by E. E. Obermiller in the Introduction also dealing with the sources of Tibetan historiography, which will be attached to the translation of the whole work. The Translation is made from the text of the old block-print edition, a copy of which is found in the Asiatic Museum of the Academy of Sciences of the U. S. S. R. (Th. Stcherbatsky, introduction, 3–4)
Notes
- These translations are in need of revision, since there are considerable mistakes in which both translations always agree.
- Bod-Chos-ḥbyuṅ.
Une religion comme le bouddhisme est un tout infiniment complexe. Quelque place qu'y tiennent les idées théosophiques, soyons sûrs qu'elles ne la constituent pas tout entière. Elles s'y trouvent amalgamées à des éléments de toute provenance. Est-ce en les isolant artificiellement qu'on les étudiera le mieux dans leur nature et dans leur action ? Ce ne serait ni avantageux, ni même possible. Les contacts qu'elles subissent entraînent pour elles des déterminations dont il faut bien tenir compte : tel le cristal transparent qui se colore par le voisinage d'une fleur d'hibiscus. D'autre part, il serait excessif sous prétexte de théosophie, d'embrasser ici le bouddhisme dans toute son étendue. D'excellents ouvrages, aisément accessibles au public, me permettent de limiter ma tâche sans inconvénient.
Ce que je me propose, c'est d'étudier dans quelles conditions, externes et internes, les idées maîtresses du bouddhisme ont agi sur les esprits ; de quelle manière elles se lient les unes aux autres ; quelle influence elles ont exercée sur la conduite des individus et sur la communauté ; comment elles se sont transformées par le travail même de la pensée ; comment elles ont dévié au contact de doctrines hétérogènes ; à quels excès de théorie et de pratique elles ont parfois abouti. Je ne m'occuperai donc du Bouddha et du Sangha que dans la mesure où la personnalité du maître et l'organisation de l'église sont pour quelque chose dans la direction prise par le travail des âmes religieuses. Quant aux doctrines, je laisserai de côté celles qui n'intéressent pas du tout l'élaboration du salut, et passerai rapidement sur celles qui peuvent être considérées comme la simple application des principes essentiels. Si je ne craignais d'exposer mon livre à de redoutables comparaisons, je dirais que j'ai tenté de mettre en lumière !'« esprit » du bouddhisme, un esprit remarquable à la fois par sa continuité et par ses variations.
Malgré les restrictions que je viens d'indiquer, ce programme, je le crains, paraîtra trop ambitieux. Peutêtre même le trouvera-t-on irréalisable dans les conditions actuelles de la science. Que d'incertitudes, en effet, et que de lacunes dans l'histoire de la pensée bouddhique! Pouvons-nous seulement dater avec quelque approximation les écrits dits canoniques ? N'est-il pas puéril de vouloir expliquer les aspects successifs du bouddhisme sans tenir le plus grand compte de facteurs qui ne sont ni théosophiques, ni même hindous ? On a cherché du côté de la gnose et du manichéisme l'origine de quelques-unes des nouveautés par lesquelles se distinguent les écoles du Grand Véhicule. Si l'on a eu raison l'évolution de la doctrine cesse d'être exclusivement autochtone. Comme, d'ailleurs, l'influence des religions sectaires s'est fait sentir très vite, qu'elle s'est accentuée avec le temps, qu'elle a fini par devenir presque prépondérante, on trouvera l'explication des dernières déviations, non pas sans doute hors de l'Inde, mais hors du bouddhisme, et dans des formations religieuses dont nous savons fort mal l'histoire ancienne. Ces écueils,et d'autres encore, je savais qu'ils étaient semés sur ma route, et j'espère n'avoir jamais oublié leur présence pendant que je travaillais à cet ouvrage. Mais je n'ai pas eu non plus la prétention de résoudre tous les problèmes. Je me tiendrai pour satisfait, si j'ai quelque peu contribué à une plus entière connaissance du bouddhisme. (Oltramare, preface, xiii–xv)
The dissertation includes four main chapters, these are: I. Zhanran's biography; II. The idea of Buddha-nature in Chinese Buddhism; III. Demonstration of the Buddha-nature of the insentient in Zhanran’s The Diamond Scalpel treatise; IV. Summary.
In the first chapter Zhanran’s life is presented through a translation, comparison and analysis
of the chapters dealing with Zhanran’s life from the biographies of monks written in the Song
Dynasty (960−1279). Biographies besides historical data also contain several miraculous elements, thus, this first chapter also provides a glimpse into the world of Buddhist biographies. This chapter also briefly introduces the reader into the history of Tiantai school before Zhanran, therefore this is placed at the beginning of the dissertation.Because the main theme of Zhanran’s treatise is the Buddha-nature of the insentient, the translation and analysis of the text is preceded by a chapter on the idea of Buddha-nature, focusing on its apparition, evolution an interpretations in Chinese Buddhism. This chapter is divided into two major parts, the first part gives a presentation of those sūtras and treatises, which had the greatest influence on the formation of Chinese interpretations of the notion. The second part deals with those Chinese traditions and schools, thinkers and ideas, which had great impact on the formation of the Chinese Buddha-nature theory. While presenting certain writings, schools and thinkers a greater emphasis is laid on those ideas, which appear in The Diamond Scalpel, or can be proven to have influenced Zhanran’s philosophy. Thus, both the premises for Zhanran’s conclusion and the ideas to be refuted clear out. The objective of this chapter is to place Zhanran’s work in a greater context, and to determine those antecedents, that lead Zhanran towards the formulation of his ideas.
The third, most important and most extensive chapter is the translation of The Diamond Scalpel, complemented with translations from commentaries written to it, detailed analysis and interpretation of the text divided into sixty separate chapters. One of the most important objectives is to grasp the main ideas, and provide this difficult text a clear and easily understandable interpretation.
The fourth chapter consists of a summary of the main ideas presented in The Diamond Scalpel, and an overall analysis of the text. (Pap, "Theme and Objective of the Research," 1–3)
Included is extensive material on the history of faith in Buddhism with the main attention devoted to Ch'an (Zen) and Hua-yen. There are also substantial discussions of Buddhist antecedents to these schools and of the Pure Land School.
This is the first book in English to examine the central role of faith in Mahayana Buddhism. The author's approach develops from his personal experiences as a son (Zen) monk of the Chogye order, which was heavily influenced by the integration of meditation and scriptural study established by Chinul. (Source: Suny Press)The problem is compounded even further by the existence of one influential school of Buddhism, the Zen (Ch'an) school, not a few of whose teachers have openly insisted on the harmfulness of reading the scriptures for those intent on achieving Enlightenment. For these teachers and their followers, the scriptures might just as well be burned as read.[3]
This is not simply a modern problem; it existed in sixth century China.[4] This was the period that saw the appearance of Treatise on the Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna (hereafter referred to as AFM). Once AFM appeared, it very quickly became popular. There seem to be two reasons for this: first, it satisfied the demand of people who wanted one volume that could comprehensively embrace all Buddhist doctrines; second, it is a non-sectarian text.[5] As a matter of fact, AFM was welcomed not only by non-sectarian people but by sectarian people as well. This occasioned another problem: members of some Buddhist sects who welcomed the appearance of AFM tried to use AFM to glorify their own sects. Many of the traditional commentators betrayed such tendencies, the most famous of these being Fa-tsang (643-712 A.D.), the third patriarch of the Hua-yen school in China.[6] One of his characteristic tactics was to anticipate the attack on his sectarian attitude by his opponents, the adherents of the Fa-hsiang school,[7] by using the doctrine of AFM to justify what was specifically the Hua-yen doctrine.
Fa-tsang's commentaries on AFM exerted a strong influence on his own and succeeding generations, the result being that AFM has sometimes been considered a Hua-yen text.[8] This is certainly unfortunate. But it underscores the hermeneutical problem of how to read a text. Ui Hakuju, one of the most noted of modern Japanese Buddhologists, responded to this problem in his Daijō kishin ron by cautiously suggesting that the text be read apart from its commentaries in order that its real message be grasped.[9] This suggestion is valid only insofar as it screens out those commentaries, such as Fa-tsang's, which already bring a point of view to the text and read the text as confirming that point of view. If, however, the commentary is truly exegetical in nature, then Ui's suggestion is invalid since it cuts off a prospective medium by which one's understanding of the text may be deepened. The commentaries on AFM written by the Korean monk Wǒnhyo (617-686 A.D.) are such a medium.[10]
Wǒnhyo is regarded as one of the three great commentators on AFM; the other two are Hui-yüan (523-592 A.D.) and Fa-tsang (643-712 A.D.).[11] Wǒnhyo's commentaries are very different from Fa-tsang's: Wǒnhyo is emphatic in characterizing AFM as a text embodying a principle by which all sectarian disputes may be harmonized. According to Wǒnhyo's understanding, if one interprets AFM as a sectarian teaching, one will betray the original intent of its author.[12] Unfortunately, in East Asia, including his home country of Korea, Wǒnhyo's commentaries
are simply famous; they are not well-studied.[13] They have generally been neglected in favor of Fa-tsang's.
Wǒnhyo is, undoubtedly, one of the foremost thinkers that Korea has produced; he wrote much else besides his commentaries on AFM. Yet, although he influenced both Chinese and Japanese thinkers,[14] he is almost unknown in the West. This thesis represents a preliminary attempt at remedying this situation. (Park, preface, 2–5)
Notes
- A number of books have been written about the Buddhist canon. For the Pali canon see Maurice Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature, Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1933, especially Vol. II, Section III, pp. 1-423. For the Sanskrit texts see Yamada Ryūjō, Bongo Butten no shobunken, Kyoto: Heirakuji shoten, 1977. For the history of the formation of the original Buddhist texts in general, see Maeda Egaku's Genshi Bukkyō seiten no seiritsushi kenkyū, Tokyo: Sankibo Busshorin, 1964. This is the most comprehensive book of its kind.
The following books on the Chinese Buddhist canon are reliable: Prabodh Chandra Bagchi, Le Canon Bouddhique en Chine; les Traducteurs et les Traductions, Vols. 1 and 4, Paris: Sino-Indica Publications de l'université de Calcutta, 1927-1938; Paul Demiéville, "Sur les Éditions Imprimées du Canon Chinois," Bulletin de l'Ecole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient, Tome XXIV, Hanoi, 1924; Ono Gemmyō, "Bukkyō kyōten sōron," vol. 12 of Busshō kaisetsu daijiten, Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1931-1936; Kenneth Ch'en, Buddhism in China {Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973), pp. 365-386. - For the schools of Buddhism in China, see Kenneth Ch'en, ibid., pp. 297-364.
- As Yanagida Seizan, one of the most energetic of contemporary Japanese Zen scholars, says in his discussion of the origin of Ch'an Buddhism in China, the early Ch'an masters such as Bodhidharma (arrived in China in 521 A.D.) and Hui-neng (638-713) did not neglect the importance of canonical instruction. The negligence shown towards the canon was a fairly late development in Ch'an Buddhism, after it had become popular and powerful. Extreme condemnation of scriptural studies began with Kung-an (Koan) Ch'an masters such as Ta-hui (1088-1163). See Yanagida Seizan, Zen shisō (Tokyo: Chuo koronsha, 1975), pp. 9-106 and Yanagida Seizan, Shoki Zenshū shisho no kenkyū (Kyoto: Hozokan, 1967), pp. 419-484.
- In the second chapter of AFM, "Reasons for Writing the Treatise," there are two pairs of questions and answers; the second one of them is a discussion of this problem. See T. 1666, vol. 32, p. 575c, lines 7-17. Wǒnhyo discusses this in his commentary also: see T. 1844, vol. 44, p. 205c, line 5 - p. 206a, line 16.
- It is undeniable that AFM became popular very quickly because of the many early records which mention AFM and comrnenbaries on it. However, I disagree with previous scholars such as Mochizuki Shinko and Ui Hakuju about the reasons for its popularity. They claimed that its popularity was due to the fame of Asvaghoa and Paramārtha. This may be true, but it can be only partially true. Many texts bear the names of Aśvaghoṣa and Paramārtha, but none have been as influential as AFM. Therefore, one may say that it was the doctrinal content of AFM which guaranteed its success; only this can explain its prominent historical role in sixth century Chinese Buddhism. Although Wǒnhyo did not doubt the authenticity of the text, he did not discuss the author and translator, whereas Hui-yuan and Fa-tsang did discuss them. See the preface to Mochizuki Shinko's Daijō kishin ron no kenkyū (hereafter referred to as DKK-M) (Tokyo: Kanao bunendo, 1922), pp. 1-5. See also the postface to Ui Hakuju's Daijō kishin ron (hereafter referred to as DK-U) (Tokyo: Iwanami bunko, 1936), pp. 131-132. See also T. 1843 vol. 44, p. 175c, line 11 - p. 176a, line 8 and T. 1846, vol. 44, p. 245c, line 25 - p. 246a, line 8.
- For the nature of Fa-tsang's commentaries, see DK-U, p. 132. An excellent overall survey of commentaries on AFM is given in Mochizuki Shinko's DKK-M, pp. 203-346. Mochizuki's survey includes detailed and annotated explanations of 176 commentaries on AFM. For the most recent comprehensive survey see Hirakawa Akira's Daijō kishin ron (Tokyo: Daizō shuppan kabushiki kaisha, 1976), pp. 390-413.
- Murakami Senshō gives a good review of the criticism of AFM. See his Daijō kishin ron kōgi (Tokyo: Tōyō daigaku shuppanbu, 1912), pp. 19-31.
- See DK-U, pp. 138-139.
- See ibid., p. 140.
- Wǒnhyo wrote nine commentaries on AFM; only two are extant: T. 1844 and T. 1845 (see Part Two, "Introduction to Translation"). For the titles of the seven missing commentaries see the third section of Part One, "Wǒnhyo's Bibliography."
- Almost all the books and records about AFM mention the three great commentaries. The earliest attested one to do so is the preface by the Japanese monk Kakugen. It is included in T. 1844, vol. 44, p. 202a, lines 3-4. See my translation of Kakugen's preface in the Appendix.
- T. 1845, vol. 44, p. 226b, line 12.
- Many books and papers have been published about Wǒnhyo, but few of them are critical. There have been three translations of Wǒnhyo's commentaries into modern Korean, but none of the three is reliable. See Note 3 to the translation in Part Two.
- See Motoi Nobuo's paper, "Shiragi Gangyo no denki ni tsuite," Ōtani gakuhō XLI, No. 1 (1961), p. 37.
Volume 12
The Sutra of Queen Śrīmālā of the Lion's Roar
The Sutra of Queen Śrīmālā of the Lion's Roar, generally known by its abbreviated title of Śrīmālā-sūtra, was expounded by Śrīmālā, the daughter of King Prasenajit of Śrāvasti, under the inspiration of Śākyamuni. Its important subjects include the theory of the “One True Vehicle” and the dharmakāya. Distinguished from other sūtras with the leading role played by a woman, and with the guarantee given by Śākyamuni therein, the text celebrates the potential of all people to become Buddhas and provides textual authority to counteract cultural gender bias.
In Japan this sūtra is further distinguished by the commentary (Taishō 106) attributed to Prince Shōtoku, included in his “Commentaries on Three Sūtras” (Jp. San-gyō gi-sho).
Source:
Skt. Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda-sūtra, translated into the Chinese by Guṇabhadra as Shengman shizihou yisheng defang bianfang guang jing (勝鬘師子吼一乘大方便方廣經). 1 fascicle.
Taishō 475
Volume 14
The Vimalakīrti Sutra
In The Vimalakīrti Sutra the protagonist is a layman by the name of Vimalakīrti, well-versed in the profundities of Mahāyāna Buddhism. He happens to fall ill, and the sūtra starts from the point where Śākyamuni, hearing of his illness, asks his disciples to go to visit him. However, since each of the disciples has in the past been got the better of by Vimalakīrti in some way or other, they all refuse to go; so in the end it is Mañjuśrī who agrees to visit him in their stead. As a result a discussion on the profound teachings of the Mahāyāna unfolds between Vimalakīrti and Mañjuśrī. This sūtra is held in high regard in Japan, not least because Prince Shōtoku included a commentary on it (Taishō 107) in his Commentaries on Three Sūtras (San-gyō-gi-sho). Beyond that, the text has considerable appeal due to its dramatic contents, and is an important key to an understanding of the profound thought of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
Source:Skt. Vimalakīrtinirdeśa-sūtra. Translated into the Chinese by Kumārajīva as Weimojie suoshuo jing (維摩詰所説經). 3 fascicles. (Source: BDK America)
Because of the number of citations and references which are retained in Sanskrit Buddhist texts, the Śrīmālādevī sūtra seems to have been widely circulated throughout India. This text is
quoted in the Ratnagotravibhāga-mahāyānottara-tantra śāstra (The Supreme Exposition of Mahāyāna: A Commentary on the Jewel Lineage)[1] and the Śikṣāsamuccaya (A Compendium on Instruction)[2] with allusions made in the Laṅkāvatāra sūtra[3] and the Mahāyāna sūtrālaṁkāra (The Ornament of the Mahāyāna sūtras).[4] The Ch'eng wei-shih lun (Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi) by Hsüan-tsang also quotes from the Śrīmālādevī sūtra but does not identify the sūtra by name.[5]
According to the Sung kao seng chuan[6] Bodhiruci used a Sanskrit text of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra for reference in translating the text into Chinese. From the above evidence, it may be concluded that a Sanskrit original of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra did exist and that this text was part of the Indian Buddhist tradition.
The classical Chinese text is extant in two recensions:
1) Sheng-man shih-tzu-hou i-ch'eng ta-fang-pien fang-kuang ching (1 ch.) (T.v.12, no. 353, pp. 217-223), translated by Guṇabhadra (394-468) in 435.
2) Sheng-man-fu-jen hui which is the forty-eighth assembly in the Ratnakūṭa anthology (Ta-pao chi ching) (T.v.11, no. 310, pp. 672-678), translated by Bodhiruci[7] (572-727) of T'ang between 706 and 713.
Because Guṇabhadra's translation is almost three hundred years older than Bodhiruci's, it has been chosen as the basic text in order to trace the development of Tathāgatagarbha thought in its original form. Bodhiruci's translation is used when Guṇabhadra's translation is ambiguous and when differences in interpretation are indicated.
The Tibetan recension, Hphags-pa lha-mo dpal-phreṅ gi seṅ-geḥi sgra shes-bya-ba theg-pa chen-poḥi mdo (Tōhoku no. 92, Bkaḥ-ḥgyur), which is part of the Ratnakūṭa anthology, will not be used. When significant differences between the Chinese and Tibetan recensions occur, the Tibetan text will be noted also.[8]
The commentaries which are extant are few and only in Chinese and Japanese. There are no Tibetan commentaries now extant, which discuss only the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.[9] According to the Kao seng chuan,[10] immediately after the translation of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra many commentaries were composed by monks who had studied and memorized the Śrīmālādevī sūtra. These texts, now lost, were dated between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. According to Chi-tsang's Sheng-man ching pao-k'u, monks studied and composed commentaries on the Śrīmālādevī sūtra from the North-South dynastic periods through the Sui (i.e. from approximately 440-618 A.D.).
The major commentaries[11] extant in Chinese are:
1) Hsieh-chu sheng-man ching (T.v.85, no. 2763) - Although the commentator is unknown, this text was probably the composition of a noble woman of Northern Wei, attested to by the calligraphy and literary style of the Tun-huang manuscript. Completed before 500 A.D., it is the oldest extant commentary on the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.[12] Only Chapter 5, "Ekayāna" is discussed.
2) Sheng-man ching i-chi (2 ch.) (Dainihon zokuzōkyō, v.1, no. 30-1) by Hui-yüan, (523-692) of Sui - Only the first half of the text is extant, corresponding to the first four chapters of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.
3) Sheng-man ching pao-k'u, (3 ch.) (T.v.37, no. 1744) by Chi-tsang (549-623) of Sui.
4) Sheng-man ching shu-chi, (2 ch.) (Dainihon zokuzōkyō v.1, no. 30-4) by K'uei-chi (632-682) of T'ang.
5) Sheng-man ching su-i ssu-ch'ao, (6 ch.) (Dainihon bukkyō zensho, v.4) by Ming-k'ung[13] of T'ang in 772.
The major commentaries extant in Japanese are:
1) Shōmagyō gisho (1 ch.) (T.v.56, no. 2184) attributed to Prince Shōtoku (573-621) but probably the composition of a North Chinese Buddhist scholar.[14]
2) Shōmangyō shosho genki, (18 ch.) (Dainihon bukkyō zensho, v.4) by Gyōnen (1240-1321). First five chüan are missing. The extant text begins with the chapter "The Ten Ordination Vows".
3) Shōman-shishikugyō kenshūshō (3 ch.) (Nihon daizōkyō, v. 5; Dainihon bukkyō zensho, v.4) by Fūjaku (1707-1781)
The Sheng-man ching pao k'u and the Shōmangyō gisho are the two primary commentaries upon which the present study's interpretation of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra is based. These two commentaries have been selected because the former, written by a San-lun master, interprets Tathāgatagarbha from a Mādhyamikan perspective whereas the latter is representative of the North Chinese scholars' interpretation and frequently overshadows the sūtra itself in popularity, particularly in Japan. The Sheng-man ching i-chi and the Hsieh-chu sheng-man ching are used as references in analyzing Chapters 4 and 5, "The Acceptance of the true Dharma" and the "One Vehicle" respectively of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.
In Chapter One, a historical analysis will be attempted, suggesting the place and time of composition on the basis of external and internal evidence now available. In Chapter Two, the evolution of the Tathāgatagarbha will be outlined, based upon the first two Tathāgatagarbhan texts, the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra and the Pu tseng pu chien ching, which predate the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.[15]
In Chapter Three the characteristic format of the
Śrīmālādevī sūtra is summarized in relation to the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra and the Pu tseng pu chien. In Chapter Four the Tathāgatagarbha as presented in the Śrīmālādevī sūtra is analyzed with relation to the text as a whole, and in Chapter Five the annotated translation of the Śrīmālādevī-siṁhanāda sūtra is presented with notations of key differences between the two Chinese recensions and with references made to the two commentaries, Sheng-man ching pao-k'u and Shōmangyō gisho, and to the Sanskrit fragments noted above.
Appendix I is an attempt to lay the groundwork for a methodology of Buddhist studies which would provide a foundation for the skills needed for a critical analysis and interpretation of Buddhist phenomena. Appendix II is an annotated bibliography for studying the Śrīmālādevī-siṁhanāda sūtra. Appendix I is admittedly limited and will provide only the most general outline of the requisite methodological procedure in analyzing a Buddhist text. (Paul, introduction, 1–6)
Notes
- There are two English translations of the Ratnagotravibhāga-mahāyānottara-tantra śāstra: E. E. Obemiller, The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism (Rome: Acta Orientalia, 1932), (Shanghai reprint: 1940) and Jikido Takasaki, A Study on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra): Being a Treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory of Mahāyāna Buddhism (Rome: Series Orientale Rome XXIII, 1966). The Sanskrit text of the Ratnagotra-vibhāga-mahāyānottara-tantra śāstra, ed., by E. R. Johnston (Patna: Bihar Society, 1950) cites the Śrīmālādevī sūtra on pp. 3, 12, 15, 19, 20, 22, 30, 33, 34, 36, 37, 45, 50, 55, 56, 59, 72, 73, 74, 76, and 79. A portion of these Sanskrit fragments have been noted below, in the translation, wherever differences or ambiguities in the Chinese recensions occur.
- Cf. Çikshāsamuccaya (A Compendium on Buddhist Teaching, ed. by Cecil Bendall (St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, (1897-1902), vol. I of Bibliotheca Buddhica, reprinted by Indo-Iranian Journal (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1957), pp. 42 and 43.
- Cf. Laṅkāvatāra sūtra, ed. by Bunyiu Nanjio, (Second edition, Kyoto: Otani University Press, 1956), p. 222 line 19 and p. 223 line 4.
- Cf. Mahāyāna sūtrālaṁkāra, ed. by Sylvain Lévi (Paris: 1907), (Shanghai reprint : 1940), Tome 1 (XI, 59), p. 70. The cited passage, attributed to the Śrīmālādevī sūtra, could not be found in either Chinese recension. Lévi also was unable to find the passage but does allude to the citation as being in the Çikshāsamuccaya, ed. by Cecil Bendall, op. cit., but these two citations are not of the same passage.
- The following citations are quoted in the Ch'eng wei-shih lun, translated by Hsüan-tsang (T.v.31, no. 1585, p. 1-60): (The remainder of this note is handwritten in Chinese and is unavailable.)
- (The first part of this note is handwritten in Chinese and is unavailable.) In the second year of T'ang emperor Chung-tsung in the reign of Shen-lung (706) he (Bodhiruci) returned to the capital (Loyang) to Chao ch'ung-fu temple to translate the Mahāratnakūṭa anthology. This anthology bad forty-nine old and new assemblies, totaling 120 ch., which were finished in the fourth month, eighth day of the second year of Hsun-t'ien (713). In the translation hall, the monks Ssu-chung and the Indian director Iśara (?) translated the Sanskrit: while the Indian monks Prajñāgupta (?) and Dharma were consulted concerning the Sanskrit meaning." (T.v.50, no. 2061, p. 720b)
The Sung kao seng chuan, 30 ch., was compiled by Chih-lun and Tsang-ning of the Sung dynasty during the period from the beginning of the T'ang dynasty until 967 according to Ui Hakuju, Bukkyō jiten (A Buddhist Dictionary), (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1971), p. 654 and until 988 according to Nakamura Hajime, Shin-bukkyō jiten (The New Buddhist Dictionary), (Tokyo: Seishin shobō, 1972), p. 329. - According to the Sung kao seng chuan, op. cit., (p. 720c) Bodhiruci died in the fifteenth year of K'ai-yuan (727) of T'ang at the age of 156.
- The differences noted between the Chinese and Tibetan recensions are based upon the Shōmangyō hōgatsu dōji shomongyō (Kyoto: Kōkyō shoin, 1940) by Tsukinowa Kenryū.
- Tibetan commentaries on the Ratnagotravibhāga do interpret the passages which cite the Śrīmālādevī sūtra. These are not discussed within the present study.
- Kokuyaku-issaikyō hōshaku-bu shichi, Ono Masao (gen. ed.) (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1958), p. 84 lists the monks who attempted to write commentaries now lost. The Kao seng chuan, compiled by Hui-chao of the Liang dynasty, is the record of approximately 253 eminent monks from 67 A.D. through 519 A.D. Cf. Ui, Shin-bukkyō jiten, op. cit., p. 303.
- For a complete listing of all commentaries in both Chinese and Japanese, extant and no longer extant, see below - Appendix II, Annotated Bibliography.
- Fujieda Akira, "Hokucho ni okeru Shōmangyō no tenshō" in Tōhō gakuhō, v.XL, 1973, p. 334. (Journal of the Institute of Humanities) (Jimbun Kagaku kenkyūsho) (Kyoto University).
- According to the Bussho kaisetsu daijiten, Ono Masao {gen.ed.) (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1966), vol. V, p. 350, this text was composed by both Prince Shōtoku and Ming-k'ung.
- Prince Shōtoku most probably did not compose the Shōmangyō gisho since many of the texts which the Gisho cites were not known to Prince Shōtoku but were introduced to Japan at a much later date. For the transmission of the Chinese commentaries on the Śrīmālādevī-siṁhanāda sūtra, see "Hokucho ni okeru Shōmangyō", op. cit. For the "original" Gisho, composed by a Chinese scholar of the North-South dynastic period, residing in North China, see "Shōman gisho hongi" in Shōtoku taishi kenkyū, v. 5 (Osaka: Shitennoji Joshi Daigaku, 1973) by Koizumi Enjun in which the original Chinese commentary is edited and later almost entirely copied in the Shōmangyō gisho.
The research on these commentaries at the time of this writing has been undertaken by members of the Jimbun Kagaku kenkyusho who are affiliated with Kyoto University. From analyzing the Tun-huang manuscripts, two very similar hypotheses have been developed: a) The Gisho itself was written by a Chinese scholar, or b) The original for the Shōmangyō gisho, viz. Shōman gisho hongi (or, Sheng-man i-su ben-i), was composed by a Northern Chinese scholar and later almost entirely interpolated into the Shōmangyō gisho by Prince Shōtoku or one of his followers. - The analysis of Tathāgatagarbha was undertaken in consultation with Professors Yuichi Kajiyama, Chairman of Buddhist Studies, Kyoto University, and Gadjin Nagao, Professor Emeritus in Buddhist Studies, Kyoto University.
This thesis explores the thought of one of Tibet's preeminent scholars, 'Jam mgon 'Ju Mi pham rnam rgyal (1846-1912), focusing on one of his most important texts, the Precious Lamp of Certainty. The critical philosophical traditions of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism inculcate a developmental or gradualist interpretation of the path towards enlightenment based on philosophical study and critical reasoning. The Precious Lamp of Certainty uses critical philosophical methods to establish the viability of the Great Perfection (rdzogs chen), a philosophical and meditative oriented towards subitism or sudden enlightenment.
The Samdhinirmochana Sutra demonstrates how our common modes of viewing reality and our habitual ways of living are fundamentally mistaken. It details how the full force of our mental and physical faculties can be harnessed for the task of clearing up the ignorance that clouds the continuum of every being who is not a Buddha, describing in detail the views, stages, and practices necessary for this transformation.
This Sutra presents the Buddha's dialogues with ten great Bodhisattvas on such topics as ultimate reality, base-consciousness, the threefold character of phenomena, the teachings of definitive meaning, the ten stages of the Bodhisattva Path and the six perfection, and the union of wisdom and compassion at the Buddha level. Read, studied, outlined, and meditated upon, this Sutra can reveal the architecture of enlightenment and open awareness to the profound and expansive vision that informs the third turning teachings. Correctly understood, it can guide the reader on a path that leads to mental balance, insight into the view of sunyata, and deep commitment to work selflessly for the benefit of others. To encourage students to investigate the text more closely, this publication contains the complete typeset Tibetan text on facing pages, extensive notes, glossary, and index. (Source: Dharma Publishing) In the second part is reprinted the Sanskrit text of Maitreya's Uttaratantra (Ratnagotravibhāga). The third part includes corrections and emendations suggested by Jikido Takasaki in the Sanskrit text in the light of Tibetan and Chinese versions. The fourth part is an English translation of the text from its Tibetan version by E. Obermiller.
This book is a radical departure from the traditional interpretations of Buddhism and the Mādhyamika philosophy in particular. It aims at reviving
Pérez-Remón's book is analytical in nature, and its immediate aim is to provide an interpretative study of the anattā doctrine as it appears in the earlier parts of the Pali canon, namely the Nikaya literature. He describes the religious views elaborated in these contexts as a soteriology, that is to say a system of moral training which considers salvation to be its prime goal. Buddhist writings on the self, he argues, are not as clear and unambiguous as is often supposed. He does not, in particular, believe that one could regard them in a purely negative light, after the manner of certain Theravada exponents. The use and the import of "self" (attā) and "non-self" (anattā) are of course central to this study. In order to facilitate his inquiry into these key terms, he introduces some important distinctions which appear for the most part to be philosophical in nature. First, there is the distinction between the self in its existential and metaphysical signification; and second, between two senses of the term non-self, one qualified and the other absolute. Previous interpretations of the anattā doctrine have not revolved around distinctions of this kind. Perez-Remon, however, is of the view that it is necessary to focus on them in order to gain a true insight into early Buddhist thinking on the nature and existence of the self.
For the complete review, click hereEast Asian Buddhism has developed a series of concepts that
refer to the realm of the nonsentients-material objects and entities devoid of a conscious mind-which constitute and furnish the material space where both sentient beings in the Six Destinations (rokudō or rokushu) and buddhas live and operate. In particular, hijō or mujō (nonsentients) and kikai (realm of objects) refer to the milieu of buddhas and sentient beings. They are therefore related to such concepts as ujō (sentient beings), shujō (living beings), shujōkai (realm of sentient beings) and bukkai (realm of the buddhas). On the other hand, ehō, which literally means "karmic support," is the material environment (space and circumstances with the related set of objects) in which sentient beings find themselves as a consequence of karmic retribution. This notion is related to that of shōbō, "karmic retribution proper," the particular body-mind complex that forms the subjectivity of a sentient being as a result of karma.
In Japan, terms referring to materiality and the environment are considered synonymous with more concrete expressions such as sōmoku kokudo (plants and the territory), sōmoku kasen gareki (plants, rivers, bricks, and stones), or more simply sōmoku (plants). This synonymity is important to recognize because in most medieval doctrinal tracts a term such as sōmoku did not refer literally to "plants" only but rather to the entire realm of the non-sentients. Most often this extended to inanimate objects of any kind, including man-made artifacts.2 Therefore, as we will see in the course of this book, "nature" is not always an accurate rendition of the doctrinal contents of these concepts.
Japanese authors have usually studied the Buddhist philosophy of objects as a purely doctrinal matter isolated from larger social and ideological issues. Most of them consider it the manifestation in Buddhist terms of an ahistorically understood Shintō animism that is believed to permeate the Japanese cultural tradition. In some cases, this is related to a vague environmental concern supposedly generated by such animism. One of the goals of the present study is to formulate a critique of such interpretations.
I will address here the Buddhist discourse of the nonsentients from the perspective of an intellectual history open to the field of
cultural studies, which I understand as a clearinghouse of tools and approaches useful in comprehending the workings of a culture. Particular emphasis will be placed on the contexts of the source material relating to the inanimate world and the processes of signification they generated. One of the problems with received
scholarship on the relationships among Buddhism, plants, and objects is over-specialization and excessive compartmentalization, which prevents it from addressing the discourse from a multidisciplinary perspective. Most studies consist of philological and doctrinal discussions of elite texts almost completely isolated
from their shifting contexts of production and interpretation. Other scholars address ideas and practices on a "folk" level, but largely ignore their doctrinal foundations. One notable exception is Taira Masayuki, who has indicated that medieval prohibitions against cutting trees issued by religious institutions were in fact attempts to apply Buddhist ethical precepts to the fields of economy and power relations.3 However, even Taira failed to connect such prohibitions to the Buddhist discourse on nonsentients and related treatments of materiality as part of a larger cultural picture.
Ecological and environmental concerns are often mentioned
in contemporary literature on plants becoming buddhas. In this monograph, Japanese Buddhist ecology is understood as a set of discursive practices related to the definition, interpretation, and uses of the environment (kikai, ehō) of sentient beings and the objects inhabiting it. Thus, whenever I refer to "ecology" I do so with this larger meaning in mind. This meaning is closely related to economy, politics, and ideology, and is not the result of a supposed "love for nature," as most authors suggest. I will show that Buddhist doctrines on plants constitute in fact a discourse on the material environment, its status and its functions. Such a discourse was articulated with respect to three orders of significance, which I define as ecosophia, ecognosis, and ecopietas. Ecosophia refers to standard Buddhist doctrines denying the nonsentients the possibility of becoming buddhas.4 With ecognosis I indicate Tendai and Shingon initiatory doctrines on the absolute and unconditioned nature of the nonsentients. Finally, ecopietas has to do with popular, widespread beliefs and attitudes about the sacredness of the natural world and material objects in general.
The medieval Japanese discourse on the material environment addresses a number of social concerns, such as the status of the members of the initiatory lineages producing these doctrines, the ontology of social order, the control of the material world of the nonsentients, and the distribution of its wealth. As such, doctrines on the Buddha-nature of plants played an important ideological role in the creation of a vision of order and of power relations in
society. We will see that this Buddhist discourse was not a mere doctrinal curiosity or a manifestation of an animistic love for nature. Rather, it went far beyond Buddhological and soteriological issues, with important practical consequences. This was particularly the case in the arenas of social ideology and economics, and
influenced the ways in which religious institutions defined themselves and their own properties.
The three chapters that compose this book address different
but related subjects. Chapter One presents the main doctrinal and philosophical aspects of the status of nonsentients and objects in general in Japan. I begin with an excursus on Chinese treatments of the subject, which constituted the background to subsequent Japanese interventions. Then, I introduce the two main forms of Japanese ecognosis, those developed within the Tendai and Shingon traditions, through a discussion of the most significant texts on plants becoming buddhas. Chapter Two discusses "popular" discourses and practices concerning trees as instances of ecopietas. I attempt to show that ecopietas-like attitudes, rather than being a mere manifestation of primordial and Shinto animistic beliefs, were also the result of struggles and negotiations between Buddhist institutions supported by the state and local social structures or life-styles. Chapter Three deals with the ideological effects of the doctrines on plants becoming buddhas. There I criticize received ideas that such doctrines are manifestations of a typically and uniquely Japanese attitude towards nature and the environment, rooted in an essentially ahistorical vision of Shinto. In particular, I discuss a number of cases of prohibitions against cutting trees issued by religious
institutions in medieval Japan: their rhetoric as well as their historical and social contexts show that religious institutions were interested in trees not particularly out of environmental concerns (even though those were present), but in their attempt to establish their own social role and influence. In this sense, the theme of plants becoming buddhas becomes a metaphor for larger issues, such as the relations between religious institutions and the state, and ideas of social order and domination. (Rambelli, introduction, 1–4)
Notes
- Throughout the book, "Buddha" (capitalized) will be used as a proper noun to refer to a specific Buddha, whereas "buddha" or "buddhas" (lower case) will indicate a general condition as a result of certain soteriologic practices.
- The role of plants as objects is particularly evident in the art form known as ikebana, in which vegetal elements are isolated from their contexts to form examples of abstract expressIonism that point to the nature of the vegetal as object. It is also seen in premodern iron sculptures representing trees and branches, known as tetsuju (iron trees).
- Taira Masayuki, Nihon chūsei no shakai to bukkyō, 1992, pp. 247-249.
- The term "ecosophia" was first used by Félix Guattari in his Les trois écologies, 1989. I employ it in a different way.
It is often linked with The Heart Sutra and The Diamond Sutra to form a trio of texts that have been revered and studied for centuries. However, unlike the other sutras, which transcribe the teachings of the Buddha himself, The Platform Sutra presents the autobiography of Hui–neng, the controversial 6th Patriarch of Zen, and his understanding of the fundamentals of a spiritual and practical life. Hui–neng's instruction still matters—the 7th–century school of Sudden Awakening that he founded survives today, continuing to influence the Rinzai and Soto schools of contemporary Zen.
Red Pine, whose translations of The Heart Sutra and The Diamond Sutra have been celebrated and widely received, now provides a sensitive and assured treatment of the third and final sutra of the classic triumvirate. He adds remarkable commentary to a translation that, combined with the full Chinese text, a glossary, and notes, results in a Mahayana masterpiece sure to become the standard edition for students and seekers alike. (Source: Counterpoint Press)This is the title of one of the most important books in the world. A Japanese scholar has translated it The Awakening of Faith. It might also be rendered The Mahayana Faith or The Faith of the New Buddhism.
Its importance is apparent when we consider the fact that of the 26,000 Buddhist monks and nuns in Japan no less than 17,000 of them belong to the Pure Land School and the True School, which regard this book as their fountain and origin.
Its importance is still more apparent when we consider that its doctrines are the fundamental ones of the Mahayana Faith, which is by far the chief school of Buddhism, not only in Japan, but also in China, where are the great majority of the Buddhists of the world. If we estimate the value of books by the number of adherents to their doctrines, then, after the Bible, the Koran, the Confucian Classics, and the Vedas, this volume, about the size of the Gospel of Mark, ranks next, or fifth, among the sacred books of the world.
The great value of the book is also apparent when we remember that the Eastern world had been driven to general despair by the atheistic doctrines of primitive Buddhism, called the Hinayana School, and that it was by the doctrines of this book, which gave rise to the Mahayana School of New Buddhism, that a gospel of great hope was preached to the greater part of the Eastern Asiatic continent. Its new doctrines were that of the One Soul immanent for good in all the universe, that of a Divine Helper of men, of individual immortality and growth in the likeness of God, of the importance of faith in God to produce good works and that of the willingness of the best spirits to make sacrifices to save others—the very subjects which in these modern days still occupy the attention of the most thoughtful men of the world. The book is Brahministic and Buddhistic, Indian and Western in some aspects of philosophic thought. It is profoundly philosophic, reminding one strongly of Hegel, Berkeley and G. Gore in the earlier part, and is as hard to understand as Bishop Butler's famous Analogy; yet very practical in the latter part, therefore it has great importance arising from its high and extensive range of view.
If it be, as it is more and more believed that the Mahayana Faith is not Buddhism, properly so-called, but an Asiatic form of the same Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in Buddhistic nomenclature, differing from the old Buddhism just as the new Testament differs from the old, then it commands a world-wide interest, for in it we find an adaptation of Christianity to ancient thought in Asia, and the deepest bond of union between the different races of the East and the West, viz., the bond of a common religion. Both Christianity and the New
Buddhism hold to the transcendent and the immanent forms of God; but the East emphasises more of the immanent form while the West emphasises more of the transcendent. The almost universal reception of the
The text introduces us to the preliminaries of the Buddhist practice required for higher spiritual development such as the four basic ways of concentrating one's mind on the Dharma and the Four Noble Truths.
This commentary by Khamtrul Rinpoche given in simple and lucid language unravels the gist of the Rin-chen them-skas. Appended at the end of the book is a guide to the voluminous Nyingma Lamrim (Kun-bzang bla-ma'i zhal-lung). (Source: Back Cover)
Section II investigates the complex, and controversial, problem of whether a (Prāsaṅgika) Mādhyamika may, within the frame of his school's philosophy, assert a thesis (pratijñā) and maintain a philosophical position (pakṣa, mata). It is a reworked and expanded version of an earlier study: 'On the thesis and assertion in the Madhyamaka/dBu ma' in E. Steinkellner and H. Tauscher (ed.), Contributions on Tibetan and Buddhist religion and philosophy (Proceedings of the Csoma de Korös Symposium held at Velm-Vienna, 13-19 September 1981 (Vienna, 1983), pp. 205-241).
Section III concerns the very significant place occupied in Tsoṅ kha pa's Madhyamaka philosophy by the ideas and methods of epistemological and logical system (pramāṇavidyā) of Dharmakīrti. It is an expanded version of a study first published in 1991: 'On pramāṇa theory in Tsoṅ khap pa's Madhyamaka philosophy' in E. Steinkellner (ed.), Studies in the Buddhist epistemological tradition (Proceedings of the Second International Dharmakīrti Conference, Vienna, 11-16 June, 1989, Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophische-Historische Klasse, Denkschriften, 222. Band (Vienna, 1991), pp. 281-310).
Part II of these Studies will contain annotated translations of Candrakīrti's Sanskrit commentary on Madhyamakakārikā i.1 taken from his renowned Prasannapadā madhyamakavṛttiḥ and of rGyal tshab Dar ma rin chen's Tibetan Summary-Memorandum on the Eight Crucial Points in Madhyamaka philosophy (dKya' gnad/gnas brgyad kyi zin bris). (Source: foreword in Part I)
The Introduction chapter of this book, Rulu's seventh, explores the origin of the concept of the Tathagata store, and discusses how teachings on the Tathagata store have come to be accepted in China as the mainstream of Mahayana teachings and a distinct school of thought, standing apart from and along with the Madhyamaka School and the Yogacara School. Highlights of teachings on the Tathagata store presented in this chapter include why all sentient beings possess the Tathagata store, meanings of the dharma body and its four virtues, a comparison between the self claimed by those on non-Buddhist paths and a true self taught by the Buddha, meanings of one's Buddha nature, and how one's Tathagata store and alaya consciousness (alaya-vijnana) are unified.
This book presents the English translations of six sutras selected from the Chinese Buddhist Canon. The Mahavaipulya Sutra of the Tathagata Store gives a basic teaching and describes by nine analogies that one's Tathagata store is shrouded by one's afflictions. The Sutra of Neither Increase Nor Decrease reveals that the Tathagata store is a Tathagata's dharma body, and that the realm of sentient beings neither increases nor decreases. The Sutra of Shrimala's Lion’s Roar gives teachings on one's afflictions that shroud one's Tathagata store and inspires all sentient beings to ride the One Vehicle to attain Buddhahood. The Mahayana version of the Sutra of Angulimalika reveals that as one's Tathagata store transcends all dharmas, all dharmas are one's Tathagata store. The Sutra of the Unsurpassed Reliance teaches one to rely on one's Tathagata store in order to walk the bodhi path to Buddhahood. The Sutra of the Vajra Samadhi reveals that one's inherent awareness, the pure awareness of one's true mind, has a mass of benefits. This book will benefit readers at all levels and can serve as a basis for scholarly research. (Source: Author House)However, being a living or animate being (e.g. p(r)āṇa/p(r)āṇin, satt(v)a, jīva, bhūta) is, in India, at any rate in theoretical contexts, by and large equated with being sentient ((sa)cetana, sacittaka, cittamaṃta, etc.), with being, to a certain extent at least, capable of perception and sensation, and in doctrinally developed Buddhism it is, apart from men and mythological beings, only animals that are regarded as sentient beings. Except for certain developments
in the Far East and perhaps Tantric Buddhism (which requires special investigation), plants are not admitted in Buddhism as sentient beings, let alone crystals, stones, earth, water or other inorganic things. These are hence not, at least not directly, protected by the precept to abstain from killing/injuring animate beings.
The question is, however, whether this restriction of living, sentient beings, in the sphere of nature, to animals only was the position of Buddhism from the outset. Actually, from what we know about other Indian religions prior to or contemporary with earliest Buddhism, such a position would seem to have been anything but a matter of course.
As for Vedic religion, there is sufficient evidence that not only animals but also plants as well as seeds and even water and earth were, more or less naively, believed to be living and even sentient, and fire and wind had at least a personalized, divine aspect (viz. the gods Agni on the one hand, and Vāyu and Vāta on the other; cp. also the idea of water and fire as principles of life in late Vedic thought). Even in post-Vedic Hinduism, at least the view that plants and seeds capable of germination are sentient beings is still well documented, although some circles and authors disagree. Occasionally, even stones, water or the earth are admitted as living or sentient.
In Jainism the view that plants and seeds are sentient beings is clearly expressed and undisputed, and according to the view prevailing in Jaina sources even earth, water, wind and fire are alive, i.e., consist of minute living beings possessing, like plants, the sense of touch.
Against this background, it appears natural to raise the question whether in earliest Buddhism, too, at least plants and seeds (but perhaps even earth and water) may still have been viewed as living, sentient beings, in spite of the later rejection of such a view. To be sure, in this case it would be necessary to explain how the later view arose. But in the opposite case, too, one would have to search for a reason why the Buddhists, or the Buddha, abandoned the view, current at their time, that plants are sentient beings.
It would be easy to determine the status of plants and seeds in earliest Buddhism if the canonical Buddhist texts, and especially such layers as can be regarded as comparatively old, did contain fully explicit statements either rejecting or
asserting the sentience of plants. But there are none, as far as I can see. Hence, the matter has to be decided by induction. In view of the later doctrinal position of Buddhism that plants (etc.) are not sentient beings, the onus probandi is, of course, incumbent on him who maintains that in earliest Buddhism the situation was different. Therefore, I shall, in the following chapters (II-IV), discuss passages which may indicate that in earliest Buddhism plants were still regarded as living, sentient beings, or at least not yet definitely considered to be lifeless and insentient. (Schmithausen, The Problem of the Sentience of Plants in Earliest Buddhism, 1–4)
addition to the traditional six kinds of mind, viz. the five sense-perceptions and non-sensory cognition (manovijñāna), there are two new, more or less subliminal forms, viz. kliṣṭa-manas and ālayavijñāna. The former is a continuous, subtle notion or feeling of 'I', whereas the latter, in accordance with the frequent Chinese rendering, i.e. "store mind," "connaissance-réceptacle, may, in a preliminary way, be characterized as the container or store-house of the latent residues or Impressions of previous actions (karman) and mind processes, or, following the usual Tibetan translation kun gźi rnam par śes pa ("fundamental mind", "Grunderkennen"), as the basic layer of mind processes or even the very basic constituent of the whole living being. It should be kept in mind that (at least in the "orthodox" Yogācāra school) ālayavijñāna is strictly person-bound, each living being having its own ālayavijñāna.
The present essay, though also including a few remarks on the origin of kliṣṭa-manas ( see § 7. 1A. 2. 2), is primarily concerned with the problem of the origin and development of ālayavijñana. Yet, my treatment of this matter is not exhaustive either. I have rather confined myself to dealing with the problem of the origin of ālayavijñāna in a rather limited sense (see § 1.4), and to an attempt to deduce, from my starting-point and the data available in the oldest materials, certain crucial aspects of the early development of this concept.
In accordance with the limited scope of the present essay, I
feel it justified to confine myself, as for previous research, to a short systematic outline of the essential aspects of what it has contributed to the question of the formation of the concept of ālayavijñāna (§ 1.3). Though I admit that a full account of the history of research on ālayavijñāna would be useful, it would take much more time than I can afford, and anyway it should, in view of the fact that most pertinent works are in Japanese, be written by a Japanese scholar. Nevertheless, apart from specific references in the notes, a few
recent theories on the origin of ālayavijñāana will be discussed in detail in § 7, because they advocate solutions considerably differing from mine, and because I should scarcely be justified in setting up a theory of my own if I did not give my reasons for not adopting one or the other of those already set forth.
As for the question of the origin of the concept of ālayavijñāna, the solution presented in this essay must remain a hypothetical one. In view of the fact that
even basic problems of the literary history of the older Yogācāra texts, esp. of the Yogācārabhūmi, are still unsolved or controversial and since some early materials are known only from fragments—and there may have been others no longer extant in explicit quotations—, statements on the early history of Yogācāra thought are almost inevitably, at least for the time being, bound to be hypothetical. But I think Suguro is right in emphasizing that we have no choice but to try to reconstruct the historical development of Yogācāra thought if we want to re-enact it, as it were, as a dynamic, living process, and not merely take stock of the
petrified (and often incoherent) results. Besides, even preliminary observations in terms of a history of ideas may, if handled with caution, on their part be helpful in resolving problems of literary history. But what I consider essential is that, even if we cannot (or cannot yet?), in our hypotheses on matters of the history of ideas (as well as of the literary history) of uncertain periods like early Yogācāra, reach certainty, we are none
the less clearly called upon to proceed from mere possibility or non-committal plausibility to probability; i.e. we should try to find out criteria which permit us to single out, from among the at times considerable number of possible explanations, the one which is (or at least those few which are) probable; and it is precisely this that I intend to do in the present essay. (Schmithausen, introductory, programmatic and methodological remarks, Vol. 1, 1–3)
(*Author's notes have been omitted)
Read Vol. 2 OnlineSharf draws his argument in part from a meticulous historical, philological, and philosophical analysis of the Treasure Store Treatise (Pao-tsang lun), an eighth-century Buddho-Taoist work apocryphally attributed to the fifth-century master Seng-chao (374–414). In the process of coming to terms with this recondite text, Sharf ventures into all manner of subjects bearing on our understanding of medieval Chinese Buddhism, from the evolution of T’ang “gentry Taoism” to the pivotal role of image veneration and the problematic status of Chinese Tantra.
Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature are technical terms that indicate the existence of the true nature of the Buddha or Tathāgata who has attained enlightenment through totally unclouded insight (prajñā), within all living things, though these living things may be covered with the impurity of worldly desire and be seemingly incapable of attaining enlightenment. In essence, these terms refer to the fact that the Buddha or Tathāgata resides within the nature of all living things. The notions of Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature make assertions about the nature of enlightenment or salvation for living things still trapped in an unenlightened condition of suffering. They do so from the ideological position of those Tathāgatas or Buddhas who have already realized truth and been released from suffering and unenlightenment. These ideas are expressed as a kind of theodicy and soteriology, as they deal with the challenge of how super-temporal, absolute truth appears at a historical or personal level. Ideas that originate in the mature period of the history of an ideology produce higher-level notions that allow concepts born in various contexts in the previous history of the ideology to coexist. The ideas of Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature, which point to the Tathāgata or Buddha that dwells within all living things, encompass both all living things and Tathāgata, and so exist at a higher conceptual level than either.
There are two foundations of the ideas of Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature, which simultaneously problematize both unenlightenment and enlightenment: the features of soteriology in general religious thought, and the view of truth that is unique to Buddhism. Soteriology, as conceived of in general religious thought, considers the world in a dualistic fashion, as being split into the world of humanity and the world of gods, the world of suffering and the world of liberation, the endless cycle of life and death (samsara) and supreme enlightenment (nirvana). On the one hand is a relative, limited, and impermanent world, and on the other an absolute, infinite, and eternal world. The movement from the former aspect to the latter is not ceaseless but, rather, requires a change in the dimension of our existence, such as religious conversion or enlightenment. The experience of the individual transforms the aspect of the world, which formerly appeared as a single layer, thus exposing its mysterious and unseen facets. In contrast to many religions, which end their exposition at this point, Mahayana Buddhism takes the appearance of this duality itself as a subjective experience and seeks to reach the point at which both aspects ultimately become indistinguishable. The scenery of this world as seen from the world of libreration, worldly desire purified by enlightenment, Samsara illuminated by nirvana are all accepted as they are, without the necessity of any negation or denial. The duality of the world is therefore overcome, and a higher-level equality emerges that still acknowledges individual differences. (Source Accessed June 29, 2020)
Although the doctrine of tathāgatagarbha can be traced to the teaching of an innately pure luminous mind (prakṛtiś cittasya prabhāsvarā) in early Buddhist teachings, the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa-parivarta (AAN) is often considered one of the earliest Buddhist scriptures that explicitly expound the teachings of the tathāgatagarbha.
The central message of the AAN focuses upon the non-increase and non-decrease nature of the dharmadhātu. This brings out the idea of the dharmadhātu as a totality which transcends all dualistic notions. Translated into Chinese by Bodhiruci in 525 CE, the AAN is now extant only in Chinese translation (Taishō no. 668). Unfortunately, no serious studies have ever been conducted on this sūtra in Western scholarship. The precise relationship between the tathāgatagarbha and the two Mahāyāna traditions, Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, is also worth investigating in detail. The thesis will argue that the tathāgatagarbha is not a separate school in Indian Buddhism. It will then study the historical issues relating to the AAN, followed by a philosophical investigation of its teachings. The thesis will also undertake an "external" consideration of the doctrinal relationship between the AAN and a number of sūtras and śāstras. It will also incorporate a study of Bodhiruci (菩提流支), of the Northern Wei (北魏) dynasty, who translated the AAN into Chinese, as well as the first complete English translation of the AAN from its extant Chinese version.
This study may provide an alternative view on the tathāgatagarbha theory. The thesis will argue that the tathāgatagarbha is referring to be an aspect of all experiences. This means that all beings are by nature having a dimension of the mind not fully realized, and it is yogic meditative practices that enable the practitioners to develop an awareness of the enlightenment which is always implicit in our consciousness.
Although the text has hitherto drawn the attention primarily of Japanese scholars, this is the first critical edition of the sūtra, aligning its Chinese text with the available Sanskrit, offering a richly annotated English translation, a detailed introduction which places the work in its historical and doctrinal context, and a number of appendices exploring key notions, providing a reading text shorn of annotation, and enumerating the prolific quotations of the work found in Chinese Buddhist literature. This volume is thus an important contribution to studies of developing Mahāyāna Buddhism, Buddhist doctrine and the textual history of scriptures.
(Source: Hamburg University Press)
Snellgrove presents the Hevajra tantra, and tantric texts of this class, not as degenerate products of a faith at the time in terminal decline in India—as has often beeb claimed by puritanical scholars—but rather as a wholly legitimate expression of esoteric ritual and meditative practice developed as a natural evolution within the madhyamaka tradition.
While based primarily on Nepalese manuscript editions of the text, Snellgrove makes extensive reference to the Tibetan translation as well as to extant Indian commentaries. The first half of the work comprises an introduction and the actual translation with detailed annotations, while the second consists of the Romanized original Sanskrit and Tibetan texts and an extensive glossary. (Source: Back Cover)
Snodgrass explains how the Buddhism presented in Chicago was shaped by the institutional, social, and political imperatives of the Meiji Buddhist revival movement in Japan and was further determined by the Parliament itself, which, despite its rhetoric of fostering universal brotherhood and international goodwill, was thoroughly permeated with confidence in the superiority of American Protestantism. Additionally, in the context of Japan's intensive diplomatic campaign to renegotiate its treaties with Western nations, the nature of Japanese religion was not simply a religious issue, Snodgrass argues, but an integral part of Japan's bid for acceptance by the international community. (Source: University of North Carolina Press)
Early in the history of the Kagyü school, the teachings of Jikten Sumgön were condensed into 150 core formulations called vajra statements. These pithy, revelatory statements comprise the Single Intention (Dgongs gcig), which presents the thought of the Buddha and the nature of the ineffable (brjod du med pa) in concise and direct expression. The Single Intention weaves the thread of ineffable mahāmudrā through the entire fabric of Buddhism. It presents mahāmudrā as pervading disciplined conduct, meditative concentration, and discriminative knowledge; ground, path, and result; view, practice, and conduct; and the “three vows” of prātimokṣa, of the bodhisattvas, and of mantra. Jikten Sumgön teaches how the fundamental values and insights revealed by the Buddha are woven into reality and therefore accessible to all.
Showing how it is absolutely essential for—and goes hand in hand with—the achievement of insight into reality, he gives practical tips for countering sleepiness, agitation, and their more subtle counterparts. Leading us step by step toward deeper levels of concentration, volume 4 of the Steps on the Path to Enlightenment series brings readers closer to the ultimate goal of śamatha: unlimited and effortless focus. (Source: Wisdom Publications)
The primary concept underlying Dōgen's Zen practice is “oneness of practice-enlightenment”. In fact, this concept is considered so fundamental to Dōgen's variety of Zen—and, consequently, to the Sōtō school as a whole—that it formed the basis for the work Shushō-gi, which was compiled in 1890 by Takiya Takushō of Eihei-ji and Azegami Baisen of Sōji-ji as an introductory and prescriptive abstract of Dōgen's massive work, the Shōbōgenzō (“Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma”).
Dölpopa emphasized two contrasting definitions of the Buddhist theory of emptiness. He described relative phenomena as "empty of self-nature," but absolute reality as only "empty of other," i.e., relative phenomena. He further identified absolute reality as the buddha nature, or eternal essence, present in all living beings. This view of an "emptiness of other," know in Tibetan as shentong, is Dölpopa's enduring legacy.
The Buddha from Dölpo contains the only English translation of three of Dölpopa's crucial works. A General Commentary on the Doctrine is one of the earliest texts in which he systematically presented his view of the entire Buddhist path to enlightenment. The Fourth Council and its Autocommentary (which was not in the first edition of this book) were written at the end of his life and represent a final summation of his teachings. These translations are preceded by a detailed discussion of Dölpopa's life, his revolutionary ideas, earlier precedents for the shentongview, his unique use of language, and the influence of his theories. The fate of his Jonang tradition, which was censored by the central Tibetan government in the seventeenth century but still survives, is also examined. (Source: Shambhala Publications)
Scholars and commentators have long recognized the historical importance of original enlightenment thought but differ heatedly over how it is to be understood. Some tout it as the pinnacle of the Buddhist philosophy of absolute non-dualism. Others claim to find in it the paradigmatic expression of a timeless Japanese spirituality. According other readings, it represents a dangerous anti-nomianism that undermined observance of moral precepts, precipitated a decline in Buddhist scholarship, and denied the need for religious discipline. Still others denounce it as an authoritarian ideology that, by sacralizing the given order, has in effect legitimized hierarchy and discriminative social practices. Often the acceptance or rejection of original enlightenment thought is seen as the fault line along which traditional Buddhist institutions are to be differentiated from the new Buddhist movements (Zen, Pure Land, and Nichiren) that arose during Japan’s medieval period.
Jacqueline Stone’s groundbreaking study moves beyond the treatment of the original enlightenment doctrine as abstract philosophy to explore its historical dimension. Drawing on a wealth of medieval primary sources and modern Japanese scholarship, it places this discourse in its ritual, institutional, and social contexts, illuminating its importance to the maintenance of traditions of lineage and the secret transmission of knowledge that characterized several medieval Japanese elite culture. It sheds new light on interpretive strategies employed in pre-modern Japanese Buddhist texts, an area that hitherto has received a little attention. Through these and other lines of investigation, Stone problematizes entrenched notions of “corruption” in the medieval Buddhist establishment. Using the examples of Tendai and Nichiren Buddhism and their interactions throughout the medieval period, she calls into question both overly facile distinctions between "old" and "new" Buddhism and the long-standing scholarly assumptions that have perpetuated them. This study marks a significant contribution to ongoing debates over definitions of Buddhism in the Kamakura era (1185–1333), long regarded as a formative period in Japanese religion and culture. Stone argues that "original enlightenment thought" represents a substantial rethinking of Buddhist enlightenment that cuts across the distinction between "old" and "new" institutions and was particularly characteristic of the medieval period.
The main reasons for this are, in my opinion, evident. While the canonical books of the Hinayana Buddhism have been systematically preserved in the Pali language, those of the Mahayana Buddhism are scattered promiscuously all over the fields and valleys of Asia and in half a dozen different languages. Further, while most of the Sanskrit originals have been destroyed, their translations in Tibetan, Mongolian, and Chinese have never been thoroughly studied. And, lastly, the Mahayana system is so intricate, so perplexingly abstruse, that scholars not accustomed to this form of thought and expression are entirely at a loss to find their way through it
Among the false charges which have been constantly poured upon the Mahayana Buddhism, we find the following : Some say, "It is a nihilism, denying God, the soul, the world and all"; some say, "It is a polytheism: Avalokiteçvāra, Tara, Vajrapani, Mañjuçri, Amitābha, and what not, are all worshipped by its followers"; still others declare, "It is nothing but sophistry, quibbling, hair-splitting subtlety, and a mocking of the innermost yearnings of humanity" ; while those who attack it from the historical side proclaim, "It is not the genuine teaching of Buddha; it is on the contrary the pure invention of Nāgārjuna, who devised the system by ingeniously mixing up his negative philosophy with the non-atman theory of his predecessor"; or, "The Mahayana is a queer mixture of the Indian mythology that grew most freely in the Tantric period, with a degenerated form of the noble ethical teachings of primitive Buddhism." Though no one who is familiar with Mahayanistic ideas will admit these one-sided and superficial judgments, the majority of people are so credulous as to lend their ear to these falsified reports and to believe them.
The present English translation of Açvaghosha's principal work is therefore dedicated to the Western public by a Buddhist from Japan, with a view to dispelling the denunciations so ungraciously heaped upon the Mahayana Buddhism. The name of Açvaghosha is not very well known to the readers of this country, but there is no doubt that he was the first champion, promulgator, and expounder of this doctrine, so far as we can judge from all our available historical records. Besides, in this book almost all the Mahayanistic thoughts, as distinguished from the other religious systems in India, are traceable, so that we can take it as the representative text of this school. If the reader will carefully and patiently go through the entire book, unmindful of its peculiar terminology and occasional obscureness, I believe he will be amply and satisfactorily repaid for his labor, and will find that the underlying ideas are quite simple, showing occasionally a strong resemblance to the Upanishad philosophy as well as to the Samkhya system, though of course retaining its own independent thought throughout.
In conclusion let me say a word about the difficulty of translating such an abstruse religio-philosophic discourse as the present text. It is comparatively easy to translate works of travels or of historical events or to make abstracts from philosophical works. But a translator of the Mahayanistic writings, which are full of specific phraseology and highly abstruse speculations, will find himself like a wanderer in some unknown region, not knowing how to obtain any communicable means to express what be perceives and feels. To reproduce the original as faithfully as possible and at the same time to make it intelligible enough to the outside reader, who has perhaps never come in contact with this form of thought, the translator must be perfectly acquainted with the Mahayanistic doctrine as it is understood in the East, while he must not be lacking in adequate knowledge of Western philosophy and mode of thinking. The present translator has done his best to make the Mahayanistic thoughts of Açvaghosha as clear and intelligible as his limited knowledge and lack of philosophic training allow him. He is confident, however, that he has interpreted the Chinese text correctly. In spite of this, some errors may have crept into the present translation, and the translator will gladly avail himself of the criticisms of the Mahayana scholars to make corrections in case a second edition of the work is needed. (Suzuki, translator's preface, x–xiv)
Read more here . . .
The Laṅkāvatāra is a Mahayana text difficult in more than one way to understand perfectly as to its meaning and also in Its proper historical setting. But its importance as giving most of the fundamental tenets of Mahayana Buddhism has urged the author to publish whatever results he has gained so far in his study. They are no doubt short of being quite satisfactory from a strictly scholarly point of view, but the author's earnest wish is to open the way, if he could so hope, for further study and more thoroughgoing investigation of the text. Mahayana Buddhism is
just beginning to be known in the West. As to the appreciation of its full significance we have to wait patiently for some years yet to come.
The first two parts of these Studies were already published In The Eastern Buddhist, but in the present work they have been revised fully and inaccuracies corrected as far as available. The third part is entirely new. As the Studies were not planned out as a whole from the beginning but have grown progressively in the author's mind, some repetitions have become inevitable. The second part dealing with the Laṅkāvatāra containing the philosophy of Zen Buddhism was written first. As it was being revised after its publication in The Eastern Buddhist, Volume IV, Nos. 3-4, for 1928, the thought suggested itself that the sutra must be studied also textually since there are still three Chinese and one (or two) Tibetan translations. The result was the first part of the present work, which appeared as an independent article in The Eastern Buddhist, Volume V, No. 1, for 1929.
The Laṅkāvatāra does not belong exclusively to the Zen school of Buddhism, it is also the common property of the Mahayana. When it is studied apart from Zen, some of the important conceptions developed in the sutra, which do not
necessarily belong to the philosophy of Zen, are to be expounded, however briefly. Hence the third part of the present Studies, entitled "Some of the Important Theories Expounded in the Laṅkāvatāra."
The author has prepared for the benefit principally of
his Japanese and Cbinese readers a glossary of the Sanskrit technical terms found in the book. This he hopes to be of use in their perusal of Sanskrit Buddhist literature and at the same time illustrative of the methods of the Indian-Chinese translators. (Suzuki, preface, v–vi)
The innocence of this first inquiry—just asking what you are—is beginner's mind. The mind of the beginner is needed throughout Zen practice. It is the open mind, the attitude that includes both doubt and possibility, the ability to see things always as fresh and new. It is needed in all aspects of life. Beginner's mind is the practice of Zen mind.
This book originated from a series of talks given by Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki to a small group is Los Altos, California. He joined their meditation periods once a week and afterwards answered their questions and tried to encourage them in their practice of Zen and help them solve the problems of life. His approach is informal, and he draws his examples from ordinary events and common sense. Zen is now and here, he is saying; it can be as meaningful for the West as for the East. But his fundamental teaching and practice and drawn from all the centuries of Zen Buddhism and especially from Dogen, one of the most important and creative of all Zen Masters.
This book is about how to practice Zen as a workable discipline and religion, about posture and breathing, about the basic attitudes and understanding that makes Zen practice possible, about non-duality, emptiness, and enlightenment. Here one begins to understand what Zen is really about. And, most important of all, every page breathes with the joy and simplicity that make a liberated life possible. (Source: inside jacket)
Buddhism, as a religion arose in ancient India and developed in various parts of the world, aims at the unique goal that is providing welfare and happiness for human beings. The real happiness brought to mankind by Buddhism is not a satisfaction of self-requirement, but a spiritual benefit
coming from enlightenment of the absolute truth, emancipation of the ego of things and persons, and free from the hindrances of passion and ignorance. Buddhism that is mainly based on teachings of the Buddha delivered at different places on different occasions continues to develop and adapt to the new challenges in the form of thought, different cultures, religions, customs and tradition of the people wherever it went. However, all the Buddha’s teachings originate in the enlightenment of the Buddha.
All traditions of Buddhism accept that the Buddha attained enlightenment through stages of meditation that led to the Buddhahood endowed with transcendent wisdom and compassion. According to some Mahāyāna scriptures, the Buddhahood is nothing other than the Buddhanature which is the inherent essence within all beings. The doctrine of the Buddha-nature presented in several Mahāyāna scriptures of the so-called Tathāgatagarbha literature was formed in about the third century CE. There is no evidence that the doctrine of Buddha-nature formed a school in India like the Śūnyatā (Emptiness) of the Mādhyamika or the Vijñaptimātratā (Consciousness-only) of the Yogācāra School, but the Buddha-nature plays an important role in the religious life of Mahāyāna Buddhism in the East and Southeast Asian countries because it provides a faith of the permanence and immortality due to a declaration that all sentient beings possess the innate Buddha-nature and have a potentiality of becoming the Buddhas.
Although most of the followers of Mahāyāna Buddhism believe the doctrine of the Buddha-nature and constantly try their best endeavor to attain the goal of Buddhahood, there were a lot of opinions that criticize the doctrine of the Buddha-nature by asserting that it is not Buddhist because this idea of the Buddha-nature seems to be akin to the permanent Self
(ātman/brahman) presented in the Vedānta of Brahmanism. Conversely, according to some other scholars, the Buddha nature or Tathāgatagarbha referred in some Mahāyāna Sūtras does not represent a substantial self or ego; it is rather a positive language to express the thought of śūnyatā and to represent the potentiality of realizing the Buddhahood through Buddhist
practices. Modern scholars today fall into an unending discussion about the similarity or difference between the Buddha-nature and Brahman but no one compares the date of these doctrines. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is an attempt to clarify the Buddhist orthodoxy of the doctrine of the Buddha-nature through chronological comparison of the date of Buddha-nature with that of Brahman. Based on the Laṅkāvatārasūtra and other scriptures, the work attempt to elucidate that the Buddhist thought of the Buddha-nature had existed prior the Vedāntic thought of Brahman. Indeed, the thesis shows that while the doctrine of the Buddha-nature had come into existence in the third century CE in the Tathāgatagarbha literature, the
Vedāntic doctrine of Brahman appeared for the first time in the sixth century CE. Consequently, although the Buddha-nature is closely akin to Brahman/ātman of the Vedānta, the doctrine of the Buddha-nature is originally a thought of Buddhism. For this reason, the writer chose the topic
entitled “Thought of Buddha-nature as Depicted in the LaṅkāvatāraSūtra” for the Ph.D. thesis.
Study on the Buddha-nature is a task which cannot be carried out without the important texts, teachings, practices and historical movements of Buddhism. This study is mainly based upon the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, a Buddhist text of the later period of the Tathāgatagarbha literature, in which
the thought of the Buddha-nature is depicted in relationship with most of the Mahāyāna concepts such as the Buddhatā, Tathāgatagarbha, Ālayavijñāna, Dharmakāya, Mind-only, etc. Especially, the Laṅkāvatārasūtra emphasizes the practice of self-realization and sudden enlightenment of the Buddha-nature. It is also said that the Sūtra was handed down by Bodhidharma to his heir disciple Hui-ke 慧可 as the proof of enlightenment in Chan (Zen) Buddhism.
This thesis is an attempt to investigate and criticize the philosophical and religious thought of the Buddha-nature as depicted in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra. In so doing, we have taken into consideration the following principle themes:
1. Evolution of the Buddha-nature Concept
2. The Buddha-nature in the Tathāgatagarbha Literature
3. The Laṅkāvatārasūtra and Hindu Philosophy
4. The Thought of Buddha-nature in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra
5. The Practice of Buddha-Nature in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra
6. Further Development of the Concept of Buddha-nature in
China
In part 1 he has singled out those scriptures that use the term tathāgatagarbha as their principal term and identified three scriptures—Tathāgatagarbha-sūtra, Anūnatvāpurṇatvanirdeśa, and Śrīmālādevīnirdeśa—as the basis for the formation of the tathāgatagarbha theory. Next, he has placed the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, which uses the term buddhadhātu for the first time as a synonym of tathāgatagarbha, and associated scriptures in a second group, while in the third group we have the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra and so on, in which the concept of tathāgatagarbha is identified with ālayavijñana, the basic concept of the Vijñānavāda.
In part 2, he has dealt with the prehistory of the tathāgatagarbha theory in Mahāyāna scriptures that use terms synonymous with tathāgatagarbha, such as gotra and dhātu, tathāgatagotra, tathāgatotpattisambhava, āryavaṃsa, buddhaputra, dharmadhātu and dharmakāya, cittaprakṛti, and so on. The main points made in this work are discussed in the papers that have now been brought together in the present volume.
This volume has for convenience' sake been divided into seven parts according to subject matter. Part 1 presents a textual study, namely, a critical edition of chapter 6 of the Laṅkāvatāra. Part 2 deals with subjects concerning scriptures such as the Laṅkāvatāra, part 3 with technical terms and basic concepts of the tathāgatagarbha theory, part 4 with tathāgatagarbha doctrine in general, and part 5 with Japanese Buddhism and Buddhism in East Asia (on the basis of scriptures translated into Chinese). Part 6 presents a historical survey of Japanese scholarship on Buddhism, and part 7 consists of several book reviews. (Source: Motilal Banarsidass)
The subject of this famous treatise is budda essence, the basic nature of all beings. The term is a translation of the Sanskrit tathagatagarbha, or deshek nyingpo (bde-gshegs snying-po) in Tibetan. The Tibetan interprets garbha as "essence" (snying-po), the innermost part of something. Both terms indicate that our very nature is buddhahood—buddha essence is possessed not only by enlightened masters but by everyone.
(Source: back cover)
Naropa's songs are very important for practitioners of Mahamudra, pithy words, rich with meaning. This is why I chose to teach them during my courses. The songs and my explanations are now translated by lotsawa Erik. These teachings are about essential meditation training. I consider them very important for future students to pay attention to and study. Doing so will greatly benefit one's understanding of the key points of Mahamudra. (Thrangu Rinpoche, foreword, 7)
This thesis, a comparison of the concepts of buddha-nature and dao-nature in the medieval period (from the 5th to the 10th centuries) of China, presents a historical investigation of the formation of the idea that insentient things are able to possess buddha-nature in medieval Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism. In Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism, the concept of buddha-nature was originally defined as a potential possessed by sentient beings that enabled them to achieve buddhahood. From the 6th century, the concept was reinterpreted within the Chinese Buddhist tradition so that insentient things were also able to possess buddha-nature. Recent scholarship has pointed out that the idea of insentient things having buddha-nature is a combination of Buddhist and Daoist ideas based on the concept of the all-pervading Dao found in the Zhuangzi 莊子. In this sense, buddha-nature seems to be interpreted as equivalent with the Dao of Daoism. My project suggests that the reinterpretation of buddha-nature in association with the insentient realm should be elucidated in a more nuanced way than the idea of all-pervasiveness of the Dao. A historical, doctrinal investigation of the intellectual formation of the concept of buddha-nature in Chinese Mahāyāna Buddhism demonstrates a new interpretation of buddha-nature in the context of insentient things having buddha-nature. Further, through a historical investigation of intellectual exchange between Buddhism and Daoism, some evidence provided in this project illustrates that the idea of insentient things having dao-nature in Daoism was not inherited from Buddhism, but drawn from Daoist tradition. This new perspective is different from that of some contemporary scholars who have claimed that the idea of insentient things having dao-nature was borrowed from Chinese Buddhism. A chronological investigation of the discussion of nature in Chinese thought demonstrates that the idea of insentient things having buddha-nature incorporates earlier Daoist traditions found in Arcane Study.
Path is a state of confusion which is not recognizing this ground, our basic state, to be as it is. Conceptual mind and time are both present during the path. But when your mind is pure, free of these, that is called fruition, and that is what is to be attained. To reiterate, confusion is called path. This confusion can be cleared up. There are three methods to clarify confusion: view, meditation and conduct. By means of the view, meditation and conduct we reveal what is already present. Slowly and gradually, we uncover more and more of the basic state. This process is what I will try to explain. (Tsoknyi Rinpoche, chapter 1, 20–21)
This book by Giuseppe Tucci, the internationally renowned Tibetologist, is a scholarly study of the religions of Tibet: Buddhism, the nameless "folk religion," and the system called Bon. The history of the spread of Buddhism in Tibet is divided in the indigenous tradition into the "early" and "later" stages. The first chapter of the book surveys the significant events of the early spread, which ended with the persecution of Buddhism in the ninth century, and the second reviews those of the later spread, beginning with the revival of Buddhism and the founding of great monasteries in the eleventh century. Chapter 3 deals with the general characteristics of "Lamaism" and the emergence of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the rNying ma pa, Sa skya pa, bKa' brgyud pa, and dGe lugs pa. Chapter 4 examines the doctrines held, both in common and in particular, by these schools, as well as the substantialism of the Jo nang pa and the quietism of the Zhi byed pa. The fifth chapter deals with the organization of the monastic community, the administration of the monastery and its property, and the religious calendar with its various festivals. Chapter 6 is devoted to the "folk religion," replete with its beliefs in benevolent and malevolent numina. Various apotropaic rituals intended to protect the individual, the family, the house, and other property are discussed in detail. This chapter shows clearly the contradiction between the intellectual preoccupation with Buddhist epistemology and ontology on the monastic level and the emotional concern with the existence of demonic powers and the vulnerability of the "soul" (bla) on the lay level. The final chapter deals with the Bon religion that predated Buddhism in Tibet. This chapter explores the religious milieu of the ancient monarchy and then examines the way in which Bon evolved over the centuries in competition with, and later in imitation of, Buddhism. An eight-page chronological table listing significant dates and events in Tibetan history is given at the end of the book.
This dissertation is a study of the process through which Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, by synthesizing doctrines and texts into consistent models, integrates views of reality within doctrinal and soteriological systems. It consists of an analysis of the most fundamental doctrinal tension found in the Tibetan tradition, namely the apparent inconsistency of doctrines belonging to the negative Mādhyamika and to the more affirmative Yogācāra trends of Mahāyāna Buddhism. As a case study aiming to provide a first systematic examination of that problematic, the dissertation surveys and analyzes Tibetan interpretation of the set of texts referred to as the Five Treatises of Maitreya (byams chos sde lnga), and at the way those interpretations deal with the doctrinal tensions found in that set of text. In addition to providing a recension of major interpretations of the Five Treatises developed between 1100 and 1500, a detailed account is given of the model of interpretation given by gSer mdog Paṇ chen Śākya mchog ldan, a famous teacher of the Sa skya school of Tibetan Buddhism. When confronted with the features of other interpretations, Śākya mchog ldan's interpretation of the Five Treatises, which proceeds primarily by allowing a plurality of views to be maintained even at the level of definitive meaning, provides us with a new insight in the Tibetan philosophical tradition: the most fundamental dimension of philosophical reconciliation of doctrinal views, especially of the kind found in the Five Treatises, can be described as pertaining to textual hermeneutics. Moreover, Śākya mchog ldan's contribution to that domain of Buddhist thought, by placing hermeneutics at the very centre of his system of Buddhist doctrine and practice, suggests that hermeneutics is a fundamental category of all Buddhist philosophical debates, and that it should be part of any attempt to understand the Tibetan philosophical tradition.
Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche expresses what he himself has undergone, instructing us in a complete manner of training. To attain enlightenment we must experience our innate nature. The ultimate object of realization, the natural state of mind, unmistakenly and exactly as it is, need not be sought for elsewhere but is present within ourselves. Stability in this unexcelled state of unity is not achieved by separating what we know from what we do.
This book contains astute instructions that address these key points of spirituality. (Source: Rangjung Yeshe Publications)The thesis focuses on the relations between mind and karma and the continuity of life in saṃsāra based upon a concept of mind, the ālayavijñāna, as presented in the texts of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu of the Yogācāra school of Indian Buddhism, A.D. 4-5th centuries. It has been the topic of many sectarian disputes as well as the springboard for several far-reaching doctrinal developments, so it is desirable to examine it within its early Indian Buddhist context.
The first section presents the multivalent viññāṇa of the Pali Canon and related concepts. It demonstrates that the major characteristics later predicated of the ālayavijñāna were present in an unsystematized but implicit form in the viññāṇa of the early discourses.
The next section describes the systematic psychological analysis developed by the Abhidharma and its consequent problematics. It argues that the incongruity of Abhidharmic analysis with the older unsystematized doctrines led to major theoretical problems concerning the key concepts of kleśa and karma, to which the Sautrāntika school offered the concept of seeds (bija).
The third section, based primarily upon the texts translated herein, depicts the origination and gradual development of the ālayavijñāna within the Yogācāra school from a somatic "life principle", to an explicitly unconscious mind, to its final bifurcation into an unconscious afflicted mind (kliṣṭa-manas) and a passive respository of karmic seeds, the latent loci of kleśa and karma, respectively.
The last section compares the ālayavijñāna systematically with Freud's and Jung's concepts of the unconscious, concluding that their respective philosophical milieus led both traditions to conceptions of unconscious mental processes as necessary compensations for strictly intentional epistemological models.
In the appendix the major texts presenting the ālayavijñāna, Chaps. V and VIII.37 of the Saṃdhinirmocana Sūtra, part of the Viniścaya-saṃgrahaṇī of the Yogācārabhūmi, and Ch. 1 of the Mahāyāna-saṃgraha, are translated and extensively annotated in order to contextualize the minutiae of this concept of mind with its canonical precursors and its Abhidharmic contemporaries. (Source: ProQuest)
This important study reveals how the Buddhist unconscious illuminates and draws out aspects of current western thinking on the unconscious mind. One of the most intriguing connections is the idea that there is in fact no substantial 'self' underlying all mental activity; 'the thoughts themselves are the thinker'. William S. Waldron considers the implications of this radical notion, which, despite only recently gaining plausibility, was in fact first posited 2,500 years ago. (Source: Routledge)
considered the starting point of Buddhism. According to both Mahāyāna ('Greater Vehicle')
and Hīnayāna ('Lesser Vehicle') or non-Mahāyāna, the historical Buddha had sometime in
the distant past resolved to become a buddha, thereby launching out on the career of a
bodhisattva, that is, a sentient being who strives to attain the highest state of awakening. A
major distinction between non-Mahāyāna and Mahāyāna, however, is that for the former the
status of being a bodhisattva or buddha is confined to the historical Buddha (or a few others like him), while the ultimate soteriological goal of a disciple is Arhatship (that is, the final
state of a saint who has attained release from the cycle of birth and death) primarily for
oneself. For the latter, by contrast, even an ordinary sentient being is capable of undertaking
the long and arduous career of a bodhisattva by generating bodhicitta and finally becoming a buddha (just like the historical Buddha himself), primarily for the sake of many other sentient
beings. In sum, a person who possesses or has generated bodhicitta is considered to be a
bodhisattva, and the form of Buddhism concerned with the theory and practice of a bodhisattva is known as Mahāyāna. The idea of bodhicitta in the sense of the resolve to
become a buddha is hence the bedrock of Mahāyāna, and is what distinguishes a bodhisattva from a śrāvaka, Mahāyāna from non-Mahāyāna. It is presupposed by all forms of Mahāyāna Buddhism including Vajrayāna ('Diamond Vehicle'), or tantric Mahāyāna.
Multiple internal and external factors must have contributed to the formation and further development of the concept of bodhicitta. The psychological need of the Buddhists to make up in one way or another for the demise of the historical Buddha may have been one of the principal internal factors that contributed to the formation of the idea of the resolve to become a buddha. Such an idea would not have lacked the doctrinal justification or legitimisation that it needed, for the non-Mahāyāna sources seem to abound in doctrinal elements that could easily be used to underpin the concept of bodhicitta. In its early phase of development, the idea of generating bodhicitta probably meant only the initial resolve to become a buddha, a momentous decision made by an aspirant seeking Buddhahood (buddhatva). This was seen as an indispensable but not necessarily a sufficient condition for the attainment of Buddhahood. However, gradually the idea came to encompass the entire theory and practice of a bodhisattva and to be considered not only a necessary but in fact a sufficient condition for such an attainment. In the course of time, even the true reality that a bodhisattva or buddha experiences as a spiritual event, the meditative insight or gnosis by means of which the true reality is experienced, and all conceivable resources or means—be they psycho-physiological, visual, verbal, or visional impulses that could be employed for becoming a buddha—came to be regarded as bodhicitta. It is this idea as found explicated in Indian and Tibetan Mahāyāna Buddhism that the present study seeks to examine. (Wangchuk, introductory remarks, 21–22)
Paul Williams places this controversy in its Indian and Tibetan context. He traces in detail Mi pham's position in his commentary on the Bodhicaryaāvatāra, the attack of one of his opponents, and his response, as well as indicating ways in which this controversy over the nature of awareness may be important within the context of Mi pham's rNyingma heritage of rDzogs chen thought and practice.
This book is the first book length study of its subject, and also includes a reprint of a previous paper by Williams on the reflexive nature of awareness, as well as the relevant Tibetan texts from Mi pham. The book will be of interest to all students of Indian and Tibetan Madhyamaka, as well as associated areas of Buddhist thought such as Yogācāra and the philosophy of Dharmakīrti. It will also be of value to those concerned with the intelectual foundations of rDzogs chen. (Source: Back cover of Routledge 2013 edition)
Phillip B. Yampolsky has based his translation on the Tun-huang manuscript, the earliest extant version of the work. A critical edition of the Chinese text is given at the end of the volume.
Dr. Yampolsky also furnishes a lengthy and detailed historical introduction which contains much information hitherto unavailable even to scholars, and provides the context essential to an understanding of Hui-neng's work. He gives an account of the history and legends of Ch'an Buddhism, with particular attention to the traditions associated with Hui-neng, quoting or summarizing the most important narratives. He then discusses the various texts of the Platform Sutra, and analyzes its contents. (Source: Columbia University Press) First of all, I would like you to consider all sentient beings who are equal to limitless space and generate a sense of loving kindness towards all of them. Generate the wish that each and every one of them may know happiness in this life and never return to the lower realms in future lifetimes, and that gradually they may all establish the status of buddhahood. Consider that it is for this purpose that you wish to receive the teachings on the. nature of the mind. Please give rise to the purest motivation of which you are capable.
In the past it was always traditional for the teacher to examine disciples and for disciples to examine the teacher. From the standpoint of the spiritual teacher, this process of examination was necessary to determine whether or not the disciples were suitable vessels to receive teachings on the nature of the mind. From the standpoint of the disciples, it was necessary to determine whether or not the teacher was qualified to truly bring benefit to the disciples. In this way, much care would be taken by both teacher and disciples to examine one another, after which a relationship would be established and the teachings would be transmitted.
This book contains four Tibetan texts in translation. First, The Excellent Path to Liberation explains how to give our attention to the teachings, and how to ground our spiritual practice in harmonious relationships with others and the world at large. Second, Dudjom Lingpa’s account of his visionary journey, Enlightenment without Meditation, teaches by example that as practitioners we should ask ourselves sincere questions concerning our perception of reality, and that we should not be content with superficial answers.
In the third book, Sera Khandro’s commentary, she presents Dudjom Lingpa’s work within two frameworks. She first clarifies the view on which the spiritual path is founded, the path of meditation; the ensuing conduct that reflects and enriches meditative experience; and the path’s result—awakening and enlightenment. Next she illuminates the subtleties of the great perfection view, the four tantric bonds: nonexistence, a single nature, pervasive insubstantial evenness, and spontaneous presence.
Source: Shambhala PublicationsThe Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje. A Collection of Important Root Texts: Gyu Lama, Zangmo Nangdon, Namshe Yeshe Chepa, and the Hevajra Tantra. Vajra Vidya Library, 2011.
The Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje. A Collection of Important Root Texts: Gyu Lama, Zangmo Nangdon, Namshe Yeshe Chepa, and the Hevajra Tantra. Vajra Vidya Library, 2011.
The Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje. A Collection of Important Root Texts: Gyu Lama, Zangmo Nangdon, Namshe Yeshe Chepa, and the Hevajra Tantra. Vajra Vidya Library, 2011.;ཟབ་མོ་ནང་དོན་དང་རྒྱུད་བརྟག་གཉིས་དང་རྒྱུད་བླ་མའ་བསྟན་བཅོས།;Karmapa, 3rd;Karma Kagyu;Vajrayana;Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje;རང་བྱུང་རྡོ་རྗེ་;rang byung rdo rje;karma pa gsum pa;ཀརྨ་པ་གསུམ་པ་;Karmapa, 3rd; nang brtag rgyud gsum: zab mo nang don;rgyud brtag gnyis;rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos
