Books/A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Go Lotsāwa's Mahāmudrā Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga/The Zhentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga

The Zhentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga

The following is an excerpt from Klaus-Dieter Mathes. A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Go Lotsāwa's Mahāmudrā Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga. Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. Boston:Wisdom Publications, 2008: pp. 45-48.

The Jonang tradition of zhentong Madhyamaka asserts a truly existing ultimate that is endowed with all buddha qualities and thus not "empty of an own-being" (rang stong), but "empty of other" (gzhan stong) nonexisting adventitious stains. The validity of the common Madhyamaka assertion that "all phenomena are empty of an own-being" is thus restricted to the level of apparent truth. Such a stance is mainly based on the Tathagatagarbhasūtras, but also Yogācāra works are adduced, since their theory of trisvabhāva (three natures, i.e., the imagined, dependent, and perfect natures) allow such a distinction between rangtong and zhentong. In his Ri chos nges don rgya mtsho, Dölpopa defines zhentong in the following way:

Since it has been said that the dharmatā [or] perfect [nature], which is empty of the imagined and dependent, ultimately exists, the ultimate is well established as being zhentong only.

"Ultimate" or "true" existence should not be taken in an ontological sense, however, as becomes clear from the following passage:

The dharmakāya is free from mental fabrications throughout beginningless time. Because of recognizing it as being free from mental fabrications, it is truly established.

The definition of the dharmakāya, or the ultimate, as being free from mental fabrications excludes the extreme of an ontological existence. "Being truly established" rather means that the experience of the dharmakāya is really true.

It is said that such an insight dawned in Dölpopa's mind during a Kālacakra retreat at Jonang, but later proponents of zhentong such as Tāranātha (1575-1634) claim the continuity of the meditation tradition of Tsen Kawoché with the zhentong of the Jonangpa. Thus, Tsen Kawoché points out that his Kashmiri teacher Sajjana already adhered to a distinction between the real and imputed in the last dharmacakra, which was taken to have definitive meaning. According to an important collection of one hundred instructions (khrid) preserved by Jonang Künga Drölchog (Jo nang Kun dga grol mchog) (1507-66), Tsen Kawoché said with regard to the "instruction" of zhentong:

Sajjana, the paṇḍita from Kashmir, made the very significant statement that the Victorious One turned the dharmacakra three times. The first [dharma]cakra concerned the four [noble] truths, the middle one the lack of defining characteristics, and the final one careful distinctions. Of them, the first two did not distinguish between the real and the imputed. During the ultimate ascertainment of the final one, he taught by distinguishing between the middle and the extremes and by distinguishing between phenomena and their true nature.

Even though Sajjana's statement does not prove that zhentong was already being taught in India, as Künga Drölchog (Kun dga' grol mchog) would have us believe, it does suggest that at least one of the hermeneutical traditions that strictly follow the Saṁdhinirmocanasūtra already existed in Kashmir.

In his Zab mo gzhan stong dbu ma'i brgyud 'debs, Tāranatha surprisingly lists in a zhentong transmission—besides Sajjana, Zu Gawa Dorjé, and Tsen Kawoché—Ngog Loden Sherab and Chomden Rigpai Raldri (Bcom ldan rig pa'i ral gri), whose Ratnagotravibhāga commentaries are, to say the least, not exactly in line with Dölpopa's zhentong position as it is described in his Ri chos nges don rgya mtsho, but this must be seen against the background of Dölpopa's distinction between an extraordinary zhentong explanation with primordially existing ultimate qualities and an ordinary Mahāyāna explanation. In other words, in the eyes of the Jonangpas both Ngog Loden Sherab and Tsen Kawoché explain the Ratnagotravibhāga on an ordinary Mahāyāna level in such a way that they do not exclude the ultimate existence of qualities in a Vajrayāna context.

In his description of the diffusion of zhentong, Kongtrül Lodrö Tayé claims that it goes back to Nāgārjuna's and Maitreya's commentaries of the final dharmacakra (i.e., Nāgārjuna's collection of hymns and the Maitreya works except the Abhisamayālaṁkāra), which were further commented upon by Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Candragomin, Śāntipa, and Sajjana. Both Ngog Loden Sherab and Tsen Kawoché are mentioned as having received these teachings from Sajjana, which shows that for Kongtrül, too, Ngog Loden Sherab figures significantly in the zhentong transmission. Whereas these commentaries were interpreted along the lines of both the Cittamātra and Madhyamaka views, Tsangnagpa, the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorjé, Dölpopa, and Longchen Rabjampa, among others, explained them according to the great Madhyamaka tradition of definitive meaning that goes beyond Cittamātra.

In other words, both the mahāmudrā and zhentong traditions refer to the transmission of the Maitreya works of Ngog Loden Sherab and Tsen Kawoché. Besides Dölpopa and his disciples, it is especially Rangjung Dorjé and Longchen Rabjampa who are of particular interest, since they are mentioned as proponents of zhentong and, at the same time, interpret the Ratnagotravibhāga from their respective mahāmudrā and dzogchen traditions. As will be shown further down, both Rangjung Dorjé's and Longchenpa's positions differ considerably from the zhentong of the Jonangpas, with Rangjung Dorjé's works containing explanations that can be described as a prototype of what I propose to provisionally call "Kagyü zhentong."

Karma Trinlepa had already described a major difference between the zhentong views of Rangjung Dorjé and a position that accords with the Jonangpa, a difference that can be confirmed by a comparison of Dölpopa's, Sabzang Mati Panchen's, and Kongtrül Lodrö Tayé's Ratna-gotravibhāga commentaries. Whereas for Kongtrül buddhahood is unconditioned only inasmuch as its dharmakāya does not appear to disciples, Dölpopa claims that buddhahood is free from moments, while Mati Panchen (Mati paṇ chen) in his commentary on RGV I.6 quotes the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra according to which unconditioned buddhahood means that it does not belong to the three times. Dölpopa criticizes Kagyü mahāmudrā for claiming that the mind or thoughts are the dharmakāya, because the ultimate (taken by the Jonangpas as something that is beyond the three times) cannot be the nature of something adventitious and impermanent.

This same difference is also addressed by Tāranātha in his Zab don nyer gcig pa, in which he compares, among other things, the trisvabhāva interpretations of Dölpopa and Serdog Panchen (Gser mdog pan chen) Śākya Chogden. Dölpopa claims that the ultimate is exclusively the unchangeable perfect nature, which is empty of the dependent and imagined natures, Śākya Chogden restricting the negandum to the imagined nature alone. The basis of emptiness is the dependent, the entire mind, which takes on various forms of a perceived object and perceiving subject. Tāranātha concludes his comparison by pointing out one fundamental difference: Śākya Chogden takes nondual wisdom to be something multiple and momentary, whereas Dölpopa explains it as permanent in the sense of being beyond permanence and impermanence and transcending one and many.

In a similar way to Śākya Chogden, both Rangjung Dorjé and, on this point, Zhönu Pal take the momentary natural mind as the basis of negation and the adventitious stains as the negandum. If we decide to follow Śākya Chogden and call this zhentong, we need to distinguish at least two main types of zhentong that differ in defining the basis of negation as being either completely transcendent (Jonangpa) or at least to a certain extent immanent (Śākya Chogden).

Finally, it should be noted that the opposition between zhentong and mahāmudrā can be traced back to a different understanding of the ālayavijñāna in Asaṅga's Mahāyānasaṁgraha and the Laṅkāvatārasūtra. In the Mahāyānasaṁgraha (MS 1.45—48) Asaṅga maintains a clear-cut distinction between an ālayavijñāna and a supramundane mind that arises from the seeds of the dharmadhātu (or its outflow). The line between pure and impure mind is so clearly drawn that ordinary beings are implicitly not included in the dharmakāya and only have the ālayavijñāna as a basis. It was in view of this that Paramārtha (500—69) developed his theory of a ninth consciousness, the so-called amalavijñāna. The Laṅkāvatārasūtra, on the other hand, equates the ālayavijñāna (i.e., the eighth vijñāna) with buddha nature, so much so that the latter is taken to be permeated by mental imprints and to move on under the other seven consciousnesses like the ocean and its waves. For certain proponents of mahāmudrā who take the nature of thoughts to be the dharmakāya this equation is essential, and it is not surprising that Zhönu Pal heavily relies in his Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā commentary on the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, even though the latter is not quoted even once in the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā.