Buddha-Nature and Emptiness

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LibraryBooksBuddha-Nature and Emptiness
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|BookEssay=''Buddha-Nature and Emptiness'' by Japanese scholar [[Kazuo Kano]] is a book of herculean research and superior writing. With apparent ease, [[Kano]] consults Chinese, Tibetan, and various Sanskrit-hybrid literature to surround the ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' and its eleventh-century Tibetan translator and commentator [[Ngok Lotsāwa]] with the necessary information to clarify what [[Kano]] believes to be their central goals. For the first, this was the systematization of Indian ''tathāgatagarbha'' literature; for the second, it was to strip out the ontological aspect of the definitive.  
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}} is a book of herculean research and superior writing. With apparent ease, [[Kano, K.|Kano]] consults Chinese, Tibetan, and various Sanskrit-hybrid literature to surround the ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' and its eleventh-century Tibetan translator and commentator [[Ngok Lotsāwa]] with the necessary information to clarify what [[Kano, K.|Kano]] believes to be their central goals. For the first, this was the systematization of Indian ''tathāgatagarbha'' literature; for the second, it was to strip out the ontological aspect of the definitive.  
  
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The book is organized historically, with initial chapters on the origin and impact of the''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' in India ([[Kano]] is fully cognizant of the treatise’s history in China but the book is not concerned with that topic). These address the issues of authorship, influence, translation, and transmission. [[Kano]] mines virtually every surviving piece of Indian Buddhist literature for references to the text, and one of the remarkable feats of the book is the resurrection of the transmission lineage of the ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' in India, in particular, how he breathes life into relationships between men who lived well over a thousand years ago.  
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The book is organized historically, with initial chapters on the origin and impact of the''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' in India ([[Kano, K.|Kano]] is fully cognizant of the treatise’s history in China but the book is not concerned with that topic). These address the issues of authorship, influence, translation, and transmission. [[Kano, K.|Kano]] mines virtually every surviving piece of Indian Buddhist literature for references to the text, and one of the remarkable feats of the book is the resurrection of the transmission lineage of the ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' in India, in particular, how he breathes life into relationships between men who lived well over a thousand years ago.  
  
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The second section of the book is dedicated to [[Ngok Lotsāwa Loden Sherab]]’s late eleventh-century Tibetan translation and commentary of the treatise that he knew as the ''[[Uttaratantra]]''. As [[Kano]] explains, the ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' systematized buddha-nature doctrine with awareness of both Madhyamaka and Yogācāra doctrine, but without allegiance with either. [[Ngok]], however, like all Tibetans after him, was intent on fitting buddha-nature theory into these standard doctrinal schools of thought. Buddha-nature, both [[Ngok]] (and [[Kano]]) decided, was a valuable tool in the promotion and pursuit of the Buddhist goal of liberation; yet philosophically the assertion of a permanent, existent self was problematic and needed to be explained away.
+
The second section of the book is dedicated to [[Ngok Lotsāwa Loden Sherab]]’s late eleventh-century Tibetan translation and commentary of the treatise that he knew as the ''[[Uttaratantra]]''. As [[Kano, K.|Kano]] explains, the ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' systematized buddha-nature doctrine with awareness of both Madhyamaka and Yogācāra doctrine, but without allegiance with either. [[Ngok]], however, like all Tibetans after him, was intent on fitting buddha-nature theory into these standard doctrinal schools of thought. Buddha-nature, both [[Ngok]] (and [[Kano, K.|Kano]]) decided, was a valuable tool in the promotion and pursuit of the Buddhist goal of liberation; yet philosophically the assertion of a permanent, existent self was problematic and needed to be explained away.
  
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The second part of the book does for [[Ngok]] and his commentary what the first part of the book did for the ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'': [[Kano]] packs them in fascinating information about [[Ngok]]’s teachers and contemporaries, and he carefully unravels the complicated philosophical position [[Ngok]] established. This includes a lengthy chapter on [[Ngok]]’s Indian guru, [[Sajjana]], who was also the teacher to [[Tsen Khawoche]], a man who fully accepted the ontological aspect of buddha-nature and influenced the dzokchen and mahāmudrā interpretations of the doctrine. As a committed Mādhyamika, [[Ngok]] however was forced to confront what [[Kano]] calls the “incompatibilities between the Buddha-nature and the Madhyamaka doctrines, especially with regard to the ultimate ontological status of Buddha-nature, which has never been accepted as Madhyamaka doctrine.” Step-by-step [[Kano]] skillfully explains how [[Ngok]] did this by redefining three aspects of buddha-nature—''dharmakāya'', ''tathatā'', and ''gotra''—as resultant, intrinsic, and causal aspects of emptiness, respectively. Attentive to the historical nature of ideas, Kano ends the book with a lengthy section on [[Ngok]]’s impact on the many Tibetan ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' commentators who followed him; [[Ngok]]'s translation (and the only one of six to survive) became canonical, and his commentary has been continuously read in almost every Tibetan Buddhist educational center.
+
The second part of the book does for [[Ngok]] and his commentary what the first part of the book did for the ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'': [[Kano, K.|Kano]] packs them in fascinating information about [[Ngok]]’s teachers and contemporaries, and he carefully unravels the complicated philosophical position [[Ngok]] established. This includes a lengthy chapter on [[Ngok]]’s Indian guru, [[Sajjana]], who was also the teacher to [[Tsen Khawoche]], a man who fully accepted the ontological aspect of buddha-nature and influenced the dzokchen and mahāmudrā interpretations of the doctrine. As a committed Mādhyamika, [[Ngok]] however was forced to confront what [[Kano, K.|Kano]] calls the “incompatibilities between the Buddha-nature and the Madhyamaka doctrines, especially with regard to the ultimate ontological status of Buddha-nature, which has never been accepted as Madhyamaka doctrine.” Step-by-step [[Kano, K.|Kano]] skillfully explains how [[Ngok]] did this by redefining three aspects of buddha-nature—''dharmakāya'', ''tathatā'', and ''gotra''—as resultant, intrinsic, and causal aspects of emptiness, respectively. Attentive to the historical nature of ideas, Kano ends the book with a lengthy section on [[Ngok]]’s impact on the many Tibetan ''[[Ratnagotravibhāga]]'' commentators who followed him; [[Ngok]]'s translation (and the only one of six to survive) became canonical, and his commentary has been continuously read in almost every Tibetan Buddhist educational center.
 
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Revision as of 17:43, 2 December 2019

Buddha-Nature and Emptiness
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An essential study of a key text that presents buddha-nature theory and its transmission from India to Tibet, this book is the most thorough history of buddha-nature thought in Tibet and is exceptional in its level of detail and scholarly apparatus. It serves as a scholarly encyclopedia of sorts with extensive appendices listing every existent commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantraśāstra), as well as covering Ngok Lotsawa's commentarial text and his philosophical positions related with other Tibetan thinkers.

Citation Kano, Kazuo. Buddha-Nature and Emptiness: rNgog Blo-ldan-shes-rab and A Transmission of the Ratnagotravibhāga from India to Tibet. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 91. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 2016.

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