Semantic search
[NOTE. The materials embodied in this list were received in a final form from Dr. Hoernle. early in 1918. The typed press copy prepared from them was after his death in November of that year checked with the original under the kind supervision of Dr. F. W. Thomas.
Owing to various reasons difficulty was experienced about verifying the exact reading of all extracts quoted by Dr. Hoernle from particular MSS., mainly in Khotanese language. It being thus impossible to assure in this respect the degree of accuracy which that most painstaking collaborator would have aimed at, I have thought it advisable to reduce the reproduction of such quotations within narrow limits. For convenient reference by future students the original Inventory ' slips' as received from Dr. Hoernle's hand, as well as a typed copy of them, have been deposited at the India Office Library.—A. STEIN.]
Notes
- Wangchuk, "rÑiṅ-ma Interpretations" 179. "Yet even though the [buddha-nature] theory has certainly been present from early times in the rÑiṅ-ma literature, it seems to have played quite an insignificant role and never gained prominence or an independent status, in the way it was conceived, for instance, in the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra" This conclusion is repeated by Almogi, Rong-zom-pa's Discourse on Buddhology 160.
- For a detailed discussion of the term buddha-nature, see Zimmermann 2002, 39-40.
- Although *sugatagarbha is not attested in Sanskrit (see Seyfort Ruegg, Traite du tathagatagarbha 68), Wangchuk, "rÑiṅ-ma Interpretations" 178 and n. 21, points out (on the basis of references provided to him by Kazuo Kano) that "the term bde gśegs sñiṅ po does occur in the Tibetan translations of the Aṅgulimālīyasūtra (P fol. 174a5; D fol. 166b2: bde gśegs sñiṅ po theg pa che las skyes) and Ghanavyūhasūtra (P fol. 62b 1; D fol. 55b 1: bde gśegs sñiṅ po dge ba'aṅ de; cf., however, Taisho 747a7) for which the Sanskrit is not extant." We may add that the term bde [bar] gshegs [pa'i] snying po occurs in a large number of Tibetan translations of Indian works. A search of the Derge Bka' 'gyur and Bstan 'gyur canons using the contraction bde gshegs snying po turned up occurrences in the following sūtras in addition to those mentioned earlier: Bhadrakalpika (D 94), Sūtrasammucayabhāṣtaratnālokālaṃkāra (D 3935), Laṅkāvatāravṛttitathāgatahṛdayālaṃkāra (D 4031), and Sūtrālaṃkārapaṇḍārtha (D4031). It is also found in twenty-two tantric works: D 453, 829, 832, 833, 834, 837 (these last four belong to the Māyājāla-Guhyagarbha cycle), 1202, 1401, 1407, 1414, 1613, 1630, 1644, 2128, 2304, 2626, 2816, 2834, 2837, 3713, 3723, and 4449. The unabbreviated bde bar gshegs pa'i snying po occurs in the following tantric works: Kaṇha's Hevajranāmamahātantrarājadvikalpamāyapañjikāsṃrtinipāda (Rgyud kyi rgyal po dgyes pa'i rdo rje zhes bya ba sgyu ma brtag pa gnyis pa'i dka 'grel dran pa'i 'byung gnas), which, however, does not contain the term buddha-nature, D 1187; Mañjuśrīnāmasaṃgītiṭīkāvimalaprabhā ('Jam dpal gyi mtshan yang dag par brjod pa'i grel pa dri ma med pa'i od), D 1398; Bhagavatsarvadurgatipariśodhanatejorajatathāgatāhatsamyaksaṃbuddhamahātantrarājavyākhyāsundarālaṃkāra (Bcom Idan 'das de bzhin gshegs pa dgra bcom pa yang dag par rdzogs pa'i sangs rgyas ngan song thams cad yongs su sbyong ba gzi brjid kyi rgyal po chen po'i rnam par bshad pa mdzes pa'i rgyan), D 2626; Vajravidāraṇānāmadhāraṇīpaṭalakramabhāṣyavṛttipradīpa (Rdo rje rnam par 'joms pa'i gzung zhes bya ba'i rim par phye ba'i rgya cher 'grel ba gsal ba'i sgron ma), D 2687; Tantrārthāvatāravyākhyāna (Rgyud kyi don la 'jug pa'i grel bshad), D 2502; Mahābalikarmakramavṛtti (Gtor ma chen po'i las kyi rim pa'i grel pa), D 3773. This is not the place for an analysis of these occurrences. It is hoped that future research may determine whether any of them can be traced to an extant Indian work containing the term *sugatagarbha.
- On problems of Tibetan historical periodization and a useful variant based on existing schemes, see Cuevas, "Some Reflections." For a useful doctrinal-historical periodization scheme based on developments in Tibetan Buddhist epistemology, see van der Kuijp 1989. Loosely following van der Kuijp's proposed periodization, we can distinguish (1) the Ancient (rnying ma) period (8th-9th c.) corresponding to the Early Dissemination (snga dar) and Early Translation (snga gyur) period, which witnessed a massive program of translating Indian works into Tibetan and the growth of early Tibetan monastic communities under the sponsorship of the Tibetan Empire; (2) the Preclassical period (late 10th-12th c.) corresponding to the Late Dissemination (phyi dar) and New Translation (gsar gyur) periods following the collapse of the Tibetan Imperium (and ensuing Period of Fragmentation, ca. 910-1056), which witnessed a campaign of new reformed translations of Indian Buddhist texts and the ascendency of the so-called New (gsar ma) Tibetan Buddhist schools (and their scholastic traditions) that were henceforth distinguished from the Ancients (rnying ma); (3) the Classical period (13th-14th c.), which was characterized by the expansion of the major Tibetan Buddhist schools and the consolidation and systematization of their representative doctrines and practices; and (4) the Postclassical period (15th c. onward) characterized by the intensification of intersectarian dialogue and polemicism fueled by the increasingly fractious sectarian politics as Tibetan orders vied for patronage by foreign powers (Mongols and Chinese) and domestic aristocratic clans.
Buddhism has a profound and thoroughly developed set of teachings on human being. One might well argue that the question of human being is the question par excellence with which the Buddhist tradition as a whole struggles. According to the traditional account, for example, the point of departure for the Buddha's own search, discoveries, and teachings was the dilemma of the human condition. Moreover, vast numbers of Buddhist texts speak out of or address human experience as such, consciously focusing upon it as the source of both question and answer. Nonetheless, many questions a modern Westerner asks as a matter of course about human being are not directly addressed in the Buddhist texts. There are of course important reasons for this. Our concept of and assumptions about human individuality are profoundly different from Buddhist views of the same. Our two worlds of discourse about the value and meaning of finite bodily existence, the course of history, the meaning of suffering, and the nature of possible human greatness are set up on entirely different foundations. Thus, for a contemporary Westerner to ask the question "What is a person? What is a human being?" of a Buddhist text is to set oneself up to receive an answer that does not satisfy the intent of the question. Yet, while Buddhist views and assumptions differ so markedly from our own, Buddhist texts reveal in their own way a preoccupation with the human condition as intent as that of our own hyperindividualistic, anthropocentric culture.
With such a shared fixation, it is inevitable that persons on both sides of the cultural boundaries will attempt to gain light from the other side on this subject, despite the incommensurability of each other's questions and answers. The present essay is one such attempt: not an East-West comparison, but an effort to address a Buddhist text from the perspective of cross-cultural philosophy (still, despite the name, a thoroughly Western enterprise) . Herein I will engage in dialogue the Buddha Nature Treatise (Chinese: Fo Hsing Luna; hereafter, BNT), a text representative of the Buddha nature tradition that contains an extensive discussion of the concept of Buddha nature, a crucial component, if not the most crucial component, of the East Asian Buddhist concept of human being. I will attempt to wrest from the text answers to two categories of questions-it s view of the ontological nature of human being and its view of the existential status of human beings. In the course of the discussion I will ask such questions as: What roles do individuality and freedom play in the view of human being portrayed in this text? What value, if any, does an individual human personality possess? Is there anything of value in human history? Clearly, the text itself does not speak in these terms; these are the questions of a twentieth-century, philosophically inclined American. In order to bridge the cultural gap, I will first give a summary account of the text's concept of Buddha nature in its own terms and in its own format. Then, acknowledging that the text itself neither speaks this language nor shares my concerns, I will put my questions to the text and attempt to extract from the text its implications for the subject of my concern. In other words, I cannot claim that the author of the BNT does make the statements I will give as responses to my questions about human being, but I do claim that these views are implicit in and follow from the statements he does make about Buddha nature. Granting that human freedom requires us to expect the unexpected, nonetheless, I believe that if the author of the BNT were here today and could engage in dialogue with me, as long as my interlocutor remained consistent, something close to the views I will articulate in the course of this essay would emerge. (King, "Buddha Nature and the Concept of Person," 151–52)
To understand what is meant by “Buddha Nature,” we can look at the story of the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma taught by Shakyamuni Buddha. The first turning of the Dharma wheel is the four noble truths: that discontent arises from grasping the ever-changing phenomena of body and mind as “me,” and that freedom from this discontent is revealed through the path of not grasping anything as truly me. The four noble truths is a kind of deconstruction method. However, in this first turning, all the different elements that we can deconstruct this person into really do exist. Earth, wind, fire and water, for example: those kind of physical elements, when you break them down into their smallest bits, are indestructible elemental energies or physical matter, atoms. Early Buddhists, who were first turning exponents, had this kind of theory—that the world is made up of atoms—several centuries B.C., long before modern scientists discovered atoms. We don’t really exist as independent “persons”; we are a conglomeration of all this stuff that we think is a real “me,” but if we look closely, we only find atoms. This turning of the Dharma wheel was only the first.
Read more hereEmulating Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva
The Quest of the Monk Sōō to Practice Revering Buddha-Nature
The "marathon monks" of Japan are one of the iconic images of Japanese Buddhism, familiar to people the world over. These monks walk excruciating mountain circuits on Mount Hiei near Kyoto and Mount Kinpu in Nara Prefecture for a summer retreat of one hundred days. A handful in the posar period have performed the insufferable thousand-day version of this retreat, and also completed additional ascetic practices to gain the title of Great Acarya. Having achieved the humanly impossible, they are sometimes referred to as living buddhas.Hagiographic sources tell us that the founder of this practice, the Tendai monk Sōō (831-918), was motivated to seek enlightenment when as a novice monk he studied the part of the Lotus Sutra that tells the story of Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva. Sōō set his heart on emulating Never Disrespectful's way of practice, walking about making obeisances to other people as future buddhas. Unfortunately, Sōō's responsibilities to look after his teacher, and the daily task of going into the mountains to harvest anise-tree leaves for the offerings at the monastery's central hall, prevented him from dedicating himself solely to the reverence of other people's buddha-nature. According to tradition, however, Sōō's daily forays into the mountain became the origin of today's marathon-monk practice, in which ascetic monks revere the shrines of Buddhist deities and places where Japanese divinities abide in the mountains. It is often said that the marathon monk's true object of reverence is the buddha-nature of the natural world.
The Lotus Sutra's Never Disrespectful Bodhisattva is an archetype of respect for the inherent dignity of sentient beings. As told in chapter 20 of the Lotus Sutra, one time in the past there was a monk who did not practice by chanting sutras but instead went around making obeisance to every person he met, telling them, "I would never dare to disrespect you, because surely you are all to become buddhas!" As the reader can probably anticipate, the Lotus Sutra tells us that Never Disrespectful was oftentimes ridiculed, even physically attacked, but he bore it all patiently and through this practice not only purified his mind and body but also transformed the hearts and minds of the people around him. The Lotus Sutra tells us that performing this practice leads to quickly attaining the Buddha Way. (Scarangello, "Buddha-Nature (1)," 28-29) (Read entire article here)
In the last installment of this column we explored the concept of buddha-nature—its meaning, the Lotus Sutra's teaching of revering buddha-nature, and how Buddhists can reveal the buddha-nature of themselves and others by demonstrating respect for people and discovering their goodness. This time we will consider another way of realizing buddha-nature that is inspired by the stories of the Lotus Sutra. Rissho Kosei-kai members speak of awakening to buddha-nature as attaining the conviction that both oneself and others are, in the allegorical language of the Lotus Sutra, "children of the Buddha." Rev. Nikkyo Niwano, the founder of Rissho Kosei-kai, held that feelings of worthlessness thwarted people's ability to improve their own lives and brought them much suffering, and for this reason he employed the sutra's allegory of the parent-child relationship to help people see themselves as future buddhas and heirs to all the qualities that the Buddha Shakyamuni possessed. The belief that living beings are children of the Buddha also encourages the appreciation of all human life. As members of the human family, all people are our brothers and sisters, possessing the same inherent dignity and human potential as the Buddha. Today some people may not be entirely comfortable with the gendered language of the Lotus Sutra's allegory, but a close reading of the text can open pathways to an understanding appropriate to contemporary society and twenty-first century social norms. (Scarangello, "Buddha-Nature (2)," 35) (Read the entire article here)
In this chapter I will look into interpretations of buddha-nature starting with the Sublime Continuum (Uttaratantra, ca. fourth century), the first commentarial treatise focused on this subject. I will then present its role(s) in Mahāyāna Buddhism in general, and in the interpretations of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka in particular. Next I will discuss the role of buddha-nature as a key element in the theory and practice of Buddhist tantra, which will lead into a discussion of this doctrine in light of pantheism ("all is God"). Thinking of buddha-nature in terms of pantheism can help bring to light significant dimensions of this strand of Buddhist thought. (Duckworth, introduction, 235)
This article is not concerned with whether buddha-nature and tathāgatagarbha thought is actually deleterious to critical philosophical work. Rather, the concern is to demonstrate that, far from embracing buddha-nature doctrine, the eighth-century founders of Southern Chan had serious concerns with it. Evidence for this is found in: (1) the writings of Shenhui, notably in his opposition to the doctrine of the "buddha-nature of insentient objects" (wuqing foxing 無情佛性); and (2) the Platform Scripture of the Sixth Patriarch (Liuzu tanjing 六祖壇經), particularly in the variant versions of Huineng's famous "enlightenment verse." Thus the Southern School may be viewed as a forerunner of the Critical Buddhist anti-dhātuvāda polemics. The article closes with comments on the ongoing problems Chinese Buddhist exegetes had in marrying the metaphysical monism of Yogācāra and tathāgatagarbha teachings with the anti-foundationalist thrust of Madhyamaka and Prajñāpāramitā literature.
Comparing the Sanskrit fragments and the Ratnagotravibhāga, which quotes the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra (that is the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra), the original Sanskrit word fóxìng is buddhadhātu, tathāgatadhātu or tathāgatagarbha. Takasaki Jikidō's research on the tathāgatagarbha theory led him to conclude that the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra is the first known text in which the word buddhadhātu is used in this meaning.
In the fifth century A.D., Buddhism began to extricate itself from its quasi-Daoist pigeonhole by clarifying definitive differences between Buddhist and Daoist thought, shedding Daoist vocabulary and literary styles while developing new distinctively Buddhist terminology and genres. Curiously, despite the fact that Mahāyāna Buddhism had few adherents in Central Asia and was outnumbered by other Buddhist schools in India as well, in China Mahāyāna became the dominant form of Buddhism, so much so that few pejoratives were as stinging to a fellow Buddhist as labelling him ‘Hīnayāna’ (literally ‘Little Vehicle,’ a polemical term for non-Mahāyānic forms of Buddhism). By the sixth century, the Chinese had been introduced to a vast array of Buddhist theories and practices representing a wide range of Indian Buddhist schools. As the Chinese struggled to master these doctrines it became evident that, despite the fact that these schools were all supposed to express the One Dharma (Buddha’s Teaching), their teachings were not homogenous, and were frequently incommensurate.
By the end of the sixth century, the most pressing issue facing Chinese Buddhists was how to harmonize the disparities between the various teachings. Responses to this issue produced the Sinitic Mahāyāna schools, that is, Buddhist schools that originated in China rather than India. The four Sinitic schools are Tiantai, Huayan, Chan and Pure Land (Jingtu). Issues these schools share in common include Buddha-nature, mind, emptiness, tathāgatagarbha, expedient means (upāya), overcoming birth and death (saṃsāra), and enlightenment. (Source: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 1)distinctive view of ultimate truth (don dam bden pa; paramārthasatya) and propagated this view widely and earned much scorn for it, leading to one of the most controversial doctrinal-sectarian disputes in Tibetan Buddhist history. His explication of other-emptiness, which he equates with the ultimate truth, is deemed radical and wholly unacceptable by many of his contemporaries and later Tibetan scholars because it stands in sharp contrast to the mainstream fourteenth-century and early-fifteenth-century Tibetan interpretations of self-emptiness, the notion that all phenomena including ultimate truth do not exist inherently. The
self-emptiness interpretations are based primarily on Indie sources such as the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras, Nāgārjuna's (c. 200) Madhyamakakārikā, and Candrakīrti's (c. 570-640) Madhyamakāvatāra. In contrast, Dolpopa generally does not claim that middle wheel treatises (’khor lo bar pa’i gzhung) such as the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras are the fundamental sources for his presentation of an other-emptiness view. Rather, he bases his formulation of other-emptiness on tantric sources such as the Kālacakra,2 last wheel suūtras {'khor lo tha ma’i mdo) such as Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra,3 and Indic commentarial sources4 traditionally credited to figures such as Maitreya, Asaṅga (c. 300), and Vasubandhu (c. 300).
As a prominent fourteenth-century Tibetan doxographer, Dolpopa, however, does not repudiate self-emptiness per se; rather, he speaks of two types of emptiness5 that have separate referent points. For him, self-emptiness refers only to conventional phenomena such as tables, chairs,
and negative defilements that do not inherently exist6 or that are empty of their own entities. Dolpopa argues that since conventional phenomena cannot withstand analysis, in that their individual entities are essentially empty or deconstructed, as the existence of their nature is thoroughly investigated, they are empty of inherent existence. Therefore, he claims
that self-emptiness is not ultimate truth.7
On the other hand, he passionately demonstrates that other-emptiness exists inherently and ultimately. Furthermore, it is identified with the tathâgata-essence (de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po, tathdgatagarbha or buddha-nature (sangs rgyas kyi rigs; buddhagotra) endowed with enlightened qualities that exists in all beings. Dolpopa argues that this form of emptiness is not empty of its own entity, since it ultimately and permanently exists. Also, ultimate truth is empty of all conventional phenomena that are antithetical to ultimately existent other-emptiness. So, while self-emptiness, which he refers to as "empty-emptiness" (stong pa’i stong pa), is primarily taught in the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras of the middle wheel teachings, it is not ultimate truth, as it is empty of its own entity and it is not free from conceptual thought. On the other hand, other-emptiness, which he dubs "non-empty-emptiness" (mi stong pa’i stong pa), while not primarily taught in the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras, is delineated in last wheel teachings of the Buddha, such as Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, Śrīmālādevīsūtra, and others to refer to the naturally enlightened buddha-nature that is empty of all conventional phenomena. This is Dolpopa’s position on the two types of emptiness and the hierarchy of Mahāyāna literature in a nutshell and much of the discourse that follows on other-emptiness in the history of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism has its roots in Dolpopa’s doctrinal formulation of other-emptiness vis-à-vis self-emptiness.
While Dolpopa certainly gets the well-deserved credit for making other-emptiness "a place of fundamental importance in the expression of
his philosophy"8 in Tibet, his controversial interpretation of Mahāyāna texts and the relative early availability of his writings to international scholars has perhaps led some to assume that Dolpopa’s thought is more original than it really was. Fortunately, the recent release of dozens of Kadam (bka’ gdams) volumes of previously unknown philosophical texts that predate Dolpopa allows us to reconsider this issue. Among the new texts that might be pertinent to a reconstruction of the early history of other-emptiness discourse in Tibet is the writing of Rinchen (rin chen ye shes, 13th-14th c.) in conjunction with the previously available Buton’s (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290-1364) Precious Garland of Rebuttals (’phrin yig gi lan rin po che’i phreng ba).9 I argue that Dolpopa’s unique doctrinal views with respect to ultimate truth and their related Indie sources are found in Rinchen’s doctrinal formulation of Mahāyāna literature. Furthermore, there is a good reason to argue that Dolpopa’s unique views were directly influenced by the Kadam scholar.10 Therefore, in this article, I analyze their points of convergence and divergence on the issues of buddha-nature,
I do not intend here to try to resolve all of the many questions involved in determining the author of the AFM (such an undertaking is well beyond the scope of a short paper), but I would like to address an argument that Professor Lai raised in the first of his articles—namely his contention that the AFM's exposition of the relationship of hsin (mind) and nien (thought, thought-moment) bears such an "unmistakable sinitic stamp" that it must have been authored in China. I will try to show that the AFM's central conception of an "unmoved," pure mind (hsin) existing as the basis of the deluded movement of thoughts (nien) has an important Indian precedent in the cittaprakṛti and ayoniśomanaskāra notions of the Ratnagotravibhāga-mahāyānottaratantraśāstra (hereafter referred to as the RGV), a text with which the AFM's author may well have been familiar. I do not intend this as a criticism of Professor Lai's research—the parallels he finds between Chinese thought regarding hsin and nien prior to the period of the Six Dynasties and the elucidation of these notions in the AFM deserve serious attention. I simply would like to show that similar parallels—if not direct textual influences—exist between the AFM and the Indian-composed RGV, so that there is no compelling reason to conclude that the AFM theory of mind (hsin) and thoughts (nien) demonstrates Chinese authorship. (Grosnick, "Cittaprakṛti and Ayoniśomanaskāra in the Ratnagotravibhāga," 35–36)
Critical Buddhism was inevitable. That it was given voice by prominent Japanese scholars noted for their work in non-East Asian Buddhism was also inevitable. That it has provoked strong, even hostile, reactions was inevitable as well. Inevitable means that the causes and conditions that gave rise to Critical Buddhism can be analyzed and understood to show that it has a context, a history, and a necessity. Critical Buddhism is necessary. Thinking about what arises through causes and conditions, especially in terms of how that impacts on cultural and social realities, is a principal component of both Critical Buddhism and Buddhism properly practiced.
This essay will examine some—but certainly not all—of the factors that have contributed to Critical Buddhism. Some arguments and observations will be offered that, while not retellings from the writings of the Critical Buddhists, run parallel to them. These parallels, which I offer as supplements, recast some of their arguments and focus on issues and areas germane to their undertaking. After discussing the inevitability of Critical Buddhism in the context of twentieth-century Japanese Buddhist scholarship, I will turn to some of the events that took place in China during the seventh and eighth centuries that were decisive for the prevalence in East Asia of the type(s) of Buddhism they criticize. This will be followed by a critique of what has happened to the notion of enlightenment in East Asian Buddhism, particularly in the Ch’an and Zen traditions, with reference to the problem of hongaku (original enlightenment) and the authority of lineage transmission. Then, stepping back into a wider context, I will suggest that, far from being the idiosyncratic, misguided departure depicted by its detractors, Critical Buddhism is the inevitable revisiting of a theme that has been central to Buddhism since its onset. All the above points concern inevitabilities: the trajectory and accomplishments of Japanese scholarship in this century coupled with the crisis of Buddhism in the modern world; the decisive historical events that have established a pervasive ideological underpinning in East Asian Buddhism that Matsumoto and Hakamaya have labeled dhātu-vāda, combined with the exclusion of other, counteracting Buddhist tendencies found elsewhere in the Buddhist world, such as Buddhist logic; the undermining of certain foundational Buddhist notions, such as enlightenment, as a result of or in tandem with the growth of dhātu-vāda ideology; the persistent self-criticism and self-reevaluation that Buddhism has subjected itself to, often glorifying the critique and the critics (Nāgārjuna being the most famous example)—all these points have made it inevitable that Critical Buddhism appear today in Japan (and elsewhere). Finally, while examining an aspect of Matsumoto’s critique of The Record of Lin-chi, I will suggest some tactical distinctions that should be considered by those critical of Critical Buddhism (Lusthaus, "Critical Buddhism and Returning to the Sources," 30–31)
drawn primarily from two of the four major orders of Tibetan Buddhism:
- the old order called Nying-ma-ba,[2] which reached its full development in the fourteenth century with the scholar-yogi Long-chen-rap-jam[3]
- a highly scholastic order called Ge-luk-ba,[4] founded by the fourteenth century scholar-yogi Dzongka-ba.[5]
Long-chen-rap-jam was born in 1308 Do-drong[6] in south central Tibet, received ordination at Samyay[7] Monastery, and studied the doctrines of both the old and new schools. A great scholar, he became abbot of Sam-yay Monastery early in his life but retired from that position to live in the mountains. Receiving the full corpus of the teachings of the Old Translation School of Nying-ma, he wrote prolifically, and even when he was exiled for a decade to Bhutan for his closeness with the opponents of the ruling power, he established and restored monasteries.[8]
Dzong-ka-ba was born in 1357 in the northeastern province of Tibet called Am-do,[9] now included by the occupying Chinese Communists not in the Tibetan Autonomous Region but in Ch'ing-hai Province. He studied the new and old schools extensively, and developed his own tradition called Ge-luk-ba. Dzongka- ba and his followers established a system of education centered especially in large universities, eventually in three areas of Tibet but primarily in Hla-sa, the capital, which in some ways was for the Tibet cultural region what Rome is for the Catholic Church. For five centuries, young men came from all over the Tibetan cultural region to these large Tibetan universities to study (I say "men" because women were, for the most part, excluded from the scholastic culture). Until the Communist takeovers, these students usually returned to their own countries after completing their degrees.
Valley sounds are the long, broad
tongue.
Mountain colors are not other than
the unconditioned body.
Eighty-four thousand verses are
heard through the night.
What can I say about this in the
future?
Let’s take a look at the poem, using the above translation by Kazuaki Tanahashi (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye: Zen Master Dōgen’s Shōbō Genzō [Shambhala, 2012], 86)
Valley sounds are the long, broad tongue. "Valley sounds" are the sounds of a stream.
"Long, broad tongue" refers to the Buddha and his teachings, known as the Dharma. Restated unpoetically: natural phenomena such as streams are capable of expressing the highest truth. (Read entire article here)
First, rejecting all existing forms of Buddhism in Japan as unauthentic, he attempted to introduce and establish what he believed to be the genuine Buddhism, based on his own realization which he attained in Sung China under the guidance of the Zen Master Ju-ching (Nyojō, 1163-1228). He called it "the Buddha Dharma directly transmitted from the Buddha and patriarchs." He emphasized zazen"`UNIQ--ref-000006C2-QINU`"'(seated meditation) as being "the right entrance to the Buddha Dharma" in the tradition of the Zen schools in China since Bodhidharma, originating from Śākyamuni Buddha. Yet he strictly refused to speak of a "Zen sect," to say nothing of a "Sōtō sect," that he was later credited with founding. For Dōgen was concerned solely with the "right Dharma," and regarded zazen as its "right entrance." "Who has used the name 'Zen sect'? No buddha or patriarch spoke of a 'Zen sect.' You should realize it is a devil that speaks of 'Zen sect.' Those who pronounce a devil's appellation must be confederates of the devil, not children of the Buddha.",'"`UNIQ--ref-000006C3-QINU`"'He called himself "the Dharma transmitter Shamon Dōgen who went to China"'"`UNIQ--ref-000006C4-QINU`"'with strong conviction that he had attained the authentic Dharma that is directly transmitted from buddha to buddha, and that he should transplant it on Japanese soil. Thus he rejected the idea of mappo"`UNIQ--ref-000006C5-QINU`"', i.e., the last or degenerate Dharma, an idea with wide acceptance in the Japanese Buddhism of his day. It may not be too much to say of Dōgen that just as Bodhidharma transmitted the Buddha Dharma to China, he intended to transmit it to Japan.
Secondly, though Dōgen came to a realization of the right Dharma under the guidance of a Chinese Zen master whom he continued to revere throughout his life, the understanding of the right Dharma is unique to Dogen. With religious awakening and penetrating insight, Dōgen grasped the Buddha Dharma in its deepest and most authentic sense. In doing so, he dared to reinterpret the words of former patriarchs, and even the sutras themselves. As a result, his idea of the right Dharma presents one of the purest forms of Mahayana Buddhism, in which the Dharma that was realized in the Buddha's enlightenment reveals itself most profoundly. All of this, it is noteworthy, is rooted in Dōgen's own existential realization, which he attained in himself through long and intense seeking. Based on this idea of the right Dharma, he not only rejected, as stated above, all existing forms of Buddhism in Japan, but also severely criticized certain forms of Indian and Chinese Buddhism, though, it is true, he generally considered Buddhism in these two countries as more authentic than that in Japan.
The third reason Dōgen is unique in the history of Japanese Buddhism, is because of his speculative and philosophical nature. He was a strict practicer of zazen, who earnestly emphasized shikantaza"`UNIQ--ref-000006C6-QINU`"', i.e., just sitting. His whole life was spent in rigorous discipline as a monk. He encouraged his disciples to do the same. Yet he was endowed with keen linguistic sensibility and a philosophical mind. His main work, entitled Shōbōgenzō"`UNIQ--ref-000006C7-QINU`"', "A Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye," perhaps unsurpassable in its philosophical speculation, is a monumental document in Japanese intellectual history. In Dōgen, we find a rare combination of religious insight and philosophical ability. In this respect, he may be well compared with Thomas Aquinas, born twenty five years after him.
He wrote his main work, Shōbōgenzō, in Japanese, in spite of the fact that leading Japanese Buddhists until then had usually written their major works in Chinese. Dōgen made penetrating speculations and tried to express the world of the Buddha Dharma in his mother tongue by mixing Chinese Buddhist and colloquial terms freely in his composition. The difficult and unique style of his Japanese writing is derived from the fact that, in expressing his own awakening, he never used conventional terminology, but employed a vivid, personal style grounded in his subjective speculations. Even when he used traditional Buddhist phrases, passages, etc., he interpreted them in unusual ways in order to express the Truth as he understood it. In Dōgen, the process of the search for and realization of the Buddha Dharma and the speculation on and expression of that process are uniquely combined.'"`UNIQ--ref-000006C8-QINU`"'
In this paper I shall discuss Dōgen's idea of Buddha nature, which may be regarded as a characteristic example of his realization. (Abe, "Dōgen on Buddha Nature", 28–30)The present paper offers just such crucial material: eight folios from a Sanskrit manuscript of MSABh from Tibet. This is the first part of a series of studies dealing with the subject.