Property:BnwShortPersonBio
From Buddha-Nature
This is a property of type Text.
P
Shechen Gyaltsap Gyurme Pema Namgyal, a remarkable master who lived at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning o f the twentieth century, wrote ''The Great Medicine that Conquers Clinging to the Notion of Reality''. He was a disciple of the greatest luminaries of the nineteenth century, including Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo, Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thaye, and Lama Mipham Rinpoche. Shechen Gyaltsap was indisputably one of the most learned and accomplished lamas of his time. The thirteen volumes of his large collection of writings contain many lucid and profound commentaries on various aspects of philosophy and practice.
Shechen Gyaltsap was also an accomplished practitioner. He spent
much of his life in retreat above Shechen Monastery in eastern Tibet, and achieved many signs of accomplishment. Once he started a three-year retreat based on the ''Vajrakilaya'' practice, but to everyone's surprise after only three months he emerged saying that he had completed his intended program. The next morning, his attendant noticed an imprint of his footprint on the stone threshold of the hermitage. Shechen Gyaltsap's disciples later removed the stone and hid it during the Cultural Revolution. Today, it is possible to see it at Shechen Monastery in Tibet. The imprint was an outer sign of his inner realization of the ''Vajrakilaya'' practice. (Source: ''The Great Medicine'', introduction, 21) +
Ouyi Zhixu. (J. Gōyaku/Gūyaku Chigyoku; K. Uik Chiuk 蕅益智旭) (1599–1655). One of the four eminent monks (si da gaoseng) of the late-Ming dynasty, along with Yunqi Zhuhong (1535-1615), Hanshan Deqing (1546–1623), and Daguan Zhenke (1543–1604); renowned for his mastery of a wide swath of Confucian and Buddhist teachings, particularly those associated with the Tiantai, pure land, and Chan traditions. In his youth, he studied Confucianism and despised Buddhism, even writing anti-Buddhist tracts. He had a change of heart at the age of seventeen, after reading some of Zhuhong's writings, and burned his previous screeds. According to his autobiography, Zhixu had his first "great awakening" at the age of nineteen while reading the line in the ''Lunyu'' ("Confucian Analects") that "the whole world will submit to benevolence" if one restrains oneself and returns to ritual. After his father's death that same year, he fully committed himself to Buddhism, reading sūtras and performing recollection of the Buddha's name (nianfo) until he finally was ordained under the guidance of Xueling (d.u.), a disciple of Hanshan Deqing, at the age of twenty-four. At that time, he began to read extensively in Yogācāra materials and had another great awakening through Chan meditation, in which he experienced body, mind, and the outer world suddenly disappearing. He next turned his attention to the bodhisattva precepts and the study of vinaya. Following his mother's death when he was twenty-seven, Zhixu rededicated himself to Chan meditation, but after a serious illness he turned to pure land teachings. In his early thirties, he devoted himself to the study of Tiantai materials, through which he attempted to integrate his previous research in Buddhism and began to write commentaries and treaties on Buddhist scriptures and on such Confucian classics as the ''Zhouyi'' ("Book of Changes"). In the late-sixteenth Century, Jesuit missionaries such as Michele Ruggieri (1543–1607) and Matteo Ricci (1552–1610) had reintroduced Christianity to China and sought "to complement Confucianism and to replace Buddhism." This emerging religious challenge led Zhixu to publish his ''Bixie ji'' ("Collected Essays Refuting Heterodoxy") as a critique of the teachings of Christianity, raising specifically the issue of theodicy (i.e., why a benevolent and omnipotent god would allow evil to appear in the world); Zhixu advocates instead that good and evil come from human beings and are developed and overcome respectively through personal cultivation. After another illness at the age of fifty-six, his later years were focused mostly on pure land teachings and practice. In distinction to Japanese pure land teachers, such as Hōnen (1133–1212) and Shinran (1173–1262), who emphasized exclusively Amitābha's "other-power" (C. tali; J. tariki), Zhixu, like most other Chinese pure land teachers, advocated the symbiosis between the other-power of Amitābha and the "self-power" (C. jiri; J. jiriki) of the practitioner. This perspective is evident in his equal emphasis on the three trainings in meditation (Chan), doctrine (jiao), and precepts (lü) (cf. Triśikṣā ). Ouyi's oeuvre numbers some sixty-two works in 230 rolls, including treatises and commentaries on works ranging from Tiantai, to Chan, to Yogācāra, to pure land. His pure land writings have been especially influential, and his ''Amituojing yaojie'' ("Essential Explanations" on the ''Amitābhasūtra'') and ''Jingtu shiyao'' ("Ten Essentials on the Pure Land") are regarded as integral to the modern Chinese Pure Land tradition. (Source: "Ouyi Zhixu." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 604–5. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
(J. Tendai Chigi; K. Ch’ǒnt’ae Chiǔi) (538-597). One of the most influential monks in Chinese Buddhist history and de facto founder of the Tiantai zong. A native of Jingzhou (in present-day Hunan province), Zhiyi was ordained at the age of eighteen after his parents died during the wartime turmoil that preceded the Sui dynasty’s unification of China. He studied vinaya and various Mahāyāna scriptures, including the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra'' ("Lotus Sūtra'") and related scriptures. In 560, Zhiyi met Nanyue Huisi (515-577), who is later listed as the second patriarch of the Tiantai lineage, on Mt. Dasu in Guangzhou and studied Huisi’s teachings on the suiziyi sanmei (cultivating samādhi wherever mind is directed, or the samādhi of freely flowing thoughts), the "four practices of ease and bliss" (si anle xing), a practice based on the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra'', and the lotus repentance ritual. Zhiyi left Huisi at his teacher’s command and headed for the Southern capital of Jinling (present-day Jiangsu province) at the age of thirty (567) to teach the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra'' and the ''Dazhidu lun'' for eight years at the monastery of Waguansi. The ''Shi chanboluomi cidi famen'' [alt. ''Cidi chanmen''] are his lecture notes from this period of meditation and teaching. In 575, he retired to Mt. Tiantai (present-day Zhejiang province), where he built a monastery (later named Xiuchansi by the emperor) and devoted himself to meditative practice for eleven years. During this time he compiled the ''Fajie cidi chumen'' and the ''Tiantai xiao zhiguan''. After persistent invitations from the king of Chen, Zhiyi returned to Jinling in 585 and two years later wrote the ''Fahua wenju'', an authoritative commentary on the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra''. Subsequently in Yangzhou, Zhiyi conferred the bodhisattva precepts on the crown prince, who later became Emperor Yang (r. 604-617) of the Sui dynasty. Zhiyi was then given the title Great Master Zhizhe (Wise One). Zhiyi also established another monastery on Mt. Dangyang in Yuquan (present-day Hunan province), which Emperor Wen (r. 581-604) later named Yuquansi. Zhiyi then began lecturing on what became his masterpieces, the ''Fahua xuanyi'' (593) and the ''Mohe zhiguan'' (594). At the request of the king of Jin, in 595 Zhiyi returned to Yangzhou, where he composed his famous commentaries on the ''Vimalakīrtinirdeśa'', i.e., the ''Weimojing xuanshou'' and the ''Weimojing wenshou'', before dying in 597. Among the thirty or so works attributed to Zhiyi, the ''Fahua xuanyi'', ''Fahuawenju'', and ''Mohe zhiguan'' are most renowned and are together known as the Tiantai san dabu (three great Tiantai commentaries). (Source: "Tiantai Zhiyi." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 911–12. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
Guifeng Zongmi. (J. Keihō Shūmitsu; K. Kyubong Chongmil 圭峰 宗密) (780-841). Chinese Chan master and historian; putative fifth patriarch of the Huayan tradition and successor in the Heze school of Chan; best known for positing the fundamental harmony between the scriptural teachings of Buddhism and Chan practice. Zongmi was a native of Xichong in present-day Sichuan province. Although little is known of his early life, Zongmi is said to have received a classical Confucian education. In 804, Zongmi encountered the monk Daoyuan (d.u.), purportedly a fourth-generation lineage holder of the Heze line of Chan, and became his student. During this period, Zongmi also carried on his studies of the ''Yuanjue jing''. In 808, Zongmi received the full monastic precepts from Daoyuan, who then recommended the monk Nanyin Weizhong (d. 821) as a suitable teacher. In 810, Zongmi met the monk Lingfeng (d.U.), a disciple of the Huayan monk Chengguan, at the monastery of Huijuesi. Two years later Zongmi began his studies of the [[Texts/Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra| ''Avataṃsakasūtra'']] under Chengguan in Chang’an. In 816, Zongmi began his residence at the monastery of Zhijusi on Zhongnanshan and in 821 he retired to the temple Caotangsi on Gui peak (Guifeng), whence he acquired his toponym. There, Zongmi devoted himself to such works as his influential commentary on the ''Yuanjue jing'', the ''Yuanjue jing dashu''. In 828, Zongmi was invited to the palace and given a purple robe and the title Dade (Great Virtue). During his stay at the capital he met many important statesmen including Pei Xiu (787-860). Zongmi was a prolific writer whose works include commentaries on the [[Texts/Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra| ''Avataṃsakasūtra'']], ''Vajracchedikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra'', ''Dasheng qixin lun'', ''Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra'', ''Sifen lü'' ("Four-Part Vinaya"), and others. He also composed a massive, 100-roll history of the Chan school, the ''Chanyuan zhuquanji'' ("Collected Writings on the Source of Chan"), only the prolegomenon to which is extant. Zongmi's writings were extremely influential in the mature Korean Sǒn school and, especially, in the thought and practice of Pojo Chinul (1158-1210), who drew on Zongmi to advocate an accord between the traditions of Sǒn (C. Chan; meditation) and Kyo (C. Jiao; doctrine). (Source: "Guifeng Zongmi." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 335. Princeton University Press, 2104. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
An esteemed 20th century Kagyu master from Zurmang Monastery in eastern Tibet with strong ties to the Nyingma and Ri-me traditions. He was a student of the 11th Tai Situ and the famed Khenpo Zhenga with whom he studied at the Śrī Siṃha monastic university at Dzogchen Monastery. His pedogical manual (''yig cha'') for the latter's interlinear commentaries to the thirteen major Indian treatises came to form an important part of the curriculum at the monastic university at Dzongsar Monastery. +
The most famous and beloved of Tibetan yogins. Although he is associated most closely with the Bka' brgyud sect of Tibetan Buddhism, he is revered throughout the Tibetan cultural domain for his perseverance through hardship, his ultimate attainment of buddhahood in one lifetime, and for his beautiful songs. The most famous account of his life (the Mi la ras pa'i rnam thar, or “The Life of Milarepa”) and collection of spiritual songs (Mi la'i mgur 'bum, or “The Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa”) are extremely popular throughout the Tibetan world. The themes associated with his life story—purification of past misdeeds, faith and devotion to the Guru, ardor in meditation and yogic practice, and the possibility of attaining buddhahood despite the sins of his youth—have inspired developments in Buddhist teaching and practice in Tibet. (Source: "Mi la ras pa." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 541. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Śrījñānākara was an Indian paṇḍita who often collaborated with Rinchen Zangpo. He is listed as the translator of the ''Pradīpoddyotana-nāma-ṭīkā'' (''Sgron ma gsal bar byed pa zhes bya ba'i rgya cher bshad pa''), a root text on the Guhyasamaja Tantra (''Dpal gsang ba 'dus pa'i rgyud kyi rgyal po chen''), and is listed as the author of a commentary called ''Entering into Secret Mantra'' (''Mantravatara'', ''Gsang sngags la 'jug pa''). ([https://www.tbrc.org/#!rid=P4CZ15236 Source Accessed Aug, 21, 2020]) +
In Sanskrit, “Sage of the Śākya Clan,” one of the most common epithets of Gautama Buddha, especially in the Mahāyāna traditions, where the name Śākyamuni is used to distinguish the historical buddha from the myriad other buddhas who appear in the sūtras. The Śākyas were a tribe in northern India into which was born Siddhārtha Gautama, the man who would become the historical buddha. According to the texts, the Śākya clan was made up of kṣatriyas, warriors or political administrators in the Indian caste system. The Śākya clan flourished in the foothills of the Himālayas, near the border between present-day Nepal and India. (Source: "Śākyamuni." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 741. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Medeival Indian master of the Vinaya, renowned in Tibet, together with Guṇaprabha, as one of the "two supreme ones" (mchog gnyis). Apparently from Kashmir, he was an expert in the Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya. He is best known for his work ''Śrāmaṇeratriśatakakārikā'' ("Three Hundred Verses on the Novice"), to which he wrote an autocommentary entitled ''Prabhāvatī''. (Source: "Śākyaprabha." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 742. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.) +
Śākyasiṁha was an Indian paṇdita primarily known for the Tibetan translation of the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkārakārikā'' that he completed with Kawa Paltsek (ska ba dpal brtsegs). According to the introduction to ''The Universal Vehicle Discourse Literature (Mahāyānasūtrālaṁkāra)'' (American Institute of Buddhist Studies, Columbia University's Center for Buddhist Studies, and Tibet House US, 2004), both the verses in the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkārakārikā'' (Peking 5521) and the work which contains the verses and commentary together under the title ''Sūtrālaṁkāra-bhāṣya'' (Peking 5527) were prepared by Śākyasiṁha and Kawa Paltsek during the royal translation project at Samye monastery in the 8th-9th century. (xxxiv) +
Eighth-century Indian Mahäyäna master who played an important role in the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet. According to traditional accounts, he was born into a royal family in Zahor in Bengal and was ordained at Nālandā monastery, where he became a renowned scholar. He is best known for two works. The first is the ''Tattvasaṃgraha'', or "Compendium of Principles," a critical survey and analysis of the various non-Buddhist and Buddhist schools of Indian philosophy, set forth in 3,646 verses in twenty-six chapters. This work, which is preserved in Sanskrit, along with its commentary by his disciple Kamalaśīla, remains an important source on the philosophical systems of India during this period. His other famous work is the ''Madhyamakālaṃkāra'', or "Ornament of the Middle Way," which sets forth his own philosophical position, identified by later Tibetan doxographers as Yogācāra-*Svātantrika-Madhyamaka, so called because it asserts, as in Yogācāra, that external objects do not exist, i.e., that sense objects are of the nature of consciousness; however, it also asserts, unlike Yogācāra and like Madhyamaka, that consciousness lacks ultimate existence. It further asserts that conventional truths (''saṃvṛtisatya'') possess their own character (''svalakṣana'') and in this regard differs from the other branch of Madhyamaka, the *Prāsangika. The Yogācāra-Madhyamaka synthesis, of which Śāntarakṣita is the major proponent, was the most important philosophical development of late Indian Buddhism, and the ''Madhyamakālaṃkāra'' is its locus classicus. This work, together with the ''Madhyamakāloka'' of Śāntarakṣita's disciple Kamalaśīla and the ''Satyadvayavibhaṅga'' of Jnānagarbha, are known in Tibet as the "three works of the eastern *Svātantrikas" (''rang rgyud shar gsum'') because the three authors were from Bengal. Śāntarakṣita's renown as a scholar was such that he was invited to Tibet by King Khri srong lde btsan. When a series of natural disasters indicated that the local deities were not positively disposed to the introduction of Buddhism, he left Tibet for Nepal and advised the king to invite the Indian tantric master Padmasambhava, who subdued the local deities. With this accomplished, Śāntarakṣita returned, the first Buddhist monastery of Bsam yas was founded, and Śāntarakṣita invited twelve Mūlasarvāstivāda monks to Tibet to ordain the first seven Tibetan monks. Śāntarakṣita lived and taught at Bsam yas from its founding (c. 775) until his death (c. 788) in an equestrian accident. Tibetans refer to him as the "bodhisattva abbot." The founding of Bsam yas and the ordination of the first monks were pivotal moments in Tibetan Buddhist history, and the relationship of Śāntarakṣita, Padmasambhava, and Khri srong lde btsan figures in many Tibetan legends, most famously as brothers in a previous life. Prior to his death, Śāntarakṣita predicted that a doctrinal dispute would arise in Tibet, in which case his disciple Kamalaśīla should be invited from India. Such a conflict arose between the Indian and Chinese factions, and Kamalaśīla came to Tibet to debate with the Chan monk Moheyan in what is referred to as the Bsam yas Debate, or the "Council of Lhasa." (Source: "Śāntarakṣita." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 773. Princeton University Press, 2014)
Bu ston’s ''History'' (Obermiller, ''The History of Buddhism'', 217, 218; and Szerb, ''Bu Ston's History'', 94, 95) lists Śāntibhadra as an Indian teacher of Gö Khukpa Lhatsé and Marpa Lotsawa. See also Cyrus Stearns, ''Luminous Lives: The Story of the Early Masters of the Lam ’bras Tradition in Tibet'' (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2001), 85, 206-207, 210-211, where his aliases are given as Badantabarma, Bharohamtung, Chiterwa, Hangdu Karpo, Mahākarunika, Chiterwa, and Tsaham Pandita Zhiwa Zangpo. Śāntibhadra was a disciple of Nāropa and the Tibetan translator ’Brog mi studied under him in Nepal. ([http://www.thlib.org/collections/texts/jiats/#!jiats=/05/apple/b5/ Source Accessed Aug 20, 2020. See note 47]) +
