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From Buddha-Nature
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During the lifetime of the Seventh Karmapa, the Great Encampment of the Karmapas expanded greatly, earning him the epithet “Chödrak Gyatso of the Great Encampment.” Chödrak Gyatso created the practice of holding massive prayer festivals on the major Buddhist holidays, establishing the precedent for today’s Kagyu Monlam Chenno.
The widely learned Chödrak Gyatso introduced a formal study institute (''shedra'') into the Great Encampment itself, and similarly created a shedra at Tsurphu Monastery. An accomplished scholar, the Seventh Karmapa authored a number of influential commentaries on Indian philosophical treatises. His text on epistemology, the multi-volume ''Ocean of Reasoning'', remains one of his most important works, alongside his commentary on the ''Abhisamayalaṅkāra'', the ''Lamp of the Three Worlds''.
While these formed his major deeds, Chödrak Gyatso’s varied activities to benefit beings also included bridge construction, the resolution of factional disputes and protection of animals. As had been the case in the Great Encampment since its inception, no meat whatsoever was consumed—or even allowed within the camp. ([https://karmapafoundation.eu/karmapas/7th-karmapa/ Source Accessed July 28, 2020]) +
The eighth member of the incarnation lineage of the Karmapas, Mikyö Dorje, was a prolific scholar and an acclaimed artist, often credited with the development of the Karma Gadri style of painting. Though he only lived into his mid-40's his contributions to the Karma Kagyu and Tibetan tradition, in general, were immense. His collected works are said to have originally filled thirty volumes and he is widely held to be one of the most significant of the Karmapa incarnations. +
As predicted by the Eighth Karmapa, the Ninth was born in the Treshö region of eastern Tibet. He was heard reciting mantras in the womb during pregnancy and he, too, sat cross-legged for three days soon after birth and declared he was the Karmapa.<br> In accordance to the prediction letter left by the Eighth Karmapa, he was soon recognized by the Tai Situpa Chökyi Gocha, who was staying not far away, and by the Sharmapa Konchok Yenlak. A year later, Shamarpa enthroned him at the age of six and gave him extensive teachings.<br> Once Wangchuk Dorje had received the complete Kagyu transmission, he began to teach throughout Tibet, traveling in a monastic camp, which strictly emphasized meditation practice. Wangchuk Dorje did not visit China. He gave many teachings and restored monasteries and temples wherever he went.<br> Like the Eighth Karmapa, Wangchuk Dorje was also a creative author and wrote many condensed commentaries on sutras and tantras, including three mahamudra treatises: ''The Ocean of Definitive Meaning'', ''Dispelling the Darkness of Ignorance'', and ''Pointing Out the Dharmakaya''. These treatises have played a major role in Tibet for the teaching and transmission of mahamudra. ([https://kagyuoffice.org/kagyu-lineage/the-golden-rosary/289-2/ Source Accessed Jul 29, 2020]) +
John P. Keenan is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Middlebury College and vicar of St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in Scarborough, Maine. He has published translations and studies in Yogacara Buddhism, and has employed Mahayana Buddhist philosophy in works including ''The Meaning of Christ: A Mahayana Theology'' and ''The Letter of James: Everyday Practice for Everyday Christians''. ([https://wisdomexperience.org/content-author/john-keenan/ Source Accessed Jul 22, 2020]) +
Khenpo Chöying Dorje was born a student of the Khyentse lineage. His teacher was late Khenchen Kunga Wangchuk and he is a student of Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche. Khenpo joined Dzongsar Institute in 1992 and was granted many degrees over the years: in 1998 he was granted the Shastra Degree in Buddhism (equivalent to Bachelor’s Degree) and in 2001 the Archaya title (MA). He received his Khenpo title in 2002 and his Khenpo Degree (PhD) in 2004. Khenpo served as assistant principal of the shedra from 2008 to 2012, and Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche appointed him head principal of Dzongsar Institute for the 2013 to 2016 term. Khenpo Chöying Dorje is known not only for his scholarship but also for his kind and compassionate heart. He teaches in America, Asia, Australia and Europe and always strives to make the teachings understandable and practically applicable. +
Khenchen Namdrol Tsering (Tib. མཁན་ཆེན་རྣམ་གྲོལ་ཚེ་རིང་, Wyl. mkhan chen rnam grol tshe ring) (b. 1953) is one of the leading khenpos in the Nyingma tradition and is universally acknowledged as an expert on the Guhyagarbha Tantra and its various commentaries. As a khenchen, he is one of three most senior khenpos of Namdroling Monastery and is also one of the foremost disciples of Khenpo Jikme Phuntsok. He oversees Rigpa Shedra East in Pharping, Nepal. +
72nd abbot of Drepung Gomang Monastery, Geshe Ngawang Nyima was born on 18th July, 1907 in Davatai, Buryatia (today's Republic of Buryatia under Russian Federation). His parents, father Tsedup Dorje and mother Tsekyima, were devoted Buddhists. It is said that on the day of his birth, Geshe Lharamba Minyak Lobsang Yonten from Drepung Loseling visited the house of his parents. Later, Lobsang Yonten became the abbot of Loseling College.
Geshe Ngawang Nyima entered the door to Dharma in Shulutuiskii Datsan (Aginskii Datsan) and received vows of Barma Ravjung and novice vows there. Until the age of nine he learnt to read and write in Mongolian and Tibetan languages. Then he memorized various prayers and started to study Buddhist logic. At that time Russia was in the process of Communist revolution and he had to study communist theory at his Monastery.
In 1923 he left Buryatia secretly for Tibet and the next year he arrived Lhasa, through Ulaanbaatar. In Lhasa he entered Drepung Gomang Monastic College, and continued his Buddhist studies. Drepung was traditionally the biggest monastery in Tibet and was established in 1416 by Jamyang Choije Tashi Palden, a disciple of Je Tsongkhapa. he lived in Drepung until 1958.
Despite many difficulties, such as lack of financial means and not being able to return home to arrange more support due to the political situations, he studied very hard for sixteen years. Often he would have nothing except the clothes he wore and could not even afford offerings to his altar. In 1938 he received the degree of Geshe Rabjim and came to be known among other Geshes for his erudition in classical Buddhist scriptures. He started receiving students to study under his guidance. Geshe Ngawang Nyima received oral transmissions of Kangyur and collected writings of Je Tsongkhapa, his spiritual sons, and many other eminent masters such as the ones from Kangsar Dorjechang. Agwan Nima spent years in meditation, and went on pilgrimage to India for three times.
In 1960, at the request of the Dalai Lama of Tibet, he took a teacher's post at Sanskrit University in Varanasi, India. He worked there for seven years. While at Sanskrit University, he wrote in Tibetan a book on Buddhist history, titled "Choijung Lungrig Dronme". He also published a collection of biographies of over two hundred scholars and yogis from India, Tibet and Mongolia.
In 1967, again following the request of the fourteenth the Dalai Lama, he went to Laiden, Holland to become a teacher at an Institute. He stayed there for six years writing five volumes on Buddhist philosophy until his retirement from the institute in 1972. Then he traveled to Switzerland where he wrote eight more volumes on Buddhist philosophy.
In 1977 he was elected as Abbot of Drepung Gomag Monastic College by the monastic community and in 1978 by the order of the Dalai Lama he became the abbot. He stayed in this position until 1980. At the age of 73 years handed down his position and went to Switzerland for vacasion during which he wrote his autobiography. A year later, he came back to India where many students studied under his guidance. He taught there until the age of 81. In 1990, his health condition became unwell . For three days he was bedridden and then after several days in meditative equipoise of Clear Light, on November 24th, he left this world. ([https://www.drepunggomang.org/monastery-s-abbots Source Accessed October 21, 2019])
Khosla was a graduate student at the University of Toronto specializing in Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine. +
Zen Master Bon Soeng, Jeff Kitzes, began practicing Zen in 1975 and became a student of Zen Master Seung Sahn in 1979. He received inka, or permission to teach in 1992 and was given dharma transmission by Zen Master Seung Sahn in 2001. Zen Master Bon Soeng is also a licensed psychotherapist in private practice integrating Zen, Buddhism, and Western Psychotherapy. He has served as the guiding teacher of Empty Gate Zen Center in Berkeley, California since 1992. ([https://www.kwanumzenonline.org/blog/bon-soeng Source Accessed July 17, 2020]) +
Also known as Klong chen pa (Longchenpa). An esteemed master and scholar of the Rnying ma sect of Tibetan Buddhism known especially for his promulgation of rdogs chen. Klong chen pa is believed to be the direct reincarnation of Padma las 'brel rtsal, who revealed the ''Rdzogs chen snying thig'', and also of Padma gsal, who first received those teachings from the Indian master Padmasambhava. Born in the central region of G.yo ru (Yoru), he received ordination at the age of twelve. At nineteen, he entered Gsang phu ne'u thog monastery where he engaged in a wide range of studies, including philosophy, numerous systems of sūtra and tantra, and the traditional Buddhist sciences, including grammar and poetics. Having trained under masters as diverse as the abbots of Gsang phu ne'u thog and the third Karma pa, Rang 'byung rdo rje, he achieved great scholarly mastery of numerous traditions, including the Rnying ma, Sa skya, and Bka' brgyud sects. However, Klong chen pa quickly became disillusioned at the arrogance and pretention of many scholars of his day, and in his mid-twenties gave up the monastery to pursue the life of a wandering ascetic. At twenty-nine, he met the great yogin Kumārarāja at Bsam yas monastery, who accepted him as a disciple and transmitted the three classes of rdzogs chen (rdzogs chen sde gsum), a corpus of materials that would become a fundamental part of Klong chen pa's later writings and teaching career . . . Among the most important and well-known works in Klong chen pa's extensive literary corpus are his redaction of the meditation and ritual manuals of the heart essence (Snying thig), composed mainly in the hermitage of Gangs ri thod dkar. Other important works include his exegesis on the theory and practice of rdzogs chen, such as the Mdzod bdun (“seven treasuries”) and the Ngal gso skor gsum (“Trilogy on Rest”). (Source: “Klong chen rab 'byams.” In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 439. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27.)
The most influential translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese. He is regarded by tradition as the founder of the Chinese San lun zong or “Three Treatises” branch of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna philosophy. According to his hagiography, Kumārajīva was born in the Central Asian petty kingdom of Kucha, where he was related to the royal family on his mother's side. In his youth, he studied Sarvāstivāda doctrine in Kashmir but was later converted to Mahāyāna at the Central Asian oasis town of Kashgar by the monk Buddhayaśas. When the Chinese general Lü Guang conquered Kucha in 383, he took Kumārajīva back with him to Liangzong near the Chinese outpost of Dunhuang as a prize, only to lose the eminent scholar-monk to Yaoxing (r. 394–416) when the Latter Qin ruler reconquered the region in 401. During his eighteen years as a hostage, Kumārajīva apparently learned to speak and read Chinese and seems to have been one of the first foreign monks able to use the language fluently. A year later in 402, Yaoxing invited Kumārajīva to the capital of Chang'an, where he established a translation bureau under Kumārajīva's direction that produced some of the most enduring translations of Buddhist texts made in Chinese. The sheer number and variety of the translations made by Kumārajīva and his team were virtually unmatched until Xuanzang (600/602–664 CE). Translations of some seventy-four texts, in 384 rolls, are typically attributed to Kumārajīva, including various sūtras, such as the ''Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra'', ''Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñapāramitā'', ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra'', ''Vimalakīrtinirdeśa'', ''Sukhāvatīvyūhasūtra'', and ''Vajracchedikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra'', and important śāstras such as the ''Mūlamadhyamakakārikā'', ''Śataśāstra'', ''Dvādaśamukhaśāstra'', and the ''Dazhidu lun''. Because Kumārajīva was one of the first foreign monks to have learned Chinese well, he produced translations that were readily comprehensible as Chinese, and his translations remain the most widely read in East Asia of any translator’s; indeed, where there are multiple translations of a scripture, it is almost inevitably Kumārajīva’s that remains part of the living tradition. The accuracy of his translations is said to be attested by the fact that his tongue remained unburned during his cremation. Along with his correspondences with the monk Lushan Huiyuan found in the Dasheng dayi zhang, these translations laid the foundation for Mahāyāna thought, and especially Madhyamaka philosophy, in China. His many famous disciples include Daosheng, Sengzhao, Daorong, and Sengrui, who are known collectively as the "four sages." (Source: "Kumārajīva." In ''The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism'', 452–53. Princeton University Press, 2014. http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt46n41q.27)
Kunga Yeshe Gyatso was a Jonangpa scholar who lived in the 16th to 17th centuries. His teachers were Tāranātha (1575–1634) and Kunga Rinchen Gyatso. He is the author of a collection of annotations on Tāranātha's ''Dbu ma theg mchog'' among other works. +
The one known as Kālacakrapāda the Elder (Dus zhabs pa chen po) was born in Varendra (a region of northern Bengal) in eastern India. His father was a Brahmin yogin who practised Black Yamāri (Gshin rje gshed nag po), and his mother was an awareness ḍākinī. They performed a ritual from the ''Kṛiṣṇayamāri Tantra'' to ensure the birth of a noble son. The father dreamed of the noble Mañjuśrī entering his wife's belly, and the child was later born together with auspicious signs.
Due to the blessing of noble Mañjuśrī, the child had a bright mind with clear faculties, and took ordination when he was young. He studied many subjects and understanding them all with ease he became a paṇḍita and was known as Cilupa. He heard of Kālacakra from Paṇḍita Ācārya, but was not satisfied, and through the awakening of his previous prayers he developed a powerful wish to go to Sambhala.
As his personal deity Tārā would grant the realization of anything he wished, she prophesied that for the benefit of beings he would gather from Sambhala many tantras and bodhisattva commentaries.
This is a reference to a particular cycle of commentaries, often known as the bodhisattva trilogy (Sems 'grel skor gsum). Said each to have been written by great bodhisattvas, one is the ''Vimalaprabhā'' commentary on Kālacakra, and the other two deal with the Cakrasaṃvara and Hevajra tantras. ([http://www.kalacakra.org/history/khistor3.htm Source Accessed October 16, 2019]) +
Gendun Rinpoche (1918–1997) belonged to that extraordinary group of great Tibetan Buddhist meditators trained entirely in Tibet who were driven into exile by the Chinese occupation of their homeland and who later in their lives spread the Buddhist teachings in the West.
Practicing in the Karma Kagyu tradition, he spent over 30 years meditating in closed retreat in Tibet and India. His accomplishments were such that his principal teacher, the 16th Karmapa, who sent him to Europe to teach, compared him to the great 11/12th century Tibetan yogi Milarepa.
In the final years of his activity in Europe he succeeded in firmly planting the Buddhist teachings in Western soil by establishing numerous teaching, practice and retreat centers.
He trained more than a hundred Western disciples as teachers or lamas who are now continuing his legacy. ([https://www.amazon.com/Gendun-Rinpoche/e/B004H4KB0Y%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Source Accessed October 17, 2019]) +
Chakriwa (Lcags ri ba), Ratna Chakriwa, or Gya Chakri Gongkawa Jangchup Pal, was an eleventh-century Kadampa master who was one of several teachers of Gampopa Sonam Rinchen (1079-1153). +
Lotsāwa Senge Gyaltsen was a Tibetan translator who lived in the 10th-11th centuries. Among the works he is known to have translated are the ''Bcom ldan 'das ma shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i snying po'i 'grel pa don gyi sgron ma'' (''Bhagavatīprajñāpāramitāhṛdayaṭīkā-arthapradīpa-nāma''); ''Shes rab kyi pha rol tu phyin pa'i snying po'i don yongs su shes pa'' (''Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayārthaparijñāna'') and the ''Chos dang chos nyid rnam par 'byed pa'i tshig le'ur byas pa'' (''Dharmadharmatāvibhāga''). ([https://www.tbrc.org/#!rid=P4CZ15648 Source Accessed Aug 21, 2020]) +
Etienne Loyon is a translator and student of Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamsto Rinpoche. He has completed a translation of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' into French entitled ''Traité de la Continuité ultime du Grand Véhicule'', which is available online at http://www.khenpo.fr/continuite_ultime_accueil.html +
Dan Lusthaus is an American writer on Buddhism. He is a graduate of Temple University's Department of Religion, and is a specialist in Yogācāra. The author of several articles and books on the topic, Lusthaus has taught at UCLA, Florida State University, the University of Missouri, and in the Spring of 2005 he was a professor at Boston University.
Lusthaus also collaborated with Heng-ching Shih in the translation of Kuiji's (K'uei-chi) commentary on the Heart Sutra with the Numata translation project. Lusthaus is an editor for the Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, in the area of Indian/East Asian Yogācāra/Tathāgatagarbha. He contributed the contents of his catalogue of the major Yogācāra translations of Xuanzang to the DDB, as well as a number of other terms related to the Cheng Weishi Lun and Yogācārabhūmi-śāstra. ([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Lusthaus Source Accessed July 22, 2020]) +
Līlāvajra, also known as Vilāsavajra or Lalitavajra, was an 8th century Indian master, perhaps from Oddiyana, who wrote commentaries on ''Chanting the Names of Manjushri'' and the ''Guhyagarbha Tantra''. Among the students of Vilāsavajra, the most prominent were Buddhaguhya and Buddhajñanapada, who both studied the cycle of the Web of Magical Illusion. (Source: [https://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Vilasavajra Rigpa Wiki]) +
Mahājana was a Kashmiri paṇḍita who was active around the 11th-12th centuries. According to Donald Lopez, one of his main contributions was his commentary on the ''Heart Sutra'', ''Prajñāpāramitāhṛdayārthaparijñāna'' (''Complete Understanding of the Meaning of the Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom''). According to Lopez, "Mahājana's commentary is the only work ascribed to him in the Tibetan canons; he is listed as the translator of nine works, suggesting that he visited Tibet, probably in the late eleventh or early twelfth century.[13] His commentary reflects an author of a decidedly Yogācāra persuasion . . ." (Donald S. Lopez, Jr., ''Elaborations on Emptiness: Uses of the Heart Sūtra'' [New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1996], 16). Mahājana is also reported to have been one of several panditas who taught Atiśa the Perfection of Wisdom and secret mantra. (''Sources of Tibetan Tradition'', 2013, 178)<br><br>
===Notes===
13. The colophon of his commentary states that he collaborated in its translation with Seng ge rgyal mtshan, who was a student of Ngog bLo ldan shes rab (1059–1109). +
