Red mda' ba gzhon nu blo gros

Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö

རེད་མདའ་བ་གཞོན་ནུ་བློ་གྲོས་

1349 - 1412

Rendawa Zhönu Lodrö was a highly distinguished Sakya scholar who is credited with reviving Madhyamaka studies in Tibet. A holder of the Kadam teachings, he was a teacher of Tsongkhapa, as well as hundreds of others, and is counted as seventy-fourth in the line of Lamrim lineage.

Philosophical positions of this person

Is buddha-nature considered definitive or provisional?

Provisional 

Do all beings have buddha-nature?

 

To which "turning of the wheel" do the buddha-nature teachings belong?

  Third Turning

"As for whether the Uttaratantra is definitive or provisional, Rendawa does not explicitly identify it either as definitive or provisional in the texts that I have consulted. However, Khedrup, a student and a junior contemporary of Rendawa, mentions in his Presentation of the General Tantric Systems (rgyud sde spyi rnam), "Lama Jé [that is, Rendawa] asserts that the Uttaratantra is a commentarial work on last-wheel teachings, explicating the view of the Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.

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Is buddha-nature equated with emptiness or alayavijnana?

  Yogācāra

• "As for whether the Uttaratantra is definitive or provisional, Rendawa does not explicitly identify it either as definitive or provisional in the texts that I have consulted. However, Khedrup, a student and a junior contemporary of Rendawa, mentions in his Presentation of the General Tantric Systems (rgyud sde spyi rnam), "Lama Jé [that is, Rendawa] asserts that the Uttaratantra is a commentarial work on last-wheel teachings, explicating the view of the Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.
• Though Rendawa's personal view is explained by Wangchuk as, "Rendawa argues that only Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka system presents the correct ultimate view, not Asanga's Cittamātra School." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 87.
• However there is a possibility that he had a change of heart later in life, as Wangchuk sites the Blue Annals as stating, "The Venerable Red-mda'-pa believed at first the Uttaratantra to be a Vijñānamātra work, and even composed a commentary from the standpoint of the followers of the Vijñānamātra school. Later, when he became a hermit, he used to sing: "It is impossible to differentiate between the presence and absence of this our Mind. The Buddha having perceived that it penetrated all living beings, as in the example of a subterranean treasure, or the womb of a pregnant woman, had proclaimed all living beings to be possessed of the Essence of the Sugata." Wangchuk, Tsering, The Uttaratantra in the Land of Snows, p. 88.

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Do buddha-nature teachings belong to the zhentong or rangtong view of emptiness?

 

Are there one or three vehicles on the path to buddhahood?

 

Do the author's writings belong to the analytic or meditative tradition of Uttaratantra exegesis?

 

What is Buddha-nature?

 

Does the author advocate the Svatantrika or Prasangika view of emptiness?

 

Affiliations & relations

• Sakya · religious affiliation
• nil · teacher
• nil · student

Sakya - The Sakya tradition developed in the eleventh century in the Khön family of Tsang, which maintained an imperial-era lineage of Vajrakīla and which adopted a new teaching from India known as Lamdre. Tib. ས་སྐྱ་

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Madhyamaka - Along with Yogācāra, it is one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Nāgārjuna around the second century CE, it is rooted in the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras, though its initial exposition was presented in Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Skt. मध्यमक Tib. དབུ་མ་ Ch. 中觀見

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Kadam - The Kadam tradition, which traces its origin to the teachings of Atiśa, was the first of the so-called New Schools of Tibetan Buddhism, traditions which arose during or after the Second Propagation of Buddhism (phyi dar) in the tenth century. Tib. བཀའ་གདམས་

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neyārtha - Refers to something that is taught for a specific reason, rather than because it is entirely true. Skt. नेयार्थ Tib. དྲང་དོན་

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These are the root verses of the Uttaratantra attributed to Maitreya by the Tibetan tradition.

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Uttaratantra - The Ultimate Continuum, or Gyü Lama, is often used as a short title in the Tibetan tradition for the key source text of buddha-nature teachings called the Ratnagotravibhāga of Maitreya/Asaṅga, also known as the Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra. Skt. उत्तरतन्त्र Tib. རྒྱུད་བླ་མ་ Ch. 寶性論

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Cittamātra - Though it is sometimes used synonymously with Yogācāra, it is in fact one of the more prominent philosophical theories associated with this school. It asserts that the objects in the external world with which we interact are actually mentally created representations appearing as those objects. The character of these perceptions is predetermined by our own karmic conditioning that is stored in the ālayavijñāna. Skt. चित्तमात्र Tib. སེམས་ཙམ་

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śūnyatā - The state of being empty of an innate nature due to a lack of independently existing characteristics. Skt. शून्यता Tib. སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ Ch. 空,空門

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Yogācāra - Along with Madhyamaka, it was one of the two major philosophical schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Founded by Asaṅga and Vasubandhu around the fourth century CE, many of its central tenets have roots in the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra and the so-called third turning of the dharma wheel (see tridharmacakrapravartana). Skt. योगाचार Tib. རྣལ་འབྱོར་སྤྱོད་པ་ Ch. 瑜伽行派

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gzhan stong - The state of being devoid of that which is wholly different rather than being void of its own nature. The term is generally used to refer to the ultimate, or buddha-nature, being empty of other phenomena such as adventitious defiling emotions but not empty of its true nature. Tib. གཞན་སྟོང་

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rang stong - The state of being empty of self, which references the lack of inherent existence in relative phenomena. Tib. རང་སྟོང་

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