The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga-Review by Griffiths

The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga-Review by Griffiths

Review

Article

 Search online

Citation:	Griffiths, Paul J. Review of The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine According to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga, by S. K. Hookham. Journal of the American Oriental Society 113, no. 2 (1993): 317–19.

Article Summary

This book aims to expound, for both scholars and practitioners of Buddhism, the doctrine of the "emptiness-of-the-other" (shentong, to adopt the author's more-or-less phonetic method of rendering terms in Tibetan; a more formally accurate transcription would be gzhan-stong), a Buddhist tradition of metaphysical reasoning that has its roots in Indian tathāgatagarbha thought and is associated especially with the Kagyu and Nyingma lineages in Tibet. This tradition of reasoning, as the author claims, has been given little attention by Western scholars working on Indo-Tibetan Buddhism; they have focused on the Madhyamaka schools in India and on their Gelug and Sakya inheritors in Tibet, and to a somewhat lesser extent upon Indian Yogācāra. In so far as they have said anything about the Shentong tradition or its Indian precursors, they have tended to dismiss it as heretical or not really Buddhist-often following in this the rhetoric of Gelug polemics. Dr. Hookham's book is therefore a welcome corrective, being, as she claims, "the first book in a Western language to discuss at length the views of Tibetan Shentong writers on the basis of their own works" (p. 5). (Griffiths, Review of The Buddha Within, 317-18)

Read more here . . .

References

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་

Go to the page with the definition of 'Shentong'

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་

Go to the page with the definition of 'Shentong'

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

Go to the page with the definition of 'emptiness'

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་

Go to the page with the definition of 'shentong'

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་

Go to the page with the definition of 'shentong'

tathāgatagarbha - Buddha-nature, literally the "womb/essence of those who have gone (to suchness)." Skt. तथागतगर्भ Tib. དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ Ch. 如来藏

Go to the page with the definition of 'tathāgatagarbha'

Kagyu - The Kagyu school traces its origin to the eleventh-century translator Marpa, who studied in India with Nāropa. Marpa's student Milarepa trained Gampopa, who founded the first monastery of the Kagyu order. As many as twelve subtraditions grew out from there, the best known being the Karma Kagyu, the Drikung, and the Drukpa. Tib. བཀའ་བརྒྱུད་

Go to the page with the definition of 'Kagyu'

Nyingma - The Nyingma, which is often described as the oldest tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, traces its origin to Padmasambhava, who is said to have visited Tibet in the eighth century. Tib. རྙིང་མ་

Go to the page with the definition of 'Nyingma'

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

Go to the page with the definition of 'Madhyamaka'

Geluk - The Geluk tradition traces its origin to Tsongkhapa, who propagated a modified version of the Kadampa lojong and lamrim teachings. It is the dominant tradition of Tibet, having established its control of the government under the figure of the Dalai Lama. Tib. དགེ་ལུགས་

Go to the page with the definition of 'Gelug'

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་

Go to the page with the definition of 'Sakya'

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

Go to the page with the definition of 'Yogācāra'