Mahāmudrā and the Middle Way
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David Higgins and Martina Draszczyk's Mahāmudrā And The Middle Way is a study of four Tibetan philosophers from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who attempted to forge a middle way between contemporary doctrinal extremes regarding Mahāmudrā and buddha-nature theory. Three of the four authors were Kagyu: Karma Trinle Chokle Namgyel, the Eighth Karmapa, and the Fourth Drukchen Pema Karpo, and one was Sakya, Śākya Chokden, who was, late in life, a student of the Seventh Karmapa. The four authors did not agree with each other, all finding their own ways to steer, as Higgins and Draszczyk put it, "a middle course between the Scylla and Charybdis of eternalism and nihilism."
All four authors studied were "scholar-yogis," -- philosophers who were also keenly interested and accomplished in the meditative practices of their traditions. Higgins and Draszczyk position the four as responding to the doctrinal extremes of the Geluk and Jonang traditions, the first representing nihilism of Tsongkhapa's interpretation of Candrakīrti, and the second being Dolpopa's teaching on gzhan stong. All four wrote in an era in which Geluk Prasangika was becoming dominant, in a language that suggested an anti-Tantric polemic; Geluk and Sakya authors were rejecting Saraha, an Indian saint whose writings form part of the Mahāmudrā canon. Certainly the two hierarchs of Kagyu traditions could not afford to leave their central doctrines undefended. This perspective is true to the authors studied, but it should be noted that followers of the Geluk or Jonang would certainly not accept the label of extremism, and would -- and did -- view the authors' positions as intellectually naive.
Still, the four attempts at reconciliation between doctrinal poles are a needed corrective to the many studies in which the extremes are presented as contradictory; for all four authors the philosophical binaries were complementary and integral to the practice of Buddhism. They each advocated for an intellectual inquiry of emptiness using the language of negation favored by Geluk and mainline Sakya teachers, paired with or followed by a meditative engagement with positive-language doctrines of buddha-nature and the natural luminosity of mind. The great debates of the era between Madhyamaka and Yogacāra, gzhan stong and rang stong, analytical or meditative approach, Sudden vs. Gradual Enlightenment, and so forth, were for these authors not issues of either / or but matters of synthesis and balance. Karma Trinle Chokle Namgyel
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Fourth Drukchen Pema Karpo
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Mahāmudrā - Mahāmudrā refers to an advanced meditation tradition in Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna forms of Into-Tibetan Buddhism that is focused on the realization of the empty and luminous nature of the mind. It also refers to the resultant state of buddhahood attained through such meditation practice. In Tibet, this tradition is particularly associated with the Kagyu school, although all other schools also profess this tradition. The term also appears as part of the four seals, alongside dharmamūdra, samayamudrā, and karmamudrā. Skt. महामुद्रा Tib. ཕྱག་རྒྱ་ཆེན་པོ།
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་
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་
prabhāsvaratā - In a general sense, that which clears away darkness, though it often appears in Buddhist literature in reference to the mind or its nature. It is a particularly salient feature of Tantric literature, especially in regard to the advanced meditation techniques of the completion-stage yogas. Skt. प्रभास्वर Tib. འོད་གསལ་ Ch. 光明
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