Peter Skilling: On the Cuḷasuññata Sutta and Its Relationship to Maitreya's Madhyāntavibhāga

Peter Skilling: On the Cuḷasuññata Sutta and Its Relationship to Maitreya's Madhyāntavibhāga - 8 of 13

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Maitreya: Madhyāntavibhāgakārikā

In Sanskrit, “Differentiation of the Middle Way and the Extremes”; one of the Five Dharma Treatises of Maitreya (byams chos sde lnga) said to have been presented to Asaṅga by the bodhisattva Maitreya in the Tuṣita heaven. Written in verse, it is one of the most important Yogācāra delineations of the three natures (trisvabhāva), especially as they figure in the path to enlightenment, where the obstacles created by the imaginary (parikalpita) are overcome ultimately by the antidote of the consummate (pariniṣpanna). The “middle way” exposed here is that of the Yogācāra, and is different from that of Nāgārjuna, although the names of the two extremes to be avoided—the extreme of permanence (śāśvatānta) and the extreme of annihilation (ucchedānta)—are the same. Here the extreme of permanence is the existence of external objects, the imaginary nature (parikalpitasvabhāva). The extreme of annihilation would seem to include Nāgārjuna’s emptiness of intrinsic nature (svabhāva). The middle way entails upholding the existence of consciousness (vijñāna) as the dependent nature (paratantrasvabhāva) and the existence of the consummate nature (pariniṣpannasvabhāva). The work is divided into five chapters, which consider the three natures, the various forms of obstruction to be abandoned on the path, the ultimate truth according to Yogācāra, the means of cultivating the antidotes to the defilements, and the activity of the Mahāyāna path. (Source: The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, p. 489)

RKTST 3360;byams chos sde lnga;Maitreya;བྱམས་པ་;byams pa;'phags pa byams pa;byams pa'i mgon po;mgon po byams pa;ma pham pa;འཕགས་པ་བྱམས་པ་;བྱམས་པའི་མགོན་པོ་;མགོན་པོ་བྱམས་པ་;མ་ཕམ་པ་;Ajita; Jinamitra;ཇིནམིཏྲ;slob dpon dzi na mi tra;Śīlendrabodhi;shi len+d+ra bo d+hi;tshul khrims dbang po byang chub;Yeshe De;ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ་;ye shes sde;sna nam ye shes sde;zhang ban+de ye shes sde;སྣ་ནམ་ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ་;ཞང་བནྡེ་ཡེ་ཤེས་སྡེ་;Xuanzang;Chen Hui (or Chen Yi);dbus dang mtha' rnam par 'byed pa'i tshig le'ur byas pa;དབུས་དང་མཐའ་རྣམ་པར་འབྱེད་པའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ།;Madhyāntavibhāgakārikā;辯中邊論頌;དབུས་དང་མཐའ་རྣམ་པར་འབྱེད་པའི་ཚིག་ལེའུར་བྱས་པ།

TEXT

Cūḷasuññatasutta (The Shorter Discourse on Emptiness)

Bhikkhu Sujato, trans. "Cūḷasuññatasutta: (The Shorter Discourse on Emptiness)." SuttaCentral: Early Buddhist Texts, Translations, and Parallels. https://suttacentral.net/mn121/en/sujato?layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin

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About the video

Featuring	Peter Skilling, Karma Phuntsho
Creator	Tsadra Foundation
Director	Perman, M.
Producer	Tsadra Foundation
Event	'Luminous Is This Mind, O Monks': An Intertextual Excursion by Peter Skilling (29 October 2022)
Related Website	Buddha-Nature
Creation Date	29 October 2022
Citation	Skilling, Peter. "On the Cuḷasuññata Sutta and Its Relationship to Maitreya's Madhyāntavibhāga." Conversations on Buddha-Nature with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department, Oct 29, 2022. Video, 8:05. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEVQMmbrKB8.