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Articles/'Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal's Commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā (Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma'i bstan bcos kyi 'grel bshad de kho na nyid rab tu gsal ba'i me long)-Review by Hugon +
This book contains a critical edition of a Tibetan commentary composed by 'Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal (1392-1481) on the ''Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā''. The ''Ratnagotravibhāga'', attributed to Maitreya, and its ''vyākhyā'', attributed to Asaṅga, are of special significance in Buddhism for the discussion of the 'buddha-nature' (''tathāgatagarbha''), i.e. the idea that the nature of a buddha is inherent in every human being. gZhon nu dpal's commentary (hereafter: ZhP), which has never been published before, provides an account on this issue which is imposing both in view of its size as well as its historical and philosophical importance. Mathes' edition thus provides an important and valuable contribution to future studies on the subject.<br> The edition proper (pp. 1-576) is preceded by a brief introduction (pp. ix–xvii) which, besides editorial remarks, deals with gZhon nu dpal's life and education on the basis of an unpublished biography by his disciple Zhwa dmar Chos kyi grags pa (1453-1524), and of the ''bKa' gdams chos 'byung'' of Las chen Kun dga' rgyal mtshan (b. 1440), another of his disciples.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"' This information adds to the preliminary observations by Mathes in an article entitled '"Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal's Extensive Commentary on and Study of the ''Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā'' (Mathes 2002)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"', which gives a more detailed biographical account and discusses the position that gZhon nu dpal holds in ZhP.<br> 'Gos Lo tsā ba Yid bzang rtse ba gZhon nu dpal is well known to Tibetologists for his work entitled ''The Blue Annals'' (''Deb ther sngon po''), composed a few years earlier than ZhP.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"' This mine of biographical, bibliographical and historical information already gives us an idea of the mastery that this remarkable scholar had of all fields of Buddhist studies. Mathes' introduction informs us of the key elements of gZhon nu dpal's thorough education in all the major religious traditions with the most important masters of the time, such as Tsong kha pa (1357-1419), the Fifth Karmapa De bzhin gshegs pa (1384-1415), the rNying ma pa teacher sGrol ma ba Sangs rgyas rin chen (1350-1430), or the Sa skya master Rong ston Shes bya kun rig (1367-1449). gZhon nu dpal distinguishes himself by his open-minded and non-sectarian approach, which is reflected in his ZhP, where he combines the commentarial tradition of rNgog Blo ldan shes rab (1059-1109) with sGam po pa's (1079- 1153) "Great Seal" (''mahāmudrā'') interpretation. The introduction also deals with the circumstances of the redaction of ZhP — composed in 1473 as gZhon nu dpal was nearly blind and had to dictate his work from memory over a period of four months — and of the carving of the printing blocks as described in the colophon. Mathes notes that gZhon nu dpal obviously had access to the Sanskrit original of the ''Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā'' as he frequently discusses Sanskrit words from this text and occasionally mentions or (politely) criticizes the existing translation by rNgog Lo tsä ba Bio ldan shes rab, which is the one found in the canon (sDe dge ''bsTan 'gyur'' 4024–4025).'"`UNIQ--ref-00000006-QINU`"' Mathes (p.xv) also mentions a translation by Nag tsho Lo tsā ba which gZhon nu dpal occasionally discusses, but gives no specifics about this translator.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000007-QINU`"' By comparing the quotations of the ''Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā'' in ZhP with the Sanskrit text (edited by E.H. Johnston)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000008-QINU`"' and the Tibetan translation found in the canon (edited by Z. Nakamura on the basis of Sde dge, Narthang and Peking ''bsTan 'gyur'')'"`UNIQ--ref-00000009-QINU`"', Mathes establishes that gZhon nu dpal's version, in several cases, better fits the original (p. xiv).<br><br>
[https://www.e-periodica.ch/digbib/voltoc?rid=ast-002:2006:60::1132&id=browse&id2=browse1&id3=#251 Read more here . . .]
Articles/'Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal's Extensive Commentary on and Study of the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā +
In this paper I present some preliminary observations on 'Gos Lo tsā ba Gzhon nu dpal's (1392-1481) commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā'', which I am editing and evaluating as a part of my habilitation project. Three years ago I gained access to a photocopy of a 698-folio-long handwritten ''dbu med'' version of this text.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000F7E-QINU`"' Like the Indian ''vyākhyā'', the commentary is divided into five chapters. Their headings are listed together with the folio numbers on a cover page, which bears the seal of the Zhva dmar pa and assigns the letter ''ha'' to the volume containing Gzhon nu dpal's commentary. It is thus reasonable to assume that the original was kept in the library of the Shamarpas in Yangpacan, probably already from the time of the famous Fourth Shamarpa Chos kyi grags pa (1453-1524), who was a disciple of Gzhon nu dpal. After the war with Prithivi Narayan Shah in 1792, Yangpacan was seized by the Gelug government and the text found its way to Drepung, where many other Kagyu texts were kept. Recently I received a photocopy of a Yangpacan block-print from Tibet with the same text on 463 folios. This could be the text described by A khu ching Shes rab rgya mtsho as having 461 folios.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000F7F-QINU`"' The numbering starts anew with each chapter; thus a small calculation mistake could explain the difference of two folios. (Mathes, introductory remarks, 79) +
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Articles/A Clue to the Authorship of the Awakening of Faith: "Śikṣānanda's" Redaction of the Word "Nien" +
The text, ''Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun''<sup>f</sup> (The Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna, henceforth abbreviated as AFM), has been the center of a long controversy in the field of Buddhist studies. It has been suspected by Mochizuki Shinkō<sup>g</sup>'"`UNIQ--ref-00000DD2-QINU`"' and others to be a Chinese fabrication, while Tokiwa Daijō and others defend its alleged Indian origin. The present short article will not review the past and present scholarship on the AFM or bring in my own studies on the matter.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000DD3-QINU`"' It will be devoted to one tiny but crucial issue: the fate of a key concept in the two "translations"—Paramārtha's original (AFM) and Śikṣānanda's version (AFMS for short). The concept is ''nien'' and ''wu-nien''. To state the conclusion here so as to simplify our discussion: the ''nien'' complex, in my opinion, cannot be understood without reference to a pre-Buddhist (Han Chinese) usage of the term. It is foreign or jarring enough to the person responsible for the AFMS that it has been systematically modified or outright substituted so as to bring the AFM in line with the Yogācāra (Wei-shih,<sup>i</sup> Vijñaptimātratā) philosophy. By showing the sinitic character of the ''nien'' ideology, its centrality in the AFM, and the redaction of it by the AFMS, we can come one step closer to resolving the long controversy over the authorship of the AFM. From the limited evidence in this one short study, it would appear that the AFM was authored in China and the AFMS was a conscious redaction of the AFM in China (or Korea?'"`UNIQ--ref-00000DD4-QINU`"') to bring this work into line with the demands of Hsüan-tsang's<sup>j</sup> Wei-shih philosophy.<br> We will begin with a survey of modern Sanskritists' attempts at identifying ''nien'' and why such attempts have ultimately failed. Then we will look at a similar attempt by the AFMS to edit off the ''nien'' ideology and how by so doing it violated the integrity of the original AFM message. The sinitic meaning of the term ''nien'' and ''wu-nien'' will be demonstrated with precedents in Han thought, usages in the Six Dynasties and in Ch'an.<sup>k</sup> I will conclude with a word on why AFMS was produced. (Lai, "A Clue to the Authorship of the ''Awakening of Faith''," 34–35)
Articles/A Eulogy of Mind’s Connate Qualities, Zhwa dmar Chos grags ye shes on the Hidden Meaning of Luminosity +
The Fourth Zhwa dmar pa Chos grags ye shes (1453–1524) as well as being a prominent student and biographer of the famous ’Gos Lo tsā ba, also established himself as a scholar, a central Tibetan ruler, and a monk. His collected works discuss among much else the topic of luminosity as it is developed in the Bka’ brgyud pa Mahāmudrā tradition.<br>
This paper focuses on his writings on the “hidden meaning of luminosity”. According to Chos grags ye shes the nonaffirming negation in the second cycle of the Buddha’s teaching is of not fully perfected definitive meaning while the affirming negation of the third wheel, the inseparability of mind’s emptiness and luminosity, in other words ''mahāmudrā'', constitutes the fully perfected definitive meaning. (Draszczyk, introduction, 1) +
Articles/A Preliminary Report on Newly Identified Text Fragments in Śāradā Script from Źwa lu Monastery in the Tucci Collection +
In the summer of 2007 I had the opportunity to participate in Francesco Sferra’s course on Kamalaśīla’s First ''Bhāvanākrama'' at the University of Hamburg. For his lectures Sferra kindly provided us with digital images of Tucci’s photographs of the Sanskrit manuscript of this text. The 27 extant folios of the ''Bhāvanākrama'' (fols. 2–28), which were used by Tucci for the ''editio princeps'' of the text,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C6A-QINU`"' have been photographed in three successive multi-folio images together with nine extra folios that appear in two photos only, namely those labelled MT 41 II/01 and MT 42 II/02. My attention was caught by these folios since while the ''Bhāvanākrama'' manuscript is written in Magadhi script, these nine folios are written in Śāradā script — a rather rare phenomenon among the corpus of Sanskrit manuscripts preserved in Tibet. They and the rest of the ''Bhāvanākrama'' manuscript were originally preserved at Zwa lu Ri phug.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C6B-QINU`"' The manuscripts preserved there were probably taken to Beijing (The Cultural Palace of Nationalities) in the 1960s, but were returned to Lhasa sometime after 1990 (first to Nor bu gliṅ ka and then to the Tibetan Museum).'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C6C-QINU`"'<br> Of the nine folios, Tucci photographed both sides of seven of them, while he photographed only one side of the remaining two (here labelled 7.2 and 9.2). The two sides not filmed were probably blank or contained title pages (unfortunately, Tucci did not photograph title pages). Some images are out of focus and barely legible, and thus a complete diplomatic transcription is almost impossible. If Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana photographed the same folios, this would be very helpful in deciphering them; however, I have yet to find evidence that he did. Therefore, I have only been able to go through the folios haltingly, and so identify a limited number of them. (Kano, introductory remarks, 381–82)<br><br> +
This article introduces 45 Tibetan commentaries on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (RGV), better known in Tibet as the ''Mahayanūttaratantrāśāstra'', ''Theg pa chen po rgyud bla ma bstan bcos'' or ''Rgyud bla ma'' and is an attempt at charting all Tibetan RGV commentaries. A short presentation of their authors and their bibliographical references are given. The listing is in chronological order and the key data are provided in a chart in the appendix representing the result of research into various catalogues, hand lists, and other accounts. +
Articles/A Re-examination of the Relationship between the Awakening of Faith and Dilun School Thought, Focusing on the Works of Huiyuan +
Ching Keng’s paper challenges the prevalent assumption that the ''Awakening of Faith'' was composed under the influence of the Dilun School. Keng aims to show that in the representative works of Huiyuan, arguably the most important Dilun master, we do not find the essential doctrinal feature of the ''Awakening of Faith'', namely, the compromise or even the total obliteration of the distinction between unconditioned (''asaṃskṛta'') and conditioned (''saṃskṛta'') dharmas. Keng observes that almost all available studies of Huiyuan focus on a small piece entitled "Bashi yi" (八識義, "On the Meaning of the Eight Consciousnesses"), which shows strong influence from the "Awakening of Faith"; but that other works of Huiyuan outline a very different conceptual scheme. Taking these other works as representing Huiyuan's earlier thought, and therefore Dilun thought, Keng argues that the hallmark of Huiyuan's thought is a dualist scheme, in which the inherently pure aspect is unambiguously unconditioned, with no blending with conditioned dharmas; this inherently pure aspect can adjust to falsity (''suiwang'' 隨妄) and give rise to misconception, but without compromising its unconditioned nature. Upon this basis, Keng contends that the compromise between unconditioned and conditioned in the ''Awakening of Faith'' should be regarded as an innovation, rather than a direct outgrowth from Dilun thought. An important broader implication of Keng's argument is that Huiyuan’s thought, Dilun thought, and even the thought of the ''Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra'' has been anachronistically misinterpreted through the later, typically Chinese lens of the ''Awakening of Faith''. This suggests the sobering possibility that typically "sinitic" (or even "sinified") developments became so pervasive in the later East Asian tradition that their stamp may still lie heavy upon parts of modern Buddhology itself, and that we might therefore overlook both evidence and products of "sinifying" processes, and even the actual features of Indic materials. (Radich and Lin, introduction to ''A Distant Mirror'', 25–26)
The reign of the King Ṭhi-sroṅ-deu-tsen (Khri-sroṅ-Idehu-btsan, VII century) represents a period of the greatest importance in the early history of Tibet in general and of the spread of Buddhism in that country in particular. The activity of the great Śāntirakṣita ("Ācārya Bodhisattva") and of Padma-sambhava. the selection of the first seven Buddhist monks of Tibetan origin (''sad-mi mi bdun''), the foundation of numerous sites of Buddhist learning in Tibet, and the intense literary activity of the Tibetan learned translators (''lo-tsa-ba'')—Pal-tseg (dPal-brtsegs) and others by whom a great number of Buddhist canonical and scientific works were rendered into Tibetan,—all this has been described by Bu-ston in his History of Buddhism and in other Tibetan historical works<br> There is, however, one subject relating to the spread of Buddhism in Ṭhi-sroṅ-deu-tsen's reign, to which the Tibetan historian devotes his special attention and on which he dwells in detail. This is the strife between two parties into which the Buddhists of Tibet were at that time split. One of these parties consisted of the pupils and followers of Ācārya Śāntirakṣita who professed that form of Mahāyāna Buddhism which was generally acknowledged in India and Nepal, ''viz''. the teaching of the Path to Enlightenment through the practice of meditation connected with the dialectical analysis peculiar to the Mādhyamika school of the Buddhists and with the practice of the six Transcendental Virtues (''pāramitā'').<br> The leader of the other party was a Chinese teacher (''hwa-śaṅ'' or ''ho-shang'') known by the Sanskrit name Mahāyānadeva, who preached a doctrine of complete quietism and inactivity. According to him every kind of religious practice, the meditative exercises and all virtuous deeds as well were completely useless and even undesirable: the liberation from the bonds of phenomenal existence was to be attained merely through the complete cessation of every kind of thought and mental activity,—by abiding perpetually in a state analogous to sleep. Bu-ston'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' relates how this party grew very powerful and found numerous adherents among the Tibetans, how the followers of Śāntirakṣita suffered oppression from it, and how the king who was an adherent of Śāntirakṣita's system, invited Śāntirakṣita's pupil, the teacher Kamalaśīla in order to refute the incorrect teachings of the Chinese party. The dispute between Kamalaśīla and the Chinese Ho-shang in which the latter was defeated is described by Bu-ston'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"' in detail. We read that the leading men of the two parties'"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"' assembled in the presence of the king, that the Ho-shang was the first to speak in favour of his theory of quietism and inactivity and was answered by Kamalaśīla who demonstrated all the absurdity of the theses maintained by the Ho-shang and showed that the teachings of such a kind were in conflict with the main principles of Buddhism and were conducive to the depreciation and rejection of the most essential features of the Buddhist Path to Enlightenment. We read further on how the chief adherents of Kamalaśīla'"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"' likewise refuted the theories of the Ho-shang, how the latter and his party acknowledged themselves vanquished and were expelled from Tibet by order of the king who prescribed to follow henceforth the Buddhist doctrines that were generally admitted,—the teaching of the six Virtues as regards religious practice and the Mādhvamika system of Nāgārjuna as regards the theory.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000006-QINU`"'<br> Thus the influence of the Chinese Ho-shang’s teachings over the minds of the Tibetans suffered a complete defeat and with it perhaps some political influence of China.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000007-QINU`"' This is certainly a most important event in the history of Tibetan Buddhism which has been duly appreciated by Bu-ston. It is therefore quite natural that we should be interested in finding out the sources of Bu-ston's historical record. But the text of Bu-ston's History which, as a rule, contains references to the works on the foundation of which it has been compiled, does not give us any information here. At the first glance the account of the controversy looks like the reproduction of an oral tradition and there is nothing that could make us conjecture the presence of a literary work upon which the record could have been founded- The following will show that it has now become possible to trace out this work, to compare with it the account given by Bu-ston and to ascertain its historical importance. (Obermiller, "A Sanskrit MS. from Tibet," 1–3)<br><br>
[https://ia801608.us.archive.org/2/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.277506/2015.277506.1105_W_O_text.pdf Read more here . . .]
Articles/A Study on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra): Being a Treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory of Mahāyāna Buddhism-Review by de Jong +
For several reasons the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' deserves our attention. It is the only text on the ''tathāgatagarbha'' which has been preserved in Sanskrit. There are many problems connected with its place in the history of Mahāyāna philosophy and with its authorship. The Tibetan tradition attributes the verses to Maitreya and the prose commentary to Asaṅga. This text is held in high regard as one of the five treatises composed by Maitreya. However, the Chinese tradition attributes the whole work to Sāramati. This tradition is mentioned by Yüan-ts'e (613-696) in his commentary on the ''Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra'''"`UNIQ--ref-00001439-QINU`"' and by Fa-tsang (643-712) in his commentary on the ''Dharmadhātvaviśeṣaśāstra''.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000143A-QINU`"' Probably the earliest reference to Sāramati as author of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' is to be found in Chih-i's ''Mo-ho chih-kuan'' (''Taishō'', Vol. XLVI, Nr. 1911, p. 31b18-26) which has been dictated by him in 594 (cf. p. 125 of Tsukinowa's article mentioned in note 8). The identity of Sāramati raises many problems. Some scholars have identified him with Sthiramati,'"`UNIQ--ref-0000143B-QINU`"' others have distinguished two Sāramati's.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000143C-QINU`"' There are also many obscurities in the Chinese traditions concerning the translator of the Chinese version. Chinese catalogues mention two translations, one by Ratnamati and the other by Bodhiruci.<br> In 1931 E. Obermiller published a translation of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' from the Tibetan: "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation", ''Acta Orientalia'', Vol. IX, Part II.III, pp. 81-306.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000143D-QINU`"' His interpretation of the text is based upon a commentary by Tsoṅ-kha-pa's pupil and successor rGyal-tshab Dar-ma rin-chen (1364–1432)'"`UNIQ--ref-0000143E-QINU`"' The Sanskrit text has been edited by E. H. Johnston and published by T. Chowdhury: ''The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra'' (Patna, 1950). This edition is based upon two manuscripts found in Tibet by Rāhula Sāṁkṛtyāyana. The edition of the Sanskrit text has given a new impulse to the study of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga''. Several passages of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' have been translated by E. Conze (''Buddhist Texts through the Ages'', Oxford, 1954, pp. 130-131, 181-184 and 216-217). In ''Die Philosophie des Buddhismus'' (Berlin, 1956, pp. 255-264) E. Frauwallner has given a summary of the ideas contained in this text and a translation of several verses.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000143F-QINU`"' In 1959 Ui Hakuju published a detailed study on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (''Hōshōron Kenkyū'') which contains a complete translation (pp. 471-648), together with a Sanskrit-Japanese glossary (pp. 1-60 with separate pagination).'"`UNIQ--ref-00001440-QINU`"' Professor Takasaki's translation was undertaken during his stay in India (1954-1957) and continued afterwards. Apart from this book he has published between 1958 and 1964 ten articles relating to the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (a list is given on pp. xii-xiii).'"`UNIQ--ref-00001441-QINU`"' . . .<br> The translation of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' by Professor Takasaki is the first to be based on the Sanskrit text and the Chinese and Tibetan translations. Obermiller utilized only the Tibetan version and his translation, excellent as it is, contains a number of mistakes which are obvious in the light of the Sanskrit text. Ui utilized both the Sanskrit text and the Chinese translation, but he was unable to consult the Tibetan translation directly. His knowledge of it was based upon a Japanese translation, made for him by Tada Tōkan, and upon Obermiller's English translation. It is clear from many indications that the Chinese translation is closer to the original than both the Sanskrit text and the Tibetan translation. However, as concerns the interpretation of the text, the Chinese translation is now always a reliable guide. There are several places where Professor Takasaki has been too much influenced by it but in general he indicates very well the wrong interpretations which are to be found in the Chinese translation. For the Tibetan translation Professor Takasaki has consulted only the Derge edition. A comparison of the passages quoted in the notes with the corresponding passages in the Peking edition (the only one at my disposal) shows that the Derge edition does not always give a satisfactory text. An edition of the Tibetan translation based on the Derge, Peking and Narthang editions would be highly desirable. In view of the importance of the vocabulary of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' for both Buddhist Sanskrit and Mahāyāna terminology, it would also be very useful to have indexes, on the lines of those compiled by Professor Nagao for the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra''.<br><br>
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/24650390?seq=1 Read more here . . .]<br><br>
Articles/A Syntactic Analysis of the Term Tathāgatagarbha in Sanskrit Fragments and Multiple Meanings of Garbha in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra +
The current of ''tathāgatagarbha'' thought that was born in Indian Mahayana Buddhism spread throughout the cultural sphere of Mahayana Buddhism in Asia and has also long held a fascination for people far beyond its geographical confines. The academic foundations for the study of ''tathāgatagarbha'' thought in India were laid by Takasaki Jikido, and the task left to us is to repeatedly reexamine each of Takasaki's findings on the basis of existing and newly discovered materials and corroborate or emend them. <br> Takasaki argued that the first extant text to use the word ''tathāgatagarbha'' was the ''Tathāgatagarbhasūtra''. Since Takasaki's research was published, there have been some remarkable advances in research on the ''Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra'', and in recent years scholars such as S. Hodge and M. Radich have begun to argue that it was the ''Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra'' that was the first Buddhist text to use the word ''tathāgatagarbha''. The question of which of these two sūtras came first has not yet been definitively resolved, but it may be generally accepted that both belong to the oldest stratum of Buddhist texts dealing with ''tathāgatagarbha''.<br> On a previous occasion (Kano 2017), focusing on this point, I collected Sanskrit fragments of both texts containing the word ''tathāgatagarbha'' and discussed differences in the expressions in which it is used. In particular, taking into account the findings of Shimoda Masahiro, I argued that if the word ''tathāgatagarbha'' appearing in the ''Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra'' is interpreted as a ''bahuvrīhi'' compound qualifying ''stūpa'', this would accord with the word's usage in this sūtra and with the gist of the chapter "Element of the Tathāgata" (Habata 2013: §§ 375–418). This does not mean, however, that this understanding needs to be applied uniformly to every example of its use in the ''Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra''. Because in this earlier article I focused somewhat unduly on the interpretation of ''tathāgatagarbha'' as a ''bahuvrīhi'' compound, the fact that there are instances of wordplay making use of the multiple meanings of ''garbha'' in the ''Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra'' needs to be added, together with some concrete examples. (In the passages of this sūtra, it is natural to understand the term ''tathāgatagarbha'' as a substantive in the sense of "''garbha'' of ''tathāgata''" or "''garbha'' that is ''tathāgata''," namely, ''tatpuruṣa'' or ''karmadhāraya'', and I do not exclude this possibility as discussed in Kano 2017: 39–42.) In addition, there were some redundant aspects in the structure of my earlier article. In this article I rework these aspects so as to sharpen the focus on the points at issue and add some supplementary points. In the first half I clarify some grammatical characteristics to be observed in examples of the use of ''tathāgatagarbha'' in Sanskrit fragments of the ''Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra'', while in the second half I ascertain the polysemy of the word ''garbha'' on the basis of some concrete examples. (Kano, "A Syntactic Analysis," 17–18)
Jamie Hubbard explores some specifically Chinese materials in his contribution "Perfect Buddhahood, Absolute Delusion—The Universal Buddha of the San-chieh-chiao". [''sic''] The San-chieh-chiao wanted to hold together a radically pessimistic view of the capacities of human persons for religious practice with a strong assertion of a fundamental identity between living beings and Buddha. The subtle scholastic discussion by the San-chieh-chiao of how these two affirmations were to be held together focused upon the theoretical question of the relations between pure, undefiled Suchness (''tathatā'') and the realm of ordinary living beings—for the assertion of a fundamental identity between the two cannot be allowed to call into question the pressing apparent reality of defilements in this degenerate age. The central soteriological affirmation running through these discussions is that all beings will inevitably realize Buddhahood; the metaphysical problem is to show how this can be the case; and the practical problem is to delineate the kind of religious practice that is appropriate if it is the case. All these challenges the San-chieh-chiao attempted to meet, and it is the burden of Hubbard's careful exegesis to detail the subtle metaphysical and exegetical distinctions they constructed to do so. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to ''Buddha Nature'', 4–5) +
The ''Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna'' (''Dasheng qixinlun'') is one of the most influential philosophical texts in East Asian Buddhism. It is most important for developing the Indian Buddhist doctrine of an inherent potentiality for Buddhahood (''tathāgatagarbha'') into a monistic ontology based on the mind as the ultimate ground of all experience. Its most significant contribution to East Asian Buddhist thought is its formulation of the idea of original enlightenment (''benjue'', or in Japanese, ''hongaku''). ([https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/thematic/awakening-of-faith-in-mahayana/v-1 Source Accessed Jun 3, 2020]) +
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It has recently been alleged by scholars of the Tibetan "Ancient" (rnying ma) tradition that although buddha-nature theory was well known in Tibet from as early as the eighth century, it played quite an insignificant role in early Nyingma exegesis.'"`UNIQ--ref-000002B6-QINU`"' I intend in this chapter to challenge this assertion by demonstrating that buddha-nature concepts played a highly significant part in Dzokchen thought during the so-called early diffusion (''snga dar'') period, albeit mostly in the form of autochthonous *''bodhigarbha'' (''byang chub snying po'') or bodhi-nature concepts rather than their well-known Indian counterpart ''tathāgatagarbha'''"`UNIQ--ref-000002B7-QINU`"' (''de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po''), as well as the as yet unattested but virtually synonymous *''sugatagarbha'''"`UNIQ--ref-000002B8-QINU`"' (''bde bar gshegs pa'i snying po''), which are both usually translated as buddha-nature. Although this family of terms is widespread in preclassical Dzokchen exegesis and therefore of inestimable importance for understanding the early development of buddha-nature theories in Tibet, it has hitherto received no attention in contemporary Buddhist studies. In determining the reasons for the obvious predilection for this indigenous family of buddha-nature concepts from the eighth to eleventh centuries, my aim is to clarify how bodhi-nature was understood by early Dzokchen authors, why it was distinguished from mainstream Mahāyāna-based buddha-nature concepts, and how it eventually became overshadowed by these latter during the classical period (13th–14th c.) as Indian non-tantric buddha-nature theories and controversies took center stage.'"`UNIQ--ref-000002B9-QINU`"' It is hoped that this short survey of Dzokchen bodhi-nature ideas and their cultural milieu will fill some gaps in our still fragmentary understanding of the origins of Tathāgatagarbha theory in Tibet. At the very least, it will show that a decidedly affirmative indigenous current of buddha-nature teachings flourished in Tibet several centuries prior to the ascendancy of the New (''gsar ma'') traditions and their polemically heated debates over rangtong (''rang stong'') and zhentong (''gzhan stong'') interpretations of buddha-nature. (Higgins, "*Bodhigarbha," 29)
Sallie B. King, in her essay "Buddha Nature Thought and Mysticism", offers a characterization of the phenomenon of mysticism and analyzes three Buddha Nature texts to see whether and to what extent the thought of those texts may properly be called 'mystical'. All three of the texts she discusses are extant only in Chinese. Two of them—the ''Buddha Nature Treatise'' (''Fo hsing lun'') and the ''Supreme Basis Sūtra'' (''Fo shuo wu shang i ching'')—are translations made by Paramārtha in the sixth century CE; and there is some question as to whether he may have actually composed them rather than simply translated them. The third, the ''No Increase, No Decrease Sutra'', was also translated into Chinese in the sixth century CE (by Bodhiruci), and there almost certainly was an Indic original for this text. Each of these texts belongs, more or less, to the Tathāgatagarbha tradition, but King wishes to classify only the Buddha Nature Treatise and the ''No Increase, No Decrease Sūtra'' as properly mystical texts. The ''Supreme Basis Sūtra'', she argues, endorses devotionalism rather than direct mystical experience for the practitioner; it cannot therefore be classified as a mystical text. King therefore distinguishes different threads or emphases within the Buddha Nature thought of the period with which she deals. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to ''Buddha Nature'', 5–6) +
William G. Grosnick, in his essay "Buddha Nature as Myth", makes a distinction between "empirically verifiable propositions", statements that make claims about the nature of reality whose truth both is and is expected to be capable of clear articulation and demonstration, and "mythic views of reality" that provide a nonverifiable framework of great religious power for the expression of fundamentally important religious orientations. He then argues that Buddha Nature thought—at least as expressed in the early Indic sūtras devoted to it—is of the latter kind. Its function, he suggests, is to provide a mythic orientation toward the world and the religious potential of the individual Buddhist, and so to make the practice of Buddhism possible. It is just because "all beings universally possess Buddha
Nature" that the practice of the path is possible. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to ''Buddha Nature'', 4) +
Buddha-nature (''tathāgatagarbha'') is a central topic the in Mahāyāna Buddhist thought. As the pure nature of mind and reality, it conveys the nature of being and the relationship between the buddha(s) and sentient beings. Buddha-nature is that which allows for sentient beings to become buddhas. It is the living potential for awakening.<br>
In this chapter I will look into interpretations of buddha-nature starting with the ''Sublime Continuum'' (''Uttaratantra'', ca. fourth century), the first commentarial treatise focused on this subject. I will then present its role(s) in Mahāyāna Buddhism in general, and in the interpretations of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka in particular. Next I will discuss the role of buddha-nature as a key element in the theory and practice of Buddhist tantra, which will lead into a discussion of this doctrine in light of ''pantheism'' ("all is God"). Thinking of buddha-nature in terms of pantheism can help bring to light significant dimensions of this strand of Buddhist thought. (Duckworth, introduction, 235) +
This encyclopedia entry discusses the historical origins and dissemination of the idea that Buddha-nature exists not only in sentient beings but also in insentient things. This doctrine emerged in various ways in medieval China with thinkers such as [[Jingying Huiyuan]] (523-592), [[Jiaxiang Jizang]] (549-623), and most prominently with [[Jingxi Zhanran]] (711-782) of the Tiantai school. This position later spread to Japan, being advocated by figures such as [[Kūkai]] and [[Dōgen]]. The underlying rationale for this position is generally grounded on the principle of nonduality and the idea of the Buddha’s all-pervading and embracing nature. The notion of the Buddha-nature of insentient beings is not only a doctrinal matter but also functions as a meditation technique whereby one learns to view phenomena as direct expressions of ultimate reality and to see oneself and the “outside” world as identical. +
In the original of its so-called Mahāyāna version the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra bears the Sanskrit title Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000078B-QINU`"' The Sanskrit original of this text has come down to us only in fragments. For the reconstruction of the Sanskrit text from these fragments, it is essential to compare the text with the word-for-word Tibetan translation completed at the beginning of the 9th century by Jinamitra, Jñānagarbha and Devacandra. Fǎxiǎn 法顯 translated it into Chinese under the title ''Dà bānnihuán jīng'' 大般泥洹經 in 6 fascicles (''juàn'' 卷), and Dharmakṣema 曇無讖 translated it as ''Dà bānnièpán jīng'' 大般涅槃經 in 40 fascicles. Both translations were completed at the beginning of the 5th century. The Chinese translations of this sūtra played an important role in the history of Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. The sūtra is famous especially for the formula "切眾生西有佛性 ''yíqiè zhongshēng xī yǒu fóxìng''," "Every living being has the Buddha-nature." The skill of the Chinese translators is evident from their use of the word ''fóxing'' 佛性, which is commonly translated into English as "Buddha-nature." While the underlying Sanskrit term and its intended meaning poses difficulties, as will be shown below, the Chinese term ''fóxing'', although not resulting from a very literal translation, has been accepted in dogmatical and philosophical interpretations in China and Japan.
Comparing the Sanskrit fragments and the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'', which quotes the ''Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra'' (that is the ''Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra''), the original Sanskrit word ''fóxìng'' is ''buddhadhātu'', ''tathāgatadhātu'' or ''tathāgatagarbha''. Takasaki Jikidō's research on the tathāgatagarbha theory led him to conclude that the ''Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra'' is the first known text in which the word ''buddhadhātu'' is used in this meaning.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000078C-QINU`"'
I have been studying the original text of the ''Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra'' for some time, analyzing the Sanskrit fragments in comparison with the Tibetan and Chinese translations. From the viewpoint of the original text, the meaning of the formula "Every living being has the Buddha-nature" reveals nuances slightly different from the interpretations adopted in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism. (Habata, introduction, 176–77)
When Buddhism first entered China from India and Central Asia two thousand years ago, Chinese favourably disposed towards it tended to view it as a part or companion school of the native Chinese Huang–Lao Daoist tradition, a form of Daoism rooted in texts and practices attributed to Huangdi (the Yellow Emperor) and Laozi. Others, less accepting of this ‘foreign’ incursion from the ‘barbarous’ Western Countries, viewed Buddhism as an exotic and dangerous challenge to the social and ethical Chinese civil order. For several centuries, these two attitudes formed the crucible within which the Chinese understanding of Buddhism was fashioned, even as more and more missionaries arrived (predominantly from Central Asia) bringing additional texts, concepts, rituals, meditative disciplines and other practices. Buddhists and Daoists borrowed ideas, terminology, disciplines, cosmologies, institutional structures, literary genres and soteric models from each other, sometimes so profusely that today it can be difficult if not impossible at times to determine who was first to introduce a certain idea. Simultaneously, polemical and political attacks from hostile Chinese quarters forced Buddhists to respond with apologia and ultimately reshape Buddhism into something the Chinese would find not only inoffensive, but attractive.
In the fifth century A.D., Buddhism began to extricate itself from its quasi-Daoist pigeonhole by clarifying definitive differences between Buddhist and Daoist thought, shedding Daoist vocabulary and literary styles while developing new distinctively Buddhist terminology and genres. Curiously, despite the fact that Mahāyāna Buddhism had few adherents in Central Asia and was outnumbered by other Buddhist schools in India as well, in China Mahāyāna became the dominant form of Buddhism, so much so that few pejoratives were as stinging to a fellow Buddhist as labelling him ‘Hīnayāna’ (literally ‘Little Vehicle,’ a polemical term for non-Mahāyānic forms of Buddhism). By the sixth century, the Chinese had been introduced to a vast array of Buddhist theories and practices representing a wide range of Indian Buddhist schools. As the Chinese struggled to master these doctrines it became evident that, despite the fact that these schools were all supposed to express the One Dharma (Buddha’s Teaching), their teachings were not homogenous, and were frequently incommensurate.
By the end of the sixth century, the most pressing issue facing Chinese Buddhists was how to harmonize the disparities between the various teachings. Responses to this issue produced the Sinitic Mahāyāna schools, that is, Buddhist schools that originated in China rather than India. The four Sinitic schools are Tiantai, Huayan, Chan and Pure Land (Jingtu). Issues these schools share in common include Buddha-nature, mind, emptiness, ''tathāgatagarbha'', expedient means (''upāya''), overcoming birth and death (''saṃsāra''), and enlightenment. (Source: [https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/overview/buddhist-philosophy-chinese/v-1 Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 1])
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Articles/Can We Speak of Kadam Gzhan Stong? Tracing the Sources for Other-Emptiness in Early-Fourteenth-Century Tibet +
It has become the norm for scholars familiar with the self-emptiness (''rang stong'') and other-emptiness (''gzhan stong'')'"`UNIQ--ref-000008D3-QINU`"' in the history of Tibetan Buddhist scholastic tradition to associate the latter doctrine with Dolpopa (dol po pa shes rab rgyal mtshan, 1292–1361), the foremost synthesizer of the Jonang (''jo nang'') School of Tibetan Buddhism. He developed a systematic,
distinctive view of ultimate truth (''don dam bden pa''; ''paramārthasatya'') and propagated this view widely and earned much scorn for it, leading to one of the most controversial doctrinal-sectarian disputes in Tibetan Buddhist history. His explication of other-emptiness, which he equates with the ultimate truth, is deemed radical and wholly unacceptable by many of his contemporaries and later Tibetan scholars because it stands in sharp contrast to the mainstream fourteenth-century and early-fifteenth-century Tibetan interpretations of self-emptiness, the notion that all phenomena including ultimate truth do not exist inherently. The self-emptiness interpretations are based primarily on Indie sources such as the ''Prajñāpāramitāsūtras'', Nāgārjuna's (c. 200) ''Madhyamakakārikā'', and Candrakīrti's (c. 570-640) ''Madhyamakāvatāra''. In contrast, Dolpopa generally does not claim that middle wheel treatises (''’khor lo bar pa’i gzhung'') such as the ''Prajñāpāramitāsūtras'' are the fundamental sources for his presentation of an other-emptiness view. Rather, he bases his formulation of other-emptiness on tantric sources such as the ''Kālacakra'','"`UNIQ--ref-000008D4-QINU`"' last wheel sūtras {'''khor lo tha ma’i mdo'') such as ''Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra'','"`UNIQ--ref-000008D5-QINU`"' and Indic commentarial sources'"`UNIQ--ref-000008D6-QINU`"' traditionally credited to figures such as Maitreya, Asaṅga (c. 300), and Vasubandhu (c. 300).<br> As a prominent fourteenth-century Tibetan doxographer, Dolpopa, however, does not repudiate self-emptiness per se; rather, he speaks of two types of emptiness'"`UNIQ--ref-000008D7-QINU`"' that have separate referent points. For him, self-emptiness refers only to conventional phenomena such as tables, chairs, and negative defilements that do not inherently exist'"`UNIQ--ref-000008D8-QINU`"' or that are empty of their own entities. Dolpopa argues that since conventional phenomena cannot withstand analysis, in that their individual entities are essentially empty or deconstructed, as the existence of their nature is thoroughly investigated, they are empty of inherent existence. Therefore, he claims that self-emptiness is not ultimate truth.'"`UNIQ--ref-000008D9-QINU`"'<br> On the other hand, he passionately demonstrates that other-emptiness exists inherently and ultimately. Furthermore, it is identified with the ''tathāgata''-essence (''de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po'', ''tathāgatagarbha'' or buddha-nature (''sangs rgyas kyi rigs''; ''buddhagotra'') endowed with enlightened qualities that exists in all beings. Dolpopa argues that this form of emptiness is not empty of its own entity, since it ultimately and permanently exists. Also, ultimate truth is empty of all conventional phenomena that are antithetical to ultimately existent other-emptiness. So, while self-emptiness, which he refers to as "empty-emptiness" (''stong pa’i stong pa''), is primarily taught in the ''Prajñāpāramitāsūtras'' of the middle wheel teachings, it is not ultimate truth, as it is empty of its own entity and it is not free from conceptual thought. On the other hand, other-emptiness, which he dubs "non-empty-emptiness" (''mi stong pa’i stong pa''), while not primarily taught in the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras, is delineated in last wheel teachings of the Buddha, such as ''Tathāgatagarbhasūtra'', ''Śrīmālādevīsūtra'', and others to refer to the naturally enlightened buddha-nature that is empty of all conventional phenomena. This is Dolpopa’s position on the two types of emptiness and the hierarchy of Mahāyāna literature in a nutshell and much of the discourse that follows on other-emptiness in the history of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism has its roots in Dolpopa’s doctrinal formulation of other-emptiness vis-à-vis self-emptiness.<br> While Dolpopa certainly gets the well-deserved credit for making other-emptiness "a place of fundamental importance in the expression of his philosophy"'"`UNIQ--ref-000008DA-QINU`"' in Tibet, his controversial interpretation of Mahāyāna texts and the relative early availability of his writings to international scholars has perhaps led some to assume that Dolpopa’s thought is more original than it really was. Fortunately, the recent release of dozens of Kadam (''bka’ gdams'') volumes of previously unknown philosophical texts that predate Dolpopa allows us to reconsider this issue. Among the new texts that might be pertinent to a reconstruction of the early history of other-emptiness discourse in Tibet is the writing of Rinchen (''rin chen ye shes'', 13th-14th c.) in conjunction with the previously available Buton’s (''bu ston rin chen grub'', 1290-1364) ''Precious Garland of Rebuttals'' (''’phrin yig gi lan rin po che’i phreng ba'').'"`UNIQ--ref-000008DB-QINU`"' I argue that Dolpopa’s unique doctrinal views with respect to ultimate truth and their related Indie sources are found in Rinchen’s doctrinal formulation of Mahāyāna literature. Furthermore, there is a good reason to argue that Dolpopa’s unique views were directly influenced by the Kadam scholar.'"`UNIQ--ref-000008DC-QINU`"' Therefore, in this article, I analyze their points of convergence and divergence on the issues of buddha-nature, textual authority, and doxographical strategy, and suggest that Kadam influence on Dolpopa needs to be recognized more than we do in modern scholarship on Dolpopa’s works. (Wangchuk, introduction, 9–11)
The Mahāyāna has sometimes been associated with the doctrine that all sentient beings will attain complete awakening, a doctrine which is often linked to some conception of the "embryo of the Tathāgata (''tathāgatagarbha'')'"`UNIQ--ref-000040D4-QINU`"'. However, according to an alternate Mahāyāna doctrine, only some sentient beings will attain the complete awakening of a buddha — and some may even be excluded from attaining any form of awakening at all. In this paper, I will examine just such a doctrine, as it is found in an Indian Yogācāra treatise, the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra'' ("Ornament to the Mahāyāna Sūtras"; abbr., MSA), a Sanskrit verse-text, and its prose commentary, the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra-bhāṣya'' (MSABh),'"`UNIQ--ref-000040D5-QINU`"'. Particular Tibetan and Chinese sources attribute the composition of the MSA to the bodhisattva Maitreya'"`UNIQ--ref-000040D6-QINU`"', which gives us some indication of the importance this text was understood to have within certain traditions. Nevertheless, the authorship and date of the verse-text and its commentary are not certain; I hypothesize that the MSA/Bh may be dated to the fourth century CE (perhaps c. 350 CE)'"`UNIQ--ref-000040D7-QINU`"'. It is my hope that an examination of such a source may contribute to the study of the various ways in which the contours of the Mahāyāna have been drawn from a doctrinal perspective. In the MSA/Bh, one way in which the limits of the Mahāyāna are defined is through the employment of the ''gotra''-theory, a theory which identifies the soteriological potentialities of individuals through reference to their spiritual "family" or "lineage." So in order to understand this text's discursive construction of the category "Mahāyāna," we must understand its concept of ''gotra''. (D'Amato, "Can All Beings Potentially Gain Awakening," 115–16) +
Articles/Cittaprakṛti and Ayoniśomanaskāra in the Ratnagotravibhāga: A Precedent for the Hsin-Nien Distinction of The Awakening of Faith +
The question of the authorship of the ''Ta-ch'eng chi-hsin lun'' ''The Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna'', tr. Paramārtha, hereafter referred to as the AFM), has long been a lively subject of discussion among scholars of Buddhism. Such eminent Buddhologists as Demiéville, Liebenthal, and Mochizuki (to name just a few), have debated the authenticity of the two Chinese translations of the text and discussed the possibility that the original text of the AFM might have been composed in China as part of a controversy between two branches of the ''Ti-lun'' sect.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000011D-QINU`"' In recent editions of the ''Journal of the IABS'' the question of the authorship of the AFM has been raised again. In a couple of intriguing essays, Professor Whalen Lai has presented some new arguments in support of the Chinese authorship of the text.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000011E-QINU`"'<br>
I do not intend here to try to resolve all of the many questions involved in determining the author of the AFM (such an undertaking is well beyond the scope of a short paper), but I would like to address an argument that Professor Lai raised in the first of his articles—namely his contention that the AFM's exposition of the relationship of ''hsin'' (mind) and ''nien'' (thought, thought-moment) bears such an "unmistakable sinitic stamp" that it must have been authored in China.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000011F-QINU`"' I will try to show that the AFM's central conception of an "unmoved," pure mind (''hsin'') existing as the basis of the deluded movement of thoughts (''nien'') has an important Indian precedent in the ''cittaprakṛti'' and ''ayoniśomanaskāra'' notions of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga-mahāyānottaratantraśāstra'' (hereafter referred to as the RGV), a text with which the AFM's author may well have been familiar. I do not intend this as a criticism of Professor Lai's research—the parallels he finds between Chinese thought regarding ''hsin'' and ''nien'' prior to the period of the Six Dynasties and the elucidation of these notions in the AFM deserve serious attention. I simply would like to show that similar parallels—if not direct textual influences—exist between the AFM and the Indian-composed RGV, so that there is no compelling reason to conclude that the AFM theory of mind (''hsin'') and thoughts (''nien'') demonstrates Chinese authorship. (Grosnick, "''Cittaprakṛti'' and ''Ayoniśomanaskāra'' in the ''Ratnagotravibhāga''," 35–36)<br><br>
[https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8605/2512 Read more here . . .]
Dr. Tadeusz Skorupski in ‘Consciousness and Luminosity in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism’ invokes the juxtaposition of the phenomenal world of ''saṃsāra'' and the perfected state of nirvana, noting that they reflect and essentially correspond to the dynamic operating in the Buddhist analysis of consciousness and the propensities of the human mind: the mind produces the factors contributing to rebirth, but is also the primary vehicle in the attainment of salvation. He identifies several key features that permeate early Buddhist doctrine: the pre-eminence of mind, the notion of inherent radiance, the alien nature of the defilements that contaminate the mind, and the interplay of the image of purification and corruption. Starting with a close reading of Buddhaghosa's interpretations of the nature of luminosity, the author extends his discussion to include the Mahāsaṅgikas, who emphasize the inherent radiance of a mind obscured by adventitious defilements, and the Sarvāstivāda Vaibhāṣikas, who aver that an inherently radiant mind could not be obscured, for to them it has a propensity, rather than an innate disposition, to luminosity. Delineating various attributes of the description of consciousness according to different schools, the author moves from Pāli ''Abhidhamma'' to Mahāyana and Vajrayāna sources and Bodhicitta doctrine. Alighting on subsequent Indian Tantric theories that posit a fourfold luminosity of consciousness as four kinds of emptiness, he notes that such an understanding of consciousness and luminosity was applied in the Tibetan understanding of the processes occurring during death, as described in the work known as ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead''. The author describes this account of death, as involving the transition through four kinds of luminosity, as unique to Tibet, in particular to the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions. He concludes that although varied schools often disagree in certain features, all concur in the possibility of and access to a purified mind. Tracing the continuity between early ''Abhidhamma'' through to the various Mahāyāna schools, the author avers, provides an insightful range of perspectives on luminosity and nature of the mind itself. (Editorial Committee, introduction, 10)<br><br> [http://btmar.org/files/pdf/buddhist_philosophy_and_meditation_practice.pdf Read more here . . .]
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Buddhism began gradually to be introduced to Tibet in the seventh century C. E., more than a thousand years after Shākyamuni Buddha's passing away (''circa'' 483 B. C.).'"`UNIQ--ref-000037A3-QINU`"' The form Buddhism took in Tibet was greatly influenced by the highly developed systemization of the religion that was present in India through the twelfth century (and even later). The geographic proximity and relatively undeveloped culture of Tibet provided conditions for extensive transfer of scholastic commentaries and systems of practice, which came to have great influence throughout a vast region stretching from Kalmuck Mongolian areas in Europe where the Volga River empties into the Caspian Sea, Outer and Inner Mongolia, and the Buriat Republic of Siberia as well as Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and Ladakh. The sources for my discussion are drawn primarily from two of the four major orders of Tibetan Buddhism:<br>
* the old order called Nying-ma-ba,'"`UNIQ--ref-000037A4-QINU`"' which reached its full development in the fourteenth century with the scholar-yogi Long-chen-rap-jam'"`UNIQ--ref-000037A5-QINU`"'
* a highly scholastic order called Ge-luk-ba,'"`UNIQ--ref-000037A6-QINU`"' founded by the fourteenth century scholar-yogi Dzongka-ba.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037A7-QINU`"'<br>
Long-chen-rap-jam was born in 1308 Do-drong'"`UNIQ--ref-000037A8-QINU`"' in south central Tibet, received ordination at Samyay'"`UNIQ--ref-000037A9-QINU`"' Monastery, and studied the doctrines of both the old and new schools. A great scholar, he became abbot of Sam-yay Monastery early in his life but retired from that position to live in the mountains. Receiving the full corpus of the teachings of the Old Translation School of Nying-ma, he wrote prolifically, and even when he was exiled for a decade to Bhutan for his closeness with the opponents of the ruling power, he established and restored monasteries.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037AA-QINU`"'<br> Dzong-ka-ba was born in 1357 in the northeastern province of Tibet called Am-do,'"`UNIQ--ref-000037AB-QINU`"' now included by the occupying Chinese Communists not in the Tibetan Autonomous Region but in Ch'ing-hai Province. He studied the new and old schools extensively, and developed his own tradition called Ge-luk-ba. Dzongka- ba and his followers established a system of education centered especially in large universities, eventually in three areas of Tibet but primarily in Hla-sa, the capital, which in some ways was for the Tibet cultural region what Rome is for the Catholic Church. For five centuries, young men came from all over the Tibetan cultural region to these large Tibetan universities to study (I say "men" because women were, for the most part, excluded from the scholastic culture). Until the Communist takeovers, these students usually returned to their own countries after completing their degrees.<br> My presentation on the mind of clear light is largely from standard Nying-ma-ba and Ge-luk-ba perspectives on the two basic forms of what Tibetan tradition accepts as Shākyamuni Buddha's teaching—the Sūtra Vehicle and the Tantra Vehicle, also called the Vajra Vehicle.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037AC-QINU`"' (Hopkins, background, 245–46)
With Mathes' article―the last one in our volume―we move on to a "hot issue" of 15th-century scholastic philosophy, namely the contested view of "emptiness-of-other" (''gzhan stong''). The article investigates 'Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal's analysis of Buddha nature and pursues the question of whether this master advocated a ''gzhan stong'' view. Mathes faces a difficult situation regarding sources, since no philosophical work by 'Gos Lo tsā ba has come down to us apart from a commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (in which the term ''gzhan stong'' is not mentioned). Therefore, Mathes makes use of "secondary sources" such as the Eighth Karma pa's polemical review of 'Gos Lo tsā ba's lost Kālacakra commentary and a biography composed by the Fourth Zhwa dmar pa. As Mathes is able to show, 'Gos Lo tsā ba's position on Buddha nature differs sharply from the position held by the Eighth Karma pa, who (like the Third and Seventh Karma pas) supported a type of ''gzhan stong'' view. It is, moreover, obvious that 'Gos Lo tsā ba was influenced, to a certain extent, by Tsong kha pa's scholastic exegesis and thus attempted to harmonize the latter's view of emptiness with the ''mahāmudrā'' approach of the bKaʼ brgyud pas. In the end, Mathes comes to the conclusion that it is problematic to describe 'Gos Lo tsā ba's position as ''gzhan stong'', although the Eighth Karma pa (ironically) terms it as "great ''gzhan stong''." (Sernesi and Caumanns, introduction to ''Fifteenth Century Tibet'', xix) +
DŌGEN (1200–1253) is one of the most outstanding and unique Buddhists in the history of Japanese Buddhism. He is unique in at least the following three senses.
First, rejecting all existing forms of Buddhism in Japan as unauthentic, he attempted to introduce and establish what he believed to be the genuine Buddhism, based on his own realization which he attained in Sung China under the guidance of the Zen Master Ju-ching (Nyojō, 1163-1228). He called it "the Buddha Dharma directly transmitted from the Buddha and patriarchs." He emphasized ''zazen'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"'(seated meditation) as being "the right entrance to the Buddha Dharma" in the tradition of the Zen schools in China since Bodhidharma, originating from Śākyamuni Buddha. Yet he strictly refused to speak of a "Zen sect," to say nothing of a "Sōtō sect," that he was later credited with founding. For Dōgen was concerned solely with the "right Dharma," and regarded ''zazen'' as its "right entrance." "Who has used the name 'Zen sect'? No buddha or patriarch spoke of a 'Zen sect.' You should realize it is a devil that speaks of 'Zen sect.' Those who pronounce a devil's appellation must be confederates of the devil, not children of the Buddha.",'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"'He called himself "the Dharma transmitter Shamon Dōgen who went to China"'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"'with strong conviction that he had attained the authentic Dharma that is directly transmitted from buddha to buddha, and that he should transplant it on Japanese soil. Thus he rejected the idea of ''mappo'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"', i.e., the last or degenerate Dharma, an idea with wide acceptance in the Japanese Buddhism of his day. It may not be too much to say of Dōgen that just as Bodhidharma transmitted the Buddha Dharma to China, he intended to transmit it to Japan.
Secondly, though Dōgen came to a realization of the right Dharma under the guidance of a Chinese Zen master whom he continued to revere throughout his life, the understanding of the right Dharma is unique to Dogen. With religious awakening and penetrating insight, Dōgen grasped the Buddha Dharma in its deepest and most authentic sense. In doing so, he dared to reinterpret the words of former patriarchs, and even the sutras themselves. As a result, his idea of the right Dharma presents one of the purest forms of Mahayana Buddhism, in which the Dharma that was realized in the Buddha's enlightenment reveals itself most profoundly. All of this, it is noteworthy, is rooted in Dōgen's own existential realization, which he attained in himself through long and intense seeking. Based on this idea of the right Dharma, he not only rejected, as stated above, all existing forms of Buddhism in Japan, but also severely criticized certain forms of Indian and Chinese Buddhism, though, it is true, he generally considered Buddhism in these two countries as more authentic than that in Japan.
The third reason Dōgen is unique in the history of Japanese Buddhism, is because of his speculative and philosophical nature. He was a strict practicer of ''zazen'', who earnestly emphasized ''shikantaza'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"', i.e., just sitting. His whole life was spent in rigorous discipline as a monk. He encouraged his disciples to do the same. Yet he was endowed with keen linguistic sensibility and a philosophical mind. His main work, entitled ''Shōbōgenzō'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000006-QINU`"', "A Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye," perhaps unsurpassable in its philosophical speculation, is a monumental document in Japanese intellectual history. In Dōgen, we find a rare combination of religious insight and philosophical ability. In this respect, he may be well compared with Thomas Aquinas, born twenty five years after him.
He wrote his main work, ''Shōbōgenzō'', in Japanese, in spite of the fact that leading Japanese Buddhists until then had usually written their major works in Chinese. Dōgen made penetrating speculations and tried to express the world of the Buddha Dharma in his mother tongue by mixing Chinese Buddhist and colloquial terms freely in his composition. The difficult and unique style of his Japanese writing is derived from the fact that, in expressing his own awakening, he never used conventional terminology, but employed a vivid, personal style grounded in his subjective speculations. Even when he used traditional Buddhist phrases, passages, etc., he interpreted them in unusual ways in order to express the Truth as he understood it. In Dōgen, the process of the search for and realization of the Buddha Dharma and the speculation on and expression of that process are uniquely combined.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000007-QINU`"'
In this paper I shall discuss Dōgen's idea of Buddha nature, which may be regarded as a characteristic example of his realization. (Abe, "Dōgen on Buddha Nature", 28–30)
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The Buddhist schools are rich and varied in their perspectives, but these many points of view all advance the Buddhist concept of the middle view (''madhya-drshti'' in Sanskrit and ''ume tawa'' in Tibetan). +
Original sin vs. original goodness: Mahayana Buddhism offers a more hopeful view of human nature. Zen teacher Melissa Myozen Blacker reveals how nondual practice frees us from our temporary obscurations and reveals our true, awakened nature. +
[[Gyatrul Rinpoche]] is a famed modern Tibetan teacher of the [[Nyingmapa school]] and holder of the Dudjom Tersar Lineage. This short teaching is a clear and pithy presentation of the Tibetan Buddhist view of buddha-nature from the Nyingma viewpoint that reminds us not only that it is obvious that all sentient beings have buddha-nature, but also that recognizing our buddha-nature depends upon learning in a deep way. We must "chew" on what we have learned and really take it to heart: "If you don’t know your buddhanature, learn about it! Don’t just complain that you don’t understand, or say it is too difficult. How can you see it? How can you recognize it? By learning." +
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Before you fully embark on the path of the bodhisattvas and buddhas, says Chan master Sheng Yen, you must first practice the four steps to magical powers. What are these steps and what are the magical powers you need? +
This is part 2 of a report on the fragments of hitherto unknown commentary on the Tattvasańgraha.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000000D-QINU`"' The folio we report on here, photographed in frames 32 (recto) and 33 top (verso), constitutes a part of the commentary on Tattvasańgraha stanzas 177–181. Tis is where various arguments for the existence of ''ātman'' is presented.<br> Here, we give the tex of the Tattvasańgraha along with the Tattvasańgrahapañjikā in full. Unlike in the previous fragment, our commentary is brief, and due to its fragmentary nature, it is hard to understand. Having the Tattvasańgrahapañjikā next to our text greatly helps in reconstructing and understanding our text. (Harimoto and Kano, introduction, 5) +
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Although Tsongkhapa did not author a commentary on the ''Ultimate Continuum'', his main student and successor at his main seat of Ganden, Gyaltsap Je Darma Rinchen, composed an elaborate commentary on the ''Ultimate Continuum''. The commentary, filling 230 folios, was composed at Nenying temple at the request of Gungru Gyaltsen Zangpo and others after Gyaltsap had received teachings on it from both Rendawa and Tsongkha. One Tagtsel Kharkhap Dhondup Kunga served as the scribe for this voluminous and meticulous commentary, in which Gyaltsap carries out a relentless critique of the theory that buddha-nature is inherently endowed with qualities of the Buddha or that it is an absolute eternal reality empty only of other adventitious conventional phenomena. +
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The question of ever-present change must be as old as the discipline of philosophy itself. The notion of constant flux attributed to Heraclitus (c. 535–c. 475 BC) and known as “''panta rhei''” was largely forgotten in the later development of Greek thought, but in India the notion of universal flux developed from around the sixth century BCE onward and inspired different philosophical systems, among them the Buddhist philosophy.
The Buddha’s statement “all that is conditioned'"`UNIQ--ref-00003ED5-QINU`"' is impermanent!”'"`UNIQ--ref-00003ED6-QINU`"' is known as one of The “Four Seals,” the cornerstone of all Buddhist traditions. In Buddhist logic this seal became the basis for the equation: “Whatever is conditioned is impermanent and whatever is impermanent is conditioned. Whatever is not conditioned is not impermanent and whatever is not impermanent is not conditioned.”
In Buddhism, the doctrine of the impermanence of conditioned entities is interwoven with the doctrine of causality. The fact that an entity is conditioned by previous causes and moments makes it subject to impermanence. The doctrine of impermanence was further refined into the doctrine of momentariness. This doctrine postulates a process of momentary arising and cessation on the micro level that happens so fast that it is perceived as a continuity.'"`UNIQ--ref-00003ED7-QINU`"'
The following presentation will highlight different definitions and classifications of what the terms ''conditioned'' and ''impermanent'' might mean for a number of selected Tibetan Buddhist masters in their interpretations of the true nature of the mind. Their literary works are invariably based, directly or indirectly, upon Indian Buddhist ''śāstras'' translated into Tibetan.
The point of the exploration in general is to facilitate access to the insights of Tibetan Buddhist masters as they are formulated within the framework of a philosophical discussion. A characteristic feature of their statements is that they are not based on intellectual speculation, but on meditative experience.
Here, we will be concerned mainly with the interpretation of statements pertaining to this issue in two Indian ''śāstras'', the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and the ''Madhyāntavibhāga'', both attributed to Maitreya. However, as we will see, some of our Tibetan authors also draw on Indian works on Buddhist logic, epistemology, and ontology such as Dharmakīrti’s ''Pramāṇavārttika'', Vasubandhu’s ''Abhidharmakośa'', and Asaṅga’s ''Abhidharmasamuccaya''. The latter texts were studied in the monastic colleges of Tibet in the form of simplified manuals that constitute their own literary genre known as “Collected Topics” (''Bsdus grwa'') and “Classifications of Mind” (''blo rigs'').'"`UNIQ--ref-00003ED8-QINU`"'
In Buddhism, a mind conditioned by “actions” (''karmasaṃkleśa'') and “defilements” (''kleśasaṃkleśa'') is by definition a changeable mind—or one could even say—an unstable mind. As different mental factors make their appearance in our minds, our mental states change. Over the course of a day, an ordinary mind experiences many different mental states or factors caused by various defilements. But what should we think about the ultimate nature of the mind?
The mind or mental state in which the ultimate nature of mind is experienced, is considered the goal of the Buddhist path. It is called the enlightened mind, the true nature that is revealed when ''kleśa'' (“defilements”) and karma have subsided. This observation leaves us with two fundamental questions: Is this ultimate nature also described as conditioned and impermanent? Second, if this is the case, why is ultimate nature described in such a way? I will return to these questions below.
In order to introduce the selected Tibetan authors and their works, it may be helpful to reiterate that the so-called “Empty in itself'"`UNIQ--ref-00003ED9-QINU`"'-Empty of other”'"`UNIQ--ref-00003EDA-QINU`"' distinction that arose in Tibet is based on different interpretations of the nature of the mind or the so called “buddha-nature.” These interpretations stem from different readings of the seminal text for the presentation of the buddha-nature, the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (hereafter abbreviated as RGV). The Buddha nature teachings are traditionally associated with the so-called third turning of the wheel of the Dharma, which the “Empty of other” proponents as well as other thinkers assert to be the highest level of the Buddhist teachings, following the division of the Buddha’s teachings provided in the seventh chapter of the ''Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra'' into three stages or wheels of doctrine, the first two being classified as provisional and the third and final stage as definitive.'"`UNIQ--ref-00003EDB-QINU`"'
In the RGV the nature of the mind is described in a way that lends itself to various interpretations. More than fifty commentaries'"`UNIQ--ref-00003EDC-QINU`"' were written in Tibet based on this ''śāstra''. Some were composed by authors classified as proponents of the “Empty in itself” philosophy and others by proponents of the “Empty of other” philosophy. The latter were often accused of interpreting the RGV’s statements too literally, taking the true nature of the mind to be a truly existent entity which was anathema to the Madhyamaka teachings based on the so-called second turning of the wheel of the Dharma. There was also the question of the qualities attributed to buddha-nature. If it contains qualities (as the RGV says it does) how can it be empty at the same time? The ontological status of the nature of the mind vis-à-vis the nature of emptiness is a central topic much discussed in the Tibetan tradition.
In this article, I will focus on explanations by selected authors, some of which have been classified as proponents of the “empty of other” philosophy. It is by now generally accepted that their works have been underrepresented, if not misrepresented, within the Tibetan scholastic tradition, partly as a consequence of the political persecution of the Jonang school. (Burchardi, "How Can a Momentary and Conditioned Mind Be Integral to ''Gzhan Stong''?, 55–57)
Articles/Hu-Jan Nien-Ch'i (Suddenly a Thought Rose): Chinese Understanding of Mind and Consciousness +
''The Issue'': In the ''Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna'' (''Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun'',<sup>b</sup> henceforth abbreviated as AFM), is found a unique explanation of the origin of ''avidyā'', ignorance:<br>
:''Hu-jan nien-ch'i, ming wei wu-ming<sup>c</sup>
:Suddenly a thought rose; this is called ignorance<br>
This idea has baffled many modern scholars as it has traditionally charmed many a Far Eastern Buddhist. What is meant by "suddenly"? What constitutes "thought"? The most recent translator of the AFM, Yoshito Hakeda, has appended this remark to the passage:<br>
:There has been much discussion on the meaning of ''hu-jan'' in connection with the origin of ignorance, mainly on the basis of interpretations proposed by Fa-tsang,<sup>d</sup> (1) that ignorance alone becomes the source of defiled states of being. It is the subtlest; no other state of being can be the origin of this. It is therefore said in the text that ignorance emerges suddenly. (2) Commenting on a quotation from a ''sūtra'', he says "suddenly" means "beginninglessly," since the passage quoted makes clear that there is no other state of being prior to the state of ignorance. (3) The word "suddenly" is not used from the stand point of time, but is used to account for the emergence of ignorance without any instance of inception.
:. . . A monk of Ming<sup>e</sup> China, glosses "suddenly" as ''pu-chüeh'',<sup>f</sup> which may mean "unconsciously" or "without being aware of the reason."
:. . . If ''hu-jan'' is a translation of a Sanskrit word, the original word ''asasmāt'' may be posited. ''Akasmāt'' means "without reason" or "accidentally."'"`UNIQ--ref-00000DE3-QINU`"'<br>
The above remark does not actually answer the question of the origin of the concept, ''hu-jan'' (suddenly) or the identity of ''nien''<sup>g</sup> (thought). We become only more aware that ''hu-jan'' is one crucial justification for ''ch'an''<sup>h</sup> (zen) "sudden enlightenment," itself a unique idea. Concerning the meaning of ''nien'' and ''wu-nien''<sup>i</sup> (no-thought), I have shown in a related article that (a) Hakeda is not the first repeatedly to read ''nien'' as ''wang-nien'',<sup>j</sup> ''vikalpa''; Śikṣānanda's AFM was bothered by the same term; (b) but both managed to distort the original meaning; for (c) ''nien'' is rooted in a peculiar understanding in pre-Buddhist Han China.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000DE4-QINU`"' Nien is the incipient thought, associated with ''yin''<sup>k</sup> that disrupts the (otherwise passive, ''yang'',<sup>l</sup> mind. In this present article, I will cite more evidences—this time focusing upon the concepts of ''shih'',<sup>m</sup> consciousness, and ''hu-jan'', suddenness—to show again why the AFM cannot be fully understood without reference to the native mode of thought. (Lai, "''Hu-Jan Nien Ch'i'' (Suddenly a Thought Rose)," 42–43)
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Articles/Image-likeness and the Tathāgatagarbha: A Reading of William of St. Thierry's Golden Epistle and the Ratnagotravibhāga +
In Book 10 of his ''Confessions'' Augustine marvels as he meditates on the qualities of the ''memoria'' in human beings:<br>
'"`UNIQ--poem-00000136-QINU`"'
This concern with the ''memoria'', and its function in the human mind, was to be one of the most important spiritual legacies Augustine would leave to the Latin, and especially monastic, Middle Ages. In fact, it would be possible to say without much exaggeration that the entire history of monastic spirituality in the Latin Middle Ages (at least until approximately A.D. 1200) is the record of the development of understanding of the power of ''memoria''.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000138-QINU`"' A central reason for this is that ''memoria'' was described as a faculty that worked by recalling the human person to the knowledge and intuition that they were created in the image and likeness of God. Thus the words of ''Genesis'' 1:26–27 stand at the beginning of an entire spiritual tradition: "God said let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves. . . . God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." Augustine frequently exhorts himself, as in ''Confessions'' 7.10, to "return to myself" ''(redite ad memet ipsum)''. This was also the continual refrain of the Cistercian author of the twelfth century, William of St. Thierry, in his ''Golden Epistle'', and it serves as one of the themes on which he builds this work. William's treatise, folloing in the path of Augustine, is a call to discover the image and likeness of God in the individual person.<br> In the presentation to follow I would like to set out two spiritual traditions for us to consider: the image-likeness tradition based on Genesis 1:26 and developed by the Latin and Greek Fathers of the Church until approximately A.D. 1200, and the ''tathāgatagarbha'' teachings on Buddha-nature in Mahayana Buddhism, which flourished in India and then spread to Tibet and other parts of the Far East in the first six centuries C.E. I shall do this bby presenting two texts: the ''Golden Epistle'' of William of St, Thierry, and the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (third to fifth centuries A.D.), variously attributed to Saramati or Maitreya. My thesis here is that while the language and concepts used in these two treatises are different, and the two worldviews of which they are representative also vary widely, we can find nonetheless underlying themes that express central concerns of each tradition, especially concerning the brith of a basic nature in the person, and the inability of either sin or defilements ''(kleśa)'' to cover over that nature that is coming to birth.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000139-QINU`"' (Groves, "Image-likeness and ''Tathāgatagarbha''," 97–98)
Few premodern Japanese thinkers have received as much attention from Western philosophical circles as the thirteenth century Sōtō Zen master Dōgen. This interest has been sparked and facilitated by insightful English translations of key portions of Dōgen's masterful collected work, the ''Shōbōgenzō'' (especially those by Norman Waddell and Masao Abe), and by several book-length studies of Dōgen's thought—most notably those by Hee-jin Kim, Steven Heine, and Carl Bielefeldt. Kim and Heine, in particular, have examined Dōgen from a cross-cultural philosophic perspective.<br> Professor Stambaugh, whose background is primarily German Philosophy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, first turned to Dōgen in the climactic chapter of her book ''The Real in Not the Rational'' [Albany, NY, 1986]. Also the author of ''The Problem of Time in Nietzsche'' [Lewisburg, 1987], she has combined in her present work many of the concerns and issues raised in these previous works while embarking on several new avenues of investigation. She is genuinely impressed with Dōgen, and portrays him as a strong and critical voice capable of insights that frequently go beyond the formulations proffered by the Western philosophers whim whom she compares him, philosophers such as Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.<br> Generally her method of argument in each chapter consists of setting out basic categories—such as transcendence-immanence, identity-difference, etc.— or sketching the view of a particular philosopher—such as Hegel's notion of dialectic—and then allowing Dōgen to either supplement or supplant what has been introduced. In the earlier chapter this method proves fruitful and she repeatedly zeroes in on crucial passages from Dōgen's seminal works: ''Uji'' ('"Being Time"), ''Genjokōan'' ("Actualizing the Kōan"), ''Busshō'' ("Buddha-nature"), ''Gyōji'' ("Ceaseless Practice"), and so on. She is a careful reader, sensitive to many of the philosophical subtleties of Dōgen's writings, and her insights are frequently illuminating and lucid. This is no mean task, given the difficult and unusual language Dōgen uses to express himself.<br> She is particularly effective, I think, in her discussion of the Buddha-nature fascicle, clearly explaining why, for Dōgen, Buddha-nature is neither something that someone possesses nor a potentiality that someone develops or brings to fruition. (Lusthaus, Review of ''Impermanence Is Buddha-Nature'', 69-70)
Change isn’t just a fact of life we have to accept and work with, says Norman Fischer. Practitioners have always understood impermanence as the cornerstone of Buddhist teachings and practice. All that exists is impermanent; nothing lasts. Therefore nothing can be grasped or held onto. When we don’t fully appreciate this simple but profound truth we suffer, as did the monks who descended into misery and despair at the Buddha’s passing. When we do, we have real peace and understanding, as did the monks who remained fully mindful and calm... +
Any steps to be taken in the direction of investigating the Indian roots of Ch'an are hindered by the thicket of legends in which the tradition shrouded itself. The Ch'annists must also be blamed for the fact that the question of what was the original form of this peculiarly Chinese version of Buddhism remains open, still obscured by the fallacious assumption that Ch'an was a monolithic, clearly defined school or tradition. Progress in this area is further hampered by the fact that in both India and China the early history of the movements that gave rise to Ch'an belongs to mystical traditions existing on the margins of the scholarly establishment of Buddhism. On the other hand, the broader question of contacts, connections, agreements and disagreements between Ch'an and Indian Buddhism can now be the object of documented study thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Buddhist scholars in Russia, France and Japan, who have attempted to verify the facts and meaning of an incident known as the "Council of Lhasa." (Gómez, "Indian Materials," 393) +
Articles/Introduction: The History of the Rang stong-Gzhan stong Distinction from Its Beginning through the Ris-med Movement +
By the time Tibetans inherited Indian Buddhism, it had already witnessed two major doctrinal developments, namely, the notion elucidated in the "Discourses on the Perfection of Insight" (''Prajñāpāramitāsūtras'') that all factors of existence (''dharmas'') lack an own-being (emptiness), and the Yogācāra interpretation of this emptiness based on the imagined (''parikalpita''-), dependent (''paratantra''-) and perfect natures (''pariniṣpannasvabhāva''). Closely related to this threefold distinction was the Tathāgatagarbha restriction of emptiness to adventitious stains that cover an ultimate nature, that of buddha-qualities. Throughout Tibetan intellectual history it has been a controversial issue whether these teachings require a distinction between two modes of emptiness: being "empty of an own-being" (''rang stong''), and "empty of other" (''gzhan stong''). While a follower of the ''rang-stong'' view insists that everything (and that includes the Buddha and his qualities) shares the same mode of emptiness (i.e., the absence of an independent existence), some followers of ''gzhan stong'' claim that the ultimate nature of mind and its inherent buddha qualities do have an independent existence, since they are only empty of everything else ("the other") that does not belong to them. This must be distinguished from a more moderate form of ''gzhan stong'', which admits the ''rang stong'' mode of emptiness for both the adventitious stains of relative truth as well as the ultimate nature of mind, but insists that for a practitioner with an immediate experience of the ultimate nature, it is essential to distinguish the latter from the adventitious states of mind that do not reflect how the nature of mind truly is. While forerunners of ''rang stong/gzhan stong'' distinctions can be already identified in a variety of Indian texts and early bKa'-gdams-pa manuscripts,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000F91-QINU`"' their most influential proponents doubtlessly were Dol-po-pa Shes-rab rgyal-mtshan (1292–1361) and Gser-mdog paṇ-chen Shākya mchog-ldan (1427–1507). At the other end of our time frame, new insights into the development of ''gzhan stong'' at the very end of the ''ris-med'' movement can now be gained from the collected works of Zhe-chen Mkhan-chen Gang-shar dbang-po (1925–1958/59?).<br> The contributions to this volume were presented at the ''gzhan stong'' panel organized by Klaus-Dieter Mathes (University of Vienna) at the Twelfth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies in Vancouver, Canada, in August 2010. Its full name was "The History of the ''Rang stong''/''Gzhan stong'' Distinction from its Beginning through the ''Ris-med'' Movement." The contributors were, besides the organizer, Karl Brunnhölzl (Tsadra Foundation), Anne Burchardi (The University of Copenhagen and The Royal Library of Denmark), Douglas Duckworth (Temple University), David Higgins (University of Vienna), Yaroslav Komarovski (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), and Tsering Wangchuk (University of San Francisco). It is regretted that Karl Brunnhölzl and Douglas Duckworth were unable to include their work in the present publication. (Mathes, introduction, 4–5)
Peter Gregory’s essay, "Is Critical Buddhism Really Critical?," takes the thought of Tsung-mi as a
case study in order to ask whether the pursuit of "true Buddhism" is not in turn positing some sort of ''dhātu-vāda''-like essence of Buddhism, hence mirroring the object of its own criticism. Preferring to see Buddhism as a "product of a complex set of interdependent and ever-changing conditions (''pratītyasamutpāda''),” he looks at Tsung-mi's thought not to determine whether or not it is "truly Buddhist" but in order to discover the causes and conditions that brought it into existence. In a manner similar to Sallie King's argument that Buddha-nature can be understood as a catalyst for positive social change, Gregory argues that for Tsung-mi the doctrine of original enlightenment was tied not to a linguistic transcendentalism but rather to an affirmation of language in response to the more radical critiques of the ''prajñā-pāramitā'' tradition. (Hubbard, introduction to ''Pruning the Bodhi Tree'', xvii) +
The Trikāya doctrine of Buddhism, i.e., the doctrine that the Buddha has three "bodies," is notorious for its complexities. Attributed to the Yogācāra, but regarded as typical of the Mahāyāna in general, it is customarily cited in books on Buddhism in terms of the triad ''dharma-kāya'', ''saṃbhoga-kāya'' (or ''saṃbhogika-kāya'') and ''nirmāṇa-kāya'' (or ''nairmāṇika-kāya''). Taking these in ascending order of abstraction, the ''nirmāṇa-kāya'', usually translated "apparitional body," "phantom body," "transformation body," etc., is the physical manifestation of Buddhahood, the ordinary perishable human form, as exemplified by the "historical Buddha," Siddhartha Gautama. The ''saṃbhoga-kāya'' ("body of bliss," "reward body," "enjoyment body," etc.) is a more exalted and splendid manifestation of the enlightened personality, still in the realm of form, but visible only to bodhisattvas, those of advanced spiritual capabilities. By contrast, the ''dharma-kāya'' ("''Dharma''-body," "Body of Truth," "Cosmic Body," "Absolute Body," etc.) is both formless and imperishable, representing the identification of the Buddha with the truth which he revealed, or with reality itself. As such the ''dharma-kāya'' is often linked with various terms for reality, such as ''dharmatā'', ''dharma-dhātu'', and so on, and has even been regarded as a kind of Buddhist absolute, or at least at one with it.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000192-QINU`"' In this light the ''dharma-kāya'' is understood as the primal "source" or "ground" from which the other two types of bodies emanate.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000193-QINU`"' While many scholars are content to describe this in purely abstract terms, others impute personal characteristics to it;'"`UNIQ--ref-00000194-QINU`"' and at least one writer has gone so far as to compare it to the Christian idea of Godhead.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000195-QINU`"'<br> As a summary of the Trikāya doctrine this is, of course, oversimplified. We are dealing here with a complex theory which underwent many accretions and refinements, as Buddhists continued down through the centuries to speculate on the nature of Buddhahood, on the nature of reality, and on the relationship
between them.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000196-QINU`"' It is hardly surprising, then, that attempts to plot the course of such arcane speculations have not always been entirely successful in reaching a clear consensus, although the arguments advanced, even in recent writing on the subject, do tend to follow similar lines. A good example of this is the authoritative treatment by Nagao, "On the Theory of Buddha-body (''Buddha-kāya'')," first published in English in 1973.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000197-QINU`"' Generally Nagao distinguishes three phases: an initial one-body theory, a two-body theory, and the three-body theory elaborated by the Yogācāras. According to him (p. 104), the two-body theory (i.e., ''rūpa-kāya'' and ''dharma-kāya'') "became stabilized in a variety of earlier sūtras,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000198-QINU`"' and in early Mahāyāna sūtras, the ''Prajñāpāramitā'', the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīka'', and so forth. The rūpa-kāya is the Buddha seen in a human body, while the dharma-kāya is the Buddha's personality seen in the dharma or dharma-nature." Elsewhere (pp. 106–7) Nagao states that the two-body theory was the one held "until the time of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra and the time of Nāgārjuna," even though the raw materials for the third body, the ''saṃbhoga-kāya'', were also to hand before the time of Asaṅga and Vasubandhu, as a consequence of the ''bodhisattva''-conccpt and the idea that a ''bodhisattva'''s performance of meritorious actions produced a body which was their manifest "reward." Nagao's article contains many valuable observations, but, as we shall see, some of its assertions are rather too imprecise, both chronologically and philosophically, to be of much use in unravelling the early development of the doctrine at issue. Another recent treatment of the subject by Makransky (1989) also describes certain features of the putative earlier two-body theory before the Yogācāras remodelled it (see esp. pp. 51–53), and distinguishes it sharply from the previous Mainstream'"`UNIQ--ref-00000199-QINU`"' (in this case, Sarvāstivādin) formulations. This analysis, too, is open to question in certain respects, as I shall show. In these and other articles on the subject'"`UNIQ--ref-0000019A-QINU`"' there is a general tendency to postulate a one-body/two-body/three-body progression, in terms of which a single personality is divided into a physical and a "spiritual" body, and then the physical body is further split in two, yielding the final complement of three. Some writers, however, point to the existence of three bodies even in the Pali sources, what one scholar has called the "primitive triad," i.e., ''pūti-'' or ''cātur-mahābhūtika-kāya'', ''mano-maya-kāya'', and ''dhamma-kāya''.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000019B-QINU`"' The first is the corruptible physical body formed out of the four elements, while the second is the mind-made body with which the Buddha visits the celestial realms (believed by some to be a forerunner of the ''saṃbhoga-kāya''); the third is the so-called "''Dhamma-body''." Now, although both these ways of approaching the subject—the assumption of a linear process, and the belief that the Pāli Canon contains an embryonic Trikāya schema—raise certain difficulties, I do not propose in this paper to discuss the evolution of the Trikāya theory in its entirety, since that would be a mammoth undertaking. What I wish to do is address one aspect of it only, viz., the early development of the idea of ''dharma-kāya'', in the hope that clarifying this will open the way to a better understanding of Mahāyāna buddhology as a whole. (Harrison, introduction, 44–46)<br><br>[https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8792/2699 Read more here . . .]
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Jñānaśrīmitra (ca. 980–1030)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"' contributed significantly not only to developing Nirākārajñānavāda theories but also to the resurrection of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (abbr. RGV) in early-11th-century India. The ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' was very likely composed sometime around the 4th or 5th century in India. The work fell into obscurity towards the late 6th century, only to slowly regain recognition starting from the early 11th century (see Appendix A).<br> The earliest masters of this period who quote or refer to the RGV are Maitrīpa (1007/1010-?), Jñānaśrīmitra (ca. 980–1030), and Ratnākaraśānti (late 10th to early 11th century).'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' Maitrīpa was the common disciple of Jñānaśrīmitra and Ratnākaraśānti, and, according to a story in Tibetan documents, rediscovered a Sanskrit manuscript of the RGV in a stūpa in Magadha.<br> If this rediscovery story is a historical event, Jñānaśrīmitra and Ratnākaraśānti would have received the teaching of the RGV from their common disciple Maitrīpa; but we have no concrete witness to corroborate it.<br> Maitrīpa’s knowledge of the RGV is attested by a quotation of RGV II. 61b in his ''Pañcatathāgatamudrāvivaraṇa''; he introduces a Nirākāravijñānavādin’s propounding the arising of the Dharmakāya from the Saṃbhogakāya and Nirmāṇakāya, but does not discuss Buddha-nature.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"' In contrast to Maitrīpa, who does not discuss Buddha-nature, we find extensive discussions of the topic in compositions of Jñānaśrīmitra and
Ratnākaraśānti.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"' In the present paper, I shall focus on quotations from the RGV in Jñānaśrīmitra’s ''Sākārasiddhiśāstra'' and ''Sākārasaṃgrahasūtra'', and on his understanding of the RGV, so as to shed light on the reception of the RGV in the early 11th century. (Kano, introductory remarks, 7–8)
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Articles/Kaḥ thog Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita's Doxographical Position: The Great Madhyamaka of Other-Emptiness (gzhan stong dbu ma chen po) +
This paper cxplores the doctrinal position of Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita ’Gyur med tshe dbang mchog grub'"`UNIQ--ref-000034FC-QINU`"' (1761-1829) namely, the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness (''gzhan stong dbu ma chen po''). Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita was the first of the Dge rtse reincarnation lineage, and served as an abbot of the Kah thog monastery of the Rnying ma school of Tibetan Buddhism in Khams, in eastem Tibet.'"`UNIQ--ref-000034FD-QINU`"' Apart from the fact that Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita edited the Sde dge edition of the ''Rnying ma rgyud ’bum'','"`UNIQ--ref-000034FE-QINU`"' little is known of him or his own works.'"`UNIQ--ref-000034FF-QINU`"'<br> This paper will examine Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita’s doxography, considering the way in which he attempts to demonstrate that the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness is ultimate within the Buddhist doctrinal history originating from India. According to Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita, the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness is said to have been the intent of the Last Tuming of the Wheel of the Dharma which is of definitive meaning, teaches the Buddha-nature (''tathāgatagarbha''), and, as pointed out by Duckworth, "accords with the Great Perfection"'"`UNIQ--ref-00003500-QINU`"' (''rdzogs chen''). Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita’s ''gzhang stong'' view is explicitly taught in the following doxographical texts: the ''Bde gshegs snying po'i rgyan'', the ''Grub mtha'i rnam gzhag nges don dgongs gsal'', the ''Rton pa bzhi ldan gyi gtam'', the first chapter of the ''Rnying ma rgyud 'bum dkar chag lha'i rnga bo che'','"`UNIQ--ref-00003501-QINU`"' and the ''Sangs rgyas gnyis pa'i dgongs pa'i rgyan'','"`UNIQ--ref-00003502-QINU`"' which is Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita's commentary on the ''Gsang sngags lam gyi rim pa sal ba'i sgron me'', a ''gter ma'' of Nyang ral Nyi ma 'od zer (1124/1136-1192/1204).<br> This paper will also suggest that Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita should be recognized as a forerunner of the ''ris med'' movement in Khams, as supported by the following facts: his view on the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness embraces the major practice lineages (''sgrub brgyud'')—Jo nang pa, Bka' brgyud pa, Sa skya pa, early Dge lugs pa, Rnying ma pa, and Zhi byed—within a single overriding intent of the Buddha’s teachings;'"`UNIQ--ref-00003503-QINU`"' Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita as the teacher of Zhe chen dbon sprul ’Gyur med mthu stobs rnam rgyal, also known as Zhe chen Mahāpaṇḍita (b. 1787), who was a ''gzhan stong pa'','"`UNIQ--ref-00003504-QINU`"' and who in tum was the teacher of the three masters Kong sprul (1813-99), Mkhyen brtse'i dbang po (1820–2), and Dpal sprul (1808-87).'"`UNIQ--ref-00003505-QINU`"' Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita’s ''Legs bshad gser gyi thur ma'', which is his response to the ''Lta ba'i gsung mgur'' by Lcang skya Rol pa'i rdo rje (1717-86),'"`UNIQ--ref-00003506-QINU`"' would hint at the seeds of the ''ris med'' movement which grew up among the three schools, the Sa skya, Bka' brgyud, and Rnying ma.'"`UNIQ--ref-00003507-QINU`"' With this paper, then, I hope to add to our understanding of the practice lineages of Indo-Tibetan Madhyamaka. (Makidono, introduction, 77–80)
Khenpo Dawa Paljor's Teaching on Buddha-Nature following Mipham Rinpoche's Word-by-Word Commentary on the Uttaratantra Shastra. Recorded in Tibetan with English Translation. +
This article examines an exposition of the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness by 'Jam mgon Kong sprul Bio gros mtha' yas (1813-99)'"`UNIQ--ref-00001B37-QINU`"' of the Bka' brgyud school of Tibetan Buddhism, in his ''Stainless Ray of Light of the Adamantine Moon: An Instruction on the View of the Great Madhyamaka of Other-Emptiness'' (''Gzhan stong dbu ma chen po'i Ita khrid rdo rje zla ba dri ma med pa'i 'od zer zhes bya ba'', henceforth ''Instruction on the View''). In it, Kong sprul sets forth the theory and practice of the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness, centered upon the doctrine of Buddha-nature. The ''Instruction on the View'' largely consists of three main outlines: (1) the origin of the doctrine of the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness (''gang nas byung ba'i khung''); (2) the main part of the Instruction on the View (''Jta khrid dngos''); and (3) an explanation of the benefits (''phan yon bshad pa''). In this article, I will first summarize the contents of the ''Instruction on the View'', according to its topical outlines,'"`UNIQ--ref-00001B38-QINU`"' and then discuss a hermeneutical issue related to textual interpretations of authoritative scriptures, comparing Kong sprul's approach with that of Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita (1761-1829) and Mi pham rgya mtsho (1846-1912). (Makidono, introduction, 151–52) +
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Among the numerous texts discovered at Drepung monastery’s library through the efforts of [[Alak Zenkar Rinpoche]] and his team is a hitherto unknown commentary by one [[Lhodrak Dharma Senge]]. Although the manuscript is incomplete and missing the final pages which may have contained the colophon, the title on the first page and a note at the start of the commentary explicitly mention Lhodrakpa Dharma Senge as the author. Yet, apart from the obvious association of the author with the southern Lhodrak region of Central Tibet, we have no information on when and where he lived. +
Roger R. Jackson, in his essay "Luminous Mind Among the Logicians", treats the Indo-Tibetan commentarial discussions of the affirmation of the mind's natural luminosity (''prabhāsvaratā'') found in ''Pramāṇavārttika'' II.208. Such an affIrmation, as he shows, has deep roots in the Buddhist tradition, and is usually connected with ''tathāgatagarbha'' thought. That it is also affirmed by Dharmakīrti and discussed extensively by his commentators in India and Tibet shows that it is not without significance for the logicoepistemological tradition represented by Dignāga and his successors. The idea that the mind is naturally luminous or radiant and that
its defIlements have only an adventitious status is of obvious relevance to Buddhist soteriology; it affirms that, in some important sense, the goal of Buddhist religious practice has already been attained or is already present. The importance of Jackson's study is that it shows the same idea to be relevant also to Buddhist epistemological theory: it is precisely the mind's natural radiance that makes apprehension of things as they really are a possibility. It is this metaphysical and epistemological fact which leads Jackson to categorize Dharmakīrti and his school as epistemological optimists. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to ''Buddha Nature'', 5) +
Articles/Lying to Tell the Truth-Upaya in Mahayana Buddhism and Oikonomia in Alexandrian Christianity +
Roger Gregory-Tashi Corless, in his essay "Lying to Tell the Truth", explores the use of intentional vagueness and obscurity in the texts of Clement of Alexandria and Origen, and relates this to the intentional use of falsehood (or, perhaps better, nontruth) in the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra''. Both in second century Alexandria and in third century India, he suggests, one fmds a self-conscious use
of graded, hierarchically ordered sets of "false truths" as pedagogical devices. For the ''Lotus'', Corless suggests, the "true truth" is that all living beings are in fact possessors of Buddha Nature; it is this toward which the pedagogically useful though partial truths (''upāya'') found in other assertions point. This position is illustrated with extensive quotations from [[Kūkai]], and is compared with positions taken by a series of Christian thinkers from Nicholas of Cusa to John Henry Newman. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to ''Buddha Nature'', 3–4) +
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A simple three-word koan. Or just a one-word koan: buddhanature. So deceptively simple, so easy to leave in the realm of concept, yet it penetrates to the very heart of the matter. Here’s Geoffery Shugen Arnold, Sensei, on Case 30 of the Gateless Gate, “Mazu’s ‘Mind is buddha.'” +
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The study of the ''Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda Śāstra'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000E80-QINU`"') has a long history. French, Chinese and Japanese scholars have participated in the discussion, some of them great authorities in the field of Sino-Indian Studies, as P. Demieville, Ui Hakuju, Tokiwa Daijō, and Mochizuki Shinkō'"`UNIQ--ref-00000E81-QINU`"') . That I dare to add my grain to the store of knowledge already collected, though not even fully acquainted with the earlier efforts , demands an explanation. When studying Chinese Buddhism and slowly progressing through the centuries I came before the stumbling block of this text and found that without more definite knowledge about the ''Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda Śāstra'' a clear picture of Medieval Buddhism could not be attained. As no answer has yet been given to this problem acceptable to all the debaters I had to look into it myself. Unfortunately, the Indian libraries in my reach are very incomplete with respect to Japanese and Chinese books and periodicals. So I was confronted with a dilemma which worries many scholars to-day, namely, whether I should continue my studies in spite of this handicap or stop altogether. Finally I decided that I would try to get a result by using what was available to me and adding material which I collected myself. This led to what I consider as a result worth while to be submitted as a basis of discussion. The professors Matsunami Seiren and Hayashi Kemmyō kindly sent me reprints of their papers.<br> The present state of the discussion may in short be characterized as follows. The traditional view that (1) the ''Śāstra'' is a translation of a Sanskrit original and (2) that the translator is Paramārtha, is now generally abandoned'"`UNIQ--ref-00000E82-QINU`"'). It is also known that the ''lntroduction'' is forged.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000E83-QINU`"') It is further known that the Sanskrit text translated by Śikṣānanda was itself a translation from the extant Chinese version'"`UNIQ--ref-00000E84-QINU`"'). If so much is accepted, early doubts of Chinese Buddhists concerning the ''Śāstra'' gain weight'"`UNIQ--ref-00000E85-QINU`"').<br> Hui-chün, an early seventh century witness, in the passage quoted above p. 156 note 4, speaks of "former" Dāśabhūmikas who forged the ''Śraddhotpāda''. Chi-tsang (549-623) blames Dāśabhūmikas "of a former generation"
that they mistook the eighth ''vijñāna'' for Buddha-nature (T. vol. 34 380 b 20 f.). In another place he speaks of "old" Dāśabhūmikas (T. vol. 42 104 c 7). This implies that we have to distinguish between late Dāśabhūmikas (after the arrival of the ''Mahāyāna-saṁgraha'') and early ones (the first and second generations after the translators of the ''Daśabhūmika Śāstra'')'"`UNIQ--ref-00000E86-QINU`"') . Among them, those who belonged to the early generation are said to have forged the ''Śraddhotpāda Śāstra'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000E87-QINU`"').<br> Tokiwa believes in a Chinese author who mainly relied on the ''Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra'' both translations of which (Sung and Wei) he amalgamated. This may be correct though I could not find allusions peculiar to Guṇabhadra's (Sung) translation.<br> Mochizuki has proved that the Chinese author was acquainted not only with the ''Laṅkāvatāra'' but with several other texts. He proposes as author T'an-tsun, a disciple of Fa-shang who dictated the ''Śāstra'' to his disciple T'an -ch'ien. See below p. 160.<br> Hayashi Kemmyō, has traced material in Liang Wu-ti's writings and the ''Pao-tsang lun''. Liang Wu-ti believed in immortal souls'"`UNIQ--ref-00000E88-QINU`"'). The ''Śraddhotpāda Śāstra'' contains nothing of that sort. Though influence from that side cannot be excluded, I do not feel this material to be significant enough to permit us to place the author in the South.<br> Matsunami Seiren believes in Aśvaghoṣa if not as author yet as the spiritual father of the ''Śraddhotpāda''. I have compared his quotations from the ''Sauṇdarānanda Kāvya'' etc . which are interesting. But I think we might consider as established that the author of the ''Śraddhotpāda Śāstra'' was a Chinese and work upon that assumption'"`UNIQ--ref-00000E89-QINU`"'). Besides, the main tenets of the ''Śāstra'' have not been found in the ''Kāvya''.<br> I pass by other theories of which I have only heard . Scholars are searching in all directions and undoubtedly will find material unknown to me which will throw even more light on the intricate problem of our text. Meanwhile I shall consider as established that the ''Śāstra'' was composed by an early Dāśabhūmika and limit my investigation to the question who this person was. (Liebenthal, "New Light on the Mahāyāna-Śraddhotpāda Śāstra," 155–58)
One of the most interesting notions found in the early ''tathāgatagarbha'' literature is the idea that ''nirvāṇa'' should be understood as nonorigination (''anutpāda''). This idea is explicitly formulated in two texts, the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'', the only ''śāstra'' extant in Sanskrit which is completely devoted to the ''tathāgatagarbha'' and Buddha-nature teachings, and the ''Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra'', the ''sūtra'' upon which the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' bases its exposition of nonorigination. The ''Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra'' itself does not speak of the ''tathāgatagarbha'' or Buddha-nature doctrines, but the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' takes the ''Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra'' explanation of nonorigination and links it to the view of ''nirvāṇa'' found in two of the important early ''sūtras'' that do speak of the ''tathāgatagarbha'', the ''Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa'' and the ''Śrīmālādevīsūtra''. This interpretation of ''nirvāṇa'' in terms of nonorigination is of considerable importance in understanding the early ''tathāgatagarbha'' teaching, for it clarifies certain notions frequently associated with the ''tathāgatagarbha'' like the "natural purity of mind" (''cittaprakṛtiviśuddhi'')—notions which have been hotly debated ever since the doctrine's inception. It may also tell us something about the conceptual issues which divided the schools of early Buddhism and so hold clues for understanding the origin of Mahāyāna Buddhism. (Grosnick, "Nonorigination and ''Nirvāṇa''," 33)<br><br>
[https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8547/2454 Read more here . . .] +
Interest in the ''Vajrasamādhi'' has been roused by a paper of Lin Tai-yün published in 1932'"`UNIQ--ref-00001500-QINU`"'. In the ''Vajrasamādhi'' Lin had found a quotation from what is generally supposed to be a Bodhidharma text'"`UNIQ--ref-00001501-QINU`"', and thus the problem was set of the relation between these bits of material and the bearing which an investigation into this matter might have on the riddle of Bodhidharma. Suzuki Daisetsu has dealt with this problem in 1936'"`UNIQ--ref-00001502-QINU`"', Paul Demiéville in 1952'"`UNIQ--ref-00001503-QINU`"' and Dr. Mizuno in I955'"`UNIQ--ref-00001504-QINU`"'. I shall in this note confine myself to the text itself.<br> The texts in question are:<br>
1. ''Chin-kang san-mei ching'' (''Vajrasamādhi'') T. 273 vol. 9. (Quoted in the following as ''Samādhi''.) It has three commentaries:<br>
a. The ''Chin-kang san-mei ching lun'', T. 1730 vol. 37 composed by Yüan-hsiao, a Korean, in the second half of the seventh century. This is the only commentary which I have used for this paper in order to correct the original. A very good modern edition has been published by Chou Shu-chia in Peking 1936.<br>
b. ''Zokuzōkyō'' A 55/2-3. Ming.<br>
c. ''Zokuzōkyō'' A 55/3. Ch'ing.<br>
2. ''Chin-kang shang-wei t'o-lo-ni ching'', T. 1344 vol. 21. Transl. Buddhaśānta (?). Yüan Wei.<br>
3. ''Chin-kang ch'ang t'o-lo-ni ching'', T. 1345 vol. 21. Transl. Jinagupta (?) (527-604). A second translation of the preceding. These two texts have no relation to the ''Samādhi''.<br>
4. ''Chin-kang san-nei pen-hsing ch'ing-ching pu-huai pu-mieh ching'', T. 644 vol. 15. A probably genuine text, containing 100 ''samādhis'' . . . (Liebenthal, opening remarks, 347–48)<br><br>
[ . . . ]<br><br>
It seems to me established that<br> The ''Samādhi'' is an agglomeration of several texts, of which we have distinguished:<br> 1. A frame (Text A), probably derived from a sūtra translated in the fifth century or earlier in the North, perhaps in Liang-chou. This seems to have been a Hīnayāna text.<br> 2. A text (B), which contains the verses and part of the prose, composed between 565 and 590 by a teacher of the North, Yeh or P'eng-ch'eng. The author might have been Ching-sung.<br> It is difficult to say how Text B originally looked. Was it a pamphlet or a collection of gleanings from other texts? Was it written to counteract the propaganda of Hui-ssu?<br> In order to further clarify these points I propose for study: (1) a careful investigation of the northern tradition from Bodhiruci and Buddhaśānta on to about 590 A.D., (2) searching the Tun-huang fragments for parts of the original Text B, (3) further search for quotations in the texts studied by the teachers of the Northern Ch'i. (Liebenthal, conclusion, 383–86).<br><br>
(*Chinese characters in the original text and notes unavailable)<br><br>
O
I refer to the commentary on the ''Dharmadhātustava'' by Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan (l292-1361) in the last volume of this Journal'"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"' and make it clear that this text is one of the important texts for him to establish the theory of other-emptiness (''gzhan stong'') or the great Madhyamaka (''dbu ma chen po'') in the Jo nang pa'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' Though it is not so cited as the five ''Treatises of Maitreya'', he seems to acknowledge the reason why he must depend on it. Though the authorship of Nāgārjuna is doubted on the ground of reference to the tathāgatagarbha idea, this is convenient for Dol po pa who wants to establish the great Madhyamaka mixed the Madhyamaka idea with the Yogācāra idea or the tathāgatagarbha idea. That is to say, he uses it in order to prove that the idea of tathāgatagarbha is also taught in the Mādhyamika literature of Nāgārjuna.<br> Then which text does he depend on to establish his original idea? As the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' is cited most frequently in his ''bDen gnyis gsal ba'i nyi ma'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"', it seems to be the most important text in his great Madhyamaka. I consider his commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"' attributed to Maitreya here'"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"'. (Mochizuki, introduction, 111) +
Given that the MPNS is such a complex text, I should like to take up just one theme that runs through much of this sutra—the way the compilers of this sūtra seem to have perceived the causes and the implications of the decline of the Dharma, that is, what one might, as I have done here, term the "eschatology of the MPNS." I believe this may provide an important key to
understanding the entire sūtra, though some of my conclusions are necessarily based on circumstantial evidence. One might also remark here, in passing, that the prominence of the concept in the MPNS that the scriptural Dharma is, as we shall see, decidedly impermanent stands out in stark contrast to the recurrent idea in the sūtra of the permanence of Buddha. (Hodge, introduction, 1) +
L'article traite d'un genre de portraits de moines Zen appelé ''chinzō'', genre qui fleurit sous les Sung et les Yuan, et fut introduit au Japon à l'époque de Kamakura. On connaît au Japon environ soixante-dix ''chinzō'' chinois et japonais datant du treizième au seizième siècle, considérés comme "Trésors nationaux" ou "propriétés culturelles importantes", mais qui ne représentent qu'un dizième du nombre total de portraits connus. Les portraits relevant de ce genre sont assez stéréotypés, et représentent en général un moine assis en sur une chaise haute en position du lotus. Souvent représenté de trois-quarts, mais parfois aussi de face, il est vêtu d'un habit de cérémonie, et tient dans sa main droite un attribut de son autorité, d'ordinaire un bâton, un sceptre ou un chasse-mouches. Certains ''chinzō'' représentent aussi le moine assis ou debout dans un paysage. Enfin, ils comportent généralement un "éloge" en vers et une dédicace.<br>
S'interrogeant sur la fonction religieuse de ces portraits, Griffith Foulk et Robert Sharf sont amenés à remettre en question l'idée que les ''chinzō'' servaient à authentifier la transmission de maître à disciple. Une étude approfondie des sources montre que la définition somme toute moderne des ''chinzō'', visant à définir un genre limité dans le domaine de l'histoire de l'art, a fonctionné dans les faits de façon étroitement normative, alors que le terme désignait à l'origine une catégorie beaucoup plus large de portraits. Conduits de la sorte à étudier la construction moderne du genre des chinzō, les auteurs en arrivent à poser un certain nombre de questions théoriques et méthodologiques qui devraient avoir un certain impact sur l'histoire de l'art asiatique. (Foulk and Sharf, introduction, 149) +
Articles/On the rDzogs chen Distinction between Mind (sems) Primordial Knowing (ye shes): Clarifications and Transcendental Arguments +
The idea that Buddhist teachings ought to be applied to one's life situation in order to discover their true validity and efficacy has been a salient feature of Buddhism since its inception. It is in light of this normative constraint that Buddhism has traditionally called itself a path (''mārga'')'"`UNIQ--ref-00003717-QINU`"' or, more accurately, a series of paths formulated to lead individuals of varying needs, abilities, and aspirations toward spiritual awakening (''bodhi''). The complex diversity of views and practices that developed from the time of the historical Buddha were based on two presuppositions: (1) that the Buddha's awakening was of the utmost soteriological significance and therefore to be regarded as the ultimate aim of all religio-philosophical inquiry and activity, and (2) that it was to be seen neither as fortuitous nor inexplicable but as a repeatable soteriological process, one that could be personally realized through particular modes of inquiry and praxis available to most (if not all) humans.<br> From this second assumption stemmed the idea that humans are predisposed to spiritual awakening, that they, in other words, have within them some germinal capacity (''bīja''), spiritual affiliation (''gotra''), element (''dhātu''), or quintessence (''garbha'') that is a condition of possibility of this awakening.'"`UNIQ--ref-00003718-QINU`"' Alongside these "buddha-nature" concepts developed a family of systematically related gnoseological ideas referring to an abiding, unconditioned (''asaṃskṛta'') mode of consciousness—variously termed the Mind of awakening (''bodhicitta''), naturally luminous Mind (''prakṛtiprabhāsvaracitta''), the nature of mind (''citta-dharmatā'')—that was identified with the condition of awakening itself, but also viewed as the tacit background whence dualistic mind, that is, the source of all error and obscuration, emerges. Central to this cluster of related ideas was the view that conditions of awakening and delusion are both located within the complex and heterogeneous structure of lived experience itself. In Indian Buddhism, this paradigm found its most detailed and influential expression in the hybridized Yogācāra-Tathāgatagarbha works of Maitreya, the Indian Buddhist Siddha literature and the Buddhist tantras.<br> In light of the foregoing considerations, the doctrinal history of Buddhism may be regarded as an ongoing attempt to work out precisely what it was that made its founder a ''buddha'' or "awakened one" so that such knowledge could be systematically pursued by his followers. That this soteriological imperative has been central to Buddhist philosophical and psychological investigations from early on is discernible in the long history of attempts to clarify the defining features of consciousness that can be traced back to the systematic analyses of mind and mental factors (''citta-caitta'') presented in the ''Abhidhammapiṭaka'' of the Pali Canon. For, in investigating the nature and structure of consciousness, Buddhist scholars were above all concerned with articulating the conditions necessary for a sentient being (''sems can'') to become an awakened one, a being in whom (if we follow the Tibetan rendering of "buddha" as ''sangs rgyas'') all cognitive and affective obscurations have dissipated (''sangs'') so that inherent capacities for knowing and caring (''mkhyen brtse nus ldan'') can unfold (''rgyas'').<br> In Tibet, this soteriologically oriented investigation of consciousness was central to the philosophy of mind that developed within the syncretistic rDzogs chen'"`UNIQ--ref-00003719-QINU`"' ("Great Perfection") tradition of the rNying ma ("Ancient Ones") school between the eighth and fourteenth centuries. This philosophy developed around a nexus of core soteriological ideas concerning buddha-nature, the nature of reality, and the nature of mind that served to draw attention to a primordial, nondual mode of being and awareness that usually remains hidden behind the mind's own objectifying and subjectivizing reifications.<br> A cornerstone of the rDzogs chen philosophy of mind was a basic distinction between dualistic mind (''sems'') and primordial knowing (''ye shes'')'"`UNIQ--ref-0000371A-QINU`"' that was first systematically presented in the seventeen Atiyoga tantras (''rgyud bcu bdun'') that make up the Heart Essence (''snying thig'') subclass of the Esoteric Guidance Class (''man ngag sde'') of rDzogs chen teachings and are traditionally associated with Vimalamitra.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000371B-QINU`"' rNying ma historical and biographical works trace this distinction to the teachings of early rDzogs chen masters of the Royal Dynastic Period,'"`UNIQ--ref-0000371C-QINU`"' in particular the oral transmissions of Vimalamitra (''bi ma snyan brgyud''), an identification that appears at first glance to be supported by the many passages on the two distinctions found scattered among rNying ma collections such as the ''Bi ma snying thig'', ''Bai ro rgyud 'bum'', ''rNying ma rgyud 'bum'', and ''dGongs pa zang thal''. These teachings often take the form of personal instructions advising the practitioner to discern within the flux of adventitious thoughts and sensations that characterize dualistic mind (''sems'') an invariant prerepresentational structure of awareness known as primordial knowing (''ye shes''), open awareness (''rig pa''), or the nature of mind (''sems nyid''), from which this turmoil arises. The idea is to directly recognize (''ngo sprod'') and become increasingly familiar with this abiding condition without confusing it with any of its derivative and distortive aspects. In Klong chen pa's view, this distinction provides an indispensable key to understanding the views and practices that are central to the rDzogs chen tradition.<br> Although this tradition has attracted increasing interest in recent decades, both popular and academic, there has been little to date in the way of critical study of its philosophical foundations or key doctrinal developments.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000371D-QINU`"' A noteworthy case in point is the absence of any systematic appraisal of rNying ma ("Ancient Ones") views on the nature of mind that traces their evolution and complex relationships with Indian Cittamātra, Madhyamaka, Pramāṇvāda, and Vajrayāna views. As a step toward at least defining the parameters of this crucial but neglected field of inquiry, this paper will consider some key arguments in support of the "mind/primordial knowing" (''sems/ye shes'') distinction adumbrated by rNying ma scholars in the classical period. Of particular interest are arguments that were used to justify and defend this distinction by the renowned fourteenth-century rNying ma thinker Klong chen rab 'byams pa in a number of his treatises, commentaries, and poetic works. In a wide range of doctrinal contexts, Klong chen pa will argue that the entire edifice of Buddhist doctrine becomes incoherent in theory and amiss in practice when one fails to recognize the primacy of a primordial mode of awareness and to unequivocally distinguish it from dualistic mind. This paper first examines in detail some of the arguments he employed to convince his audience of the acceptability of such a distinction in light of theoretical and practical drawbacks of not recognizing it. It then focuses on two types of transcendental argument (of the general form "for ''y'' to be possible ''x'' must be the case") that Klong chen pa repeatedly invokes to show that the mind/primordial knowing distinction was not only tacitly presupposed in Indian Buddhist soteriology but was, in fact, indispensable for making sense of the Buddhist path and goal-realization according to Buddhist doxastic norms. (Higgins, "On the rDzogs chen Distinction between Mind (''sems'') and Primordial Knowing (''ye shes''), 23–26)
In this essay I aim to clarify the meaning of other-emptiness in the Jonang (''jo nang'') tradition of Buddhism of Tibet. It focuses on the writings of Dölpopa (''dol po pa shes rab rgyal mtshan'') (1292–1361), the renowned forefather of this tradition. Dölpopa famously differentiated two types of emptiness, or two ways of being empty—self-emptiness (''rang stong'') and other-emptiness (''gzhan stong'')—and proclaimed the superiority of the latter. (Duckworth, introduction, 485) +
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The early history of Tathagatagarbha thought in India remains obscure. In attempting to elucidate it much depends upon how one chooses to categorize Tathagatagarbha as a system, upon the decisions one makes as to which terms, concepts, argument-patterns and so forth must be present in order for it to be proper to characterize some text or text-fragment as representing that system. These are large questions, much too large to enter upon in this paper; my purpose here is much more limited. I intend to offer a reasonably detailed exposition of a set of sixteen verses from the ninth chapter of the ''Mahāyānasūtrâlaṅkāra'' [MSA] (IX.22-37). These verses deal, or so the ''bhāṣya'' tells us, with the "profundity of the undefiled realm" (''anāsravadhātugāmbhīrya''), and they conclude (37) with the only use of the term ''tathāgatagarbha'' in the entire text There is little doubt that this is one of the few early occurrences of the term in Indian Buddhist texts surviving in Sanskrit; a relatively detailed study of these verses may perhaps shed some light upon the historical and doctrinal questions just mentioned.<br> The systematic question underlying my comments upon these verses throughout will be: what is the relation between the ground of awakening, that which makes it possible, and the fact of awakening, its essential properties?<br>
In what follows I shall provide ftrst a brief introduction to the of the MSA-corpus; I shall then place MSA IX.22-37 in its context within the text as a whole, and shall translate the verses in full and offer expository comments on them, drawing in so doing upon the surviving Indic commentaries. (Griffiths, "Painting Space with Colors", 41–42) +
Is Dōgen a philosopher? Or even an example of what he scolds a "word-counting scholar"?'"`UNIQ--ref-000010EC-QINU`"' Despite the difficulties of classifying Dōgen, many would still agree, at least with regard to his ''magnum opus'', the ''Shōbōgenzō'', that his writings are philosophical.'"`UNIQ--ref-000010ED-QINU`"' This, however, requires some clarification, since there is not much left of this work if one were to exclude all the fascicles that are not explicitly cited for philosophical interpretation. The philosophic scope becomes even smaller if one were to consider the respective passages of the few fascicles pertinent for explicit philosophical reading. At the risk of oversimplifying, the philosophical reception of Dōgen's works is almost entirely grounded in the fascicle "Uji",'"`UNIQ--ref-000010EE-QINU`"' which is distinguished for its thought–provoking discourse on time.'"`UNIQ--ref-000010EF-QINU`"' Furthermore the philosophical reading of other fascicles, including "Genjōkōan" and "Zenki"'"`UNIQ--ref-000010F0-QINU`"' revolves around a related interpretation of "Uji."<br> Nevertheless, we can still ask if there might be yet another accessible vantage point from which one could regard Dōgen's ''Shōbōgenzō'' as philosophical? This paper will argue that the answer is "yes," there is such a vantage point, so long as one distinguishes ''what'' Dōgen writes from ''how'' Dōgen writes. For the claim of the paper is that while it remains ambiguous to maintain that his writings exhibit a philosophical system based on content, their form realizes what philosophy is at its core, i.e. reflexivity or philosophy’s inherent self reference.'"`UNIQ--ref-000010F1-QINU`"' (Müller, "Philosophy and the Practice of Reflexivity," 545–46) +
Articles/Prajñāpāramitā and the Buddhahood of the Non-Sentient World: The San-Lun Assimilation of Buddha-Nature and Middle Path Doctrine +
Prior to the Sui-T'ang period, the concept of Buddha-nature,'"`UNIQ--ref-00003877-QINU`"' the fundamental or universal nature of enlightenment in sentient beings, was already a topic of central importance to Chinese Buddhists. In 418, when Fa-hsien translated the ''Nirvāṇa-sūtra'' in six fascicles (''Ta-pan niyüan ching''), the debate centering on Buddha-nature, as is well known, concerned Tao-sheng's (?-434) view of the ''icchantika'', a spiritual outcast forever excluded from enlightenment. Tao-sheng's thesis that all sentient beings, including the ''icchantika'', possessed the potentiality for Buddhahood was substantiated when the so-called "Northern edition" of the ''Nirvāṇa-sūtra'' was translated in 421 by Dharmakṣema (385-433).'"`UNIQ--ref-00003878-QINU`"' While the ''icchantika'' issue would again surface during the T'ang with the popularity of the Fa-hsiang school and its ''triyāna'' doctrine, by the Sui period (589-612) the ''ekayāna'' theme was well established. In the intervening years of the Liang and Ch'en dynasties, Chinese Buddhists in the south had moved on to other aspects of the Buddha-nature theory and were primarily concerned with the composition of exegetical commentaries which speculated on the specific meanings of universal enlightenment. That a variety of commentaries and Buddha-nature theories existed during this period can be seen if one examines the Liang compilation of the ''Collection of Nirvāṇa-sūtra Commentaries'' (''Tapan nieh-p'an'' ''ching chi-chüeh'').'"`UNIQ--ref-00003879-QINU`"' The ''Collection'', however, represents the peak of ''Nirvāṇa-sūtra'' study in the south, for following the end of the Liang and Ch'en periods, the study of this text was superseded by the rise of Prajñāpāramitā-based traditions like San-lun and T'ien-t'ai. Exegesis of the ''Nirvāṇa-sūtra'' and debate on the meaning of Buddha-nature continued within these schools, and while an independent scholastic tradition centering on the sutra had long passed from the Buddhist horizon by Sui times, it was during this period that the discussion of universal enlightenment was taken to a new degree of explicitness.<br>
In the case of the San-lun tradition, the most intriguing discussion on this subject occurred in the writings of its systematizer, Chi-tsang (549-623).'"`UNIQ--ref-0000387A-QINU`"' In his Buddha-nature essay, contained in the ''Ta-ch'eng hsüan-lun'' (''A Compendium of Mahāyāna Doctrine''), Chi-tsang sought to integrate the Prajñāpāramitā doctrine of emptiness and the ''Nirvāṇa-sūtra'' concept of Buddha-nature.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000387B-QINU`"' Assimilating two radically different aspects of Buddhist thought, Chi-tsang was the first individual in the history of East Asian Buddhism to argue that the inanimate world of grasses and trees also had the possibility of achieving Buddhahood. The most obvious peculiarity of this theory was the fact that, prior to Chi-tsang's time it was not a commonly accepted view of universal enlightenment. Indeed, it was a view totally rejected by earlier commentators of the ''Nirvāṇa-sūtra'', who associated the potentiality for Buddhahood with anthropocentric concepts such as "mind," "luminous spirit," "''ālaya-vijñāna''," and "inherently pure mind." The textual basis for these earlier views was, of course, already established by the ''Nirvāṇa-sūtra'', which extended the promise of Buddhahood to all sentient existence, that is, to those who possessed the faculty of "mind." Although there was no doctrinal precedent for Chi-tsang's assertion, in his examination of Buddhist texts he found several passages to substantiate his theory of a comprehensive Buddha-nature. As we shall see, Chi-tsang took a highly qualified step in expanding the notion of salvation to include all of the natural, phenomenal world. As a San-lun scholar, however, Chi-tsang was neither interested, in a Taoist sort of way, in elevating nature to a religious dimension, nor simply concerned with the ''Nirvāṇa-sūtra'''s anthropocentrically-limited promise of eventual enlightenment. Rather, Chi-tsang's most significant contribution to the discussion lay in his assertion that the Buddha-nature was a synonym for the middle path doctrine. The route by which he came to his expanded conception of Buddha-nature, then, was based on his primary view of ''prajñā'', and it is this that we wish to investigate in what follows. (Koseki, "Prajñāpāramitā and the Buddhahood of the Non-Sentient World," 16–17)
Articles/Presenting a Controversial Doctrine in a Conciliatory Way: Mkhan chen Gang shar dbang po's (1925–1958-59?) Inclusion of Gzhan stong ("Emptiness of Other") within Prāsaṅgika +
In . . . "Presenting a Controversial Doctrine in a Conciliatory Way: Mkhan-chen Gang-shar dbang-po’s (1925-1958/59?) Inclusion of ''Gzhan-stong'' ('Emptiness of Other') within Prāsaṅgika," I investigate the ''gzhan stong'' position of an influential rNying-ma-pa thinker, a learned master from Zhe-chen Monastery, who was among other things, a highly esteemed teacher of Thrangu Rinpoche, and thus influential in the latter's own understanding of ''gzhan stong''. Unlike Dol-po-pa or Shākya-mchog-ldan, mKhan-po Gang-shar does not present his ''gzhan stong'' against the backdrop of the three natures theory, but rather elucidates the distinction he makes between ''rang stong'' and ''gzhan stong'' within a Prāsaṅgika Madhyamaka framework. In a way similar to Klong-chen-pa, Gang-shar insists that everything from material form up to omniscience is ''rang stong'' only. This is when the two truths are presented as
appearance and emptiness in terms of valid cognition that analyzes for the ultimate abiding nature. In the context of a conventional valid cognition, however, which analyzes for the mode of appearances (i.e., perception), the two truths are defined in terms of the way things appear versus the way they truly are. When the abiding nature is perceived as it truly is, there is still awareness, albeit in a form beyond the duality of ordinary perception. For Gang shar it is only in this phenomenological sense that the ''rang stong'' of samsara and ''gzhan stong'' of ''nirvāṇa'' need to be distinguished. [https://buddhanature.tsadra.org/index.php/Articles/Introduction:_The_History_of_the_Rang_stong-Gzhan_stong_Distinction_from_Its_Beginning_through_the_Ris-med_Movement (Mathes, "Introduction: The History of the ''Rang stong/Gzhan stong'' Distinction," 7)] +
One of the particularly significant points implicitly made by the volume as a whole and explicitly developed in the chapter by Luis O. Gómez is that the sudden-gradual polarity is “soft” at its edges. As we have noted, the polarity enfolds a host of complexly interrelated issues. With insight and erudition, Gómez demonstrates that, when the specific historical instances of the sudden-gradual controversy are examined, it is clear that there is no necessary or even predictable way in which the positions taken by the actual participants can be correlated with the complex of issues contained within the sudden-gradual rubric. Hence the subitist on one occasion may well espouse a number of doctrinal positions held by the gradualist on another. Subitists and gradualists, moreover, often appealed to the same doctrine in support of their position. For example, in the most famous instance of the controversy, the exchange of poems that the Platform Sutra alleges were composed by Shen-hsiu and Hui-neng, both parties based their positions on the notion of an intrinsically enlightened Buddha-nature. (Gregory, introduction, 6) +
A central concept within Mahāyāna Buddhism is the doctrine of ''tathāgatagarbha'', or buddha-nature (''deshin shekpai nyingpo'', ''deshek nyingpo''), the element inherent to every sentient being. Presenting this buddha nature as the absolute in positive terms, as a state of wisdom with inconceivable qualities, is the essence of the so-called shentong view. Mind as such is understood to be ''shentong'' or "empty of other," meaning that it is empty of adventitious stains, which are not minds true nature. But mind is not empty of its enlightened qualities. Still, as long as sentient beings' perceptions are obscured by the temporary stains, they are incapable of directly relating to wisdoms inherent enlightened qualities. According to the relevant texts,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000A11-QINU`"' these stains constitute the only difference between normal beings and the awakened ones who have removed the stains and actualized their inherent buddha nature. From the perspective of both the doctrine of tathāgatagarbha in general and shentong in particular, proper Buddhist philosophy and spiritual training in ethics, view, and meditation have as their goal the removal of the stains of karma and afflictive emotions and their subtle tendencies of ignorance so that the mind's inherent qualities can manifest.<br> This chapter deals with the corresponding approach in view and meditation taught by the cleric-scholar Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thayé (1813–99). As one of the leading figures in the rimé movement in eastern Tibet, he worked to preserve practice traditions from the various Buddhist lineages of Tibet—in particular, practices from the Nyingma, Kadam, Jonang, Kagyü, and Sakya schools. His work exemplifies the idea that implementing philosophical understanding in meditative training is an essential part of all Tibetan Buddhist traditions. His ''Immaculate Vajra Moonrays: An Instruction for the View of Shentong, the Great Madhyamaka'' (abbreviated here as ''Instruction for the View of Shentong'') is but one instance of the integral relationship between philosophical understanding and meditative training. The text guides meditators in a gradual practice that aims to achieve a direct realization of the true nature of mind—buddha nature with all of its inherent qualities. (Draszczyk, "Putting Buddha Nature into Practice," 251–52)
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Articles/RNgog blo ldan shes rab's Topical Outline of the Ratnagotravibhāga Discovered at Khara Khoto +
1) Among the fifty or so compositions of Rngog lo, most are still unavailable and only nine works have so far been published. To these works we can add our topical outline of the ''RGV'' (''rgyud bla ma’i bsdus don'') preserved in a folio discovered at Khara Khoto, which originally consisted of two folios. Its authorship could be confirmed from its colophon as well as by comparing its contents to another lengthy ''RGV'' commentary (the ''Essential Meaning'') ascribed to Rngog lo. Our manuscript is thus the earliest Tibetan text that systematically outlines the ''RGV'', and it has made a fundamental contribution to the development of the Tibetan exegetical tradition of the ''RGV''.<br><br>
2) Rngog lo seems to have used the term ''bsdus don'' (or its equivalents) to refer to two kinds of works, namely “topical outline” and “essential meaning,” for he composed two works on the ''RGV''―a brief topical outline and a lengthy essential meaning―which bear titles containing the term ''bsdus don'' and its equivalent ''don bsdus pa'', respectively. Among Rngog lo’s available writings, our Khara Khoto manuscript and the ''Byang chub sems dpa’i spyod pa la ’jug pa’i don bsdus pa'' offer the only testimony that ''bsdus don'' (and its equivalent ''don bsdus pa'') refers to a “topical outline,” as he often uses the term ''bsdus don'' to indicate a lengthy "essential meaning" in his other commentarial works. The first usage was common among Tibetan masters during the early and middle ''phyi dar'' period, whereas the latter was generally rare. This rare usage is most likely influenced by the ''piṇḍārtha'' sub-genre of Indian commentaries.<br><br>
3) Our manuscript has some serious textual problems, such as missing words, illegible words, syntactic ambiguity, and a missing folio. However, we can solve many of those problems by referring to corresponding sentences in the other two works on the ''RGV'', namely, Rngog lo’s ''Essential Meaning'' and Phywa pa’s ''Topical Outline''.<br><br>
4) The colophon of our manuscript does not tell us when the work was composed or copied. We can only deduce an approximate date of the manuscript to be some time between ca. 1092 (a possible ''terminus post quem'' of the composition of the work) and 1374 (the year of the destruction of Khara Khoto). The contents of our manuscript and other relevant works discovered at Khara Khoto show that the Tibetan scholastic tradition of the Bka’ gdams pa had spread there. (Kano, conclusion, 170)
Articles/RNgog lo-tsā-ba's Commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga: An Early-20th-Century Lhasa Printed Edition +
rNgog Io-tsa-ba Blo-ldan-shcs-rab (1059-1109) was more than anyone else responsible for the establishment of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037CE-QINU`"' He founded in Tibet not only the main enduring lineages of logic and epistemology (''Tshad-ma'': ''Pramāṇa'') studies but also of two other major branches of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy and doctrine—those of the Five Dharmas of Maitreya (''Byams chos sde Inga'') and of the Svātantrika Yogācāra-Madhyamaka.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037CF-QINU`"' rNgog-lo furthermore trained virtually the entire next generation of important Tibetan scholastics, his "four chief spiritual sons" being: (1) Zhang Tshe-spong-ba, (2) Gro-lung-pa Blo-gros-'byung gnas, (3) Khyung Rin-chen-grags, and (4) 'Bre Shes-rab-'bar.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037D0-QINU`"' Yet in spite of rNgog's central position in the history of Tibetan philosophical and doctrinal studies, until recently only a very small number of his works were known to survive, and of these the two most extensive and important have remained for decades largely inaccessible outside of Tibet, existing only as isolated xylographs in private collections.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037D1-QINU`"' Now, however, with the reprinting of two of his major works by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, including his very important commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' described here, some of the seminal contributions of rNgog-lo can at last be easily assessed in the original.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037D2-QINU`"'<br>
Both of these major works of rNgog-lo were commentaries on fundamental works of the Maitreyanātha tradition within the Yogācāra branch of Mahāyana Buddhism,'"`UNIQ--ref-000037D3-QINU`"' namely on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and ''Abhisamayālaṃkāra''.'"`UNIQ--ref-000037D4-QINU`"' The works thus reflected another aspect of his illustrious career, for in addition to—and indeed in tandem with—his importance as a great teacher, he was also of crucial significance as a composer of commentaries on the works he expounded. (Jackson, "rNgog lo-tsa-ba's Commentary of the Ratnagotravibhāga," 339–340)
Although much has been said about deconstruction in Madhyamika Buddhism, very little has been done in the study of deconstructive strategy in Chan Buddhism. In his study of deconstruction in Nāgārjuna's thought, Robert Magliola adds several passages that discuss the same topic in Chan/Zen Buddhism. Magliola's major contribution is his distinction between logocentric and differential trends in Chan/Zen Buddhism (Magliola: 96-7). This distinction allows us to take a fresh look at, and to re-examine, those inner struggles in the evolution of Chan Buddhist thought. However, Magliola's study of deconstruction in Chan is not systematic, despite its insights. He uses only a few cases to show the deconstructive tendency in Chan, without applying his distinction to a closer examination of the different schools of Chan thought. Thus, his study leaves only the impression that the deconstructive or differential trend is connected with the Southern School of Chan. He does not justify this thesis through a closer doctrinal and textual-contextual investigation.<br> Bernard Faure, on the other hand, touches upon the same issue of logocentric and differential trends in Chan in his comprehensive critique of the Chan tradition. Faure's study of this issue has two main problems. First, since his study is a criticism, he shows only what he thinks is the logocentric side of Chan, without providing a constructive study of deconstruction in Chan. Second, he criticizes Magliola for relating his logocentric/differential distinction to the historically well-defined distinction between Northern and Southern Chan. Faure believes that this hasty connection is "counterproductive" (Faure 1993: 225). His own approach, as opposed to Magliola's, is to suggest that it is impossible to identify one school or one figure in the Chan tradition as either logocentric or deconstructive. He asserts that there are "only combinations" of these two types in the Chan tradition (Faure 1993: 225). It appears that this position of "combination only" avoids a one-sided view and the error of jumping to a conclusion. However, by concluding that there are only combinations, Faure turns away from the necessity and possibility of analyzing and identifying individual deconstructive trends in Chan Buddhism, and from the necessity and even the possibility of a coherent reinterpretation and reconstruction of Chan thought. The coherent reinterpretation and reconstruction of Chan thought obviously demands more than a mere criticism. It is true that the thought of one school or one figure may involve elements of two trends; but this fact does not preclude the possibility of its being coherently interpreted as representative of one trend.<br> This paper, therefore, will attempt to investigate a major deconstructive trend in Chan Buddhism, namely, that of the Huineng 惠能 and the Hongzhou 洪州 Chan, and its target—certain reifying tendencies in Chan. (Wang, preliminary remarks, 63–64)
The tantric path of Buddhism is complex and arduous, but its surprising culmination is the practice of spaciousness, ease, and simplicity known as Dzogchen, the Great Perfection. +
With an intention to contribute a little to gaining a fuller and more accurate picture of the intellectual agenda and philosophical edifice of Rong-zom Chos-kyi-bzang-po (henceforth: Rong-zom-pa), an eleventh-century Tibetan scholar, I wish to address in this article merely one question, namely, how Rong-zom-pa interprets what we shall call the positivistic ontology of the Tathāgatagarbha school'"`UNIQ--ref-0000088B-QINU`"' while he himself undoubtedly proposes a radically negativistic ontology of a Madhyamaka sub-school called Sarvadharmāpratiṣṭhānavāda. To be sure, the word ontology is used here in the sense of the philosophical theory about the true or ultimate reality of phenomena (according to any given Buddhist system).'"`UNIQ--ref-0000088C-QINU`"' In particular, the idea that the "root-less-ness" of the mind (or, the rootless mind) is the "root" of all phenomena, or ideas similar to it, is explicit in a number of textual sources that are ''de-facto'' considered the literature of the Sarvadharmāpratiṣṭhānavāda by Rong-zom-pa.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000088D-QINU`"' (Wangchuk, prologue, 87–89) +
Articles/RṄog Blo ldan śes rab's Position on the Buddha-nature Doctrine and its Influence on the Early gSaṅ phu Tradition +
The teaching that all sentient beings have Buddha-nature (''tathāgatagarbha'') was first proclaimed in the ''Tathāgatagarbhasūtra''. Developed in a series of Mahāyāna sūtras, such as the ''Śrīmālādevīsūtra'' and ''Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśasūtra'', it was then systematized in the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (abbr. ''RGV''), alias ''Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra''. The core idea of the ''RGV''’s teaching is that everyone possesses Buddha-nature. The latter does not change throughout the progression from the level of ordinary beings to that of a Buddha, it is merely purified through the separation from adventitious defilements. Once this purification is complete, awakening is accomplished.<br> Both Indian and Tibetan traditions struggled with the question of the ontological status of Buddha-nature. One finds indeed in some sūtras descriptions of Buddha-nature as permanent and pervading every sentient being, which are also characteristics ascribed by non-Buddhists to the Self (''ātman''). But if Buddha-nature were to be understood as a permanent entity akin to a Self, how could this teaching be compatible with the standard Buddhist doctrine that everything is impermanent and selfless?<br> Some Mahāyāna sūtras, such as the ''Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra'', would offer support for the assimilation of Buddha-nature with a Self. The ''Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra'' is quite explicit in associating the two notions, characterizing in particular the ''dharmakāya'' in terms of “perfection of Self” (''ātmapāramitā''), but warns about the confusion of the “correct” ''ātman'', which is Buddha-nature, with ''ātman'' taken in its ordinary sense.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C1D-QINU`"'<br> ''RGV'' I.37 and ''RGVV'' also speak of the “perfection of Self” as an epithet of the ''dharmakāya'', interpreting however this notion of “Self” (''ātman'') in the sense of selflessness (''nairātmya'') or quiescence of conceptual proliferations (''prapañca''), thus distinguishing Buddha-nature from the notion of a personal, permanent Self (''ātman'').'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C1E-QINU`"'<br> Nevertheless, the ''RGV'' does not promote the doctrine of emptiness in the sense that everything is ultimately empty of intrinsic nature. Quite on the contrary, the ''RGV'' stresses the real existence of Buddha-nature, and proclaims the superiority of the Buddha-nature doctrine to the emptiness doctrine of the ''Prajñāpāramitāsūtras''.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C1F-QINU`"'<br>
The ''RGV'' thus on the one hand distinguishes Buddha-nature from the disapproved view of a Self, while on the other hand it admits Buddha-nature as ultimately existent'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C20-QINU`"'—an ambiguous viewpoint, and a challenging one for its interpreters. . . .<br> The present paper deals with a selection of rṄog’s most significant views on the doctrine of Buddha-nature and considers some reactions to his interpretations in the works of his followers. Since the ''RGV'' commentaries attributed to two of rṄog’s "four main [spiritual] sons" (''sras kyi thu bo bźi''), Źaṅ Tshes spoṅ ba Chos kyi bla ma and Gro luṅ pa Blo gros byuṅ gnas,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C21-QINU`"' as yet remain to be found'"`UNIQ--ref-00000C22-QINU`"' we will concentrate on the next-earliest available work, a commentary by Phywa pa Chos kyi seṅ ge (1109–1169) '"`UNIQ--ref-00000C23-QINU`"' (Kano, introduction, 249–55)
S
The present paper provides newly available Sanskrit fragments (11½ verses) from the ''Triśaraṇasaptati'' attributed to Candrakīrti '"`UNIQ--ref-00000BD8-QINU`"' These verses are found in the Sanskrit manuscript of Abhayākaraguptaʼs ''Munimatālaṃkāra''.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000BD9-QINU`"'<br> The ''Triśaraṇasaptati'' is a small versified work consisting 68 ''ślokas'', the full text of which is preserved only in Tibetan translation. We find two versions (i.e. recensions) of the ''Triśaraṇasaptati'' in all the Tanjurs. The two versions are almost the same, having been translated by the same translation team (Atiśa and Rin chen bzang po).<br> Sorensen translated the Tibetan text into English and added to them six verses (12, 13, 33, 45, 46, and 47) in Sanskrit traced in the form of quotations in other works. Sorensenʼs English translation is for the most part faithful to the Tibetan text. The Tibetan translation itself, when compared with the Sanskrit original, is seen on occasion to be imprecise (see below, "Philological Remarks").<br> Other quotations from the ''Triśaraṇasaptati'' have been found in two passages in the ''Munimatālaṃkāra'': Passage A (Skt. Ms. 7v1-4; Tib. D 82a7-b3; verses 1, 34, 51, 54, 55, 67) in ''Munimatālaṃkāra'' chapter 1 (the Bodhicittāloka chapter)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000BDA-QINU`"' and Passage B (Skt. 132r1-3; Tib. D 219a5-b1; 7-9ab, 22-23) in chapter 3 (the Aṣṭābhisamayāloka chapter). When we collate these 11½ verses with the 6 verses independently collected by Sorensen, the total number becomes 17½, which is about 26% of the whole text of the ''Triśaraṇasaptati''. (Kano and Xuezhu, introductory remarks, 4) +
Serdok Paṇchen Shakya Chokden (1428-1507) stands out as one of the most remarkable thinkers of Tibet. The enormous body of his collected works is notable for the diversity and originality of the writings it contains, and for their exceptional rigor. One of the few Tibetan intellectuals affiliated with both the Sakyapa and Kagyüpa orders, which were often doctrinal and political rivals (see chapters 7 and 11), he was also among the sharpest critics of Jé Tsongkhapa (chapter 16), the founder of the Gelukpa order that would come to dominate Tibet under the Dalai Lamas. For this reason Shakya Chok- dens works were eventually banned by the Central Tibetan government. They are known to us today primarily thanks to a beautifully produced eighteenth-century man- uscript from Bhutan, where the Central Tibetan ban did not extend and the religious leadership was congenial to the blend of Sakyapa and Kagyüpa perspectives that lent Shakya Chokden s texts much of their unique flavor.<br> Among the distinctive aspects of Shakya Chokden s oeuvre are his several contributions to the history of Buddhist thought. Historical writing in Tibet (chapter 11) was interested above all in important political or religious events, and the lives of the major actors. Doctrinal or intellectual history was generally ignored, no doubt in part be- cause the outlook fostered in the monastic colleges was one of perennialism: the truths revealed in the Buddha s teaching were eternal, and thus exempt from the process of historical change. Knowledgeable scholars were, of course, aware that commentarial and interpretive traditions did have a history of sorts, but this awareness tended to be expressed in their own commentarial notes, not in dedicated doctrinal histories. In Shakya Chokden's writings, however, we find sustained historical essays on Indian and Tibetan traditions of logic and epistemology, and of the Madhyamaka philosophy inspired by Nāgārjuna. The selections given here are drawn from his work on the latter, and may serve as an introductory guide to the philosophical writings included in the remainder of this chapter.<br> Shakya Chokden's discussion turns on the distinction made by Tibetan thinkers between two types of argument, termed in the present translation "autonomous reason” and "consequence.” The first refers to the method of using positive proof to demonstrate the truth or falsehood of a given proposition. The second, by contrast, only seeks to undermine the propositions advanced by a (real or presumed) opponent by drawing out their untenable consequences, and so is similar to ''reductio ad absurdum'', or “indirect Proof,” in Western systems of logic. This distinction was often considered by Tibetans to he the basis for designating two distinct schools of Madhyamaka philosophy, Svātantrika (Autonomous Reasoning) and Prāsańgika (Consequentialist). MTK (Komarovski, ''Sources of Tibetan Tradition'', 373)
The universality of Buddha-nature is a doctrine accepted by all Chinese schools of Buddhism. The Wei-shih (Fa-hsiang, Vijñaptimātratā) school of Hsüan-tsang, for reviving the notion that the ''icchantika'' is ''agotra'', devoid of this seed of enlightenment, had been summarily dismissed as "Hīnayānist" for that reason. The idea of "the enlightenability of the ''icchantika''" is associated with the later-named
"Nirvāṇa School," a group of scholars in the Southern Dynasties (420–589) that chose to specialize on the ''Nirvāṇa Sūtra'', the Mahāyāna scripture narrating the last day and teaching of Śākyamuni on earth. The person credited with discovering this doctrine, before even the full ''sūtra'' was available to vindicate his stand, is Chu Tao-sheng (375?–434), perhaps better known for his stand on "sudden enlightenment." The school as such flourished best in the Liang dynasty (502–557); but because it was then aligned with scholarship focusing on the ''Ch'eng-shih-lun'' (Satyasiddhi?) by Harivarman, it came under criticism when the latter was denounced as Hīnayānist in the Sui dynasty. It is usually said that the T'ien-t'ai school, based on the Lotus Sūtra, superseded the Nirvāṇa school by incorporating many of its ideas, while the Ch'eng-shih school suffered irredeemably under the attack of Chi-tsang of the San-lun (Three Treatise or Mādhyamika) school at the same time. Henceforth, the Nirvāṇa school faded away while its old association with the Ch'eng-shih tradition was judged an unnecessary mistake.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' This article will introduce three moments from the history of this Nirvana school, showing the main trends of development and, somewhat contrary to traditional opinion, justifying the necessity for the detour into Harivarman's scholarship. Emphasis will also be put on the interaction between Buddhist reflections and the native traditions. (Lai, "Sinitic Speculations," 135) +
This electronic resource contains various translations from Stephen Hodge of diverse parts of the ''Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra''. It is presented on Dr. Tony Page's website Nirvana Sutra: Appreciation of the "Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra." According to Page, the passages translated by Hodge were taken from various parts of the Dharmakṣema ''Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra'' and constitute words spoken by the Buddha within the sūtra. Hodge's translations are presented in four parts (on four separate pages) within Page's website. They include: [https://www.nirvanasutra.net/stephenhodgetranslates.htm Stephen Hodge Translates], [https://www.nirvanasutra.net/stephenhodgetrans2.htm Stephen Hodge Translates 2], [https://www.nirvanasutra.net/shodgetranslates3.htm Stephen Hodge Translates 3], and [https://www.nirvanasutra.net/stephenhodgetrans4.htm Stephen Hodge Translates 4]. +
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Articles/T'ien-T'ai Chih-I's Theory of Buddha Nature—A Realistic and Humanistic Understanding of the Buddha +
Heng-ching Shih, in her contribution, explores in some detail the T'ien-t'ai view of Buddha Nature, with a special focus on the question of evil. This is clearly a difficult issue for any philosophical school whose basic affirmation is that all living beings are naturally and originally pure and radiant: how, if this is true, can one account for the apparent existence of evil, the opposite or absence of this purity and radiance? Shih's chronological review of the development of the theory of "inherent evil" in T'ien-t'ai begins with the ''Ta ch'eng chih-kuan fa men'' which, in accord with the tradition, she judges to predate Chih-i himself, and then proceeds to an analysis of the ''Kuan-yin hsüan-i'', a work that, again following tradition, she
attributes to Chih-i. It is probably fair to say that the weight of contemporary historical-critical scholarship in both Japan and the West is against both this chronology and this attribution; Shih is, of course, aware of this, but judges the arguments against the traditional position to be inconclusive. The matter is complex, and the importance of Shih's paper lies not in this but rather in the substantive doctrinal analysis she provides of "inherent evil". (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to ''Buddha Nature'', 6) +
Articles/Tathāgatagarbha from the Perspective of Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje as Presented in His Lamp that Eloquently Highlights the Tradition of the Gzhan stong Madhyamaka Proponents +
In his ''Lamp'', Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje equates ''tathāgatagarbha'' with the ''dharmadhātu'' which is realized through self-aware, self-luminous wisdom. He maintains that there is no dependency on extraneous factors; buddha nature, so to speak, is self-sufficient, bringing about its perfect awakening by means of personally experienced wisdom. ''Tathāgatagarbha'' is spontaneously endowed with qualities and activities and is permanent in the specific sense that it remains unchanging throughout the three phases and thus its beneficial activities never come to an end. Therefore, the absolute, ''tathāgatagarbha'', being effective, i.e. of benefit, for itself and for others, is empty of afflictions, but not empty of qualities. lt is from this point of view that the text—despite the fact that the term ''gzhan stong'' is nowhere to be found—can well be understood as a way of highlighting the intent of the proponents of ''gzhan stong'' Madhyamaka. Mi bskyod rdo rje, following the lead of Maitreya-Asaṅga with their cataphatic appraisal of the absolute, equates ''tathāgatagarbha'' with the ''dharmakāya'', with the expanse of ''nirvāṇa'', and with perfect awakening replete with qualities. To him this is the essential meaning of Madhyamaka, and it is for this reason that he frequently refers to Asaṅga as the Great Madhyamika. It is against this background that Mi bskyod rdo rje criticizes those Madhyamaka representatives who do not comprehend the meaning of the third dharma cycle and who therefore view ''tathāgatagarbha'' and its associated buddha qualities and activities exclusively from the perspective of a non-affirming negation. (Draszczyk, conclusion, 157) +
This paper has three aims. First, to demonstrate the irreducible ambiguity of what we may very generally call the Buddha's real or essential nature (as we find it in certain Mahāyāna texts). Secondly, to give an explanation of how this ambiguity arose within the Mahāyāna. Thirdly, to see how the Chinese handled this ambiguity. Since my argument takes some time to unfold, I give a summary straightaway without supporting evidence <br> The concept of the Buddha's real or essential nature is referred to by (or better: rests upon) many different Sanskrit terms - e.g. (''tathāgata''-)''dhātu'', (''buddha''-)''gotra'', (''tathāgata''-)''garbha'', ''dharmatā'', ''dharma-kāya'', ''buddhatā''. Other terms that are closely related are ''Tathatā'', ''āśraya'', ''prakṛti'', ''prabhāsvara-citta'', ''dharma-dhātu'', ''buddha-jñāna''.'"`UNIQ--ref-000011ED-QINU`"' So when we speak of the Buddha-nature (which is how I will abbreviate the more cumbersome 'the Buddha's real or essential nature' from now on), we are tacitly drawing upon some or all of these terms, which have their own ramifications and interrelations, of course. This is a very complex situation and I want to try and clarify it by approaching it from two angles. First, ''historically'', I want to propose that Buddhism in India always had within it three strands which tended to view and understand the Dharma from their own standpoint; these strands are those of ''śīla'', ''samādhi'' and ''prajñā'' (see p. 262 for details). Secondly, ''conceptually'', I propose a number of what may be called conceptual nets or images (e.g. withinness, foundation, nature/being—see p. 263 for details) that can be applied to the concept of the Buddha-nature, and which (a) tend to hang together as a group, but in addition (b) ''each'' of the conceptual nets to a large extent determines the sort of terminology that is used when speaking of the Buddha-nature. Part of my argument is that works like the ''RGV'' (and to a lesser degree, the ''ŚMS'') represent a systematization of the different terms (and hence, tacitly, the conceptual nets that give rise to these terms) that were available at the time that the Mahāyāna was growing to maturity.'"`UNIQ--ref-000011EE-QINU`"' This period of the Mahāyāna is usually referred to as the third turning of the Dharma-cakra; it involved a fundamental shift in the axis of Buddhism which led to a ''bhedābheda'' philosophy (i.e. the Absolute is both distinct and non-distinct from its attributes). Finally, we look at what the Chinese made of all this. They settled on the term ''fo hsing'' to mean 'Buddha-nature', but we find that ''hsing'' is used to translate different Sanskrit terms (e.g. ''prakṛti'', ''gotra'', ''bhāva''—see p. 267 for details), and that these Sanskrit terms are themselves translated by other words than ''hsing'' (e.g. ''t'i'', ''shen'', ''chen'', ''shih''). In other words, the inherent ambiguities in the Sanskrit terminology are replaced by inherent ambiguities in the Chinese terminology. In addition, because ''garbha'' (which nearly always means 'embryo' in Sanskrit) is translated by ''ts'ang'', ( = 'womb'; lit. 'storehouse'), a certain vacuum was created in the Chinese vocabulary which the terms ''fo hsing'' and ''fo hsin'' ( = ''buddha-citta'') neatly filled. (Rawlinson, introductory remarks, 259–60)
Articles/The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga-Review by Griffiths +
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)<br><br>
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/603064?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=Review&searchText=of&searchText=The&searchText=Buddha&searchText=within&searchText=Tathagatagarbha&searchText=Doctrine&searchText=According&searchText=to&searchText=the&searchText=Shentong&searchText=Interpretation&searchText=of&searchText=the&searchText=Ratnagotravibhaga&searchText=by&searchText=S.&searchText=K.&searchText=Hookham&searchText=%28Griffiths%29&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3DReview%2Bof%2BThe%2BBuddha%2Bwithin%253A%2BTathagatagarbha%2BDoctrine%2BAccording%2Bto%2Bthe%2BShentong%2BInterpretation%2Bof%2Bthe%2BRatnagotravibhaga%2Bby%2BS.%2BK.%2BHookham%2B%2528Griffiths%2529%26amp%3Bacc%3Doff%26amp%3Bwc%3Don%26amp%3Bfc%3Doff%26amp%3Bgroup%3Dnone&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_SYC-5152%2Fcontrol&refreqid=search%3A7a0bb245a797898c5e5d056546e1b060&seq=1 Read more here . . .]
Articles/The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga-Review by Need +
In ''The Buddha Within'', Dr. S. K. Hookham reworks her dissertation (Oxford, 1986) outlining the Shentong'"`UNIQ--ref-0000041D-QINU`"' tradition in Tibet and its view of ultimate reality. "Shentong" (''gzhan stong'', other-empty) is a term used in Tibet to refer to a view of ultimate reality as a wisdom consciousness empty or free of the illusory phenomena of conditioned existence. Such a view owes heavily to the description of ultimate reality in the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtras and in the tantras. One of the earliest proponents of this view was the Jo-nang-pa scholar, Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (''dol-po-pa shes-rab rgyal-mtshan'', 1292-1361), whose massive study titled ''The Mountain Dharma: An Ocean of Definitive Meaning'' (''ri chos nges don rgya mtsho'') outlined this doctrine, extensively citing from sūtra and tantra in support of his position. The Shentong position advanced by Dolpopa and later by such figures as the seventh Karmapa (1454-1506), the Sakya scholar, Sakya Chogden (''gser-mdog paṇ-chen Śākya mchog-ldan'', 1428-1507), and most recently by one of the founders of the Rimay (''ris med'', nonsectarian) movement of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries,'"`UNIQ--ref-0000041E-QINU`"' Jamgon Kontrol Lodro Thayay ('''jam-mgon kong-sprul blo-gros mtha'-yas'', 1813-1899), was the object of sustained critique by scholars of other schools-notably those of the Geluk-pa tradition-who advanced what is called a "rangtong" (''rang stong'', self-empty) view of ultimate reality. These scholars held the ultimate truth to be an existent object of knowledge cognized by a wisdom consciousness. Such an object of a wisdom consciousness is held to be a nonaffirming negative—the absence of the inherent existence of any given phenomena, most importantly the self. Shentong advocates argue that this view of ultimate reality fails to account adequately for the qualities associated with a Buddha's wisdom, although it does account for the nature of illusory phenomena. (Need, "Review of ''The Buddha Within''," 585)
It has come to be acknowledged in the present century that Dōgen is one of the most seminal thinkers of Japanese Buddhism. For nearly seven centuries, however, he has been buried in oblivion, except within the Sōtō School of Zen that reveres Dōgen as its founder. Even the Sōtō School contributed to the obscurity of their founder by prohibiting the publication of Dōgen’s major work, ''Shōbōgenzō'' until the end of the eighteenth century.<br> Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960) brought Dōgen out of this long period of obscurity with his treatise ''Shamon Dōgen'' written between 1919 and 1921.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000D58-QINU`"' Watsuji's contribution, however, is not limited to his introduction of Dōgen to public attention. Instead of treating Dōgen as the founder of the Sōtō School, he presents him as a human being, a person, a man (''hito''):<br>
: ...it may be justifiable to assert that I opened a gate to a new interpretation of Dōgen. He thereby becomes not the Dōgen of a sect but of mankind; not the founder Dōgen but rather our Dōgen. The reason why I claim it so daringly is due to my realization that his truth was killed by sheer sectarian treatments (Watsuji 1925，p. 160).<br>
This realization grew out of Watsuji’s effort to solve the problem of how a layman like himself could attempt to understand Dōgen's "truth" without engaging in the rigorous training prescribed by the Zen tradition (Watsuji 1925, p , 156). A sectarian would claim that the "truth" must be experienced immediately and that any attempt to verbalize or conceptualize it constitutes falsification. If the immediate experience is the only gateway to the "truth," as the sectarian would claim, why did Dōgen himself write so much? Dōgen believed that it was through writing that his truth was to be transmitted to others. For his own religious training, he singlemindedly concentrated on sitting in meditation; yet he saw no intrinsic conflict between sitting and writing. This is why Dōgen started writing ''Shōbōgenzō'' in 1231: so that he might be able to "transmit the
Buddha’s authentic Dharma to those who are misguided by false teachers" (Watsuji 1925, p. 157). Watsuji further quotes from Dogen: "Although it (''Shōbōgenzō'') might appear to be a mere 'theory,' it still bears indispensable importance for the sake of Dharma" (1925，p. 157). Thus Watsuji claims that his approach, which relies on words and concepts, is a valid alternative to the monk’s subjective pursuit.<br> According to Dōgen, enlightenment is possible only through rigorous sitting in meditation (''kufū zazen'') and through the study of Dharma under a master (''sanshi monpō''). One can encounter Dōgen as a master through his writings, for he answers one’s questions in his works. But one still must practice sitting in meditation. Watsuji insists that meditation can be done in an office or a study as well as in a meditation hall; he even goes so far as to say that perhaps a study may be a more congenial place for this purpose than a meditation hall when many monasteries are no longer concerned with the transmission of the truth but are immersed in secular concerns (1925，p. 158). Therefore, for Watsuji, meditation does not necessarily require the act of entering a monastery.<br> Of the two prerequisites for the realization of the truth, sitting in meditation is left to the individual. But the other, the pursuit of Dharma under a master, is Watsuji's principle concern. ''Shamon Dogen'' is an account of Watsuji's personal encounter with the person of Dōgen as he speaks in his writings, primarily ''Shōbōgenzō'' and ''Shōbōgenzō zuimonki'', the latter of which was compiled by Ejō, Dōgen's closest disciple. In Watsuji's treatise, we encounter not only Watsuji as he faced Dōgen but Dōgen himself.<br> Watsuji’s new methodology considers it central to discover and encounter the person (''hito'') of Dōgen in his works.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000D59-QINU`"' Many people have followed Watsuji’s methodology. Professor Tamaki Kōshirō of the University of Tokyo, for instance, remarks that not only was he first exposed to Dōgen through Watsuji, but also that he encountered the living Dōgen in Watsuji’s treatise.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000D5A-QINU`"'<br> This writer finds Watsuji's methodology to be particularly applicable to the study of Dōgen. Dōgen himself saw the truth fully embodied in the personhood of his Chinese master, Juching. Dōgen's encounter with this individual was the single
most decisive experience in his life, as is abundantly attested in his writings. Furthermore, Dōgen repeatedly discouraged his disciples from associating with institutionalized Zen. This paper, therefore, is the result of the writer’s attempt to encounter the personhood of Dōgen.<br> While this writer uses Watsuji’s methodology, the main body of literature that is examined in this paper is the chapter of Dōgen’s ''Shōbōgenzō'' devoted to the ''busshō'' or Buddha-nature. The reasons for this choice are three. The question that tormented the young monk Dōgen concerned the Buddha-nature. Dōgen's search for the answer to this question took him to the eminent monks of his time: Kōen of Mt. Hiei; Kōin of Miidera temple;
Yōsai of Kenninji temple; Myōzen, who succeeded Yōsai at this first Rinzai Zen monastery in Japan; Wu-chi Liao-pai and finally T'ien-t'ung Ju-ching in Southern Sung China. This pilgrimage spanned a period of over ten years ending in 1225 when he attained enlightenment under Ju-ching’s instruction and solved his question. Thus it is possible to look at Dōgen's formative years as a continuing struggle with the fundamental question he first raised on Mt. Hiei. Secondly, the Buddha-nature chapter is one of the longest of the ninety-two chapters, in the ''Shōbōgenzō'' which may suggest Dōgen's particular concern for the subject matter. Lastly, the original manuscript of this chapter, now preserved in Eiheiji temple, bears witness to the fact that Dōgen laboriously revised the chapter a number of times. Study of the Buddha-nature chapter, therefore, can
reasonably be taken as central to understanding Dōgen's life and thought. (Kodera, "The Buddha-nature in Dogen's
''Shōbōgenzō''," 267–70)<br><br>
[https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2797 Read more here . . . ]
Articles/The Buddhist Notion of an 'Immanent Absolute' (tathāgatagarbha) as a Problem in Hermeneutics +
As a religious and philosophical tradition works out its own stock of ideas and encounters fresh ones among its neighbours, it must very often generate responses to developing tensions and oppositions unless it is simply to turn in on itself, both ossifying and isolating itself from its intellectual and human environment. Buddhism has not ossified and isolated itself in this way, and it has met such challenges not only in its spread outside the Indian subcontinent—in Central, East and Southeast Asia, and now also in Europe and America—but also, and no less importantly, in the course of its development within historical India itself.<br> One way in which Buddhism has responded to these intellectual and cultural encounters can be related to hermeneutics: that is, the modes by which a tradition explains its sources and thereby interprets (or reinterprets) itself in a continuing process of reactivation and renewal of its heritage.'"`UNIQ--ref-000005D0-QINU`"'<br> In the case of Buddhism this process—perhaps comparable in part to what in another context is now frequently referred to as ''aggiornamento''—had both endogenous and exogenous causes. It was, in other words, set in train both by internal, systemically generated requirements and tensions within the Buddhist tradition as it evolved in geographical space and historical time, and by external impulses received from its intellectual and social environment, which could be, according to the case, either positive or negative in character.<br> The purpose of this paper is to explore this process with respect to the Buddhist hermeneutics of the ideas of non-self (''anatman'') and of a spiritual matrix or germ (''gotra'', ''tathagatagarbha'' or Buddha-nature) and the relationship of this pair of ideas to Vedantic notions and Brahmanical social groups in classical India. Reference will be made also to certain exegetical developments that either originated in Tibet or were at least fully realized there for the first time. Our analysis will revolve around the fact that, however historically antithetical and structurally contrasting these two ideas are in Buddhism, they in fact have not invariably been treated by Buddhist hermeneuticians as contradictory or even as systematically exclusive of each other.<br> Because of its philosophical and religious significance in the fields of soteriology and gnoseology, the Mahāyānist theory of the ''tathāgatagarbha''—the Germ of Buddhahood latent in all sentient beings—occupies a crucial position in Buddhist thought, and indeed in Indian thought as a whole. In virtue of both their extent and their contents, the sūtras treating the ''tathāgatagarbha''—and the systematically related doctrines of the natural luminosity (''prakṛtiprabhāsvaratā'') of mind (''citta'') and the spiritual germ existent by nature (''prakṛtistha-gotra'')'"`UNIQ--ref-000005D1-QINU`"'—are amongst the most important in the Mahāyāna. The idea that the doctrine of the ''tathāgatagarbha'' and Buddha-nature is one of the supreme teachings of the Mahāyāna is explicitly stated in the ''Mahāparinirvāṇa-sutra''.'"`UNIQ--ref-000005D2-QINU`"'<br> Mahāyānist doctrine is in large part concerned with the path (''marga'') of the Bodhisattva and supreme and perfect awakening (''bodhi''), that is, the state of a Buddha. The terms ''tathāgatagarbha'' and ''gotra'' are used to denote the base or support for practice of the path, and hence the 'cause' (''hetu'': ''dhatu'') for attainment of the fruit (''phala'') of buddhahood. Even when the texts do not employ the term ''tathāgatagarbha'' to designate this factor as the one which makes it possible for all living beings ultimately to attain liberation and Buddhahood, the importance of the theme of the ''tathāgatagarbha'' is basic to the soteriology and gnoseology of the Mahāyāna. (Ruegg, "The Buddhist Notion of an 'Immanent Absolute'," 229–30)
In a provocative essay entitled "Sacred Persistence: Toward a Redescription of Canon"'"`UNIQ--ref-00003FC7-QINU`"' Jonathan Z. Smith describes the process of self-limitation that occurs when a tradition comes to define for itself (and to define itself in terms of) a canon. There he states that "the radical and arbitrary reduction represented by the notion of canon and the ingenuity represented by the rule-governed exegetical enterprise of applying the canon to every dimension of human life is that most characteristic, persistent, and obsessive religious activity."'"`UNIQ--ref-00003FC8-QINU`"' Perhaps the most important shortcoming of what is an otherwise masterful essay on the subject of religious canons and their interpretation is Smith's apparent lack of concern with the causal processes underlying the formation of canons and specifically with the social implications of the exclusion of texts or other religious elements from a canon. Contrary to Smith's claim, it has become quite clear, especially in the scholarship of the past decade, that the "reduction" involved in the process of canon-formation is never, as he suggests, "arbitrary". Instead, religious texts come to be considered canonical usually at the expense of other texts that are ''consciously'' excluded and thereby denied normative status. To say that the decision to exclude a particular work is conscious and not arbitrary is to point out that it is ideologically motivated (at times only implicitly so), that it arises within a specific historical and sociocultural context and, perhaps the most significant point, that it is an act of the religious hegemony.'"`UNIQ--ref-00003FC9-QINU`"'
This question aside, seeing the canon as a predicament, i.e., as a tradition's self-imposed limitation, and viewing the exegetical enterprise as the means whereby a tradition extricates itself from this predicament, is indeed a provocative way of formulating the problematic of religious canons. In this essay I intend to employ Smith's notion as a springboard for discussing the Indo-Tibetan concept of ''siddhānta'' (Tibetan ''grub mtha''', literally 'tenet'), a concept that represents on the level of philosophical ideas this same process of self-limitation. I will maintain that the adoption of such a schema serves functionally to "canonize" philosophy in much the same way as the collection of accepted scriptural texts creates a norm for what is textually canonical. I shall also examine some of the rhetorical strategies involved in utilizing and upholding the validity of the ''siddhānta'' schema. In particular, in the latter part of the essay I will turn my attention to the exegesis of the Tibetan dGe lugs pa school and shall examine how this brand of Buddhist scholasticism deals with the problems that arise out of the self-limitation that occurs in the course of canonizing its philosophical tradition. As might be expected, the examples that best illustrate the unique dGe lugs pa exposition of ''siddhānta'' have to do with points of controversy, and among these some of the most controversial have to do with the theory of Buddha Nature. Hence, much of the material that we shall consider will in one way or another have to do with the notion of ''tathāgatagarbha''.
In what follows I shall urge, first of all, that in the scholastic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, especially in the literature of the dGe lugs pa sect, the ''siddhānta'' schematization served as a de facto canonization of Buddhist philosophy that came to defme what was philosophically normative.'"`UNIQ--ref-00003FCA-QINU`"' Secondly, I shall maintain that, despite the fact that Tibetan exegetes have arrived at only a tentative consensus'"`UNIQ--ref-00003FCB-QINU`"' as to the nature of the textual canons,'"`UNIQ--ref-00003FCC-QINU`"' the determination of whether or not a doctrine was normatively Buddhist (and if so either provisionally or unequivocally true)'"`UNIQ--ref-00003FCD-QINU`"' involved to a great extent a rhetoric that had as its basic presupposition the validity of the ''siddhānta'' schema. Put in another way, philosophical discourse (and particularly polemics) was based as much on the ''siddhānta'' classification scheme as it was on the physical canons, the collection of the "Buddha's word" and the commentarial literature whose creation it spurred. In many instances the ''siddhānta'' schema that formed the doctrinal or philosophical canon came to supersede the physical canon as the standard by comparison with which new ideas or texts came to achieve legitimacy.'"`UNIQ--ref-00003FCE-QINU`"' (Cabezón, "The Canonization of Philosophy," 7–9)
Articles/The Categories of T'i, Hsiang, and Yung: Evidence that Paramārtha Composed the Awakening of Faith +
The question of whether Paramārtha's version of the ''Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (AFM)'''"`UNIQ--ref-000036F5-QINU`"' may really be a Chinese composition has long intrigued scholars of Buddhism. Because no original Sanskrit manuscript of the ''AFM'' has ever been found nor any reference to the ''AFM'' discovered in any Buddhist text composed in India, scholars have long suspected that the ''AFM'' might not be a Chinese translation of an Indian work. The traditional attribution of the text to Aśvaghoṣa is even more suspect—as Paul Demiéville pointed out, it is almost impossible to believe that the Aśvaghoṣa whom one associates with the ''Buddhacarita'', the ''Mahāvibhāṣā'', and the Sarvāstivadins could have composed any Mahāyāna text, much less a sophisticated Mahāyāna treatise like the ''AFM''.'"`UNIQ--ref-000036F6-QINU`"' And the discovery at the beginning of this century of Japanese references to the seventh century Buddhist figure Hui-chun, who is quoted as saying that the ''AFM'' was composed not by Aśvaghoṣa, but by a "prisoner of war" who belonged to the ''T'i lun'' School,'"`UNIQ--ref-000036F7-QINU`"' prompted many distinguished scholars, including Shinko Mochizuki and Walter Liebenthal, to argue that the work was a Chinese fabrication by a person affiliated with the native Chinese ''T'i lun'' School, which devoted itself to the study of Vasubandhu's ''Daśabhūmivyākhyā''.'"`UNIQ--ref-000036F8-QINU`"' Indeed, as recently as 1958, Liebenthal went so far as to say that one could take it as "established" that a member of the ''T'i lun'' School composed the ''AFM''.'"`UNIQ--ref-000036F9-QINU`"' Few would go so far as actually to name the member of the ''T'i lun'' School who wrote the ''AFM'', as Liebenthal did (indeed, as Liebenthal himself remarked, it is difficult to believe that any member of the ''T'i lun'' School could have written the ''AFM'', given that the author of the ''AFM'' does not even seem to know the ten ''bodhisattvabhūmis'' described in the ''Daśabhūmivyākhya''),'"`UNIQ--ref-000036FA-QINU`"' but for a long time scholarly opinion has leaned in the direction of assigning authorship of the ''AFM'' to the Chinese. Just recently Professor Whalen Lai has brought forward some cogent new reasons for regarding the ''AFM'' as a Chinese composition.'"`UNIQ--ref-000036FB-QINU`"'<br> In light of all this, it might seem rather daring to suggest that an Indian actually composed the ''AFM'', but that is what I propose to argue. I do not intend to suggest that the Sarvāstivādin Aśvaghoṣa, or even a "Mahāyāna Aśvaghoṣa" composed the ''AFM''. The first place that any Aśvaghoṣa is listed as the author of the text is in Hui-yüan's ''Ta-ch'êng i chang'', a work composed about a half century after Paramārtha was said to have translated the ''AFM'', so the attribution of the text to Aśvaghoṣa probably postdated its composition. But there are a couple of pieces of important philological evidence, heretofore largely overlooked, that seem to point strongly to an Indian Buddhist, most likely Paramārtha himself, as the real author of the text, or at least of major parts of it '"`UNIQ--ref-000036FC-QINU`"' The first piece of evidence is the use in the ''AFM'' of the three categories of ''t'i'', ''hsiang'', and ''yung'', categories which I will try to show were derived by the author of the ''AFM'' from Sanskrit categories used in the ''Ratnagotravibhāgamahāyānottaratantraśāstra (RGV)'' and which could not have been formulated by anyone who did not possess a knowledge of Sanskrit. The second piece of evidence is Paramārtha's interpolation of passages from the ''RGV'' into the ''Mahāyānasaṃgrahabhāṣya (MSbh)'', which seems to show not only that Paramārtha was intimately familiar with the ''RGV'' and its categories, but also that he was personally concerned about issues central to the ''AFM''. When examined together with some interesting biographical details from accounts of Paramārtha's life, this evidence seems to suggest the very real possibility that Paramārtha was the author of the ''AFM''. (Grosnick, introduction, 65–66)<br><br>[https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8748/2655 Read more here . . .]
Articles/The Collection of 'Indian Mahāmudrā Works' (Tib. phyag chen rgya gzhung) Compiled by the Seventh Karma pa Chos grags rgya mtsho +
In the thirteenth century certain aspects of the Bka’ brgyud teachings on mahāmudrā became highly controversial, such as the assertion of the possibility of a sudden liberating realisation or of a beginner’s attaining mahāmudrā even without tantric empowerment. Such teachings were propagated by Sgam po pa (1079–1153), but criticised by Sa skya Paṇḍita (1182–1251), who maintained that there is no conventional expression for mahāmudrā in the pāramitā tradition and that the wisdom of mahāmudrā can only be a wisdom that has arisen from empowerment. ’Gos Lo tsā ba Gzhon nu dpal (1392–1481) defended Sgam po pa’s notion of mahāmudrā, however, by pointing out its Indian origins in the persons of Jñānakīrti (tenth/eleventh century)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000FEC-QINU`"' and Maitrīpa (ca. 1007–ca. 1085), together with the latter’s disciple Sahajavajra (eleventh century).'"`UNIQ--ref-00000FED-QINU`"' The works of these masters belong to a genre of literature that was eventually called "Indian mahāmudrā works" (''phyag chen rgya gzhung''). (Mathes, introduction, 89–90)<br><br>
[https://www.academia.edu/5613403/Mathes2011_The_Collection_of_Indian_Mah%C4%81mudr%C4%81_Works_phyag_chen_rgya_gzhung_Compiled_by_the_Seventh_Karma_pa_Chos_grags_rgya_mtsho Read more here . . .] +
Articles/The Direct and Gradual Approaches of Zen Master Mahāyāna: Fragments of the Teachings of Mo-ho-yen +
Luis O. Gomez, in "The Direct and the Gradual Approaches of Zen Master Mahayana: Fragments of the Teachings of Mo-ho-yen," edits and translates the sayings and works preserved in Tibetan in scattered fragments of the Ch'an master Mo-ho-yen, who took part in a dispute between Chinese Ch'an teachers and Indian Madhyamika teachers in Tibet in the last half of the eighth century. An attempt is made to reconstruct the original texts and sort them into five genres. Not all the fragments attributed to Mo-ho-yen are included, but this is the most comprehensive work to date.<br> In the analysis of the texts, the author suggests that Mo-ho-yen's doctrinal position was that of an extreme non-dualist who thought practice came after enlightenment. Consequently Mo-ho-yen denied the value of means to that enlightenment, yet he still had to allow for a means for people of lesser abilities. This admission probably gave his opponents grounds for criticism.<br> There is a glossary of Tibetan terms and their Chinese equivalents based on a comparison of the fragments in Tibetan with the Chinese of the ''Tun-wu Ta-sheng cheng-li chüeh'' which depicts Mo-ho-yen's side of the dispute (for which it may have been profitable to consult Hasebe Koichi's edition from the Pelliot and Stein Chinese manuscripts, the "Toban Bukkyō to Zen", ''Aichigakuin Daigaku bungakubu kiyō'' no. 1). Gomez in fact suggests that terminological ambiguity was one source of misunderstanding between the Chinese and Indian parties. Recently R.A. Stein has begun work on the Tibetan translations of Chinese and Indian vocabulary ("Tibetica Antiqua", BEFEO 72, 1983) which sheds more light on the subject. For example, ''lun'' and ''mdo'' (Gomez p. 87, notes 23 and 39), or ''gzhung'' and ''gzhun'' (Gomez p. 140) are interpreted slightly differently by Stein (pp. 175-6 and p. 179 respectively). (John Jorgensen, "Review of ''Studies in Ch'an and Hua-yan''," ''JIABS'' 9, no. 2 (1986): 177–78).
John P. Keenan, in his essay on Paramārtha and Hui-K'ai, explores the complex process by which Indian Buddhist texts were transmitted into China, and argues for the pervasive influence, both linguistic and conceptual, of pre-Buddhist Taoist ideas upon that process. This influence, he argues, was essentially "centrist" in that Taoist thought then focused upon nonbeing as the source or matrix of being, and upon the importance of the "original nature" of human persons; such ideas were naturally conducive to an emphasis upon Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha Nature terms and concepts, for the interpretive tools for understanding them were already present in China, while this was not the case for Indian ideas about ''sūnyatā'' and the dialectic of the two truths.<br>
To illustrate this general point Keenan considers the case of the translator Paramārtha and his amanuensis Hui-k'ai, and shows that in their work on Indic texts they not infrequently added references to ''tathtāgatagarbha'' and Buddha Nature where no such mention was made in the originals; they thus contributed to the centrality of Buddha Nature thought in East Asian Buddhism. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to ''Buddha Nature'', 5) +
One of the most important arguments made by the exponents of Critical Buddhism is, as Matsumoto Shirõ asserts in the title of one of his papers, that "The Doctrine of ''Tathāgata-garbha'' Is Not Buddhist." In brief, the claim made by Matsumoto and Hakamaya Noriaki is that ''tathāgata-garbha'' or Buddha-nature thought is ''dhātu-vāda'', an essentialist philosophy closely akin to the monism of the Upaniṣads. In Matsumoto and Hakamaya’s view, only thought that strictly adheres to the anti-essentialist principle of ''pratītyasamutpāda'' taught by Śākyamuni should be recognized as Buddhist. Buddha-nature thought, being a ''dhātu-vāda'' or essentialist philosophy, is in fundamental violation of this requirement and consequently should not be regarded as Buddhist. On the basis of this reading of Buddha-nature thought, Matsumoto and Hakamaya proceed to make the several subsequent claims documented in this volume. Since the assertion that Buddha-nature thought is ''dhātu-vāda'' is such a foundational claim, I will focus my remarks upon this one point in their corpus, though at the end of this chapter I will have a few words to say regarding their charge that Buddha-nature thought is to blame for the weakness of Japanese Buddhist social ethics.<br> I propose in this paper to challenge Matsumoto and Hakamaya’s reading of Buddha-nature thought. In my understanding, while Buddha-nature thought uses some of the terminology of essentialist and monistic philosophy, and thus may give the reader the impression that it is essentialist or monistic, a careful study of how those terms are used—how they actually function in the text—leads the reader to a very different conclusion. I will attempt to demonstrate that Buddha-nature thought is by no means ''dhātu-vāda'' as charged, but is instead an impeccably Buddhist variety of thought, based firmly on the idea of emptiness, which in turn is a development of the principle of ''pratītyasamutpāda''<br> In making my remarks I draw upon the exposition of Buddha-nature thought given in the ''Buddha-Nature Treatise'' (''Fo hsing lun''), attributed to Vasubandhu and translated into Chinese by Paramārtha.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000D45-QINU`"' The ''Buddha-Nature Treatise'' is a particularly useful text to consult in this matter inasmuch as it constitutes a considered attempt, by an author of great philosophical sophistication, to articulate the Buddha-nature concept per se and to explain both its philosophical meaning and its soteriological function. Indeed, the author is savvy enough to have anticipated the criticisms that this concept would face, including the particular criticisms leveled in our time by Matsumoto and Hakamaya, and to have effectively countered them in the 6th century CE. In this chapter, then, I will consider some of these criticisms in turn and see how the author of the ''Buddha-Nature Treatise'' defends as Buddhist the concept of Buddha-nature and the language in which it is expressed.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000D46-QINU`"' (King, "The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature Is Impeccably Buddhist," 174–75)
In the Buddhist Canon, there are two main corpuses of texts which go by the name ''Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra'' (henceforth abbreviated to ''MNS'') and have as their main concern the recounting of the events and dialogues of the last days of the Buddha. The first, presumably of earlier origin, is a comprehensive compendium of Hīnayāna ideas and precepts. It exists today in its Pali, Sanskrit and Chinese versions, and for its attention to factual details has been resorted to as the principal source of reference in most standard studies of the Buddha's life. As for the second, only its Chinese and Tibetan translations are still extant.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000343-QINU`"' While it also relates some of the well-known episodes of the final months of the Buddha Śākyamuni, notably his illness and the last meal offered by Cunda, such narrations are treated in the work merely as convenient spring-boards for the expression of such standard Mahayana ideas as the eternal nature of Buddhahood and expedience as method of instruction. Both in style and content, this corpus exhibits the disregard of historical particulars and the fascination with the supernatural and the ideal which characterize Mahāyāna writings in general. As a Mahāyāna sūtra, it is of rather late date, for it mentions such influential "middle Mahāyāna" works as the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra'' and the ''Śūraṃgamasaṃādhi-nirdeśa'' in its text, and so could
not have been compiled before the second century A.D.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000344-QINU`"' It is this Mahāyāna version of the ''MNS'' which we are going to examine in our present study. (Liu, introduction, 63) +
Articles/The Dust Contemplation: A Study and Translation of a Newly Discovered Chinese Yogācāra Meditation Treatise from the Haneda Dunhuang Manuscripts of the Kyo-U Library +
The publication between 2009 and 2013 of the Haneda manuscripts housed the Kyo-U Library (''Kyōu shooku'') in Osaka was a momentous occasion for Dunhuang studies.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"' This collection of over seven hundred documents, assembled by Haneda Tōru (1882-1955) on the basis of the famed collection of Li Shengduo (1859-1937) with further materials later added, is the world’s fifth most significant repository of Dunhuang manuscripts after those in London, Paris, Beijing, and St. Petersburg.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' Now that these sources are at long last available to scholars, many exciting discoveries await historians of medieval China and medieval Chinese Buddhism in particular.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"'<br> In this article I introduce a previously unknown, late seventh-century (as I shall argue) Buddhist text from this collection: Hane[da] manuscript no. 598, a single scroll bearing at its conclusion the title "Method for the Contemplation of Dust'"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"' as Empty" (''Chen kong guan men'').'"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"' The ''Dust Contemplation'', as I will call it, is a unique and surprisingly concrete set of instructions for the practice of Buddhist meditation based on the doctrines and technical vocabulary of the early Chinese Yogācāra tradition, particularly (but not exclusively) those often linked by modern scholars to the so-called Shelun commentarial tradition (Shelunzong), which drew primary inspiration from the Yogācāra scriptures translated by
Paramārtha (Zhendi; 499–569) and which flourished during the late sixth and early seventh centuries.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000006-QINU`"' (Greene, introductory remarks, 1–2) +
A teaching on buddha-nature by a prominent American Buddhist teacher. +
Articles/The Gzhan stong Model of Reality: Some More Material on Its Origin, Transmission, and Interpretation +
By the time Tibetans inherited Indian Buddhism, it had already witnessed two major doctrinal developments, namely the notion of the Prajñāpāramitāsūtras that all factors of existence (''dharmas'') lack an own-being (emptiness), and the Yogācāra interpretation of this emptiness based on the imagined (''parikalpita''-), dependent (''paratantra''-) and perfect natures (''pariniṣpanna svabhāva'').'"`UNIQ--ref-00000FFF-QINU`"' Closely related to this threefold distinction was the Tathāgatagarbha restriction of emptiness to adventitious stains which cover over an ultimate nature of buddha-qualities. There can be, of course, only one true reality towards which the Buddha awakened, so that exegetes were eventually forced to explain the canonical sources (i.e., Mahāyāna Sūtras) which contain mutually competing models of reality. This set the stage for the well-known hermeneutic strategies of the Tibetan schools. The main issue at stake was whether or not one needs to distinguish two modes of emptiness: being "empty of an own-being" (Tib. ''rang stong''), and being "empty of other" (Tib. ''gzhan stong''). (Mathes, introductory remarks, 187)<br><br>
[https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/10602/4454 Read more here . . .] +
Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shirõ are convinced that ''tathāgatagarbha'' theory and the Yogācāra school share a common framework that they call ''dhātu-vāda'' or "locus theory." The word ''dhātu-vāda'' itself is a neologism introduced by Matsumoto'"`UNIQ--ref-0000112C-QINU`"' and adopted by Hakamaya.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000112D-QINU`"' They argue that the ''dhātu-vāda'' idea stands in direct contradiction to the authentic Buddhist theory of ''pratītyasamutpāda'' or "dependent origination," which in turn leads them to consider ''tathāgata-garbha'' and Yogācāra theories to be non-Buddhist. In their opinion, not only these Indian theories but also the whole of "original enlightenment thought" (''hongaku shisõ'') in East Asia fell under the shadow of the ''dhātu-vāda'' idea,'"`UNIQ--ref-0000112E-QINU`"' with the result that most of its Buddhism is dismissed as not Buddhist at all.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000112F-QINU`"'<br> The idea of ''dhātu-vāda'' is thus an integral part of the Critical Buddhism critique and as such merits careful examination in any evaluation of the overall standpoint. Since Matsumoto first found the ''dhātu-vāda'' structure in Indian ''tathāgata-garbha'' and Yogācāra literature, we need to begin with a look at the texts in question. My approach here will be purely philological and will limit itself to the theoretical treatises (śāstras). (Yamabe, introductory remarks, 193)<br><br>
[https://www.academia.edu/33371726/The_Idea_of_Dh%C4%81tu-v%C4%81da_in_Yogacara_and_Tath%C4%81gata-garbha_Texts Read more here:] +
Anne Burchardi'"`UNIQ--ref-00000BDA-QINU`"'<br>
The present article is a contribution to the discussion on the place of epistemology in Tibetan Buddhism in relation to the doctrine of Mahāmudrā, drawing on a selection of Tibetan sources from the 16th century as well as Bhutanese sources from the 19th century.<br>
While Buddhist epistemology may seem dry and cerebral, it plays a special role as a gateway to Mahāmudrā according to certain masters associated with the ''gzhan stong'' philosophy'"`UNIQ--ref-00000BDB-QINU`"'. For them, not only can direct valid cognition (''mngon sum tshad ma'') in general be linked to the non-conceptual states associated with Mahāmudrā meditation, but the basic epistemological definition of mind as luminous and cognisant (''gsal zhing rig pa'') is a precursor to the pointing-out instructions for recognising the nature of mind. According to some interpretations, it is the direct valid cognition of apperception'"`UNIQ--ref-00000BDC-QINU`"' (''rang rig mngon sum tshad mo''), which experiences this true nature, and the direct yogic valid cognition (''mal 'byor mngon sum tshad ma''), which realises it. +
For the origins of the Mahāyāna we must agree with Hirakawa'"`UNIQ--ref-000014AF-QINU`"' that while some Mahāyāna doctrines are derived from the Mahāsāṃghika school, some others are derived from the Sarvāstivādin school. I would add that unless some other source can be pointed to, we may conclude that Mahāyāna Buddhism in its various forms, at least leaving out the special development of Tantrism, can be traced to either the Mahāsāṃghika or the Sarvāstivādin schools.<br> It is well recognized by Buddhologists that the Mahāsāṃghika sect arose by a schism from the previously undivided Buddhist ''saṃgha'' in the second century after the Buddha's Nirvāṇa (A.N.), leaving the other part of the ''saṃgha'' to be called Sthavira. As to precisely when the schism occurred, there was a difference of opinion as to whether it happened as a result of the Second Buddhist Council (about 110 A.N.) over a laxity of Vinaya rules by some monks, or happened later in the century (137 A.N.) over the five theses about Arhats and which occasioned a 'Third Buddhist Council' sponsored by the Kings Nanda and Mahāpadma. There were some other possibilities, as summarized by Nattier and Prebish,'"`UNIQ--ref-000014B0-QINU`"' who conclude that the schism occurred 116 A.N. over Vinaya rules, while the argument over Arhat attainment provoked a further split within the already existing Mahāsāṃghika sect. It is immaterial for our purposes whether the 'five theses of Mahādeva' downgrading the Arhat occasioned the schism between the Mahāsāṃghikas and the Sthaviras, or whether this downgrading was an internal argument within the Mahāsāṃghika. What is important here is that the downgrading of the Arhat continued into a Mahāyāna scripture called the ''Śrīmālā-sūtra'', and that the five theses are a characteristic of the Mahāsāṃghika, to wit: 1. Arhats are tempted by others, 2. they still have ignorance, 3. they still have doubt, 4. they are liberated by others; and 5. the path is accompanied by utterance. The fifth of these seems explainable by other Mahāsāṃghika tenets, in Bareau's listing:'"`UNIQ--ref-000014B1-QINU`"' No. 58 'morality is not mental'; No. 59 'morality does not follow upon thought'; No. 60 'virtue caused by a vow increases'; No. 61 'candor (''vijñapti'') is virtue'; No. 62 'reticence (''avijñapti'') is immoral.'<br> Part I of this paper attempts to relate the ''Śrīmālā-sūtra'' and the Tathāgatagarbha doctrine to the Mahāsaṃnghika school. Part II discusses the terms ''dharmatā'' and ''svabhāva'' so as to expose an ancient quarrel. (Wayman, introduction, 35–36)
Although Ch'an Buddhism has a long history, the name of the Ch'an School (''ch'an-men''<sup>a</sup> or ''ch'an-rsung''<sup>b</sup>)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"' was a relatively late development. It was Tsung-mi<sup>c</sup> (780-841),'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' the great Master of Kuei-fung who, for the first time, adopted the term in the ninth century A.D. It is interesting to note that it was the same monk-scholar who used the School of Mind (''hsin-tsung''<sup>d</sup>)'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"' as a synonym of the Ch'an school. Tsung-mi was a scholar of buddhist thought who had personal experience in the broad-ranging knowledge of Ch'an traditions. He collected relevant materials and wrote extensively in an effort to analyze the doctrine and practices of the tradition. His identification of the Mind with the Ch'an indicates that, in his opinion, the Mind was the central focus of the school. Although Tsung-mi contributed a good deal to the understanding of Ch'an Buddhism, his contributions remained almost unknown for a thousand years; it is only during the last two decades that scholars have gradually come to recognize his contribution. with considerable astonishment and admiration. This article is an attempt to describe, analyze and assess Tsung-mi's thesis that the doctrine of Mind is the central focus of Ch'an Buddhism and that the Mind itself is the absolute. (Jan, "The Mind as the Buddha-Nature," 467) +
A blogpost featuring an extract from Joseph Goldstein's book ''One Dharma'' on the topic of buddha-nature. +
Articles/The Original Ratnagotravibhāga and Its Yogāçāra Interpretation as Possible Indian Precedents of Gzhan stong ("Empti-ness of Other") +
In his pioneering study of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (RGV) TAKASAKI Jikido showed that the standard Indian treatise on ''tathāgatagarbha'' consists of different layers and reduced it to what he considered to be the original ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' by excluding later strands of the text.'"`UNIQ--ref-00001041-QINU`"' Schmithausen continued this "textual archaeology," which left us with an original text of fifteen verses only.'"`UNIQ--ref-00001042-QINU`"' While these ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' verses (which in the following I shall refer to as "the original" version) support the idea of an already fully developed "buddha-element" ''(buddhadhātu}'''"`UNIQ--ref-00001043-QINU`"' in sentient beings, the final (standard) version of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and its ''vyākhyā'' exhibit a systematic Yogāçāra interpretation of the original ''tathāgatagarbha'' theory. The original and final ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' represent the prototypes of at least two different ''gzhan stong'' interpretations, which mainly differ in whether they restrict or not the basis of emptiness to an unchanging perfect nature. (Mathes, "The Original ''Ratnagotravibhāga''," 119) +
Articles/The Ornament of the Buddha-Nature: Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita's Exposition of the Great Madhyamaka of Other-Emptiness +
''The Ornament of the Buddha-Nature'''"`UNIQ--ref-00001B47-QINU`"' (Tib. ''Bde gshegs snying po'i rgyan'') is a Tibetan Buddhist text composed by the Rnying ma scholar Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita (1761-1829). Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita is known for having been a vigorous defender of the doctrine of the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness, which moulds Tantric practices around the teaching of Buddha-nature at the heart of the doctrine. The present text is one of a number of related texts that are key to understanding his thoughts on the doctrine, whose development he follows from its beginnings in India to Tibet, where it culminates in its final form. Throughout, he is intent on affirming the authority of the Rnying ma ''tantras'' with both a fine line of argument and a mastery of literary skill in verse form. The experience attained through Tantric practices leading to perfection is beyond expression, but the compositional powers of this highly educated scholar in expounding his doctrine are able to convey some sense of the insights such practices lead to.<br> A brief summary of the content of the work in which Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita unfolds his understanding of the history of Buddhism is as follows. After the title, his homage to ''buddhas'', and a statement of the composition’s purpose, he sets out to give an account of the Three Turnings of the Wheel of the Teaching. Doxographically, the First Turning gives rise to the doctrines of the Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika schools of the Lesser Vehicle. The author explains the ultimate truth as conceived by the Vaibhāṣika School, but rejects its atomic theory as being deluded, since it posits the existence of subtlest particles of both matter and cognition. He likewise cannot follow the Sautrāntikas in their assertion of the true existence of external objects. From there, he jumps to the Last Turning, which he deals with until the end of the work, primarily on the basis of quoted scriptures. Among them, those concerning the Mind-Only school focus in on the Three Natures theory, which in turn he disallows, given that a truly existing perceiving subject does not comport with the essencelessness of phenomena. That school, he claims, died out, and their works did not gain entry into Tibet. From there he moves on to the next great figures to arrive on the scene: Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga. He goes on to explain the two modes of Madhyamaka, and contends that though both of them are in fact Mādhyamikas of the Middle Wheel, some biased persons claim Asaṅga for the Mind-Only school. Mādhyamikas, whose doctrine is grounded in the Two Truths, divided into two subschools, the Svātantrikas and Prāsaṅgikas. The former, represented in the Indian tradition by Bhāviveka, accepted the existence of phenomena only on the relative level. The latter, by contrast, represented by Buddhapālita, do not accept phenomena even on the relative level. That was the stage to which the Indian Mādhyamikas developed. Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita identifies his own position as that of a true successor of Indian Buddhism’s Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka. In Tibet, Tsong kha pa (1357-1419) initiated a new approach, whereby the truth was subject to confirmation by means of valid cognition, which led to a tradition of rigorous debate. Extensively citing the ''Ratnapradīpa'' of Bhavya (clearly distinguished from the Svātantrika Bhāviveka), which expounds the subtle, inner Madhyamaka of practice, he refutes the use of logic when it comes to ultimate reality. He asserts that the doctrine of mind-only as taught in such works associated with the Last Turning of the Wheels as the ''Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra'' and the ''Ghanavyūha-sūtra'' is the subtle, inner Madhyamaka—and Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva, Candrakīrti, and Bhavya also taught it as such. He equates it with the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness, which he also terms the Great Madhyamaka of definitive meaning. He defends Hwa shang's "abandoning mental engagement," as being the tradition of the instruction of Madhyamaka. The practitioners of Rdzogs chen, he notes, label the doctrine of the Last Turning the "king and creator of all" (''kun byed rgyal po''), and so he regards Rdzogs chen as the same as the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness. Thus, he places Madhyamaka at the summit of the doxographical hierarchy of Buddhist schools as it crystallized in Tibet from its roots in India. He thereby emphasizes that the two modes of emptiness, or two forms of Madhyamaka, that is, self-emptiness and other-emptiness, are in harmony. For Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita, the essence of the Buddhist doctrine, which is the Great Madhyamaka of other¬emptiness, is shared by all Tibetan Buddhist schools, be they Jo nang pas, the early Dge lugs pas, Bka' brgyud pas, Sa skya pas, or Rnying ma pas. He ends by stating that Tantric practice is fundamental to the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness, and that it is predicated on the existence of the Buddha-nature—that is, Buddhahood—in every sentient being. (Makidono, preliminary remarks, 77–79)
In “The Path of Gratitude,” Jeff Wilson steers us away from the question of individual buddhahood and toward a path of embracing all beings. +
Articles/The Pith Instructions on the Mahayana Uttaratantra (Theg chen gryud bla'i gdams pa): A Missing Link in the Meditation Tradition of the Maitreya Works +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:'"`UNIQ--ref-00000B61-QINU`"'<br><br>
In four of the five Maitreya works (i.e., the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra'', ''Madhyāntavibhāga'', ''Dharmadharmatāvibhāga'', and the ''Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyāna Uttaratantra'''"`UNIQ--ref-00000B62-QINU`"'),'"`UNIQ--ref-00000B63-QINU`"' we find an interesting synthesis of Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha thought. The result is a doctrine that can be defended as a teaching which asserts definitive meaning (''nītārtha'') as it does not include any possible short-comings of the Yogācāra tenet that may lead to an extreme position that either sentient beings are completely cut off from any potential for liberation or that a dependently arising mind exists on the level of ultimate truth.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000B64-QINU`"' While the first extreme is excluded by embracing the ''tathāgatagarbha'' doctrine that everybody is a Buddha within, or has at least the potential to become a Buddha, the second extreme of an ultimate mind is avoided by restricting the dependent nature (''paratantrasvabhāva'') of mind to the level of relative truth. This then allows for ''paratantra'' to be included within the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' 's adventitious stains that cover buddha nature (''tathāgatagarbha''). Thus mind's perfect nature (''pariniṣpannasvabhāva''), or suchness, is equated with buddha nature in the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra'' IX.37,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000B65-QINU`"' and luminosity in Asaṅga's'"`UNIQ--ref-00000B66-QINU`"' commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' 1.148'"`UNIQ--ref-00000B67-QINU`"' That this luminous perfect nature is empty of the adventitious stains of the imagined (''parikalpitasvabhāva'') and dependent natures follows in final analysis from the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and the ''Dharmadharmatāvibhāga'','"`UNIQ--ref-00000B68-QINU`"' two texts that appear to have been mostly ignored in India for more than five centuries. Things seemed to have changed, however, when Maitrīpa (ca. 1007- ca. 1086) started to integrate tantric ''mahāmudrā'' teachings he received from his teacher Śavaripa into mainstream Mahāyāna. Maitreya's synthesis of the three-nature theory and buddha nature proved to provide good doctrinal support for Maitrīpa's approach. The importance of the ''Dharmadharmatāvibhāga'' and the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' for Maitrīpa's ''mahāmudrā'' is further underlined by the traditional account that Maitrīpa rediscovered and taught these two texts to *Ānandakīrti and Sajjana. With the help of the latter, the Tibetan scholar Rngog Blo ldan shes rab (1059-1109) translated the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and its ''vyākhyā'' into Tibetan.
The present paper tries to trace the particular contours that the problem of theodicy assumes in the Chinese Buddhist text the ''Awakening of Faith in the Great Vehicle'' (''Ta-sheng ch'i-hsin lun''). It analyses the beginning section of the main body of text—the section, that is, that outlines the major theoretical structure of the work—in terms of a problem that has been of particular concern in western theology. I believe that taking such a tack is especially valuable for highlighting the central ''Problematik'' around which the text is organized. The paper will thus use the problem of theodicy as a means of exploring some of the philosophical implications of the ''Awakening of Faith''. (Gregory, "The Problem of Theodicy," 63) +
