José Ignacio Cabezón
José Ignacio Cabezón is XIVth Dalai Lama Professor of Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies, and former chair of the Religious Studies Department at UC Santa Barbara. He has published a dozen books and numerous articles related to Tibetan and Buddhist Studies including several translations. His most recent books include Sera Monastery (Wisdom 2019), Sexuality in Classical South Asian Buddhism (Wisdom 2017), The Just King (Snow Lion 2017), The Buddhist Doctrine and the Nine Vehicles (Oxford 2012), and Tibetan Ritual (Oxford 2010).
Library Items
Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota
This book contains ten essays on the topic of buddha-nature by prominent Buddhist Studies scholars, written in honor of Professor Minoru Kiyota (1923–2013), who taught at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1962 to 2008.
Griffiths, Paul J., and John P. Keenan eds. Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990. https://archive.org/details/buddhanatureafestschriftinhonorofminorukiyota_542_W/mode/2up.
Griffiths, Paul J., and John P. Keenan eds. Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990. https://archive.org/details/buddhanatureafestschriftinhonorofminorukiyota_542_W/mode/2up.;Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota;Paul J. Griffiths; John P. Keenan;Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota
Freedom From Extremes
What is emptiness? This question at the heart of Buddhist philosophy has preoccupied the greatest minds of India and Tibet for two millennia, producing hundreds of volumes. Distinguishing the Views, by the fifteenth-century Sakya scholar Gorampa Sonam Senge, is one of the most important of those works, esteemed for its conciseness, lucidity, and profundity. Freedom from Extremes presents Gorampa's elegant philosophical case on the matter of emptiness here in a masterful translation by Geshe Lobsang Dargyay.
Gorampa's text is polemical, and his targets are two of Tibet's greatest thinkers: Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelug school, and Dolpopa, a founding figure of the Jonang school. Distinguishing the Views argues that Dolpopa has fallen into an eternalistic extreme, whereas Tsongkhapa has fallen into nihilism, and that only the mainstream Sakya view—what Gorampa calls "freedom from extremes"—represents the true middle way, the correct view of emptiness. Suppressed for years in Tibet, this seminal work today is widely regarded and is studied in some of Tibet's greatest academic institutions.
Gorampa's treatise has been translated and annotated here by two leading scholars of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and a critical edition of the Tibetan text on facing pages gives students and scholars direct access to Gorampa's own words. José Cabezón's extended introduction provides a thorough overview of Tibetan polemical literature and contextualizes the life and work of Gorampa both historically and intellectually. Freedom from Extremes will be indispensable for serious students of Madhyamaka thought. (Source: Wisdom Publications)Cabezón, José Ignacio, and Geshe Lobsang Dargyay. Freedom From Extremes: Gorampa's "Distinguishing the Views" and the Polemics of Emptiness. Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2007.
Cabezón, José Ignacio, and Geshe Lobsang Dargyay. Freedom From Extremes: Gorampa's "Distinguishing the Views" and the Polemics of Emptiness. Studies in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2007.;Freedom From Extremes;Go rams pa bsod nams seng ge;Madhyamaka;Dol po pa;Tsong kha pa;José Ignacio Cabezón; Geshe Lobsang Dargyay;Gorampa Sönam Senge;གོ་རམས་པ་བསོད་ནམས་སེངྒེ་;go rams pa bsod nams seng+ge;go bo rab 'byams pa bsod nams seng+ge;ngor mkhan chen 06;གོ་བོ་རབ་འབྱམས་པ་བསོད་ནམས་སེངྒེ་;ངོར་མཁན་ཆེན་༠༦་;Ngor Khenchen, 6th;Freedom From Extremes: Gorampa's "Distinguishing the Views" and the Polemics of Emptiness;Go rams pa bsod nams seng ge
The Canonization of Philosophy and the Rhetoric of Siddhānta in Tibetan Buddhism
José Ignacio Cabezón, in "The Canonization of Philosophy", explores the rhetoric used by Tibetan scholiasts—especially dGe lugs pas—to establish philosophical canonicity. He argues that the construction of hierarchically ordered tenet (siddhānta/grub mtha') systems is precisely an attempt to provide a philosophical canon, and that this can be seen most clearly in the way that the constructors of such systems deal with controverted questions. The question of whether living beings possess an intrinsically pure Buddha Nature is, for Cabezón's scholiasts, just such a question. For some Jo nang pas this could be asserted as philosophically normative, whereas for most dGe lugs pas, if such a claim was made at all it was made only as a preliminary assertion, always of questionable adequacy. Cabezón explores in some detail the interesting case of the eighth Karma pa, Mi bskyod rdo rje, who appears to affirm the normative status of Buddha Nature claims, but who, in so doing, labels them 'Great Madhyamaka' (dBu ma chen po)—a rhetorical move in which a philosophical perspective clearly non-Madhyamaka is called such in an attempt to give it weight and authority.
For the Madhyamaka theorists, of course, both in India and Tibet, Buddha Nature thinking could not occupy the highest rung of the philosophical ladder. The apparently substantivist claims of Buddha Nature theorists—that there is an eternal, changeless, radiantly pure Buddha Nature—ran counter to the radically non-substantivist dialectical method of the Prāsaṅgikas, and Cabezón's study shows that, as a result of the dominance of the Prāsaṅgika in Tibet, Buddha Nature theory always remained marginal there and gained whatever position it had only by arrogating to itself the rhetoric of Madhyamaka. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to Buddha Nature, 3)
Cabezón, José Ignacio. "The Canonization of Philosophy and the Rhetoric of Siddhānta in Tibetan Buddhism." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 7–26. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.
Cabezón, José Ignacio. "The Canonization of Philosophy and the Rhetoric of Siddhānta in Tibetan Buddhism." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 7–26. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.;The Canonization of Philosophy and the Rhetoric of Siddhānta in Tibetan Buddhism;History of buddha-nature in Tibet;Geluk;Jonang;Debates / Debate;José Ignacio Cabezón; 
Affiliations & relations
- University of California, Santa Barbara · workplace affiliation
- Dalai Lama, the 14th · teacher
- UCSB Faculty Page · websites
