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From Buddha-Nature
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Douglas Duckworth offers a definition of buddha-nature. +
Articles/A Dilettante's Ramblings on the Uttaratantra, Asaṅga, Mipham, and Buddha-Nature by John Canti +
John Canti, longtime practitioner and translator, founder of Padmakara Translation Group, and Editorial Director at the 84000 Project, speaks with Lopen Dr. Karma Phuntsho about a wide range of topics related to buddha-nature teachings.
John Canti studied medicine and anthropology at Cambridge University (UK) and qualified as a doctor in 1975. While still a medical student he met and began to study with some of the great Tibetan Buddhist masters of the older generation, especially Kangyur Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. After some years of medical work in northeastern Nepal in the late 1970s he went to the Dordogne, France, to complete two three-year retreats at Chanteloube, and has remained primarily based there ever since.
John is a founding member of the Padmakara Translation Group, was a Tsadra Foundation Fellow from 2001-2014, and was awarded the 2016 Khyentse Foundation Fellowship. In 2009, when 84000 first started, he was appointed Editorial Chair of 84000, and in 2020 has become Editorial Co-Director. +
A translation and study of an important Kagyu commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga''. +
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama teaches in a traditional line-by-line commentary of the Mahayanottaratantrashashtra in this video from Holland in 1986. Alexander Berzin interprets His Holiness into English. Seven diamond-strong points of the in five chapters, the first four points, which introduce "the source", or buddha-nature, are presented in the first chapter, the second chapter discusses the fifth point, the state of purified growth of enlightenment fifth point, the third chapter presents the sixth point which is the qualities of that state of purified growth, the fourth deals with the seventh point, the enlightening influence, and the fifth chapter discusses the benefits of studying the text. The text itself discusses the clear light nature of the mind which is covered over by cognitive and afflictive obscurations. Once these obscurations have been purified, the clear light nature of mind is revealed. +
In this book, an international team of fourteen scholars investigates the Chinese reception of Indian Buddhist ideas, especially in the sixth and seventh centuries. Topics include Buddhist logic and epistemology (pramāṇa, yinming); commentaries on Indian Buddhist texts; Chinese readings of systems as diverse as Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and tathāgatagarbha; the working out of Indian concepts and problematics in new Chinese works; and previously under-studied Chinese evidence for developments in India. The authors aim to consider the ways that these Chinese materials might furnish evidence of broader Buddhist trends, thereby problematizing a prevalent notion of “sinification”, which has led scholars to consider such materials predominantly in terms of trends ostensibly distinctive to China. The volume also tries to go beyond seeing sixth- and seventh-century China primarily as the age of the formation and establishment of the Chinese Buddhist “schools”. The authors attempt to view the ideas under study on their own terms, as valid Buddhist ideas engendered in a rich, “liminal” space of interchange between two large traditions. (Source: [https://blogs.sub.uni-hamburg.de/hup/products-page/publikationen/125/ Hamburg University Press]) +
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) +
A monumental work and Indian Buddhist classic, the ''Ornament of the Mahāyāna Sūtras'' (''Mahāyānasūtrālamkāra'') is a precious resource for students wishing to study in-depth the philosophy and path of Mahāyāna Buddhism. This full translation and commentary outlines the importance of Mahāyāna, the centrality of bodhicitta or the mind of awakening, the path of becoming a bodhisattva, and how one can save beings from suffering through skillful means.
This definitive composition of Mahāyāna teachings was imparted in the fourth century by Maitreya to the famous adept Asanga, one of the most prolific writers of Buddhist treatises in history. Asanga’s work, which is among the famous Five Treatises of Maitreya, has been studied, commented upon, and taught by Buddhists throughout Asia ever since it was composed.
In the early twentieth century, one of Tibet’s greatest scholars and saints, Jamgön Mipham, wrote ''A Feast of the Nectar of the Supreme Vehicle'', which is a detailed explanation of every verse. This commentary has since been used as the primary blueprint for Tibetan Buddhists to illuminate the depth and brilliance of Maitreya’s pith teachings. The Padmakara Translation Group has provided yet another accessible and eloquent translation, ensuring that English-speaking students of Mahāyāna will be able to study this foundational Buddhist text for generations to come. (Source: [https://www.shambhala.com/a-feast-of-the-nectar-of-the-supreme-vehicle.html Shambhala Publications]) +
The collection of twenty-six texts on non-conceptual realization is the result of blending the essence and tantric mahamudra teachings of Saraha, Nagarjuna and Savaripa with a particular form of Madhyamaka philosophy, called 'non-abiding' (''apratisthana''), which aims at radically transcending any conceptual assessment of true reality. This goal is achieved by "withdrawing one's attention" (''amanasikara'') from anything that involves the duality of a perceived and perceiver. The result is a "luminous self-empowerment," Maitripa's (986–1063) final tantric analysis of amanasikara. The collection of texts on non-conceptual realization plays a crucial role, as it constitutes, together with Naropa's teachings, the main source of bKa' brgyud lineages. The edition and translation of this collection is followed by another text attributed to Maitripa, the *''Mahamudrakanakamala'', which was translated by Mar pa Lo tsa ba Chos kyi blo gros (11th century) into Tibetan. The *''Mahamudrakanakamala'' picks up on the themes of the collection and shows that all aspects of Maitripa's mahamudra were indeed passed on to early bKa' brgyud masters. Besides an English translation and analysis, the present publication contains a new edition of the available Sanskrit on the basis of the editio princeps by Haraprasad Shastri, the edition of the Studying Group of Sacred Tantric Texts at Taisho University, the Nepalese manuscript NGMPP B 22/24, and the manuscript no. 151 from the Todai University Library. The Tibetan edition of all texts is based on the Derge and Peking bsTan 'gyur and the dPal spungs edition of Karmapa VII Chos grags rgya mtsho's (1454-1506) Collection of Indian Mahamudra Works (Phyag rgya chen po'i rgya gzhung). ([https://www.amazon.com/Fine-Blend-Mahamudra-Madhyamaka-Philosophisch-Historischen/dp/3700177860 Source Accessed Feb 11, 2020]) +
A study and facsimile of a Sanskrit fragment of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'', published before the complete Sanskrit text became available. +
A collection of essays and translations featuring advice and instructions of prominent 18-19th century Tibetan masters. +
A lengthy historical survey of buddha-nature theory through the literature and traditions, based on academic scholarship. +
Tsongkhapa’s ''A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages'' (1419) is a comprehensive presentation of the highest yoga class of Buddhist tantra, especially the key practices—the so-called five stages (''pancakrama'')—of the advanced phase of Guhyasamāja tantra. Beginning with a thorough examination of the Indian sources, Tsongkhapa draws particularly from the writings of Nāgārjuna, Aryadeva, Candrakīrti, and Nāropā to develop a definitive understanding of the Vajrayana completion stage. Whereas in the generation stage, meditators visualize the Buddha in the form of the deity residing in a mandala palace, in the completion stage discussed in the present volume, meditators transcend ordinary consciousness and actualize the state of a buddha themselves. Among other things, Tsongkhapa’s work covers the subtle human physiology of channels and winds along with the process of dying, the bardo, and rebirth. This definitive statement on Guhyasamāja tantra profoundly affected the course of Buddhist practice in Tibet. (Source: [https://wisdomexperience.org/content-author/gavin-kilty/ Wisdom Experience]) +
Articles/A Late Proponent of the Jo nang gZhan stong Doctrine: Ngag dbang tshogs gnyis rgya mtsho (1880–1940) +
Although the doctrines and leading early figures of the Jonang tradition have been the focus of increasing scholarly attention over the past thirty years, much has yet to be written about developments in the tradition during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The goal of this paper is to shed light on this later period by focusing on one particular Jo nang thinker, Ngag dbang tshogs gnyis rgya mtsho (1880-1940). In order to contextualize his distinctive view and style, I will begin by sketching the historical evolution of the Jo nang tradition across Central and Eastern Tibet, and by providing some biographical and doctrinal information about Tshogs gnyis rgya mtsho’s main teacher, ’Ba’ mda’ Thub bstan dge legs rgya mtsho (1844-1904). +
This article introduces two studies by classical Tibetan Buddhist scholars that explain the range of meanings of the term ''zhentong''. The two texts—one by Pema Bidza (twentieth century), the other by Tāranātha (1575–1634)—are analytical studies that summarize and compare the various views of previous scholars who wrote on zhentong. Such interpretive studies are valuable in that they present us with different ways of interpreting the heterogeneous material classified under the rubric "zhentong." They also suggest ways of contextualizing the different levels of discourse found within this material. +
Articles/A Luminous Transcendence of Views: The Thirty Apophatic Topics in dPal dbyangs's Thugs kyi sgron ma +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:<br><br>
The constructed nostalgia of the later Great Perfection, or rDzogs chen, tradition gazes backward temporally and geographically toward eighth-century India, reminiscing an era in which the subcontinent is thought to have served as generous benefactor of Dharma gifts to the fledging Buddhist empire of Tibet. Insistence on the familiar Buddhist requirements for true transmission—authenticity and legitimacy founded in lineage and longevity—certainly inspired many of its textual "revelations" beginning in the eleventh century. Many of those nostalgic constructions of rNying ma history have been well documented by modern scholars.<br> It would be rash to assert, however, that despite all those imaginings, there were no historical primordia of the Great Perfection in the preceding centuries. The textual roots of the Mind Series (''sems sde'') texts are testament to these early stirrings, as are the Dunhuang manuscripts identified by Sam van Schaik as expressing a form of “Tibetan Zen.”[1] A third seed was planted via the Tibetan Mahāyoga tantra tradition, and within it, germinations of Great Perfection gnoseology, observable prominently in the ninth-century works of dPal dbyangs, who in some colophons and later histories is designated gNyan dPal dbyangs. His works include six canonical verse texts retrospectively entitled ''sGron ma drug'', or ''Six Lamps'',[2] and the ''rDo rje sems dpa’ zhus lan'' (''Vajrasattva Questions and Answers'') catechism found at Dunhuang in three manuscript copies. I have discussed these texts and their most likely Indian inspirations elsewhere. Here, I highlight a particular text within the ''Six Lamps'', his ''Thugs kyi sgron ma'' (''Lamp of the Mind''), as intending to establish, quite early on, a standard set of topics we see well developed in systemizations of the early Great Perfection tradition a few centuries later, and perhaps even before that, in Mind Series texts such as those attributed to Mañjuśrīmitra like the ''Byang chub kyi sems rdo la gser zhun'' and the ''Byang chub sems bsgom pa''.[3]<br> Of all dPal dbyangs’s texts, the ''Thugs kyi sgron ma'' is the ideological, linguistic, and practical hinge to his Mayājāla corpus as a whole, linking the other five of the ''Six Lamps'' texts and providing convincing evidence for accepting those ''Six Lamps'' as a collection, as well as offering insight to the later interpretations of his catechism. The ''Thugs kyi sgron ma'' displays dPal dbyangs’s full range of presentation. It includes, on the one hand, dPal dbyangs’s direct recommendations to Mahāyoga tantra, and on the other hand, his depictions of the realization of reality as utterly unstructured, unmediated, and transcendent of any dichotomization or reification, using the apophatic language sprinkled throughout the rest of the ''Six Lamps'' texts. Thus, by emphasizing these two elements—the transgressive and the transcendent—within a single text, the ''Thugs kyi sgron ma'' may have served as a valuable field guide to early Tibetan Mahāyoga and at least to some degree as a useful strategic plan for the cultivation of something more sustainable and vibrant on Tibetan soil, the Great Perfection. As I hope to show, dPal dbyangs’s very deliberate indexing of these topics appears to have been intended to standardize them as interpretive categories even while undercutting the value of reliance upon them as such, redefining Mahāyoga tantra as it found its earliest shape in Tibet. (Takahashi, introductory remarks, 159–60)
<h5>Notes</h5>
#Sam van Schaik, “The Early Days of the Great Perfection,” ''Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies'' 27.1: 167 and 201.
#''The Six Lamps'' texts are as follows: ''The Lamp of the Mind'' (''Thugs kyi sgron ma''), ''The Lamp of the Correct View'' (''lTa ba yang dag sgron ma''), ''The Lamp Illuminating the Extremes'' (''mTha'i mun sel sgron ma''), ''The Lamp of Method and Wisdom'' (''Thabs shes sgron ma''), ''The Lamp of the Method of Meditation'' (''bsGom thabs kyi sgron ma''), and ''The Lamp of the Precious View'' (''lTa ba rin chen sgron ma''). These are P5918, P5919, P5920, P5921, P5922, and P5923, respectively. There are other ''Lamp'' collections in both Nyingma and Bön traditions, usually comprising four or six texts. The most prominent example of these is from the Bönpo Great Perfection lineage, the ''sGron ma drug gi gdams pa''. See Christopher Hatchell's "Advice on the Six Lamps" in ''Naked Seeing: The Great Perfection, the Wheel of Time, and Visionary Buddhism in Renaissance Tibet'' (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), and Jean-Luc Achard’s English translation in the ''Six Lamps: Secret Dzogchen Instructions of the Bön Tradition'' (Boston: Wisdom, 2017).
#See Namkhai Norbu and Kennard Lipman’s ''Primordial Experience: An Introduction to rDzogs-chen Meditation'' (Boston: Shambhala, 2001). Karen Liljenberg has discovered parallel passages to dPal dbyangs’s ''Lamp'' text the ''Thabs shes sgron ma'' in the ''rTse mo byung rgyal'', a text she has identified as belonging to the ''sems sde'' corpus the ''Sems sde lung chen po bco brgyad''. Karen Liljenberg, “A Critical Study of the Thirteen Later Translations of the Dzogchen Mind Series” (doctoral dissertation, SOAS, 2012), 57-60. I suspect there are further discoveries to be made of such borrowings between early Tibetan Mahāyoga texts and those of the early Mind Series. See also Liljenberg's paper elsewhere in this issue.
Articles/A Manuscript of the Mahāyānottaratantraśāstropadeśa, a Sanskrit Commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga +
''Takasaki, Jikidō. "A Manuscript of the ''Mahāyānottaratantraśāstropadeśa'', a Sanskrit Commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga''." (In Japanese.) ''Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū'' (Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies) 23, no. 2 (1975) 52–59.'' +
This essay deals with how the Sanskrit term ''tathāgatagarbha'' is used in the Mahāyāna text to which it gave its name, the ''Tathāgatagarbhasūtra''. Whether the ''Tathāgatagarbhasūtra'' is the oldest text in which the term appears or not, the particular way in which it is applied there documents that the authors created or made use of it while associating it with many diverse aspects, less in a philosophical or ''abhidharma''-like way but rather in a loose and associative style, opening the door to incorporate the different connotations described metaphorically in the sūtra. The rich illustrations found in the sūtra help us understand the early context in which the
term was coined and took shape. It will become evident that it is impossible to reduce the genesis and meaning of the term ''tathāgatagarbha'' by way of a monoexplanatory model. +
''Gokhale, Vasudeva Vishnunath. "A Note on Ratnagotravibhāga I.52 = Bhagavadgītā XIII.32." In ''Studies in Indology and Buddhology: Presented in Honour of Professor Susumu Yamaguchi on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday'', edited by Gadjin Nagao, 90–91. Kyoto: Hozokan, 1955.'' +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:<br><br>
=====A Philosophy of Plants=====
The philosopher Tomonobu Imamichi (1922–2012) pointed out that most Japanese family crests are based on plant designs, indicating that, compared with cultures that employ dragons and eagles, or lions and tigers in their heraldry, Japanese cultural patterns show a strong tendency toward adaptability and harmony. Plants survive not as individuals but by species adaptation. This means that they grow where their seed randomly falls, existing within a pattern of dramatic change as their branches and leaves grow. Imamichi wrote, "In the very workings of their life, plants are a reiteration of elegant beauty as they bud, bloom, fall, proliferate, fruit, and change color, all within an intense yet inconspicuous struggle for life" (''Tōyō no bigaku'' [Aesthetics of the East], TBS Britannica, 1980). Plants take root in that space where their seed falls and form a community with other plants. They maintain harmony with their surroundings and continually transform themselves, adapting to changes in their environment. As Imamichi stated, the workings of their life are inconspicuous, but there is no doubt a severity of struggle to survive and flourish.<br>
=====Are Plants and Trees Nonsentient?=====
Mahayana Buddhism in general does not consider trees and plants to be capable of sensation and, with the exception of the Lotus and Śūraṅgama sutras, does not hesitate to place them on a par with tiles and stones. For example, the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra (Sutra of the Great Accumulation of Treasures) says, "Plants and trees, tiles and stones, like shadows, are not sentient" (Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra, 78, Discourse to Pūrṇa, 17.2.4). Why is this so?<br> The geographer Yutaka Sakaguchi reports that recent research has shown that from the middle of the third century to around the sixth or seventh century the world experienced severe climate change in the form of cooling, drier conditions (see "Kako ichiman sanzennen no kikō no henka to jinrui no rekishi" [Climate change and the history of human beings
during the past thirteen thousand years], ''Kōza, bunmei to kankyō, 6: Rekishi to kikō'' [Lecture series, 6, Civilization and the environment: History and climate] [Asakura Shoten, 1995 (revised edition, 2008)], 1–11). The Mahayana sutras, with their prohibition of meat eating, were compiled at this time. Why this prohibition was added to the small simple meals demanded by asceticism can thus be explained in ecoreligious terms. In all probability, the acceptance of ascetic behavior in relation to food and the rejection of meat by religious practitioners and the societies that supported them derived from severe and long-term food shortages. At such a time, rather than rearing pigs and other animals on plant food and then eating their meat, many more human lives could be sustained by a considerably lesser volume by eating vegetable foodstuffs directly. "Hence, in order to keep both monks and lay followers free from what was deemed unnecessary inconvenience and qualms, the sentience of plants was, by and large, ignored [in the precept against the taking of life]" (Lambert Schmithausen, ''Buddhism and Nature: The Lecture Delivered on the Occasion of the EXPO 1990'' [International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1991], 7).<br>
=====Plants and the Lotus Sutra=====
Chapter 5 of the Lotus Sutra, "The Parable of the Herbs," likens the teachings of the Buddha benefiting all beings equally to the rain that falls on all trees, shrubs, herbs, and grasses, enabling them to grow and blossom, producing fruits. This chapter was to have an important influence on the Chinese Tiantai and Japanese Tendai schools of Buddhism. Whereas the Chinese Huayan school held that plants are not sentient and cannot achieve enlightenment, in commentaries such as Fazang's (643–712) ''Huayanjing tanxuanji'' (Records of the search for the profundities of the Avataṃsaka Sūtra), Tiantai scholars advocated plants' capability of attaining buddhahood. This must have been because of the image presented in "The Parable of the Herbs." (Read the entire article [https://rk-world.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/DW18_7-12.pdf here])
No abstract given. Here is the appendix in full:<br><br>
Common throughout the De bźin bśegs pa’i sñiṅ po’i mdo (Tathāgatagarbha sūtra) of the Lang Kanjur are several features which are generally assumed to be archaic, such as the ''ya btags'' in all words beginning with ''m''- followed by the vowel ''i'' or ''e'' (e.g. ''myi'', ''myed'', etc.), the usage of the ''da drag'', the ''tsheg'' placed before ''śad'', the ''mtha’ rten ’a'' (e.g. ''dpe’ ''), occasionally a reversed ''gi gu'', ''la''(''s'') (''b'')''stsogs pa'' for ''la sogs pa'', the omission of genitive particles and, in the verses, the reading '' ’i'' instead of ''yi'' ('' ’i'' counting as a full syllable).<br> The version of the ''sūtra'' represents the canonical transmission (and not the translation found in the “Kanjur from Bathang”).[85] Stemmatically, the text in the Lang Kanjur is very close to the three Phug brag versions of the ''sūtra'', which have been shown to derive from one and the same archetype.[86] It shares mistakes with this archetype. In other instances it is, however, free of the secondary readings found in all three of the Phug brag versions. In all the cases where Phug brag shares a
mistake with the representatives of the Tshal pa-line, the Kanjur version from Dolpo also has this secondary reading. Its use for establishing the stemma of the canonical versions of the De bźin gśegs pa’i sñiṅ po’i mdo is therefore restricted primarily to evaluating the readings of the Phug brag Kanjur in the instances where Phug brag deviates from the Tshal pa-transmission. In all the cases where the Chinese translations of the ''sūtra'' could be used to decide on the originality of a reading in the Tibetan, it turned out that whenever the variant in the Lang Kanjur was identical with the one of Tshal pa as against Phug brag, the latter variant was secondary. (Zimmermann, appendix, 104–5)
<h5>Notes</h5>
85. For more details on this paracanonical translation see Zimmermann 1998.<br>86. See Zimmermann 2002: 173–177.
