Tāranātha and Yeshe Gyatso's Presentation of the Middle Way
[[ |300px|thumb| ]] The Middle Way promoted by the Buddha has been a subject of much interpretation and debate. From a simple understanding of it as a way of seeking moderation in lifestyle to a highly sophisticated notion of going beyond all concepts and cognitive fixations, the Middle Way (Madhyamaka, དབུ་མ།) has come to mean different things to different people in different contexts. It is one of the most popular Buddhist terms with a wide range of varying and even contradictory meanings. Different masters and schools of thought use the term to delineate their distinct philosophical and moral theories and approaches.
In his major work on the philosophy of other-emptiness entitled Thoroughly Ascertaining the Great Middle Way of the Expansive Supreme Vehicle (ཐེག་མཆོག་ཤིན་ཏུ་རྒྱས་པ་དབུ་མ་ཆེན་པོ་རྣམ་པར་ངེས་པ་), Tāranātha, the famous Jonang scholar and acclaimed historian, lists some fourteen different ways of understanding the Middle Way. His treatise features as one of the three most important works on the Jonang philosophy of other-emptiness, alongside Dolpopa's Mountain Doctrine and Ngawang Lodrö Drakpa's Fearless Lion's Roar. It is an extensive work in verse that includes verbatim citations of many critical and controversial verses from authoritative Indian works.
His student Yeshe Gyatso compiled the Commentarial Notes (རྣམ་བཤད་ཟིན་བྲིས་) on Tāranātha's treatise after receiving the teachings from Tāranātha. The Commentarial Notes, now available in Volume 10 of the Jo nang dPe tshogs series published by Pe cin mi rigs dpe skrun khang in 2007, and in Volume 43 of the Jo nang rje btsun tā ra nā tha'i gsung 'bum dpe bsdur ma, from the Mes po’i shul bzhag series of dPal brtsegs bod yig dpe rnying zhib ’jug khang in 2008, is a long prose commentary on Tāranātha's treatise, which is a verse composition. The colophon of this commentary reports that the commentary on the last two chapters were either never written or were lost in the transmission process. Thus, Lobzang Chogdrub Gyatso composed the commentary on the last two chapters in Wood Horse year, 1894, at a hermitage in upper Tsakho.
Tāranātha and Yeshe Gyatso explain that there are two main categories of the Middle: the Middle which is the topic to be understood/realized and the Middle which is the path that understands/realizes the topic. The first also subsumes what are commonly presented as Middle of the ground and the Middle of the result. If the Middle is about avoiding the extremes of thought and practice such as eternalism and nihilism, singularity and plurality, arising and ceasing, etc., then the ultimate Middle is the state of absolute reality which transcends all these and is the sphere of pristine wisdom. Only someone who fathoms such reality can understand the true Middle, avoid the pitfalls of extremes, and grasp also the entire Mahāyāna system. Then, Tāranātha goes on to list the different notions of the Middle starting from the Middle of practical application.
- 1. The Middle of the right lifestyle, which avoids the extremes of self-indulgent decadence and self-mortifying austerity.
2. The Middle of the right conduct, which adopts what has to be adopted and avoids what is to be relinquished.
3. The Middle of the right practice, which combines both calm abiding and insight meditation and avoids the extreme of relying only on either one of them.
Coming to the philosophical Middle of the view, he enumerates:
- 4. The Middle of the view of non-self, which avoids the extreme of eternalism by rejecting a true, personal self, creator, etc., and avoids the extreme of nihilism by accepting undeniable empirical experience of dependently originated phenomena.
5. The Middle of the view of mindstream, which avoids the extreme of eternalism by rejecting a static, permanent store-consciousness and avoids the extreme of nihilism by accepting a store-consciousness which is a transient and momentary stream.
6. The Middle with regard to conventional truth, which avoids the extreme of eternalism by rejecting that imputed things have essential nature or self-existence and avoids the extreme of nihilism by accepting the illusory appearance of imputed phenomena.
7. The Middle associated with the yogi practitioners, which avoids the extreme of eternalism by rejecting the true existence of external material phenomena and avoids the extreme of nihilism by accepting the diverse appearance of external things to the mind.
8. The Middle of notational ultimate, which avoids the extreme of eternalism by rejecting the true existence of external and internal phenomena and avoids the extreme of nihilism by accepting the subject-object appearance of things.
9. The Middle of absolute reality, which avoids the extreme of eternalism by rejecting the true existence of imputed and dependent phenomena and avoids the extreme of nihilism by accepting the true existence of absolute reality.
10. The Middle pertaining to two truths, which avoids the extreme of eternalism by rejecting the existence of all conventional and relative phenomena on the level of the ultimate truth and avoids the extreme of nihilism by accepting the diverse appearance of all conditioned phenomena on the level of the conventional truth.
The Middle with regard to the state of result is presented in four ways.
- 11. The Middle of purpose, in which the pristine wisdom, representing benefit for one self, is free from all fabrications and thus eliminates the extreme of eternalism while the illusory activities, representing benefit for others, engages in the welfare of beings and eliminates the extreme of nihilism.
12. The Middle of the enlightened body, in which the truth body being free from all fabrications eliminates eternalism, and the form body appearing interrupted in many forms eliminates nihilism.
13. The Middle of the enlightened qualities, in which qualities such as the ten powers are of singular nature in being free from fabrications and thus eliminates eternalism while the myriad display of the Buddha's qualities eliminates nihilism.
14. The Middle of the enlightened activities, in which the lack of contrived effort and elaborate actions eliminate the extreme of eternalism while the magic-like, effortless engagement of the Buddha in the world eliminates the extreme of nihilism.
Tāranātha and Yeshe Gyatso finally state that to argue all phenomena are totally empty of self-existence is a nihilistic view and to argue that even the emptiness of self-existence is empty of its nature is a gravely nihilistic view. Through this, Tāranātha points out the zhentong view that the ultimate nature of the mind, the buddha-nature, the ground of all existence, the supreme self, the universal reality, the Great Middle, is absolute and real, while all conventional phenomena as conceived by ordinary consciousness is unreal and empty of true nature.
Both at the beginning and end of the treatise, Tāranātha extols this zhentong understanding, or the Great Middle Way. To paraphrase, he writes that it is better to engage in this teaching even for a moment than to engage in other teachings for eons (ཆོས་གཞན་བསྐལ་པར་སྤྱོད་ལས་ཀྱང་། །འདི་ནི་ཡུད་ཙམ་སྤྱད་པའང་མཆོག།). This profound and vast teaching is the fortune of some supreme intelligent ones and not within the reach of many who claim to be learned and highly accomplished practitioners. It is preferable to read the Perfection of Wisdom sūtras with faith in this system once than to read them with the view of the rangtong, or self-emptiness, for eons. One who honors the books by Maitreya on his crown is closer to enlightenment than someone who engages in the erudite works of the rangtong philosophers for a hundred years. Tāranātha claims it is proven that those who endeavor in the rangtong system cannot even stop rebirth in the lower realms, but those who have mere faith in this zhentong system take rebirth in the celestial realms without any effort. "Strive on this path if you have the fortune (སྐལ་བཟང་ཡོད་ན་ལམ་འདིར་འབད་པར་རིགས།།)" Tāranātha advises his readers in the final verse of his influential work.
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