Visions of Unity

{{Book
|BookPerson={{Book-person
|PersonPage=Komarovski, Y.
|PersonName=Yaroslav Komarovski
}}{{Book-person
|PersonPage=ShAkya mchog ldan
|PersonName=Shakya Chokden
}}
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|BookEssay=Yaroslav Komarovski's ''Visions of Unity'' is a thick study of Śākya Chokden, a fifteenth-century Sakya philosopher who wrote extensively on Yogācāra and Madhyamaka in an attempt to synthesize the two. He wrote at a time that a strict interpretation of Madhyamaka was in ascendence and Yogācāra was dismissed as a lesser teaching. Śākya Chokden was a passionate critic of Tsongkhapa, and stridently faulted the Geluk patriarch for spreading nihilism to his own beloved Sakya tradition. He was himself a follower of Madhyamaka, but he embraced many elements of Yogācāra; his attempt at a synthesis was to reclassify the different strands of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka so as to combine those that he liked and dispense with those he did not. Although his writings were recognized for their brilliance, his criticisms of Tsongkhapa and Sakya Paṇḍita, and his qualified acceptance of "other-emptiness" (gzhan stong) meant that he was almost entirely rejected by his peers. 

Śākya Chokden was an accomplished scholar and practitioner of tantra, and his eagerness to preserve elements of Yogācāra arose from his desire to provide an intellectual basis by which to merge sūtra and tantra. Komarovski skillfully places Śākya Chokden in a long history of Yogācāra-Madhyamaka syntheses, a tradition that Śākya Chokden accused Tsongkhapa of abandoning in his radical interpretation of Candrakīrti and rejection of all positive-language doctrine. 

Tibetan philosophers frequently turned to doxography to advocate their own interpretation of Buddhist doctrine. Since no teaching of the Buddha could be discarded, all had to be organized in a soteriological hierarchy; that is, the teachings that best bring a practitioner to a realization of the ultimate are better than those teachings that were offered to soothe fears or inspire action. For Geluk thinkers who Śākya Chokden opposed, for example, the teachings of buddha-nature were not to be taken literally. In his effort to merge the positive- and negative-language teachings of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka, Śākya Chokden developed a unique doxography that redefined both. In dense but readable prose Komarovski explains how Śākya Chokden reclassified elements of each (the Satyākāravāda doctrine of the Yogācāra, and the Prasaṅgika branch of the Madhyamaka) as true Madhyamaka; each was capable of bringing people to a realization of the ultimate, one with positive language and the other with negative.
|BookToc=*{{i|List of Tables |ix }}
*{{i|Acknowledgments |xi  }}
*{{i|Introduction |1 }}
**{{i|1. Introducing the Visions of Unity |6 }}
**{{i|2. Introducing the Chapters |11  }}
*{{i|Chapter One: Life and Works of the Golden Paṇḍita |17 }}
**{{i|1. Political and Religious Landscape of Fifteenth-Century Tibet |17 }}
**{{i|2. Life of the Golden Paṇḍita |23 }}
***{{i|''Early Years and Education'' |25 }}
***{{i|''Becoming a Prolific Writer and Famous Scholar'' |31 }}
***{{i|''Settling in the Golden Monastery and Exploring New Horizons'' |35 }}
***{{i|''Becoming a Tantric Master and Crystallizing Novel Views'' |44 }}
**{{i|3. Writings of Shakya Chokden| 51 }}
***{{i|''Chronological List of Shakya Chokden's Works''| 51 }}
***{{i|''Topical Divisions of Shakya Chokden's Works Addressed in This Book'' |59 }}

*{{i|Chapter Two: The Intellectual Background of Shakya Chokden's Interpretation of Yogācāra and Madhyamaka |71 }}
**{{i|1. Two Tendencies in Yogācāra and Niḥsvabhāvavāda Writings |71 }}
**{{i|2. Basic Elements of Shakya Chokden's Approach to Mahāyāna Systems |84 }}
**{{i|3. Pointed Disappointments: Shakya Chokden's Personal Reflections |91 }}
**{{i|4. Broadening Empty Horizons: A Note on Changes in Shakya Chokden's<br>Views |102 }}

*{{i|Chapter Three: Readjusting Rungs of the Ladder: Revisiting Doxographical Hierarchies| 109 }}
**{{i|1. Key Features of Shakya Chokden's Approach to the Buddhist Tenets |109 }}
**{{i|2. Demarcating the Middle: On the Valid Divisions of Madhyamaka and Great Madhyamaka |116 }}
**{{i|3. Self-Emptiness and Other-Emptiness |122 }}
***{{i|''Self-Emptiness'' |124 }}
***{{i|''Other-Emptiness'' |127 }}
**{{i|4. Bidding Farewell to the Prāsaṅgika/Svātantrika Division? |136 }}
**{{i|5. Are There Two Types of Yogācāra Madhyamaka? |141 }}
**{{i|6. Are There Any Cittamātra Followers Around? |145}}
**{{i|7. Expanding the Madhyamika Camp |150}}

*{{i|Chapter Four: Through Broken Boundaries to New Enclosures: Reconciling<br>Yogācāra and Madhyamaka |157}}
**{{i|1. Differences between Alīkākāravāda and Satyākāravāda |157}}
**{{i|2. The Heart of the Matter: Probing the Alīkākāravāda/ Niḥsvabhāvavāda Distinction |168}}
**{{i|3. A New Look at the Old Origins: Distinctions of Madhyamaka Stemming<br>from Interpretations of the Second and Third Dharmacakras |183}}
***{{i|''Looking at the Second and Third Dharmacakras through the Eyes of the<br>Madhyamaka Founders'' |183}}
***{{i|''Position of Alīkākāravāda'' |186}}
***{{i|''Position of Niḥsvabhāvavāda'' |191}}
***{{i|''Positions of Later Madhyamikas'' |201}}
**{{i|4. Steering the Middle Way between the Two Conflicting Middle Ways:<br>The Art of Not Taking Sides |207}}

*{{i|Chapter Five: Explorations in Empty Luminosity: Shakya Chokden's Position on Primordial Mind |213}}
**{{i|1. Facing the Reality of Primordial Mind |213}}
***{{i|''Primordial Mind and the Question of Existence'' |213}}
***{{i|''The Question of Withstanding Analysis'' |220}}
***{{i|''Does True Existence Have to Be Negated in Order to Abandon Grasping at It?'' |223}}
**{{i|2. Primordial Mind as an Impermanent Phenomenon |228}}
**{{i|3. (Un)linking the Self-Cognizing Primordial Mind and Dualistic<br>Consciousness |238}}
**{{i|4. Does Self-Cognition Cognize Itself? |242}}
**{{i|5. Primordial Mind as the Bridge between Yogācāra and Tantra |249}}
***{{i|''Primordial Mind as the Focus of All Mahāyāna Paths'' |249}}
***{{i|''Different but Concordant Approaches to Primordial Mind in Alīkākāravāda and Tantra'' |252}}
***{{i|''A Powerful Ally: Using the Tantric View of Reality for Support'' |264 }}

*{{i|Conclusion: The Grand Unity—Shakya Chokden's Middle Way |269}}

*{{i|Glossary of Buddhist Terms: English-Tibetan with Sanskrit Parallels|279}}

*{{i|Spellings of Tibetan Names and Terms|299}}

*{{i|Notes|307}}

*{{i|Bibliography|391}}

*{{i|Index|423}}
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|BookParentPage=Research/Secondary Sources
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