Recent Essays/Post-34

Forging a Common Ground between Rangtong and Zhentong

[[ |300px|thumb| ]] The philosophy of buddha-nature in Tibet is often thought to have been split into a dichotomy of the rangtong, or self-emptiness, and zhentong, or other-emptiness. The advocates of these two traditions are seen to present two contradictory interpretations of the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras. While the classic rangtong philosophers such as the mainstream Sakya and Geluk scholars consider the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras as provisional teachings, reject an intrinsically existent buddha-nature and the latent Buddha qualities in all sentient beings, and adopt a rationalist approach to the nature of the mind, the main zhentong thinkers such as the leading Jonangpa masters take the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras to be definitive teachings, accept innate buddha-nature endowed with all enlightened qualities of the Buddha, and primarily maintain a cataphatic, mystical approach to the nature of the mind. Apart from the followers of the Nyingma and Kagyu, who profess a kind of a middle ground between the two by accepting the emptiness and illusory state of buddha-nature while espousing also that it is fully endowed with the Buddha qualities, the followers belonging to the mainstream rangtong and zhentong camps are seen to oppose each other, not finding a common ground. Instead, the Jonangpas and Gelukpas accuse each other of adopting extremist views and faltering from the Middle Way philosophy.

Thus, it is intriguing that some Jonangpa masters in the twentieth century who were based in the Jonang establishments of Zamthang in eastern Tibet adopted an inclusive approach to reconcile the Gelukpa rangtong theories and Dolpopa's zhentong theories. One such scholar was Ngawang Tsoknyi Gyatso, who was the author of Removing the Anguish of Holding to Extremes: Explanation of Omniscient Jonangpa's Madhyamaka of Other Emptiness and Illuminating Light: An Exegesis of Omniscient Jonangpa's Intent Aligned with General Treatises of Madhyamaka and Pramāṇa. Perhaps influenced by his teacher Bamda Thubten Gelek, who had direct connections with Geluk teachers and is also considered to be an incarnation of the Geluk master Jamyang Zhepa, Tsoknyi Gyatso in these two writings on other-emptiness makes a concerted effort to bring Dolpopa's Jonangpa and Gelukpa understanding of emptiness and the ultimate to a noncontradictory phase using various hermeneutic tools. A substantive treatment of Tsoknyi Gyatso's inclusivistic and conciliatory interpretations has been carried out by Filippo Brambilla in his article "A Late Proponent of the Jo nang gZhan stong Doctrine."

At the end of his Removing the Anguish of Holding to Extremes, Tsoknyi Gyatso presents a synopsis of the Ultimate Continuum, which effectively captures his understanding of the teachings on buddha-nature. He writes:

As for presenting a short summary of the Ultimate Continuum, this great treatise entitled the Ultimate Continuum, which is primarily a major commentary on the last turning of the wheel, shows that a buddha element which is a naturally luminous and pure awareness, empty of hypostatic existence and primordially free from harsh characteristics of conceptuality, exists in all sentient beings without difference. It is obscured like treasure underneath the ground and butter lamp in a vase. Such an element is fully fathomed only by the Buddha and out of great compassion shown to the sentient beings, who are to be tamed, according to their mental capacity in the manner of cleansing a gem. In the first turning of the wheel, all appearances such as form are maintained as they appear and taught to be impermanent, suffering, empty and without self. These teachings show merely the techniques to approach liberation after the sentient beings have renounced saṃsāra and entered the path of liberation from saṃsāra.

For those whose mindset is mature, the middle turning shows how all phenomena from form to the qualities aligned with enlightenment are by nature thatness which is free from all elaborations being empty of inherent existence, just like seeing the colorful rope as a snake. For those whose mindset is further matured through [the second turning] having confirmed the lack of elaborations or characteristics, the last turning shows how the sphere of reality which is empty of hypostatic existence and without the depth of characteristics is not a mere nonexistence when accessed by nonconceptual pristine wisdom free from elaborations. It is shown to possess all pure and ultimate aspects such as the marks, tokens, and strengths.

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