Recent Essays/Post-24

[[ |300px|thumb| ]] Tāranātha was undoubtedly one of the greatest exponents of the theory of other-emptiness in Tibet. A brilliant scholar with an impressive oeuvre on history, language, philosophy, and rituals, he has left a mark on Buddhism particularly through his History of Buddhism in India and his writings on buddha-nature.

Among his numerous writings on buddha-nature, the following three works highlight his position on emptiness and the philosophical interpretation of the Buddha's ultimate intent. In his Essence of Other-Emptiness (Gzhan stong snying po), he spans the Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophical tenets and spiritual paths. He classifies them into systems which cannot lead to happy rebirth, which can lead to happy rebirth and to liberation, and classifies the Buddhist systems into four philosophical tenet systems and Greater and Lesser Vehicles. While most people who follow Greater or Lesser Vehicles also espouse the equivalent tenet systems, there are some who espouse a Mahāyāna tenet system but enter the path of the Lesser Vehicle and vice versa.

The highest philosophical system is the Madhyamaka, which he divides into the Ordinary Madhyamaka (དབུ་མ་ཕལ་པ་) and the Great Madhyamaka (དབུ་མ་ཆེན་པོ་). The exponents of self-emptiness are grouped under Ordinary Madhyamaka, which was passed down from masters such as Buddhapālita, Bhāvaviveka, Vimuktisena, Śāntarakṣita, et al. This school, he argues, asserts emptiness free from elaborations, like empty space, to be the ultimate truth and includes even the Buddha's wisdom within conventional truth. Tāranātha states that the later exponents of this tradition have criticized the theory of other-emptiness without understanding it properly.

The theory of other-emptiness is the Great Madhyamaka, also known as Madhyamaka of Cognition (རྣམ་རིག་དབུ་མ་), which was propounded by both Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga and their main followers. In this system, all conditioned or unconditioned phenomena, including the ultimate truth espoused by the proponents of self-emptiness, are considered as lacking true existence and thus adventitious constructs, while the self-aware luminous wisdom which is inseparable from the sphere of reality is the ultimate truth. This theory of eternal, absolute, adamantine buddha-nature, or dharmakāya, is the message of the Mahāyāna sūtras, particularly those teaching buddha-nature, and the many commentarial literatures.

In the Ornament of Other-Emptiness Madhyamaka (Gzhan stong dbu ma'i rgyan), he carries out a more rigorous rebuttal of the critique of the theory of other-emptiness. Delving into Buddhist hermeneutics in this discourse written largely in verses, he argues that no sūtras teach the third turning of the wheel to be provisional, while many teach the second turning to be provisional. According to him, the first turning teaches conventional truth, the second turning teaches partial ultimate truth, and the third turning teaches the full ultimate truth. Deploying themes such as provisional and definitive teachings, the three turnings of the wheel of Dharma, and the four points of reliance, he argues how the theory of self-emptiness is provisional and not the ultimate understanding of the Buddha's intent.

He also cites many sūtras and the early masters of Mahāyāna and argues that the most leading Mahāyāna masters prophesied by the Buddha taught the other-emptiness, while only a few later Mādhyamika masters rejected the other-emptiness and advocated the theory of self-emptiness. In The Scriptural Citations for the Ornament of Madhyamaka of Other-Emptiness (Gzhan stong dbu ma'i rgyan gyi lung sbyor), Tāranātha provides in full the citations and references which he either quoted briefly or alluded to in the Ornament of Other-Emptiness Madhyamaka.

Weekly quote

Although your true nature may be hidden momentarily by stress and worry, anger and unfulfilled longings, it still continues to exist. 

~ The Buddha's Brain