Rong ston shes bya kun rig

Rongtön Sheja Kunrik

རོང་སྟོན་ཤེས་བྱ་ཀུན་རིག་

1367 - 1449

Rongton Sheja Kunrik is the second in the line of great Sakya masters known as the Six Ornaments of Tibet. Among these teachers he is particularly revered for his mastery of the Buddhist sutras. Rongton studied and taught at Sangpu Neutok Monastery. He founded Penpo Nalendra Monastery in 1436.
... read more at

About this person

Perfect or Perfected? Rongtön on Buddha-Nature

As the most important canonical treatise on Buddha-nature, the Ratnagotravibhaga (also known as Uttaratantrasastra, Tib. rgyud bla ma) established the doctrinal foundations for the Mahayana philosophy of tathāgatagarbha, the doctrine according to which all sentient beings are either inherently buddhas or endowed with the potential for awakening. Among the most prominent Tibetan commentaries on this text figures that of the Sakya master Rongtön Sheja Künrig, a prolific writer who was active during the golden age of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy. Refuting, on one hand, the notion that Buddha-nature is synonymous with mere emptiness, and on the other that the mind is inherently endowed with the Buddha qualities, Rongtön argues for an understanding of Buddha-nature that embraces both aspects of the nature of mind: cognizance and emptiness.

Rongtön Sheja Künrig (1376-1449) figures among the greatest teachers of the Sakya tradition. Particularly renowned for his commentaries on the Five Treatises of Maitreya, his vast erudition, and extensive teaching career made him one of the most influential masters for the scholastic lineages of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. This volume contains an annotated translation of Rongtön Chenpo’s commentary on the central chapter of this treatise (including the relevant stanzas of the root text), along with an extensive introduction to the historical development of this doctrine and an analysis of Rongtön’s position. (Source: Vajra Publications)

... read more

---

Bernert, Christian, trans. Perfect or Perfected? Rongtön on Buddha-Nature: A Commentary on the Fourth Chapter of the Ratnagotravibhāga (vv.1.27-95[a]). By Rongtön Sheja Künrig (rong ston shes bya kun rig). Kathmandu: Vajra Books, 2018.

Commentary on the Three Reasons

According to Rongtön Shéja Günsi’s commentary on the Uttaratantra, all sentient beings are said to possess the tathāgata heart because the dharmakāya of perfect buddhas radiates, because they possess the suchness that is undifferentiable from the aspect of the natural purity of the suchness of the dharmakāya, and because they have the disposition for the dharmakāya—the capacity of the basic element.

After briefly reporting Ngog Lotsāwa’s above explanation of I.28 and quoting I.27, Rongtön presents the manner in which Uttaratantra I.144–52 and RGVV match the dharmakāya, suchness, and the disposition with the nine examples for buddha nature. He says that the meaning of the tathāgata-dharmakāya’s radiating in all sentient beings is that the dharmakāya of realization pervades all sentient beings, quoting RGVV:

These three examples of a buddha image, honey, and a kernel explain that all sentient beings possess the heart of a tathāgata in the sense of the tathāgata-dharmakāya’s pervading the entire realm of sentient beings without exception.

The citation of Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra IX.15 in RGVV is taken as being the reason for this. According to Rongtön, this means that the factor of natural purity—the cause for attaining the fundamental change of both the dharmakāya of realization and the dharmakāya of the teachings—pervades all sentient beings.

Read more here...

Philosophical positions of this person

Is buddha-nature considered definitive or provisional?

Definitive 

Do all beings have buddha-nature?

  Qualified No

Sentient beings are endowed with the naturally abiding gotra, but not the dharmakāya.

Click for more on this topic

To which "turning of the wheel" do the buddha-nature teachings belong?

 

Is buddha-nature equated with emptiness or alayavijnana?

Madhyamaka 

Do buddha-nature teachings belong to the zhentong or rangtong view of emptiness?

Rangtong 

Are there one or three vehicles on the path to buddhahood?

 

Do the author's writings belong to the analytic or meditative tradition of Uttaratantra exegesis?

Analytic Tradition 

What is Buddha-nature?

  Tathāgatagarbha as the Latent State of Buddhahood that is Obscured in Sentient Beings

"Rongtön explains that what is called “the tathāgata heart” is suchness with stains (the basic element not liberated from the cocoon of the afflictions), which is the emptiness of mind with stains. By contrast, the dharmakāya of a tathāgata is what is liberated from this cocoon. The term “tathāgata heart” is used in terms of what is primary because this heart (in the sense of emptiness) is explained to exist at the time of the fruition too. This also refutes the assertion that the fully qualified tathāgata heart is solely the buddhahood that is endowed with twofold purity (natural purity and purity of adventitious stains) because it is explained repeatedly that the primary tathāgata heart is suchness with stains. Rongtön’s commentary on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra says that the Mādhyamikas identify the disposition as the dharmadhātu specified by the six inner āyatanas." Brunnhölzl, K., When the Clouds Part, p. 76.

Click for more on this topic

Does the author advocate the Svatantrika or Prasangika view of emptiness?

 

Other names

• ཤཱཀྱ་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ · other names (Tibetan)
• སྨྲ་བའི་སེངྒེ་ · other names (Tibetan)
• ཤེས་བྱ་ཀུན་གཟིགས་ · other names (Tibetan)
• རོང་ཊཱི་ཀ་པ་ · other names (Tibetan)
• ཤེས་རབ་འོད་ཟེར་ · other names (Tibetan)
• shAkya rgyal mtshan · other names (Wylie)
• smra ba'i seng+ge · other names (Wylie)
• shes bya kun gzigs · other names (Wylie)
• rong TI ka pa · other names (Wylie)
• shes rab 'od zer · other names (Wylie)
• Rongtön Shéja Günsi · other names
• Rongton Sheja Kunrig · other names

Affiliations & relations

• Sakya · religious affiliation
• Nalendra Monastery · primary professional affiliation
• Sangpu Neutok · other professional affiliation
• nil · teacher
• nil · student