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The Mahāyāna has sometimes been associated with the doctrine that all sentient beings will attain complete awakening, a doctrine which is often linked to some conception of the "embryo of the Tathāgata (''tathāgatagarbha'')'"`UNIQ--ref-00001076-QINU`"'. However, according to an alternate Mahāyāna doctrine, only some sentient beings will attain the complete awakening of a buddha — and some may even be excluded from attaining any form of awakening at all. In this paper, I will examine just such a doctrine, as it is found in an Indian Yogācāra treatise, the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra'' ("Ornament to the Mahāyāna Sūtras"; abbr., MSA), a Sanskrit verse-text, and its prose commentary, the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra-bhāṣya'' (MSABh),'"`UNIQ--ref-00001077-QINU`"'. Particular Tibetan and Chinese sources attribute the composition of the MSA to the bodhisattva Maitreya'"`UNIQ--ref-00001078-QINU`"', which gives us some indication of the importance this text was understood to have within certain traditions. Nevertheless, the authorship and date of the verse-text and its commentary are not certain; I hypothesize that the MSA/Bh may be dated to the fourth century CE (perhaps c. 350 CE)'"`UNIQ--ref-00001079-QINU`"'. It is my hope that an examination of such a source may contribute to the study of the various ways in which the contours of the Mahāyāna have been drawn from a doctrinal perspective. In the MSA/Bh, one way in which the limits of the Mahāyāna are defined is through the employment of the ''gotra''-theory, a theory which identifies the soteriological potentialities of individuals through reference to their spiritual "family" or "lineage." So in order to understand this text's discursive construction of the category "Mahāyāna," we must understand its concept of ''gotra''. (D'Amato, "Can All Beings Potentially Gain Awakening," 115–16) +
Articles/Cittaprakṛti and Ayoniśomanaskāra in the Ratnagotravibhāga: A Precedent for the Hsin-Nien Distinction of The Awakening of Faith +
The question of the authorship of the ''Ta-ch'eng chi-hsin lun'' ''The Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna'', tr. Paramārtha, hereafter referred to as the AFM), has long been a lively subject of discussion among scholars of Buddhism. Such eminent Buddhologists as Demiéville, Liebenthal, and Mochizuki (to name just a few), have debated the authenticity of the two Chinese translations of the text and discussed the possibility that the original text of the AFM might have been composed in China as part of a controversy between two branches of the ''Ti-lun'' sect.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006245-QINU`"' In recent editions of the ''Journal of the IABS'' the question of the authorship of the AFM has been raised again. In a couple of intriguing essays, Professor Whalen Lai has presented some new arguments in support of the Chinese authorship of the text.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006246-QINU`"'<br>
I do not intend here to try to resolve all of the many questions involved in determining the author of the AFM (such an undertaking is well beyond the scope of a short paper), but I would like to address an argument that Professor Lai raised in the first of his articles—namely his contention that the AFM's exposition of the relationship of ''hsin'' (mind) and ''nien'' (thought, thought-moment) bears such an "unmistakable sinitic stamp" that it must have been authored in China.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006247-QINU`"' I will try to show that the AFM's central conception of an "unmoved," pure mind (''hsin'') existing as the basis of the deluded movement of thoughts (''nien'') has an important Indian precedent in the ''cittaprakṛti'' and ''ayoniśomanaskāra'' notions of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga-mahāyānottaratantraśāstra'' (hereafter referred to as the RGV), a text with which the AFM's author may well have been familiar. I do not intend this as a criticism of Professor Lai's research—the parallels he finds between Chinese thought regarding ''hsin'' and ''nien'' prior to the period of the Six Dynasties and the elucidation of these notions in the AFM deserve serious attention. I simply would like to show that similar parallels—if not direct textual influences—exist between the AFM and the Indian-composed RGV, so that there is no compelling reason to conclude that the AFM theory of mind (''hsin'') and thoughts (''nien'') demonstrates Chinese authorship. (Grosnick, "''Cittaprakṛti'' and ''Ayoniśomanaskāra'' in the ''Ratnagotravibhāga''," 35–36)<br><br>
[https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8605/2512 Read more here . . .]
Dr. Tadeusz Skorupski in ‘Consciousness and Luminosity in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism’ invokes the juxtaposition of the phenomenal world of ''saṃsāra'' and the perfected state of nirvana, noting that they reflect and essentially correspond to the dynamic operating in the Buddhist analysis of consciousness and the propensities of the human mind: the mind produces the factors contributing to rebirth, but is also the primary vehicle in the attainment of salvation. He identifies several key features that permeate early Buddhist doctrine: the pre-eminence of mind, the notion of inherent radiance, the alien nature of the defilements that contaminate the mind, and the interplay of the image of purification and corruption. Starting with a close reading of Buddhaghosa's interpretations of the nature of luminosity, the author extends his discussion to include the Mahāsaṅgikas, who emphasize the inherent radiance of a mind obscured by adventitious defilements, and the Sarvāstivāda Vaibhāṣikas, who aver that an inherently radiant mind could not be obscured, for to them it has a propensity, rather than an innate disposition, to luminosity. Delineating various attributes of the description of consciousness according to different schools, the author moves from Pāli ''Abhidhamma'' to Mahāyana and Vajrayāna sources and Bodhicitta doctrine. Alighting on subsequent Indian Tantric theories that posit a fourfold luminosity of consciousness as four kinds of emptiness, he notes that such an understanding of consciousness and luminosity was applied in the Tibetan understanding of the processes occurring during death, as described in the work known as ''The Tibetan Book of the Dead''. The author describes this account of death, as involving the transition through four kinds of luminosity, as unique to Tibet, in particular to the Nyingma and Kagyu traditions. He concludes that although varied schools often disagree in certain features, all concur in the possibility of and access to a purified mind. Tracing the continuity between early ''Abhidhamma'' through to the various Mahāyāna schools, the author avers, provides an insightful range of perspectives on luminosity and nature of the mind itself. (Editorial Committee, introduction, 10)<br><br> [http://btmar.org/files/pdf/buddhist_philosophy_and_meditation_practice.pdf Read more here . . .]
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Buddhism began gradually to be introduced to Tibet in the seventh century C. E., more than a thousand years after Shākyamuni Buddha's passing away (''circa'' 483 B. C.).'"`UNIQ--ref-0000633F-QINU`"' The form Buddhism took in Tibet was greatly influenced by the highly developed systemization of the religion that was present in India through the twelfth century (and even later). The geographic proximity and relatively undeveloped culture of Tibet provided conditions for extensive transfer of scholastic commentaries and systems of practice, which came to have great influence throughout a vast region stretching from Kalmuck Mongolian areas in Europe where the Volga River empties into the Caspian Sea, Outer and Inner Mongolia, and the Buriat Republic of Siberia as well as Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, and Ladakh. The sources for my discussion are drawn primarily from two of the four major orders of Tibetan Buddhism:<br>
* the old order called Nying-ma-ba,'"`UNIQ--ref-00006340-QINU`"' which reached its full development in the fourteenth century with the scholar-yogi Long-chen-rap-jam'"`UNIQ--ref-00006341-QINU`"'
* a highly scholastic order called Ge-luk-ba,'"`UNIQ--ref-00006342-QINU`"' founded by the fourteenth century scholar-yogi Dzongka-ba.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006343-QINU`"'<br>
Long-chen-rap-jam was born in 1308 Do-drong'"`UNIQ--ref-00006344-QINU`"' in south central Tibet, received ordination at Samyay'"`UNIQ--ref-00006345-QINU`"' Monastery, and studied the doctrines of both the old and new schools. A great scholar, he became abbot of Sam-yay Monastery early in his life but retired from that position to live in the mountains. Receiving the full corpus of the teachings of the Old Translation School of Nying-ma, he wrote prolifically, and even when he was exiled for a decade to Bhutan for his closeness with the opponents of the ruling power, he established and restored monasteries.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006346-QINU`"'<br> Dzong-ka-ba was born in 1357 in the northeastern province of Tibet called Am-do,'"`UNIQ--ref-00006347-QINU`"' now included by the occupying Chinese Communists not in the Tibetan Autonomous Region but in Ch'ing-hai Province. He studied the new and old schools extensively, and developed his own tradition called Ge-luk-ba. Dzongka- ba and his followers established a system of education centered especially in large universities, eventually in three areas of Tibet but primarily in Hla-sa, the capital, which in some ways was for the Tibet cultural region what Rome is for the Catholic Church. For five centuries, young men came from all over the Tibetan cultural region to these large Tibetan universities to study (I say "men" because women were, for the most part, excluded from the scholastic culture). Until the Communist takeovers, these students usually returned to their own countries after completing their degrees.<br> My presentation on the mind of clear light is largely from standard Nying-ma-ba and Ge-luk-ba perspectives on the two basic forms of what Tibetan tradition accepts as Shākyamuni Buddha's teaching—the Sūtra Vehicle and the Tantra Vehicle, also called the Vajra Vehicle.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006348-QINU`"' (Hopkins, background, 245–46)
With Mathes' article―the last one in our volume―we move on to a "hot issue" of 15th-century scholastic philosophy, namely the contested view of "emptiness-of-other" (''gzhan stong''). The article investigates 'Gos Lo tsā ba gZhon nu dpal's analysis of Buddha nature and pursues the question of whether this master advocated a ''gzhan stong'' view. Mathes faces a difficult situation regarding sources, since no philosophical work by 'Gos Lo tsā ba has come down to us apart from a commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (in which the term ''gzhan stong'' is not mentioned). Therefore, Mathes makes use of "secondary sources" such as the Eighth Karma pa's polemical review of 'Gos Lo tsā ba's lost Kālacakra commentary and a biography composed by the Fourth Zhwa dmar pa. As Mathes is able to show, 'Gos Lo tsā ba's position on Buddha nature differs sharply from the position held by the Eighth Karma pa, who (like the Third and Seventh Karma pas) supported a type of ''gzhan stong'' view. It is, moreover, obvious that 'Gos Lo tsā ba was influenced, to a certain extent, by Tsong kha pa's scholastic exegesis and thus attempted to harmonize the latter's view of emptiness with the ''mahāmudrā'' approach of the bKaʼ brgyud pas. In the end, Mathes comes to the conclusion that it is problematic to describe 'Gos Lo tsā ba's position as ''gzhan stong'', although the Eighth Karma pa (ironically) terms it as "great ''gzhan stong''." (Sernesi and Caumanns, introduction to ''Fifteenth Century Tibet'', xix) +
DŌGEN (1200–1253) is one of the most outstanding and unique Buddhists in the history of Japanese Buddhism. He is unique in at least the following three senses.
First, rejecting all existing forms of Buddhism in Japan as unauthentic, he attempted to introduce and establish what he believed to be the genuine Buddhism, based on his own realization which he attained in Sung China under the guidance of the Zen Master Ju-ching (Nyojō, 1163-1228). He called it "the Buddha Dharma directly transmitted from the Buddha and patriarchs." He emphasized ''zazen'''"`UNIQ--ref-0000585A-QINU`"'(seated meditation) as being "the right entrance to the Buddha Dharma" in the tradition of the Zen schools in China since Bodhidharma, originating from Śākyamuni Buddha. Yet he strictly refused to speak of a "Zen sect," to say nothing of a "Sōtō sect," that he was later credited with founding. For Dōgen was concerned solely with the "right Dharma," and regarded ''zazen'' as its "right entrance." "Who has used the name 'Zen sect'? No buddha or patriarch spoke of a 'Zen sect.' You should realize it is a devil that speaks of 'Zen sect.' Those who pronounce a devil's appellation must be confederates of the devil, not children of the Buddha.",'"`UNIQ--ref-0000585B-QINU`"'He called himself "the Dharma transmitter Shamon Dōgen who went to China"'"`UNIQ--ref-0000585C-QINU`"'with strong conviction that he had attained the authentic Dharma that is directly transmitted from buddha to buddha, and that he should transplant it on Japanese soil. Thus he rejected the idea of ''mappo'''"`UNIQ--ref-0000585D-QINU`"', i.e., the last or degenerate Dharma, an idea with wide acceptance in the Japanese Buddhism of his day. It may not be too much to say of Dōgen that just as Bodhidharma transmitted the Buddha Dharma to China, he intended to transmit it to Japan.
Secondly, though Dōgen came to a realization of the right Dharma under the guidance of a Chinese Zen master whom he continued to revere throughout his life, the understanding of the right Dharma is unique to Dogen. With religious awakening and penetrating insight, Dōgen grasped the Buddha Dharma in its deepest and most authentic sense. In doing so, he dared to reinterpret the words of former patriarchs, and even the sutras themselves. As a result, his idea of the right Dharma presents one of the purest forms of Mahayana Buddhism, in which the Dharma that was realized in the Buddha's enlightenment reveals itself most profoundly. All of this, it is noteworthy, is rooted in Dōgen's own existential realization, which he attained in himself through long and intense seeking. Based on this idea of the right Dharma, he not only rejected, as stated above, all existing forms of Buddhism in Japan, but also severely criticized certain forms of Indian and Chinese Buddhism, though, it is true, he generally considered Buddhism in these two countries as more authentic than that in Japan.
The third reason Dōgen is unique in the history of Japanese Buddhism, is because of his speculative and philosophical nature. He was a strict practicer of ''zazen'', who earnestly emphasized ''shikantaza'''"`UNIQ--ref-0000585E-QINU`"', i.e., just sitting. His whole life was spent in rigorous discipline as a monk. He encouraged his disciples to do the same. Yet he was endowed with keen linguistic sensibility and a philosophical mind. His main work, entitled ''Shōbōgenzō'''"`UNIQ--ref-0000585F-QINU`"', "A Treasury of the Right Dharma Eye," perhaps unsurpassable in its philosophical speculation, is a monumental document in Japanese intellectual history. In Dōgen, we find a rare combination of religious insight and philosophical ability. In this respect, he may be well compared with Thomas Aquinas, born twenty five years after him.
He wrote his main work, ''Shōbōgenzō'', in Japanese, in spite of the fact that leading Japanese Buddhists until then had usually written their major works in Chinese. Dōgen made penetrating speculations and tried to express the world of the Buddha Dharma in his mother tongue by mixing Chinese Buddhist and colloquial terms freely in his composition. The difficult and unique style of his Japanese writing is derived from the fact that, in expressing his own awakening, he never used conventional terminology, but employed a vivid, personal style grounded in his subjective speculations. Even when he used traditional Buddhist phrases, passages, etc., he interpreted them in unusual ways in order to express the Truth as he understood it. In Dōgen, the process of the search for and realization of the Buddha Dharma and the speculation on and expression of that process are uniquely combined.'"`UNIQ--ref-00005860-QINU`"'
In this paper I shall discuss Dōgen's idea of Buddha nature, which may be regarded as a characteristic example of his realization. (Abe, "Dōgen on Buddha Nature", 28–30)
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The Buddhist schools are rich and varied in their perspectives, but these many points of view all advance the Buddhist concept of the middle view (''madhya-drshti'' in Sanskrit and ''ume tawa'' in Tibetan). +
Original sin vs. original goodness: Mahayana Buddhism offers a more hopeful view of human nature. Zen teacher Melissa Myozen Blacker reveals how nondual practice frees us from our temporary obscurations and reveals our true, awakened nature. +
[[Gyatrul Rinpoche]] is a famed modern Tibetan teacher of the [[Nyingmapa school]] and holder of the Dudjom Tersar Lineage. This short teaching is a clear and pithy presentation of the Tibetan Buddhist view of buddha-nature from the Nyingma viewpoint that reminds us not only that it is obvious that all sentient beings have buddha-nature, but also that recognizing our buddha-nature depends upon learning in a deep way. We must "chew" on what we have learned and really take it to heart: "If you don’t know your buddhanature, learn about it! Don’t just complain that you don’t understand, or say it is too difficult. How can you see it? How can you recognize it? By learning." +
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Before you fully embark on the path of the bodhisattvas and buddhas, says Chan master Sheng Yen, you must first practice the four steps to magical powers. What are these steps and what are the magical powers you need? +
This is part 2 of a report on the fragments of hitherto unknown commentary on the Tattvasańgraha.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000069-QINU`"' The folio we report on here, photographed in frames 32 (recto) and 33 top (verso), constitutes a part of the commentary on Tattvasańgraha stanzas 177–181. Tis is where various arguments for the existence of ''ātman'' is presented.<br> Here, we give the tex of the Tattvasańgraha along with the Tattvasańgrahapañjikā in full. Unlike in the previous fragment, our commentary is brief, and due to its fragmentary nature, it is hard to understand. Having the Tattvasańgrahapañjikā next to our text greatly helps in reconstructing and understanding our text. (Harimoto and Kano, introduction, 5) +
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Although Tsongkhapa did not author a commentary on the ''Ultimate Continuum'', his main student and successor at his main seat of Ganden, Gyaltsap Je Darma Rinchen, composed an elaborate commentary on the ''Ultimate Continuum''. The commentary, filling 230 folios, was composed at Nenying temple at the request of Gungru Gyaltsen Zangpo and others after Gyaltsap had received teachings on it from both Rendawa and Tsongkha. One Tagtsel Kharkhap Dhondup Kunga served as the scribe for this voluminous and meticulous commentary, in which Gyaltsap carries out a relentless critique of the theory that buddha-nature is inherently endowed with qualities of the Buddha or that it is an absolute eternal reality empty only of other adventitious conventional phenomena. +
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The question of ever-present change must be as old as the discipline of philosophy itself. The notion of constant flux attributed to Heraclitus (c. 535–c. 475 BC) and known as “''panta rhei''” was largely forgotten in the later development of Greek thought, but in India the notion of universal flux developed from around the sixth century BCE onward and inspired different philosophical systems, among them the Buddhist philosophy.
The Buddha’s statement “all that is conditioned'"`UNIQ--ref-0000100E-QINU`"' is impermanent!”'"`UNIQ--ref-0000100F-QINU`"' is known as one of The “Four Seals,” the cornerstone of all Buddhist traditions. In Buddhist logic this seal became the basis for the equation: “Whatever is conditioned is impermanent and whatever is impermanent is conditioned. Whatever is not conditioned is not impermanent and whatever is not impermanent is not conditioned.”
In Buddhism, the doctrine of the impermanence of conditioned entities is interwoven with the doctrine of causality. The fact that an entity is conditioned by previous causes and moments makes it subject to impermanence. The doctrine of impermanence was further refined into the doctrine of momentariness. This doctrine postulates a process of momentary arising and cessation on the micro level that happens so fast that it is perceived as a continuity.'"`UNIQ--ref-00001010-QINU`"'
The following presentation will highlight different definitions and classifications of what the terms ''conditioned'' and ''impermanent'' might mean for a number of selected Tibetan Buddhist masters in their interpretations of the true nature of the mind. Their literary works are invariably based, directly or indirectly, upon Indian Buddhist ''śāstras'' translated into Tibetan.
The point of the exploration in general is to facilitate access to the insights of Tibetan Buddhist masters as they are formulated within the framework of a philosophical discussion. A characteristic feature of their statements is that they are not based on intellectual speculation, but on meditative experience.
Here, we will be concerned mainly with the interpretation of statements pertaining to this issue in two Indian ''śāstras'', the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and the ''Madhyāntavibhāga'', both attributed to Maitreya. However, as we will see, some of our Tibetan authors also draw on Indian works on Buddhist logic, epistemology, and ontology such as Dharmakīrti’s ''Pramāṇavārttika'', Vasubandhu’s ''Abhidharmakośa'', and Asaṅga’s ''Abhidharmasamuccaya''. The latter texts were studied in the monastic colleges of Tibet in the form of simplified manuals that constitute their own literary genre known as “Collected Topics” (''Bsdus grwa'') and “Classifications of Mind” (''blo rigs'').'"`UNIQ--ref-00001011-QINU`"'
In Buddhism, a mind conditioned by “actions” (''karmasaṃkleśa'') and “defilements” (''kleśasaṃkleśa'') is by definition a changeable mind—or one could even say—an unstable mind. As different mental factors make their appearance in our minds, our mental states change. Over the course of a day, an ordinary mind experiences many different mental states or factors caused by various defilements. But what should we think about the ultimate nature of the mind?
The mind or mental state in which the ultimate nature of mind is experienced, is considered the goal of the Buddhist path. It is called the enlightened mind, the true nature that is revealed when ''kleśa'' (“defilements”) and karma have subsided. This observation leaves us with two fundamental questions: Is this ultimate nature also described as conditioned and impermanent? Second, if this is the case, why is ultimate nature described in such a way? I will return to these questions below.
In order to introduce the selected Tibetan authors and their works, it may be helpful to reiterate that the so-called “Empty in itself'"`UNIQ--ref-00001012-QINU`"'-Empty of other”'"`UNIQ--ref-00001013-QINU`"' distinction that arose in Tibet is based on different interpretations of the nature of the mind or the so called “buddha-nature.” These interpretations stem from different readings of the seminal text for the presentation of the buddha-nature, the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (hereafter abbreviated as RGV). The Buddha nature teachings are traditionally associated with the so-called third turning of the wheel of the Dharma, which the “Empty of other” proponents as well as other thinkers assert to be the highest level of the Buddhist teachings, following the division of the Buddha’s teachings provided in the seventh chapter of the ''Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra'' into three stages or wheels of doctrine, the first two being classified as provisional and the third and final stage as definitive.'"`UNIQ--ref-00001014-QINU`"'
In the RGV the nature of the mind is described in a way that lends itself to various interpretations. More than fifty commentaries'"`UNIQ--ref-00001015-QINU`"' were written in Tibet based on this ''śāstra''. Some were composed by authors classified as proponents of the “Empty in itself” philosophy and others by proponents of the “Empty of other” philosophy. The latter were often accused of interpreting the RGV’s statements too literally, taking the true nature of the mind to be a truly existent entity which was anathema to the Madhyamaka teachings based on the so-called second turning of the wheel of the Dharma. There was also the question of the qualities attributed to buddha-nature. If it contains qualities (as the RGV says it does) how can it be empty at the same time? The ontological status of the nature of the mind vis-à-vis the nature of emptiness is a central topic much discussed in the Tibetan tradition.
In this article, I will focus on explanations by selected authors, some of which have been classified as proponents of the “empty of other” philosophy. It is by now generally accepted that their works have been underrepresented, if not misrepresented, within the Tibetan scholastic tradition, partly as a consequence of the political persecution of the Jonang school. (Burchardi, "How Can a Momentary and Conditioned Mind Be Integral to ''Gzhan Stong''?, 55–57)
Articles/Hu-Jan Nien-Ch'i (Suddenly a Thought Rose): Chinese Understanding of Mind and Consciousness +
''The Issue'': In the ''Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna'' (''Ta-ch'eng ch'i-hsin lun'',<sup>b</sup> henceforth abbreviated as AFM), is found a unique explanation of the origin of ''avidyā'', ignorance:<br>
:''Hu-jan nien-ch'i, ming wei wu-ming<sup>c</sup>
:Suddenly a thought rose; this is called ignorance<br>
This idea has baffled many modern scholars as it has traditionally charmed many a Far Eastern Buddhist. What is meant by "suddenly"? What constitutes "thought"? The most recent translator of the AFM, Yoshito Hakeda, has appended this remark to the passage:<br>
:There has been much discussion on the meaning of ''hu-jan'' in connection with the origin of ignorance, mainly on the basis of interpretations proposed by Fa-tsang,<sup>d</sup> (1) that ignorance alone becomes the source of defiled states of being. It is the subtlest; no other state of being can be the origin of this. It is therefore said in the text that ignorance emerges suddenly. (2) Commenting on a quotation from a ''sūtra'', he says "suddenly" means "beginninglessly," since the passage quoted makes clear that there is no other state of being prior to the state of ignorance. (3) The word "suddenly" is not used from the stand point of time, but is used to account for the emergence of ignorance without any instance of inception.
:. . . A monk of Ming<sup>e</sup> China, glosses "suddenly" as ''pu-chüeh'',<sup>f</sup> which may mean "unconsciously" or "without being aware of the reason."
:. . . If ''hu-jan'' is a translation of a Sanskrit word, the original word ''asasmāt'' may be posited. ''Akasmāt'' means "without reason" or "accidentally."'"`UNIQ--ref-0000674A-QINU`"'<br>
The above remark does not actually answer the question of the origin of the concept, ''hu-jan'' (suddenly) or the identity of ''nien''<sup>g</sup> (thought). We become only more aware that ''hu-jan'' is one crucial justification for ''ch'an''<sup>h</sup> (zen) "sudden enlightenment," itself a unique idea. Concerning the meaning of ''nien'' and ''wu-nien''<sup>i</sup> (no-thought), I have shown in a related article that (a) Hakeda is not the first repeatedly to read ''nien'' as ''wang-nien'',<sup>j</sup> ''vikalpa''; Śikṣānanda's AFM was bothered by the same term; (b) but both managed to distort the original meaning; for (c) ''nien'' is rooted in a peculiar understanding in pre-Buddhist Han China.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000674B-QINU`"' Nien is the incipient thought, associated with ''yin''<sup>k</sup> that disrupts the (otherwise passive, ''yang'',<sup>l</sup> mind. In this present article, I will cite more evidences—this time focusing upon the concepts of ''shih'',<sup>m</sup> consciousness, and ''hu-jan'', suddenness—to show again why the AFM cannot be fully understood without reference to the native mode of thought. (Lai, "''Hu-Jan Nien Ch'i'' (Suddenly a Thought Rose)," 42–43)
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Articles/Image-likeness and the Tathāgatagarbha: A Reading of William of St. Thierry's Golden Epistle and the Ratnagotravibhāga +
In Book 10 of his ''Confessions'' Augustine marvels as he meditates on the qualities of the ''memoria'' in human beings:<br>
'"`UNIQ--poem-0000629E-QINU`"'
This concern with the ''memoria'', and its function in the human mind, was to be one of the most important spiritual legacies Augustine would leave to the Latin, and especially monastic, Middle Ages. In fact, it would be possible to say without much exaggeration that the entire history of monastic spirituality in the Latin Middle Ages (at least until approximately A.D. 1200) is the record of the development of understanding of the power of ''memoria''.'"`UNIQ--ref-000062A0-QINU`"' A central reason for this is that ''memoria'' was described as a faculty that worked by recalling the human person to the knowledge and intuition that they were created in the image and likeness of God. Thus the words of ''Genesis'' 1:26–27 stand at the beginning of an entire spiritual tradition: "God said let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves. . . . God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." Augustine frequently exhorts himself, as in ''Confessions'' 7.10, to "return to myself" ''(redite ad memet ipsum)''. This was also the continual refrain of the Cistercian author of the twelfth century, William of St. Thierry, in his ''Golden Epistle'', and it serves as one of the themes on which he builds this work. William's treatise, folloing in the path of Augustine, is a call to discover the image and likeness of God in the individual person.<br> In the presentation to follow I would like to set out two spiritual traditions for us to consider: the image-likeness tradition based on Genesis 1:26 and developed by the Latin and Greek Fathers of the Church until approximately A.D. 1200, and the ''tathāgatagarbha'' teachings on Buddha-nature in Mahayana Buddhism, which flourished in India and then spread to Tibet and other parts of the Far East in the first six centuries C.E. I shall do this bby presenting two texts: the ''Golden Epistle'' of William of St, Thierry, and the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (third to fifth centuries A.D.), variously attributed to Saramati or Maitreya. My thesis here is that while the language and concepts used in these two treatises are different, and the two worldviews of which they are representative also vary widely, we can find nonetheless underlying themes that express central concerns of each tradition, especially concerning the brith of a basic nature in the person, and the inability of either sin or defilements ''(kleśa)'' to cover over that nature that is coming to birth.'"`UNIQ--ref-000062A1-QINU`"' (Groves, "Image-likeness and ''Tathāgatagarbha''," 97–98)
Few premodern Japanese thinkers have received as much attention from Western philosophical circles as the thirteenth century Sōtō Zen master Dōgen. This interest has been sparked and facilitated by insightful English translations of key portions of Dōgen's masterful collected work, the ''Shōbōgenzō'' (especially those by Norman Waddell and Masao Abe), and by several book-length studies of Dōgen's thought—most notably those by Hee-jin Kim, Steven Heine, and Carl Bielefeldt. Kim and Heine, in particular, have examined Dōgen from a cross-cultural philosophic perspective.<br> Professor Stambaugh, whose background is primarily German Philosophy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, first turned to Dōgen in the climactic chapter of her book ''The Real in Not the Rational'' [Albany, NY, 1986]. Also the author of ''The Problem of Time in Nietzsche'' [Lewisburg, 1987], she has combined in her present work many of the concerns and issues raised in these previous works while embarking on several new avenues of investigation. She is genuinely impressed with Dōgen, and portrays him as a strong and critical voice capable of insights that frequently go beyond the formulations proffered by the Western philosophers whim whom she compares him, philosophers such as Aristotle, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger.<br> Generally her method of argument in each chapter consists of setting out basic categories—such as transcendence-immanence, identity-difference, etc.— or sketching the view of a particular philosopher—such as Hegel's notion of dialectic—and then allowing Dōgen to either supplement or supplant what has been introduced. In the earlier chapter this method proves fruitful and she repeatedly zeroes in on crucial passages from Dōgen's seminal works: ''Uji'' ('"Being Time"), ''Genjokōan'' ("Actualizing the Kōan"), ''Busshō'' ("Buddha-nature"), ''Gyōji'' ("Ceaseless Practice"), and so on. She is a careful reader, sensitive to many of the philosophical subtleties of Dōgen's writings, and her insights are frequently illuminating and lucid. This is no mean task, given the difficult and unusual language Dōgen uses to express himself.<br> She is particularly effective, I think, in her discussion of the Buddha-nature fascicle, clearly explaining why, for Dōgen, Buddha-nature is neither something that someone possesses nor a potentiality that someone develops or brings to fruition. (Lusthaus, Review of ''Impermanence Is Buddha-Nature'', 69-70)
Change isn’t just a fact of life we have to accept and work with, says Norman Fischer. Practitioners have always understood impermanence as the cornerstone of Buddhist teachings and practice. All that exists is impermanent; nothing lasts. Therefore nothing can be grasped or held onto. When we don’t fully appreciate this simple but profound truth we suffer, as did the monks who descended into misery and despair at the Buddha’s passing. When we do, we have real peace and understanding, as did the monks who remained fully mindful and calm... +
Any steps to be taken in the direction of investigating the Indian roots of Ch'an are hindered by the thicket of legends in which the tradition shrouded itself. The Ch'annists must also be blamed for the fact that the question of what was the original form of this peculiarly Chinese version of Buddhism remains open, still obscured by the fallacious assumption that Ch'an was a monolithic, clearly defined school or tradition. Progress in this area is further hampered by the fact that in both India and China the early history of the movements that gave rise to Ch'an belongs to mystical traditions existing on the margins of the scholarly establishment of Buddhism. On the other hand, the broader question of contacts, connections, agreements and disagreements between Ch'an and Indian Buddhism can now be the object of documented study thanks to the indefatigable efforts of Buddhist scholars in Russia, France and Japan, who have attempted to verify the facts and meaning of an incident known as the "Council of Lhasa." (Gómez, "Indian Materials," 393) +
Articles/Introduction: The History of the Rang stong-Gzhan stong Distinction from Its Beginning through the Ris-med Movement +
By the time Tibetans inherited Indian Buddhism, it had already witnessed two major doctrinal developments, namely, the notion elucidated in the "Discourses on the Perfection of Insight" (''Prajñāpāramitāsūtras'') that all factors of existence (''dharmas'') lack an own-being (emptiness), and the Yogācāra interpretation of this emptiness based on the imagined (''parikalpita''-), dependent (''paratantra''-) and perfect natures (''pariniṣpannasvabhāva''). Closely related to this threefold distinction was the Tathāgatagarbha restriction of emptiness to adventitious stains that cover an ultimate nature, that of buddha-qualities. Throughout Tibetan intellectual history it has been a controversial issue whether these teachings require a distinction between two modes of emptiness: being "empty of an own-being" (''rang stong''), and "empty of other" (''gzhan stong''). While a follower of the ''rang-stong'' view insists that everything (and that includes the Buddha and his qualities) shares the same mode of emptiness (i.e., the absence of an independent existence), some followers of ''gzhan stong'' claim that the ultimate nature of mind and its inherent buddha qualities do have an independent existence, since they are only empty of everything else ("the other") that does not belong to them. This must be distinguished from a more moderate form of ''gzhan stong'', which admits the ''rang stong'' mode of emptiness for both the adventitious stains of relative truth as well as the ultimate nature of mind, but insists that for a practitioner with an immediate experience of the ultimate nature, it is essential to distinguish the latter from the adventitious states of mind that do not reflect how the nature of mind truly is. While forerunners of ''rang stong/gzhan stong'' distinctions can be already identified in a variety of Indian texts and early bKa'-gdams-pa manuscripts,'"`UNIQ--ref-0000011B-QINU`"' their most influential proponents doubtlessly were Dol-po-pa Shes-rab rgyal-mtshan (1292–1361) and Gser-mdog paṇ-chen Shākya mchog-ldan (1427–1507). At the other end of our time frame, new insights into the development of ''gzhan stong'' at the very end of the ''ris-med'' movement can now be gained from the collected works of Zhe-chen Mkhan-chen Gang-shar dbang-po (1925–1958/59?).<br> The contributions to this volume were presented at the ''gzhan stong'' panel organized by Klaus-Dieter Mathes (University of Vienna) at the Twelfth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies in Vancouver, Canada, in August 2010. Its full name was "The History of the ''Rang stong''/''Gzhan stong'' Distinction from its Beginning through the ''Ris-med'' Movement." The contributors were, besides the organizer, Karl Brunnhölzl (Tsadra Foundation), Anne Burchardi (The University of Copenhagen and The Royal Library of Denmark), Douglas Duckworth (Temple University), David Higgins (University of Vienna), Yaroslav Komarovski (University of Nebraska-Lincoln), and Tsering Wangchuk (University of San Francisco). It is regretted that Karl Brunnhölzl and Douglas Duckworth were unable to include their work in the present publication. (Mathes, introduction, 4–5)
Peter Gregory’s essay, "Is Critical Buddhism Really Critical?," takes the thought of Tsung-mi as a
case study in order to ask whether the pursuit of "true Buddhism" is not in turn positing some sort of ''dhātu-vāda''-like essence of Buddhism, hence mirroring the object of its own criticism. Preferring to see Buddhism as a "product of a complex set of interdependent and ever-changing conditions (''pratītyasamutpāda''),” he looks at Tsung-mi's thought not to determine whether or not it is "truly Buddhist" but in order to discover the causes and conditions that brought it into existence. In a manner similar to Sallie King's argument that Buddha-nature can be understood as a catalyst for positive social change, Gregory argues that for Tsung-mi the doctrine of original enlightenment was tied not to a linguistic transcendentalism but rather to an affirmation of language in response to the more radical critiques of the ''prajñā-pāramitā'' tradition. (Hubbard, introduction to ''Pruning the Bodhi Tree'', xvii) +
