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In a provocative essay entitled "Sacred Persistence: Toward a Redescription of Canon"'"`UNIQ--ref-00001057-QINU`"' Jonathan Z. Smith describes the process of self-limitation that occurs when a tradition comes to define for itself (and to define itself in terms of) a canon. There he states that "the radical and arbitrary reduction represented by the notion of canon and the ingenuity represented by the rule-governed exegetical enterprise of applying the canon to every dimension of human life is that most characteristic, persistent, and obsessive religious activity."'"`UNIQ--ref-00001058-QINU`"' Perhaps the most important shortcoming of what is an otherwise masterful essay on the subject of religious canons and their interpretation is Smith's apparent lack of concern with the causal processes underlying the formation of canons and specifically with the social implications of the exclusion of texts or other religious elements from a canon. Contrary to Smith's claim, it has become quite clear, especially in the scholarship of the past decade, that the "reduction" involved in the process of canon-formation is never, as he suggests, "arbitrary". Instead, religious texts come to be considered canonical usually at the expense of other texts that are ''consciously'' excluded and thereby denied normative status. To say that the decision to exclude a particular work is conscious and not arbitrary is to point out that it is ideologically motivated (at times only implicitly so), that it arises within a specific historical and sociocultural context and, perhaps the most significant point, that it is an act of the religious hegemony.'"`UNIQ--ref-00001059-QINU`"'
This question aside, seeing the canon as a predicament, i.e., as a tradition's self-imposed limitation, and viewing the exegetical enterprise as the means whereby a tradition extricates itself from this predicament, is indeed a provocative way of formulating the problematic of religious canons. In this essay I intend to employ Smith's notion as a springboard for discussing the Indo-Tibetan concept of ''siddhānta'' (Tibetan ''grub mtha''', literally 'tenet'), a concept that represents on the level of philosophical ideas this same process of self-limitation. I will maintain that the adoption of such a schema serves functionally to "canonize" philosophy in much the same way as the collection of accepted scriptural texts creates a norm for what is textually canonical. I shall also examine some of the rhetorical strategies involved in utilizing and upholding the validity of the ''siddhānta'' schema. In particular, in the latter part of the essay I will turn my attention to the exegesis of the Tibetan dGe lugs pa school and shall examine how this brand of Buddhist scholasticism deals with the problems that arise out of the self-limitation that occurs in the course of canonizing its philosophical tradition. As might be expected, the examples that best illustrate the unique dGe lugs pa exposition of ''siddhānta'' have to do with points of controversy, and among these some of the most controversial have to do with the theory of Buddha Nature. Hence, much of the material that we shall consider will in one way or another have to do with the notion of ''tathāgatagarbha''.
In what follows I shall urge, first of all, that in the scholastic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, especially in the literature of the dGe lugs pa sect, the ''siddhānta'' schematization served as a de facto canonization of Buddhist philosophy that came to defme what was philosophically normative.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000105A-QINU`"' Secondly, I shall maintain that, despite the fact that Tibetan exegetes have arrived at only a tentative consensus'"`UNIQ--ref-0000105B-QINU`"' as to the nature of the textual canons,'"`UNIQ--ref-0000105C-QINU`"' the determination of whether or not a doctrine was normatively Buddhist (and if so either provisionally or unequivocally true)'"`UNIQ--ref-0000105D-QINU`"' involved to a great extent a rhetoric that had as its basic presupposition the validity of the ''siddhānta'' schema. Put in another way, philosophical discourse (and particularly polemics) was based as much on the ''siddhānta'' classification scheme as it was on the physical canons, the collection of the "Buddha's word" and the commentarial literature whose creation it spurred. In many instances the ''siddhānta'' schema that formed the doctrinal or philosophical canon came to supersede the physical canon as the standard by comparison with which new ideas or texts came to achieve legitimacy.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000105E-QINU`"' (Cabezón, "The Canonization of Philosophy," 7–9)
Articles/The Categories of T'i, Hsiang, and Yung: Evidence that Paramārtha Composed the Awakening of Faith +
The question of whether Paramārtha's version of the ''Awakening of Faith in Mahayana (AFM)'''"`UNIQ--ref-00006292-QINU`"' may really be a Chinese composition has long intrigued scholars of Buddhism. Because no original Sanskrit manuscript of the ''AFM'' has ever been found nor any reference to the ''AFM'' discovered in any Buddhist text composed in India, scholars have long suspected that the ''AFM'' might not be a Chinese translation of an Indian work. The traditional attribution of the text to Aśvaghoṣa is even more suspect—as Paul Demiéville pointed out, it is almost impossible to believe that the Aśvaghoṣa whom one associates with the ''Buddhacarita'', the ''Mahāvibhāṣā'', and the Sarvāstivadins could have composed any Mahāyāna text, much less a sophisticated Mahāyāna treatise like the ''AFM''.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006293-QINU`"' And the discovery at the beginning of this century of Japanese references to the seventh century Buddhist figure Hui-chun, who is quoted as saying that the ''AFM'' was composed not by Aśvaghoṣa, but by a "prisoner of war" who belonged to the ''T'i lun'' School,'"`UNIQ--ref-00006294-QINU`"' prompted many distinguished scholars, including Shinko Mochizuki and Walter Liebenthal, to argue that the work was a Chinese fabrication by a person affiliated with the native Chinese ''T'i lun'' School, which devoted itself to the study of Vasubandhu's ''Daśabhūmivyākhyā''.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006295-QINU`"' Indeed, as recently as 1958, Liebenthal went so far as to say that one could take it as "established" that a member of the ''T'i lun'' School composed the ''AFM''.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006296-QINU`"' Few would go so far as actually to name the member of the ''T'i lun'' School who wrote the ''AFM'', as Liebenthal did (indeed, as Liebenthal himself remarked, it is difficult to believe that any member of the ''T'i lun'' School could have written the ''AFM'', given that the author of the ''AFM'' does not even seem to know the ten ''bodhisattvabhūmis'' described in the ''Daśabhūmivyākhya''),'"`UNIQ--ref-00006297-QINU`"' but for a long time scholarly opinion has leaned in the direction of assigning authorship of the ''AFM'' to the Chinese. Just recently Professor Whalen Lai has brought forward some cogent new reasons for regarding the ''AFM'' as a Chinese composition.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006298-QINU`"'<br> In light of all this, it might seem rather daring to suggest that an Indian actually composed the ''AFM'', but that is what I propose to argue. I do not intend to suggest that the Sarvāstivādin Aśvaghoṣa, or even a "Mahāyāna Aśvaghoṣa" composed the ''AFM''. The first place that any Aśvaghoṣa is listed as the author of the text is in Hui-yüan's ''Ta-ch'êng i chang'', a work composed about a half century after Paramārtha was said to have translated the ''AFM'', so the attribution of the text to Aśvaghoṣa probably postdated its composition. But there are a couple of pieces of important philological evidence, heretofore largely overlooked, that seem to point strongly to an Indian Buddhist, most likely Paramārtha himself, as the real author of the text, or at least of major parts of it '"`UNIQ--ref-00006299-QINU`"' The first piece of evidence is the use in the ''AFM'' of the three categories of ''t'i'', ''hsiang'', and ''yung'', categories which I will try to show were derived by the author of the ''AFM'' from Sanskrit categories used in the ''Ratnagotravibhāgamahāyānottaratantraśāstra (RGV)'' and which could not have been formulated by anyone who did not possess a knowledge of Sanskrit. The second piece of evidence is Paramārtha's interpolation of passages from the ''RGV'' into the ''Mahāyānasaṃgrahabhāṣya (MSbh)'', which seems to show not only that Paramārtha was intimately familiar with the ''RGV'' and its categories, but also that he was personally concerned about issues central to the ''AFM''. When examined together with some interesting biographical details from accounts of Paramārtha's life, this evidence seems to suggest the very real possibility that Paramārtha was the author of the ''AFM''. (Grosnick, introduction, 65–66)<br><br>[https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8748/2655 Read more here . . .]
Articles/The Collection of 'Indian Mahāmudrā Works' (Tib. phyag chen rgya gzhung) Compiled by the Seventh Karma pa Chos grags rgya mtsho +
In the thirteenth century certain aspects of the Bka’ brgyud teachings on mahāmudrā became highly controversial, such as the assertion of the possibility of a sudden liberating realisation or of a beginner’s attaining mahāmudrā even without tantric empowerment. Such teachings were propagated by Sgam po pa (1079–1153), but criticised by Sa skya Paṇḍita (1182–1251), who maintained that there is no conventional expression for mahāmudrā in the pāramitā tradition and that the wisdom of mahāmudrā can only be a wisdom that has arisen from empowerment. ’Gos Lo tsā ba Gzhon nu dpal (1392–1481) defended Sgam po pa’s notion of mahāmudrā, however, by pointing out its Indian origins in the persons of Jñānakīrti (tenth/eleventh century)'"`UNIQ--ref-0000011F-QINU`"' and Maitrīpa (ca. 1007–ca. 1085), together with the latter’s disciple Sahajavajra (eleventh century).'"`UNIQ--ref-00000120-QINU`"' The works of these masters belong to a genre of literature that was eventually called "Indian mahāmudrā works" (''phyag chen rgya gzhung''). (Mathes, introduction, 89–90)<br><br>
[https://www.academia.edu/5613403/Mathes2011_The_Collection_of_Indian_Mah%C4%81mudr%C4%81_Works_phyag_chen_rgya_gzhung_Compiled_by_the_Seventh_Karma_pa_Chos_grags_rgya_mtsho Read more here . . .] +
Articles/The Direct and Gradual Approaches of Zen Master Mahāyāna: Fragments of the Teachings of Mo-ho-yen +
Luis O. Gomez, in "The Direct and the Gradual Approaches of Zen Master Mahayana: Fragments of the Teachings of Mo-ho-yen," edits and translates the sayings and works preserved in Tibetan in scattered fragments of the Ch'an master Mo-ho-yen, who took part in a dispute between Chinese Ch'an teachers and Indian Madhyamika teachers in Tibet in the last half of the eighth century. An attempt is made to reconstruct the original texts and sort them into five genres. Not all the fragments attributed to Mo-ho-yen are included, but this is the most comprehensive work to date.<br> In the analysis of the texts, the author suggests that Mo-ho-yen's doctrinal position was that of an extreme non-dualist who thought practice came after enlightenment. Consequently Mo-ho-yen denied the value of means to that enlightenment, yet he still had to allow for a means for people of lesser abilities. This admission probably gave his opponents grounds for criticism.<br> There is a glossary of Tibetan terms and their Chinese equivalents based on a comparison of the fragments in Tibetan with the Chinese of the ''Tun-wu Ta-sheng cheng-li chüeh'' which depicts Mo-ho-yen's side of the dispute (for which it may have been profitable to consult Hasebe Koichi's edition from the Pelliot and Stein Chinese manuscripts, the "Toban Bukkyō to Zen", ''Aichigakuin Daigaku bungakubu kiyō'' no. 1). Gomez in fact suggests that terminological ambiguity was one source of misunderstanding between the Chinese and Indian parties. Recently R.A. Stein has begun work on the Tibetan translations of Chinese and Indian vocabulary ("Tibetica Antiqua", BEFEO 72, 1983) which sheds more light on the subject. For example, ''lun'' and ''mdo'' (Gomez p. 87, notes 23 and 39), or ''gzhung'' and ''gzhun'' (Gomez p. 140) are interpreted slightly differently by Stein (pp. 175-6 and p. 179 respectively). (John Jorgensen, "Review of ''Studies in Ch'an and Hua-yan''," ''JIABS'' 9, no. 2 (1986): 177–78).
John P. Keenan, in his essay on Paramārtha and Hui-K'ai, explores the complex process by which Indian Buddhist texts were transmitted into China, and argues for the pervasive influence, both linguistic and conceptual, of pre-Buddhist Taoist ideas upon that process. This influence, he argues, was essentially "centrist" in that Taoist thought then focused upon nonbeing as the source or matrix of being, and upon the importance of the "original nature" of human persons; such ideas were naturally conducive to an emphasis upon Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha Nature terms and concepts, for the interpretive tools for understanding them were already present in China, while this was not the case for Indian ideas about ''sūnyatā'' and the dialectic of the two truths.<br>
To illustrate this general point Keenan considers the case of the translator Paramārtha and his amanuensis Hui-k'ai, and shows that in their work on Indic texts they not infrequently added references to ''tathtāgatagarbha'' and Buddha Nature where no such mention was made in the originals; they thus contributed to the centrality of Buddha Nature thought in East Asian Buddhism. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to ''Buddha Nature'', 5) +
One of the most important arguments made by the exponents of Critical Buddhism is, as Matsumoto Shirõ asserts in the title of one of his papers, that "The Doctrine of ''Tathāgata-garbha'' Is Not Buddhist." In brief, the claim made by Matsumoto and Hakamaya Noriaki is that ''tathāgata-garbha'' or Buddha-nature thought is ''dhātu-vāda'', an essentialist philosophy closely akin to the monism of the Upaniṣads. In Matsumoto and Hakamaya’s view, only thought that strictly adheres to the anti-essentialist principle of ''pratītyasamutpāda'' taught by Śākyamuni should be recognized as Buddhist. Buddha-nature thought, being a ''dhātu-vāda'' or essentialist philosophy, is in fundamental violation of this requirement and consequently should not be regarded as Buddhist. On the basis of this reading of Buddha-nature thought, Matsumoto and Hakamaya proceed to make the several subsequent claims documented in this volume. Since the assertion that Buddha-nature thought is ''dhātu-vāda'' is such a foundational claim, I will focus my remarks upon this one point in their corpus, though at the end of this chapter I will have a few words to say regarding their charge that Buddha-nature thought is to blame for the weakness of Japanese Buddhist social ethics.<br> I propose in this paper to challenge Matsumoto and Hakamaya’s reading of Buddha-nature thought. In my understanding, while Buddha-nature thought uses some of the terminology of essentialist and monistic philosophy, and thus may give the reader the impression that it is essentialist or monistic, a careful study of how those terms are used—how they actually function in the text—leads the reader to a very different conclusion. I will attempt to demonstrate that Buddha-nature thought is by no means ''dhātu-vāda'' as charged, but is instead an impeccably Buddhist variety of thought, based firmly on the idea of emptiness, which in turn is a development of the principle of ''pratītyasamutpāda''<br> In making my remarks I draw upon the exposition of Buddha-nature thought given in the ''Buddha-Nature Treatise'' (''Fo hsing lun''), attributed to Vasubandhu and translated into Chinese by Paramārtha.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000672D-QINU`"' The ''Buddha-Nature Treatise'' is a particularly useful text to consult in this matter inasmuch as it constitutes a considered attempt, by an author of great philosophical sophistication, to articulate the Buddha-nature concept per se and to explain both its philosophical meaning and its soteriological function. Indeed, the author is savvy enough to have anticipated the criticisms that this concept would face, including the particular criticisms leveled in our time by Matsumoto and Hakamaya, and to have effectively countered them in the 6th century CE. In this chapter, then, I will consider some of these criticisms in turn and see how the author of the ''Buddha-Nature Treatise'' defends as Buddhist the concept of Buddha-nature and the language in which it is expressed.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000672E-QINU`"' (King, "The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature Is Impeccably Buddhist," 174–75)
In the Buddhist Canon, there are two main corpuses of texts which go by the name ''Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra'' (henceforth abbreviated to ''MNS'') and have as their main concern the recounting of the events and dialogues of the last days of the Buddha. The first, presumably of earlier origin, is a comprehensive compendium of Hīnayāna ideas and precepts. It exists today in its Pali, Sanskrit and Chinese versions, and for its attention to factual details has been resorted to as the principal source of reference in most standard studies of the Buddha's life. As for the second, only its Chinese and Tibetan translations are still extant.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006461-QINU`"' While it also relates some of the well-known episodes of the final months of the Buddha Śākyamuni, notably his illness and the last meal offered by Cunda, such narrations are treated in the work merely as convenient spring-boards for the expression of such standard Mahayana ideas as the eternal nature of Buddhahood and expedience as method of instruction. Both in style and content, this corpus exhibits the disregard of historical particulars and the fascination with the supernatural and the ideal which characterize Mahāyāna writings in general. As a Mahāyāna sūtra, it is of rather late date, for it mentions such influential "middle Mahāyāna" works as the ''Saddharmapuṇḍarīka-sūtra'' and the ''Śūraṃgamasaṃādhi-nirdeśa'' in its text, and so could
not have been compiled before the second century A.D.'"`UNIQ--ref-00006462-QINU`"' It is this Mahāyāna version of the ''MNS'' which we are going to examine in our present study. (Liu, introduction, 63) +
Articles/The Dust Contemplation: A Study and Translation of a Newly Discovered Chinese Yogācāra Meditation Treatise from the Haneda Dunhuang Manuscripts of the Kyo-U Library +
The publication between 2009 and 2013 of the Haneda manuscripts housed the Kyo-U Library (''Kyōu shooku'') in Osaka was a momentous occasion for Dunhuang studies.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000001-QINU`"' This collection of over seven hundred documents, assembled by Haneda Tōru (1882-1955) on the basis of the famed collection of Li Shengduo (1859-1937) with further materials later added, is the world’s fifth most significant repository of Dunhuang manuscripts after those in London, Paris, Beijing, and St. Petersburg.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000002-QINU`"' Now that these sources are at long last available to scholars, many exciting discoveries await historians of medieval China and medieval Chinese Buddhism in particular.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000003-QINU`"'<br> In this article I introduce a previously unknown, late seventh-century (as I shall argue) Buddhist text from this collection: Hane[da] manuscript no. 598, a single scroll bearing at its conclusion the title "Method for the Contemplation of Dust'"`UNIQ--ref-00000004-QINU`"' as Empty" (''Chen kong guan men'').'"`UNIQ--ref-00000005-QINU`"' The ''Dust Contemplation'', as I will call it, is a unique and surprisingly concrete set of instructions for the practice of Buddhist meditation based on the doctrines and technical vocabulary of the early Chinese Yogācāra tradition, particularly (but not exclusively) those often linked by modern scholars to the so-called Shelun commentarial tradition (Shelunzong), which drew primary inspiration from the Yogācāra scriptures translated by
Paramārtha (Zhendi; 499–569) and which flourished during the late sixth and early seventh centuries.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000006-QINU`"' (Greene, introductory remarks, 1–2) +
A teaching on buddha-nature by a prominent American Buddhist teacher. +
Articles/The Gzhan stong Model of Reality: Some More Material on Its Origin, Transmission, and Interpretation +
By the time Tibetans inherited Indian Buddhism, it had already witnessed two major doctrinal developments, namely the notion of the 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 (''pariniṣpanna svabhāva'').'"`UNIQ--ref-00000128-QINU`"' Closely related to this threefold distinction was the Tathāgatagarbha restriction of emptiness to adventitious stains which cover over an ultimate nature of buddha-qualities. There can be, of course, only one true reality towards which the Buddha awakened, so that exegetes were eventually forced to explain the canonical sources (i.e., Mahāyāna Sūtras) which contain mutually competing models of reality. This set the stage for the well-known hermeneutic strategies of the Tibetan schools. The main issue at stake was whether or not one needs to distinguish two modes of emptiness: being "empty of an own-being" (Tib. ''rang stong''), and being "empty of other" (Tib. ''gzhan stong''). (Mathes, introductory remarks, 187)<br><br>
[https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/10602/4454 Read more here . . .] +
Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shirõ are convinced that ''tathāgatagarbha'' theory and the Yogācāra school share a common framework that they call ''dhātu-vāda'' or "locus theory." The word ''dhātu-vāda'' itself is a neologism introduced by Matsumoto'"`UNIQ--ref-00000162-QINU`"' and adopted by Hakamaya.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000163-QINU`"' They argue that the ''dhātu-vāda'' idea stands in direct contradiction to the authentic Buddhist theory of ''pratītyasamutpāda'' or "dependent origination," which in turn leads them to consider ''tathāgata-garbha'' and Yogācāra theories to be non-Buddhist. In their opinion, not only these Indian theories but also the whole of "original enlightenment thought" (''hongaku shisõ'') in East Asia fell under the shadow of the ''dhātu-vāda'' idea,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000164-QINU`"' with the result that most of its Buddhism is dismissed as not Buddhist at all.'"`UNIQ--ref-00000165-QINU`"'<br> The idea of ''dhātu-vāda'' is thus an integral part of the Critical Buddhism critique and as such merits careful examination in any evaluation of the overall standpoint. Since Matsumoto first found the ''dhātu-vāda'' structure in Indian ''tathāgata-garbha'' and Yogācāra literature, we need to begin with a look at the texts in question. My approach here will be purely philological and will limit itself to the theoretical treatises (śāstras). (Yamabe, introductory remarks, 193)<br><br>
[https://www.academia.edu/33371726/The_Idea_of_Dh%C4%81tu-v%C4%81da_in_Yogacara_and_Tath%C4%81gata-garbha_Texts Read more here:] +
Anne Burchardi'"`UNIQ--ref-000013E5-QINU`"'<br>
The present article is a contribution to the discussion on the place of epistemology in Tibetan Buddhism in relation to the doctrine of Mahāmudrā, drawing on a selection of Tibetan sources from the 16th century as well as Bhutanese sources from the 19th century.<br>
While Buddhist epistemology may seem dry and cerebral, it plays a special role as a gateway to Mahāmudrā according to certain masters associated with the ''gzhan stong'' philosophy'"`UNIQ--ref-000013E6-QINU`"'. For them, not only can direct valid cognition (''mngon sum tshad ma'') in general be linked to the non-conceptual states associated with Mahāmudrā meditation, but the basic epistemological definition of mind as luminous and cognisant (''gsal zhing rig pa'') is a precursor to the pointing-out instructions for recognising the nature of mind. According to some interpretations, it is the direct valid cognition of apperception'"`UNIQ--ref-000013E7-QINU`"' (''rang rig mngon sum tshad mo''), which experiences this true nature, and the direct yogic valid cognition (''mal 'byor mngon sum tshad ma''), which realises it. +
For the origins of the Mahāyāna we must agree with Hirakawa'"`UNIQ--ref-00000218-QINU`"' that while some Mahāyāna doctrines are derived from the Mahāsāṃghika school, some others are derived from the Sarvāstivādin school. I would add that unless some other source can be pointed to, we may conclude that Mahāyāna Buddhism in its various forms, at least leaving out the special development of Tantrism, can be traced to either the Mahāsāṃghika or the Sarvāstivādin schools.<br> It is well recognized by Buddhologists that the Mahāsāṃghika sect arose by a schism from the previously undivided Buddhist ''saṃgha'' in the second century after the Buddha's Nirvāṇa (A.N.), leaving the other part of the ''saṃgha'' to be called Sthavira. As to precisely when the schism occurred, there was a difference of opinion as to whether it happened as a result of the Second Buddhist Council (about 110 A.N.) over a laxity of Vinaya rules by some monks, or happened later in the century (137 A.N.) over the five theses about Arhats and which occasioned a 'Third Buddhist Council' sponsored by the Kings Nanda and Mahāpadma. There were some other possibilities, as summarized by Nattier and Prebish,'"`UNIQ--ref-00000219-QINU`"' who conclude that the schism occurred 116 A.N. over Vinaya rules, while the argument over Arhat attainment provoked a further split within the already existing Mahāsāṃghika sect. It is immaterial for our purposes whether the 'five theses of Mahādeva' downgrading the Arhat occasioned the schism between the Mahāsāṃghikas and the Sthaviras, or whether this downgrading was an internal argument within the Mahāsāṃghika. What is important here is that the downgrading of the Arhat continued into a Mahāyāna scripture called the ''Śrīmālā-sūtra'', and that the five theses are a characteristic of the Mahāsāṃghika, to wit: 1. Arhats are tempted by others, 2. they still have ignorance, 3. they still have doubt, 4. they are liberated by others; and 5. the path is accompanied by utterance. The fifth of these seems explainable by other Mahāsāṃghika tenets, in Bareau's listing:'"`UNIQ--ref-0000021A-QINU`"' No. 58 'morality is not mental'; No. 59 'morality does not follow upon thought'; No. 60 'virtue caused by a vow increases'; No. 61 'candor (''vijñapti'') is virtue'; No. 62 'reticence (''avijñapti'') is immoral.'<br> Part I of this paper attempts to relate the ''Śrīmālā-sūtra'' and the Tathāgatagarbha doctrine to the Mahāsaṃnghika school. Part II discusses the terms ''dharmatā'' and ''svabhāva'' so as to expose an ancient quarrel. (Wayman, introduction, 35–36)
Although Ch'an Buddhism has a long history, the name of the Ch'an School (''ch'an-men''<sup>a</sup> or ''ch'an-rsung''<sup>b</sup>)'"`UNIQ--ref-0000669B-QINU`"' was a relatively late development. It was Tsung-mi<sup>c</sup> (780-841),'"`UNIQ--ref-0000669C-QINU`"' the great Master of Kuei-fung who, for the first time, adopted the term in the ninth century A.D. It is interesting to note that it was the same monk-scholar who used the School of Mind (''hsin-tsung''<sup>d</sup>)'"`UNIQ--ref-0000669D-QINU`"' as a synonym of the Ch'an school. Tsung-mi was a scholar of buddhist thought who had personal experience in the broad-ranging knowledge of Ch'an traditions. He collected relevant materials and wrote extensively in an effort to analyze the doctrine and practices of the tradition. His identification of the Mind with the Ch'an indicates that, in his opinion, the Mind was the central focus of the school. Although Tsung-mi contributed a good deal to the understanding of Ch'an Buddhism, his contributions remained almost unknown for a thousand years; it is only during the last two decades that scholars have gradually come to recognize his contribution. with considerable astonishment and admiration. This article is an attempt to describe, analyze and assess Tsung-mi's thesis that the doctrine of Mind is the central focus of Ch'an Buddhism and that the Mind itself is the absolute. (Jan, "The Mind as the Buddha-Nature," 467) +
A blogpost featuring an extract from Joseph Goldstein's book ''One Dharma'' on the topic of buddha-nature. +
Articles/The Original Ratnagotravibhāga and Its Yogāçāra Interpretation as Possible Indian Precedents of Gzhan stong ("Empti-ness of Other") +
In his pioneering study of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' (RGV) TAKASAKI Jikido showed that the standard Indian treatise on ''tathāgatagarbha'' consists of different layers and reduced it to what he considered to be the original ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' by excluding later strands of the text.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000012C-QINU`"' Schmithausen continued this "textual archaeology," which left us with an original text of fifteen verses only.'"`UNIQ--ref-0000012D-QINU`"' While these ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' verses (which in the following I shall refer to as "the original" version) support the idea of an already fully developed "buddha-element" ''(buddhadhātu}'''"`UNIQ--ref-0000012E-QINU`"' in sentient beings, the final (standard) version of the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and its ''vyākhyā'' exhibit a systematic Yogāçāra interpretation of the original ''tathāgatagarbha'' theory. The original and final ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' represent the prototypes of at least two different ''gzhan stong'' interpretations, which mainly differ in whether they restrict or not the basis of emptiness to an unchanging perfect nature. (Mathes, "The Original ''Ratnagotravibhāga''," 119) +
Articles/The Ornament of the Buddha-Nature: Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita's Exposition of the Great Madhyamaka of Other-Emptiness +
''The Ornament of the Buddha-Nature'''"`UNIQ--ref-0000043C-QINU`"' (Tib. ''Bde gshegs snying po'i rgyan'') is a Tibetan Buddhist text composed by the Rnying ma scholar Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita (1761-1829). Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita is known for having been a vigorous defender of the doctrine of the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness, which moulds Tantric practices around the teaching of Buddha-nature at the heart of the doctrine. The present text is one of a number of related texts that are key to understanding his thoughts on the doctrine, whose development he follows from its beginnings in India to Tibet, where it culminates in its final form. Throughout, he is intent on affirming the authority of the Rnying ma ''tantras'' with both a fine line of argument and a mastery of literary skill in verse form. The experience attained through Tantric practices leading to perfection is beyond expression, but the compositional powers of this highly educated scholar in expounding his doctrine are able to convey some sense of the insights such practices lead to.<br> A brief summary of the content of the work in which Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita unfolds his understanding of the history of Buddhism is as follows. After the title, his homage to ''buddhas'', and a statement of the composition’s purpose, he sets out to give an account of the Three Turnings of the Wheel of the Teaching. Doxographically, the First Turning gives rise to the doctrines of the Vaibhāṣika and Sautrāntika schools of the Lesser Vehicle. The author explains the ultimate truth as conceived by the Vaibhāṣika School, but rejects its atomic theory as being deluded, since it posits the existence of subtlest particles of both matter and cognition. He likewise cannot follow the Sautrāntikas in their assertion of the true existence of external objects. From there, he jumps to the Last Turning, which he deals with until the end of the work, primarily on the basis of quoted scriptures. Among them, those concerning the Mind-Only school focus in on the Three Natures theory, which in turn he disallows, given that a truly existing perceiving subject does not comport with the essencelessness of phenomena. That school, he claims, died out, and their works did not gain entry into Tibet. From there he moves on to the next great figures to arrive on the scene: Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga. He goes on to explain the two modes of Madhyamaka, and contends that though both of them are in fact Mādhyamikas of the Middle Wheel, some biased persons claim Asaṅga for the Mind-Only school. Mādhyamikas, whose doctrine is grounded in the Two Truths, divided into two subschools, the Svātantrikas and Prāsaṅgikas. The former, represented in the Indian tradition by Bhāviveka, accepted the existence of phenomena only on the relative level. The latter, by contrast, represented by Buddhapālita, do not accept phenomena even on the relative level. That was the stage to which the Indian Mādhyamikas developed. Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita identifies his own position as that of a true successor of Indian Buddhism’s Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka. In Tibet, Tsong kha pa (1357-1419) initiated a new approach, whereby the truth was subject to confirmation by means of valid cognition, which led to a tradition of rigorous debate. Extensively citing the ''Ratnapradīpa'' of Bhavya (clearly distinguished from the Svātantrika Bhāviveka), which expounds the subtle, inner Madhyamaka of practice, he refutes the use of logic when it comes to ultimate reality. He asserts that the doctrine of mind-only as taught in such works associated with the Last Turning of the Wheels as the ''Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra'' and the ''Ghanavyūha-sūtra'' is the subtle, inner Madhyamaka—and Nāgārjuna, Āryadeva, Candrakīrti, and Bhavya also taught it as such. He equates it with the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness, which he also terms the Great Madhyamaka of definitive meaning. He defends Hwa shang's "abandoning mental engagement," as being the tradition of the instruction of Madhyamaka. The practitioners of Rdzogs chen, he notes, label the doctrine of the Last Turning the "king and creator of all" (''kun byed rgyal po''), and so he regards Rdzogs chen as the same as the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness. Thus, he places Madhyamaka at the summit of the doxographical hierarchy of Buddhist schools as it crystallized in Tibet from its roots in India. He thereby emphasizes that the two modes of emptiness, or two forms of Madhyamaka, that is, self-emptiness and other-emptiness, are in harmony. For Dge rtse Mahāpaṇḍita, the essence of the Buddhist doctrine, which is the Great Madhyamaka of other¬emptiness, is shared by all Tibetan Buddhist schools, be they Jo nang pas, the early Dge lugs pas, Bka' brgyud pas, Sa skya pas, or Rnying ma pas. He ends by stating that Tantric practice is fundamental to the Great Madhyamaka of other-emptiness, and that it is predicated on the existence of the Buddha-nature—that is, Buddhahood—in every sentient being. (Makidono, preliminary remarks, 77–79)
In “The Path of Gratitude,” Jeff Wilson steers us away from the question of individual buddhahood and toward a path of embracing all beings. +
Articles/The Pith Instructions on the Mahayana Uttaratantra (Theg chen gryud bla'i gdams pa): A Missing Link in the Meditation Tradition of the Maitreya Works +
No abstract given. Here are the first relevant paragraphs:'"`UNIQ--ref-000013BB-QINU`"'<br><br>
In four of the five Maitreya works (i.e., the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra'', ''Madhyāntavibhāga'', ''Dharmadharmatāvibhāga'', and the ''Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyāna Uttaratantra'''"`UNIQ--ref-000013BC-QINU`"'),'"`UNIQ--ref-000013BD-QINU`"' we find an interesting synthesis of Yogācāra and Tathāgatagarbha thought. The result is a doctrine that can be defended as a teaching which asserts definitive meaning (''nītārtha'') as it does not include any possible short-comings of the Yogācāra tenet that may lead to an extreme position that either sentient beings are completely cut off from any potential for liberation or that a dependently arising mind exists on the level of ultimate truth.'"`UNIQ--ref-000013BE-QINU`"' While the first extreme is excluded by embracing the ''tathāgatagarbha'' doctrine that everybody is a Buddha within, or has at least the potential to become a Buddha, the second extreme of an ultimate mind is avoided by restricting the dependent nature (''paratantrasvabhāva'') of mind to the level of relative truth. This then allows for ''paratantra'' to be included within the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' 's adventitious stains that cover buddha nature (''tathāgatagarbha''). Thus mind's perfect nature (''pariniṣpannasvabhāva''), or suchness, is equated with buddha nature in the ''Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra'' IX.37,'"`UNIQ--ref-000013BF-QINU`"' and luminosity in Asaṅga's'"`UNIQ--ref-000013C0-QINU`"' commentary on the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' 1.148'"`UNIQ--ref-000013C1-QINU`"' That this luminous perfect nature is empty of the adventitious stains of the imagined (''parikalpitasvabhāva'') and dependent natures follows in final analysis from the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and the ''Dharmadharmatāvibhāga'','"`UNIQ--ref-000013C2-QINU`"' two texts that appear to have been mostly ignored in India for more than five centuries. Things seemed to have changed, however, when Maitrīpa (ca. 1007- ca. 1086) started to integrate tantric ''mahāmudrā'' teachings he received from his teacher Śavaripa into mainstream Mahāyāna. Maitreya's synthesis of the three-nature theory and buddha nature proved to provide good doctrinal support for Maitrīpa's approach. The importance of the ''Dharmadharmatāvibhāga'' and the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' for Maitrīpa's ''mahāmudrā'' is further underlined by the traditional account that Maitrīpa rediscovered and taught these two texts to *Ānandakīrti and Sajjana. With the help of the latter, the Tibetan scholar Rngog Blo ldan shes rab (1059-1109) translated the ''Ratnagotravibhāga'' and its ''vyākhyā'' into Tibetan.
The present paper tries to trace the particular contours that the problem of theodicy assumes in the Chinese Buddhist text the ''Awakening of Faith in the Great Vehicle'' (''Ta-sheng ch'i-hsin lun''). It analyses the beginning section of the main body of text—the section, that is, that outlines the major theoretical structure of the work—in terms of a problem that has been of particular concern in western theology. I believe that taking such a tack is especially valuable for highlighting the central ''Problematik'' around which the text is organized. The paper will thus use the problem of theodicy as a means of exploring some of the philosophical implications of the ''Awakening of Faith''. (Gregory, "The Problem of Theodicy," 63) +
