Buddha Nature Reconsidered the Eighth Karma Pa’S Middle Path

WIENER STUDIEN ZUR TIBETOLOGIE UND BUDDHISMUSKUNDE HEFT 95.1 DAVID HIGGINS AND MARTINA DRASZCZYK BUDDHA NATURE RECONSIDERED THE EIGHTH KARMA PA’S MIDDLE PATH VOL. I INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS ARBEITSKREIS FÜR TIBETISCHE UND BUDDHISTISCHE STUDIEN UNIVERSITÄT WIEN WIEN 2019 WSTB 95.1 WIENER STUDIEN ZUR TIBETOLOGIE UND BUDDHISMUSKUNDE GEGRÜNDET VON ERNST STEINKELLNER HERAUSGEGEBEN VON BIRGIT KELLNER, KLAUS-DIETER MATHES und MICHAEL TORSTEN MUCH HEFT 95 WIEN 2019 ARBEITSKREIS FÜR TIBETISCHE UND BUDDHISTISCHE STUDIEN UNIVERSITÄT WIEN DAVID HIGGINS AND MARTINA DRASZCZYK BUDDHA NATURE RECONSIDERED THE EIGHTH KARMA PA’S MIDDLE PATH VOL. I INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS VOL. II AN ANTHOLOGY OF HIS WRITINGS: CRITICAL TEXTS AND ANNOTATED TRANSLATIONS ARBEITSKREIS FÜR TIBETISCHE UND BUDDHISTISCHE STUDIEN UNIVERSITÄT WIEN WIEN 2019 DAVID HIGGINS AND MARTINA DRASZCZYK BUDDHA NATURE RECONSIDERED THE EIGHTH KARMA PA’S MIDDLE PATH VOL. I INTRODUCTION AND ANALYSIS ARBEITSKREIS FÜR TIBETISCHE UND BUDDHISTISCHE STUDIEN UNIVERSITÄT WIEN WIEN 2019 Herausgeberbeirat / Editorial Board Jens-Uwe Hartmann, Leonard van der Kuijp, Charles Ramble, Alexander von Rospatt, Cristina Scherrer-Schaub, Jonathan Silk, Ernst Steinkellner, Tom Tillemans Copyright © 2019 by Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien / David Higgins & Martina Draszczyk ISBN: 978-3-902501-33-2 IMPRESSUM Verleger: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universitätscampus, Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 2, 1090 Wien Herausgeber und für den Inhalt verantwortlich: B. Kellner, K.-D. Mathes, M. T. W. Much alle: Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 2, 1090 Wien Druck: Ferdinand Berger und Söhne GmbH, Wiener Straße 80, 3580 Horn “As it was earlier, so it is later – It is of an unchangeable nature.” Ratnagotravibhāga I.51cd Contents Acknowledgements .......................................................................................... 11 Preface .............................................................................................................. 13 Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................... 27 Chapter 2: Doctrinal Background 1. Introductory remarks .................................................................................... 57 2. An outline of buddha nature [by Karma phrin las], translation .................. 60 3. Key points in Karma phrin las pa’s outline of buddha nature .................... 72 3.1. Tathāgatagarbha concepts in early Indian Buddhist sources ..................... 72 3.2. Tathāgatagarbha concepts in Indo-Tibetan Mahāyāna sources ................. 73 3.3. Rang byung rdo rje’s Karma bka’ brgyud position on buddha nature ....... 74 4. Critical edition of Karma phrin las pa’s outline of buddha nature ............. 78 Chapter 3: The Eighth Karma pa’s Central Claims About Buddha Nature 1. Introductory remarks .................................................................................... 83 2. Sixteen central claims regarding buddha nature ......................................... 85 2.1. Buddha nature exists equally in everyone from ordinary beings to buddhas .................................................................................................... 85 2.2. Buddha nature discourses are of definitive meaning (nītārtha) ................... 95 2.3. The “nature” (garbha) of a buddha is actual, not nominal ........................ 101 2.4. The gotra is not metaphorical (upacāra), but attributions of cause and result are .................................................................................... 106 2.5. Buddha nature is buddhahood obscured by defilements ............................ 111 2.6. The three phases of buddha nature indicate progressive degrees of disclosure ......................................................... .................................….. 116 2.7. The classification of three vehicles has a hidden intent (ābhiprāyika); the one vehicle (ekayāna) doctrine is definitive (lākṣaṇika) ..................... 120 2.8. The unfolded gotra is the naturally present gotra awakened through virtue ……………………………………..……. ....................... 131 2.9. Resultant buddha nature may be equated with dharmakāya ...................... 136 2.10. Buddha nature is not emptiness as a nonaffirming negation (med dgag) . 141 2.11. Buddha nature is not a basis established (gzhi grub) by valid cognition . 151 2.12. The identification of buddha nature and ālayavijñāna is provisional .... 162 2.13. Buddha nature is not a self (coarse or subtle) but is selflessness ............ 204 2.14. Buddha nature is only fully revealed in Mantrayāna thought and praxis .... 226 2.15. Buddha nature is natural awareness (tha mal gyi shes pa) ...................... 241 2.16. Buddha nature consists in the unity of the two truths .............................. 257 3. Conclusion ................................................................................................. 276 Abbreviations of frequently cited works of Mi bskyod rdo rje: Embodiments = Sku gsum ngo sprod rnam bshad (KN) Intent = Dgongs gcig kar ṭīg (GC) Lamp = Dbu ma gzhan stong smra ba’i srol legs par phye ba’i sgron me (LG) Tonic = Rgan po’i rlung sman (GL) (see Bibliography in vol. 2 for full titles and bibliographic details) Acknowledgements The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the many people who helped us bring this project to fruition. These two volumes are the result of research generously funded by the Austrian Science Fund between 2015 and 2018 and conducted under the supervision of Prof. Klaus-Dieter Mathes. This project was entitled “Buddha nature reconsidered: Mi bskyod rdo rje and the post-classical Tibetan tathāgatagarbha debates” (FWF P28003-G24). Most of our research was undertaken in the Department of South Asian, Ti- betan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna, which has provided an ideal work environment for our collaborative research. Among our colleagues, we owe a special debt of gratitude to Prof. Klaus-Dieter Mathes for supervising and supporting our research from start to finish. We are especially thankful for his expert guidance and advice in the translation of difficult Sanskrit and Tibetan passages. Finally, we benefitted from his comparative analysis of classical Ti- betan tathāgatagarbha theories presented in his 2008 publication A Direct Path to the Buddha Within: Gö Lotsawa's Mahāmudra Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga. This study formed an ideal chronological and doctrinal starting point for our own incursions into the world of post-classical buddha nature debates and hermeneutics. During the preparation and writing of this book, research trips to India, Khams, and Amdo provided an invaluable opportunity to consult traditionally- trained scholars of the Bka’ brgyud doctrine on various difficult points (dka’ gnad) of Mahāmudrā philosophy that we had identified in our primary sources. We also had the good fortune to benefit from the assistance of our resident Khenpo, Konchok Tamphel, who spent many hours helping us decipher some of the Eighth Karma pa’s most difficult philosophical writings and translate them into readable English. To Khenpo-la we offer our heartfelt thanks. We would also like to thank Prof. Martin Adam of the University of Victoria, Canada, for his tireless efforts, as editor of our manuscript, to ferret out mistakes and im- prove its overall style and readability. We are extremely grateful to professors Michael Torsten Much and Birgit Kellner for their invaluable editorial recom- mendations. Finally, without the interest, the inspiring exchanges, and encour- agement of our many friends and colleagues, this research would have been far less stimulating and fruitful. In this regard we would like to give special thanks to Tom Tillemans, Kazuo Kano, Kent Johnson, and Thomas Doctor. Preface Preface The prodigious writings on buddha nature by the Eighth Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507–1554) reveal a persistent concern to reconcile two divergent lines of interpretation of buddha nature that had long divided Buddhist thinkers in India and Tibet. One view, advanced in the earliest extant tathāgatagarbha texts, takes buddha nature to be an innate unchanging constituent of a human being that exists throughout the flux of sentient existence and persists after death. The Karma pa frequently criticizes a variant of this view promulgated in Tibet by the Jo nang founder Dol po pa Shes rab rgyal mtshan (1243–1313) and his disciples, who stressed the permanent and transcendent status of buddha nature and ulti- mate reality. The other line of interpretation, advanced by several prominent Indian Mādhyamikas including Bhāviveka (6th c.), Candrakīrti (7th c.), Kama- laśīla (8th c.), Jñānaśrīmitra (10th c.) and Jayānanda (11th c.)1, held that buddha nature is nothing but emptiness in the sense of a nonaffirming negation (pra- sajyapratiṣedha : med par dgag pa). This view was adopted in Tibet by Rngog Blo ldan shes rab (1059–1109) and integrated into the view on buddha nature he developed in the context of his translation and interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga (RGV).2 This position was henceforth taken up by his disciples Rgyal Gro lung pa Blo gros ’byung gnas (12th c.) and Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge (1109–1169) and strongly influenced the buddha nature views of a number of later Tibetan scholars including the fourteenth century masters ’Gos Lo tsā ba Gzhon nu dpal (1392–1481), Tsong kha pa Blo bzang grags pa (1357–1419), and the latter’s disciple Rgyal tshab rje Dar ma rin chen

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