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Vision of Samantabhadra - the Dzokchen Anthology of Rindzin Gödem

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Vision of Samantabhadra - the Dzokchen Anthology of Rindzin Gödem Vision of Samantabhadra - The Dzokchen Anthology of Rindzin Gödem Katarina Sylvia Turpeinen Helsinki, Finland M.A. University of Helsinki (2003) A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Religious Studies University of Virginia May 2015 Acknowledgements When I first came to the University of Virginia as a Ph.D. student in January 2005, I had no idea what journey had just started. During the course of my research, this journey took me to rigorous intellectual study and internal transformation, as well as leading me to explore Tibet and Nepal, and to more than four years of living in Tibetan religious communities in the Indian Himalayas. During my years of dissertation research, I was fortunate to meet a great array of bright, erudite, committed, kind, humble and spiritual minds, who have not only offered their help and inspiration, but also their deeply transformative example. I am particularly grateful to three individuals for their invaluable support in my dissertation project: Professor David Germano for his brilliant and patient guidance in all the stages of my research, Taklung Tsetrul Rinpoche for his extraordinary insight and kindness in my contemplative training and Khenpo Nyima Döndrup for his friendship, untiring answers to my questions about Northern Treasures scriptures and generous guidance to Tibetan religious culture. In addition to Khenpo Nyima Döndrup, I am very grateful to have been able to study the texts of The Unimpeded Realization and The Self-Emergent Self-Arisen Primordial Purity with several other learned teachers: Khenpo Chöwang from Gonjang monastery in Sikkim, Khenpo Lha Tsering from the Nyingma Shedra in Sikkim, Khenpo Sönam Tashi from Dorjé Drak monastery in Shimla, Khenpo Chöying from the Khordong monastery in Kham and Lopön Ani Lhamo from the Namdroling monastery in Bylakuppe. I also want to thank Khenchen Tsewang Gyatso from Namdroling monastery and Lama Jigme Namgyel from Tso Pema for their patient and inspiring instruction in tantric contemplation. My heartfelt gratitude extends to Gen Jigme, Gelong Wangchuk, Dorjé Lopön, Peljor, Yarphel, Tsewang Rigdzin, Changchub, Yönten, Nyerpa Wangyel and all the monks of the Dorjé Drak monastery in Shimla, and Drakthok monastery in Sakti, Ladakh, for their kindness, generous support and for answering all my questions about the tradition. I would also like to thank my dissertation committee members, Prof. Kurtis Schaeffer, Prof. John Nemec and Prof. Robert Hueckstedt, for their support and feedback, as well as all the professors and teachers at the University of Virginia that I had the fortune to study with, most notably Prof. Karen Lang, Prof. Nicolas Sihle, Prof. Paul Groner, Prof. John Campbell and Tsetan Chonjore. I am indebted to Chimed Rigdzin Rinpoche for powerful initial inspiration in the study of the Northern Treasures, and Tulku Ugyen for his kind encouragement in the early stages of my research. I wish to thank Gonjang Rinpoche and his wife Sangyum Decho Wangmo for their generosity and support during my stay in the Gonjang monastery, all of which enabled such a fruitful study period with Khenpo Chöwang. I am grateful to Pelchen Dorjé, a Tibetan doctor from Tso Pema, India, for his insights on alchemy and the herbal ingredients in the practices of essence extraction, as well as Tashi Tsering from Amnye Machen Institute, Dharamshala, for his advice and resources of Tibetan texts. 1 I am extremely grateful to my parents, Oiva and Marita Turpeinen, and my siblings Jaakko and Saara Turpeinen, for their continued care and encouragement during my prolonged project. I offer my earnest gratitude to my dear friend and inspiration, Jack Fink, for his support and insights during all my twenty years of study and research of Buddhism. My study at the University of Virginia was enabled by generous grants from multiple sources. Most of all, I wish to thank The Finnish Cultural Foundation, which supported four years of my coursework, exams and research (2005-2009). I am also indebted to The Academy of Finland (2005) and the Scholarship Foundation of the Finnish-American Associations’ League (2006), for their invaluable support. Abundant friends and colleagues have also helped and inspired me during my research. I would like to thank Jay Valentine, Andreas Ruft, Michael Burroughs, Ani Trinlé Zangmo, Lama Konchok Jatso, Ani Yangcen Drölma, Ani Khandro, Khenpo Ngawang Dorjé, Karma Lhundrup, Jann Ronis, Christopher Bell, Nicolas Trautz, Dominic Sur, all my colleagues at the University of Virginia, and many others that are too numerous to name. As the submission dead line is approaching and I am still hastily editing and writing new passages in the dissertation, thinking about all the people who have helped me in this project has filled me with a sense of preciousness for all these unique encounters and moments spent with a wide variety of exceptional people and their input in my project. It has been such a treasured opportunity to meet and work with all of you. In Charlottesville, April 29th, 2015. 2 Contents Introduction _______________________________________________________ 5 Methodology ___________________________________________________12 Note on the abbreviations _________________________________________13 Chapter One: Life and Corpus of Rindzin Gödem_______________________14 Life __________________________________________________________ 14 Treasure revelation ___________________________________________ 17 Background ______________________________________________17 Gödem’s treasure expedition ______________________________19 Corpus ________________________________________________________21 Editions of The Unimpeded Realization and The Self-Emergent Self-Arisen Primordial Purity _____________________________________________27 Chapter Two: Contents, Structure, Interrelations, Themes ______________ 30 Synopsis of the contents __________________________________________ 31 Summary of the volumes _________________________________________ 33 Volume I. Narratives, preparation and body practices ________________ 33 Volume II. Death, visions and pristine awareness ___________________ 34 Volume III. Buddha-voices and liberatory amulets __________________ 35 Volume IV. Philosophy, alchemy and charnel grounds _______________ 36 Volume V. Primordial purity and transformative dialogues ____________ 37 Integrative elements ______________________________________________38 Agents _____________________________________________________ 39 The maṇḍala of Samantabhadra ___________________________ 39 The vision of Samantabhadra _____________________________ 43 Literary figures and oral teachers __________________________ 47 Authors ___________________________________________ 47 Speakers __________________________________________ 51 The revelatory agency __________________________________ 57 Doxographies and contemplative components ______________________ 59 Śrāvaka and Bodhisattva vehicles __________________________60 Vajrayāna ____________________________________________ 62 Atiyoga ______________________________________________ 65 The Fifth Dalai Lama’s structuring of the anthology _________________ 68 Thematic strands _____________________________________________73 Letting-be ____________________________________________ 73 Divine creation ________________________________________ 75 Wisdom and karma _____________________________________ 77 Morality – tensions between the instant and gradual paths _______82 Awareness as intrinsic in the nature of reality _________________84 Symbolic and aesthetic representation ______________________ 87 Conclusion ____________________________________________________ 92 Gödem’s Anthology and the History of the Great Perfection: Introductory Remarks to Chapters Three to Five ___________________________________ 95 Chapter Three: Narratives _________________________________________ 100 3 Cosmogonic narratives ___________________________________________103 Transmission narratives __________________________________________ 107 Transmission lineages ________________________________________ 112 Narrative themes in the transmission _____________________________ 119 Wrathful narratives ______________________________________________122 Narratives of transformation _______________________________________124 Prophecies _____________________________________________________126 Metaphorical narratives ___________________________________________130 Conclusion _____________________________________________________132 Chapter Four: Ritual ______________________________________________ 135 Empowerments _________________________________________________139 Tantric empowerments ________________________________________140 Great Perfection empowerments _________________________________143 Sādhanas ______________________________________________________147 The five Buddhas, Hayagrīva and ḍākinīs _________________________ 147 Peaceful and wrathful deities ___________________________________ 149 Offering rituals _________________________________________________ 153 Conclusion ____________________________________________________ 155 Chapter Five: Contemplation and Philosophy _________________________ 157 The Five Nails: preliminary practices _______________________________ 159 The Six Seals: disciplining the body and subtle winds __________________ 162 Alchemy _____________________________________________________ 167 Oral Transmissions of Vairocana __________________________________
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