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Kadampa Pointing-Out Instructions Kadampa Pointing-Out Instructions James B. Apple (University of Calgary) Introduction he following study provides an English translation and dip- lomatic Tibetan edition of a manuscript entitled Pointing-Out T Instructions in Sets of Five (Ngo sprod lnga tshoms; hereafter, Pointing-Out Instructions). The Pointing-Out Instructions are based up- on Atiśa’s Stages of the Path (Byang chub lam gyi rim pa; see below) and are found within the cycle of commentaries and ritual texts that sup- plement this significant work of Buddhist path literature (Apple 2018, 2019a). The work represents an initially oral tradition of pointing-out instructions transmitted by early bKa’ gdams pa (hereafter, Kadam- pa) communities who were followers of the teachings of Atiśa. The Pointing-Out Instructions may well represent an oral tradition of med- itation instructions that Atiśa himself bestowed to his early followers. In Indian and Tibetan forms of Buddhism “pointing-out instruc- tions” (ngo sprod) generally signifies an introduction to the nature of mind by a spiritual teacher to a qualified disciple. Previous scholar- ship has noted that the verb “ngo sprod means to indicate, indentify, point out, introduce or recognize” (Jackson 2019:91n297), as well as “la confrontation directe” (Achard 1999) or “encounter” (Guenther 1993). As Kapstein (2000:180) summarizes, “Introduction (ngo sprod/- sprad)…in its technical sense, refers to instruction that, if skilfully de- livered to an appropriately receptive disciple by an appropriately qualified master, catalyzes an immediate intuitive grasp of the in- struction’s content.” The impact of this type of instruction by the teacher is thought to “bring about direct insight into the ultimate na- ture of mind…without the disciple’s having first traversed the entire sequence of tantric initiation and yogic practice” (Kapstein 2000, 77). As these citations suggest, pointing-out instructions are associated with tantric Buddhist lineages of meditation and yogic practice. The practice of bestowing such instruction has a long, yet unchartered, history in tantric forms of Indian Buddhism and may have its begin- nings in the siddha culture during the Pāla dynasties (760-1142 CE) in northeastern India. The currently known evidence for pointing-out instructions among siddhas, such as Saraha, Tilopa, and Maitrīpa sug- James B. Apple: “Kadampa Pointing-Out Instructions”, Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines, no. 56, Oc- tobre 2020, pp. 170-262. Kadampa Pointing-Out Instructions 171 gests concise, unsystematic, and perhaps spontaneous, direct verbal and/or nonverbal acts of revealing realization to disciples (Trungram 2004:175; Brunnhölzl 2014:193). Female and male yogic masters uti- lized this technique for directly introducing the nature of the mind (Shaw 1994:98-99) and the technique was closely associated with the practice and realization of mahāmudrā. In Tibetan forms of Buddhism pointing-out instructions have been primarily affiliated with the Nyingma (rnying ma) and Kagyü (bka’ rgyud) lineages. In Nyingma lineages pointing-out instructions are connected to varied Great Per- fection (rdzogs chen) traditions where one confronts the natural state (gnas lugs ngo sprod).1 Kagyü and other Tibetan Buddhist traditions of the new sects (gsar ma) associate pointing-out instructions with the practice of mahāmudrā. Among prominent figures within Kagyü lineages, Gampopa Sönam Rinchen (sGam po pa bSod nams rin chen, 1079–1153) moved mahāmudrā “to the heart of Kagyü tradition and to a place of great prominence in philosophical and meditative discourse in Tibet” (Jackson 2019:92). The influence of Gampopa’s mahāmudrā teachings in Tibet was such that Roger Jackson even suggests, “all Kagyü re- flections on mahāmudrā is really but a series of footnotes to Gampopa” (Jackson 2019:88). In his teachings of mahāmudrā Gampopa was most renown for what Mathes has termed a “not- specifically-Tantric mahāmudrā practice” (2006:201) whereby “a disci- ple need not receive tantric empowerment in order to attain awaken- ing; hearing the guru’s experiential introduction to the nature of mind through a “pointing-out instruction” (ngo sprod) will suffice” (Jackson 2019:91). This style of teaching mahāmudrā was called “in- troduction to the [nature of] mind” (sems kyi ngo sprod) and the im- portant role of “pointing-out” in Gampopa’s system was character- ized by other twelfth century Tibetan figures such as Lama Zhang (Zhang g.Yu brag pa brTson ’grus grags pa, 1123–1193) as “Pointing- out mahāmudrā in the Tradition of Dagpopa (dags po ba’i lugs kyi phyag rgya chen po ngo sprod; D. Jackson 1994:2, 13). Gampopa taught a number of varied meditation techniques to re- alize mahāmudrā and his disciples recorded these teachings in writ- ings found among Gampopa’s collected works. To be sure, some of these teachings do represent succinct, perhaps unsystematic, state- ments indicating instructions for realization. Yet, Gampopa’s record- ed pointing-out instructions also exhibit more structured type in- structions incorporating a system of preliminary practices (ngon ’gro), emphasis on cultivating the awakening mind (bodhicitta), followed by direct instructions on actualizing serenity (zhi gnas ≈ śamatha) and 1 See Germano 1994, Achard 1999:58, 176, 197n172, Achard 2002, 45; Achard 2004. 172 Revue d’Etudes Tibétaines then realizing insight (lhag mthong ≈ vipaśyanā). The instructions then continue with practices for the union (zung ’jug ≈ yuganaddha) of se- renity and insight, often followed with realizing four yogas, and then culminating in instructions for highest realization (Trungram 2004: 175; Stenzel 2008:26-27; Brunnhölzl 2014:193; Jackson 2019:90). Gampopa’s system came to be referred to by his disciples as “mahāmudrā of the sūtra tradition (mdo lugs phyag chen)” (Kapstein 2000: 77). A major question in the history of mahāmudrā exegesis is where did Gampopa come up with this structured and organized system of pointing-out instructions? Did he invent on his own such a system based on sūtras such as the Samādhirājasūtra and/or technical digests (śāstra) like Maitreya’s Uttaratantraśāstra? Although some scholars have hinted at Atiśa and Kadampa influence on Gampopa (Brun- nhölzl 2014; Apple 2017; Callahan 2019: xxxvii), most modern schol- arly sources have ignored the possibility of Kadampa influence on Gampopa and the varied Kagyü meditation manuals that came after him (e.g. Jackson and Mathes 2020). In his recent magnum opus on Ge- luk mahāmudrā Roger Jackson states that the Kadam influence on Gampopa is “debatable” (2019:73). Yet, in the works presented in the following section, as well as the translation and edition of the Point- ing-Out Instructions given below, it is important to consider the his- torical fact that Gampopa studied with at least four Kadampa teach- ers (Vetturini 2013:139; Brunnhölzl 2014:190) for five years while re- ceiving explicitly tantric type mahāmudrā instructions from Milarepa for a mere thirteen months (D. Jackson 1994). Among Gampopa’s Kadampa teachers, he is said to have received stages of the path (lam rim) instructions from Nye rum pa and most likely rGya lCags ri ba, a figure mentioned several times in the transmission lineage of Atiśa teachings through to Gampopa (Apple 2017, 2019b). A number of scholars, most prominently Mathes (2006, 2007, 2019) in a series of well-researched articles, have pursued the later Kagyü tradition in seeking an influence of “sūtra mahāmudrā” or “not-specifically- tantric” mahāmudrā through the Indian scholars Maitrīpa and Sa- hajavajra. Yet, the following evidence presented in this article clearly demonstrates that Atiśa and his early Kadampa followers significant- ly influenced Gampopa and subsequent Kagyü traditions in their structuring of meditation manuals. The following sections demonstrate that pointing-out instructions for “not-specifically-tantric mahāmudrā practice” did not originate with Gampopa (sgam po pa). Structured pointing-out instructions are also practices neither derived from, nor influenced by, other Bud- dhist traditions such as Chan. Rather, systematized and structured “not-specifically-tantric-practice” pointing-out instructions are inti- Kadampa Pointing-Out Instructions 173 mately related to Atiśa’s Stages of the Path, its commentaries, and the teachings found in the Pointing-Out Instructions in Sets of Five. The Pointing-Out Instructions in Atiśa’s Stages of the Path Literature The Pointing-Out Instructions are found in the cycle of texts within Atiśa’s Stages of the Path (Byang chub lam gyi rim pa) manuscript. The Pointing-Out Instructions are approximately thirteen folios long, handwritten in dbu med script, and copied out in the same scribal hand as the rest of the Stages of the Path manuscript. The colophon provides an alternative title as “The Great Pointing-out Instructions in Sets of Five that Eliminate the Extremes of One’s Own Mind” (Rang sems mtha’ gcod kyi ngo sprod lnga tshoms chen mo). The colophon additionally states, “These are special instructions of the Kadam (bka’ gdams) textual lineage or practice lineage” (bka’ gdams gzhung pa’am / spyod phyogs kyi gdams ngag). This information may provide insight into the antiquity of the work in that “the entrusted holders of the lineage” (bka’ babs kyi brgyud ’dzin) of Kadam teachings are consid- ered by tradition to be the “three Kadam brothers” who were direct disciples of Dromtönpa Gyalwai Jungné (1005–1064): Potowa Rin- chen Sal, Chengawa Tsültrim Bar (1033–1103), and Phu-chungwa Shönu Gyaltsen (1031–1106; Jinpa 2008:8). On the other hand, contex- tual evidence in the following section as well as a brief historical note suggests that the Pointing-Out Instructions circulated independently as oral teachings of Atiśa. An episode in the biography of Mokchok Rinchen Tsondru (rMog lcog Rin chen brtson ’grus, 1110–1170), a dis- ciple of Khyung po rnal ’byor (Mei 2009), recounts how he went to request teachings on mahāmudrā from the Kadampa Geshe ’Gar (ca. 12th century), who held lineage teachings from both Atiśa and Mi- larepa. The biography states, “He fully received the [teachings of the] lineage from Lord [Atiśa] and those of Mila[repa].
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