CLEAR DISCRIMINATION OF VIEWS POINTING AT THE DEFINITIVE MEANING THE FOUR PHILOSOPHICAL SCHOOLS OF THE SUTRAYANA TRADITIONALLY TAUGHT IN TIBET WITH REFERENCE TO THE DZOGCHEN TEACHINGS 1 This book is dedicated to Tenzin Gyamtso, H. H. the Fourteenth Dalai Lama On the plane of dharma, truly non-sectarian Master concerned with the Truth rather than the vested interests of schools or with making of partial truths pseudo-absolutes On the plane of politics, wise and agile judoka— may he through nonviolence help Tibetans return to the Roof of the World in the framework of his Five Points Plan 2 NOTICE TO THE ELECTRONIC EDITION OF THIS BOOK THIS BOOK WAS ORIGINALLY WRITTEN IN ENGLISH BY THE AUTHOR, WHO IS NOT A NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER. IN THIS VERSION THE ENGLISH HAS NOT BEEN CORRECTED BY A NATIVE ENGLISH-SPEAKING LANGUAGE SPECIALIST, AS IT WAS POSTED IMMEDIATELY AFTER COMPLETION BY THE AUTHOR. CORRECTIONS WILL BE DONE BEFORE SENDING THE BOOK TO THE PUBLISHERS FOR PRODUCING THE PRINTED EDITION. ELÍAS CAPRILES IN MÉRIDA, VENEZUELA, ON JANUARY 19, 2004 3 INTRODUCTION 4 The Nyingmapa and Sarmapa Ways of Classifying Theoretical Views Whereas the Sarmapasa in general tend to classify the diverse theoretical views of Buddhism in terms of the philosophical schools of the Indian Sutrayana, the Nyingmapasb classify all theoretical views in terms of vehicles and Paths, and distinguish among schools only within the context of a given vehicle or Path. Among the Sarmapas, the Gelugpasc, in particular, hold the theoretical view of the Madhyamaka Prasangika School, which pertains to the Mahayana, to be supreme among Buddhist views. Conversely, the Nyingmapas stress the fact that the highest view is that of Dzogchen Atiyoga, rather than any of those held by the different schools belonging to the Mahayana. At first sight, however, there would seem to be no contradiction between the opinions of Nyingmapas and Gelugpas, insofar as the most important Tantra of the Menngagde or Upadeshavarga series of Dzogchen Atiyoga,d the Drataljur,e asserts that the theoretical view of the supreme vehicle coincides with that of the Madhyamaka Prasangika.f Nevertheless, this coincidence is far from being absolute. No doubt, the theoretical explanation of reality found in the Dzogchen teachings agrees with the theoretical view of the Prasangikas in that both stress the fact that the true nature of reality is ineffable and unthinkable (Skt., achintya), so that no explanation whatsoever can fully correspond to it, and insist that this nature can only be Seen upon the collapse of conceptual understanding.1 Likewise, the teachings of Dzogchen coincide with those of the Prasangikas in asserting that no entity exists “inherently,” even on the conventional plane.2 However, the Dzogchen teachings resort to concepts and terms which are extraneous to Prasangika thought, and which are featured in the canonical texts of the Third Promulgation (dharmachakra) and in the philosophical schools based on them, such as the Yogachara School, the Madhyamaka- Swatantrika-Yogachara subschools of Madhyamika thought, and the subschools that make up the inner, subtle Madhyamaka (which are the Zhentongpa and Mahamadhyamaka subschools). As an example, suffice to mention the concepts and terms “delusory valuation and absolutization of thought,” swasamvedana and klishtamanovijñana, and the term alaya vijñana (though not the corresponding concept).3 Furthermore, the Prasangikas upheld many causal and other lower Mahayana views that are in a stark contrast with the teachings of Atiyogatantrayana, whereas the schools of the inner, subtle Madhyamaka, and in particular Mahamadhyamaka, upheld higher views, far more congruent with those featured in the teachings of Ati Dzogpa Chenpo.4 Therefore, a great number of Masters belonging to a gSar-ma-pa. b rNying-ma-pa. c dGe-lugs-pa. d The Tantra in question is the Drataljur (sGra-thal-’gyur chen po’i rgyud); Skt., Shabda maha prasamga mula tantra. e sGra thal ‘gyur chen po’i rgyud; Skt., Shabda maha prasamga mula tantra. f Namkhai Norbu [Chögyäl], 1988, p. 26. 5 the Ancient or Nyingmapa tradition, which introduced Dzogchen into Tibet, have stated that Mahamadhyamaka is the “highest” subschool of Madhyamaka and of the Mahayana in general: as we will see in the last chapter of this book, this subschool encompasses the view of the Prasangika, which it places in an ampler framework that includes the totality of the Madhyamaka subschools, showing to which aspect of reality or stage of the Mahayana Path each of them responds, and validating it in its own particular context. Furthermore, as Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche has noted,a neither the Madhyamaka Prasangika, nor Mahamadhyamaka, nor any other Mahayana school, could fully coincide with Ati Dzogpa Chenpo, for the latter has three aspects, which are the Base, the Path and the Fruit—all of which are expressions of the Path of self-liberation and as such are utterly different from their equivalents in all schools of the Mahayana and other lower vehicles. The fact that Dzogchen coincides with the Prasangikas in acknowledging the impossibility of concepts to correspond to reality and in rejecting the “inherent” existence of entities even on the conventional plane, is far from implying that the complex constituted by the Base, the Path and the Fruit of Dzogchen (each of which has three aspects) coincide with the complex constituted by the Base, Path and Fruit of the Prasangika—and, in fact, taken as a whole they are quite different from each other.b5 The point in the Nyingmapa way of classifying theoretical views is that “higher” Paths and vehicles lead to a more complete and profound realization than lower ones, and that the views of the “higher” Paths and vehicles, insofar as they respond to and try to express a more complete and profound realization than those of the lower ones, are necessarily “higher” than those of the latter. The Mahamadhyamaka and the Prasangika subschools of Madhyamika philosophy pertain to the Mahayana; though this vehicle is “higher” than the Hinayana, insofar as it pertains to the Path of Renunciation, it is “lower” than all Tantric Vehicles belonging to the Paths of Purification and Transformation—which themselves are “lower” than the Path of Self-liberation, consisting in Ati Dzogpa Chenpo.6 Correspondingly, the realization of the absolute truth of the Mahayana is not the same as the Dzogchen unveiling of what the Atiyoga designates as the Base or zhic, which this vehicle views as realization. In fact, according to one of the explanations of the Base in the Atiyogatantrayana, the former has two aspects, which are katakd or primordial purity, corresponding to voidness, and lhundrube or self-perfection, consisting of clarity and appearances. In the state of absolute truth of the Mahayana, the Base does not unveil through and through: its katak aspect is privileged, and so there is a certain emphasis on voidness, while its lhundrub aspect is to some extent neglected.7 Contrariwise, in Ati Dzogpa Chenpo the unveiling of the Base is total, and therefore katak and lhundrub manifest in their indivisibility, none of them being privileged over the other. Thus, the absolute truth of the Mahayana is clearly partial in regard to the complete and perfect realization of Ati Dzogpa Chenpo, and the theoretical explanation of reality provided by the latter is far more correct, and thus “higher” and more profound, than are those of the various schools and subschools within the former. a Ibidem. b Ibidem. c gZhi. d Ka-dag. e Lhun-grub. 6 The above may seem to be quite a radical statement, and therefore it must be substantiated. Namkhai Nyingpoa, one of the main direct disciples of Padmasambhava, was a realized practitioner of Shantarakshita’s tradition of gradual Mahayana, as well as one of the most realized Tibetan practitioners of the Chinese Ch’an School, which transmits the Tönmun or “sudden” tradition of the Mahayana. Thus, he was most qualified for comparing the final result of successively going through the Paths (Skt., marga; Tib., lam) and levels (Skt., bhumi; Tib., sa) of the gradual Mahayana, with the Contemplation (of) the ultimate condition to which the sudden school gives direct access. And in fact, he never contradicted the claim of Ch’an or Zen according to which the Contemplation of this school is the very state of Buddhahood (corresponding to the fifth Path and the eleventh level of the gradual Mahayana). However, Namkhai Nyingpo also was a realized Master of the Dzogchen Path of self-liberation, as well as a Master of the Tantric Path of transformation, and so he was able to realize, and to explain in his Kathang Denngab, that the Contemplation of Ch’an or Zen implied some degree of attention and therefore of directionality, failing to surpass the duality of center and periphery, and that this manifested as a certain partiality towards voidness. Consequently, this Contemplation and the corresponding realization were not the condition of total plenitude and perfection called Dzogchen—the totally panoramic state beyond the duality center / periphery, beyond attention and beyond directionality. Though, as we have seen, the Contemplation of the sudden Mahayana corresponded to the supreme and final realization of the gradual Mahayana, it was not the self-manifested condition of total Space-Time-Awareness called Dzogchen, wherein the Vajra nature containing the three kayas becomes perfectly evident in its entirety. Namkhai Nyingpo illustrated the above with two particular examples. The first is that of a hen picking grains: though it may seem that the hen is engrossed in the ground, it is actually looking at the grains. The second is that of a person threading a needle: though it may seem that the person is engrossed in the sky, she or he is actually looking at the needle’s eye.