THE TEACHINGS OF PADMASAMBHAVA BRILL'S INDOLOGICAL LIBRARY EDITED BY ]OHANNESBRONKHORST IN CO-OPERATION WITH RICHARD GOMBRICH • OSKAR VON HINUBER KATSUMI MIMAKI • ARVIND SHARMA VOLUME 12 THE TEACHINGS OF PADMASAMBHAVA BY HERBERT GUENTHER E].BRILL LEIDEN . NEW YORK' KOLN . 1996 The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Guenther, Herbert V. The teachings of Padmasambhava / Herbert Guenther. p. cm. - (Brill's Indologicallibrary; v. 12) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9004105425 (cloth: alk. paper) I. Padma Sambhava, ca. 717-ca. 762. I. Title. ll. Series. BQ7950.P327G84 1996 294.3'923'092-dc20 96-18308 CIP ISSN 0925-2916 ISBN 90 04 10542 5 © Copyright 1996 by EJ. Bril~ Lei.den, The Netherlands All rights reserved. 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PRINTED IN THE NETHERlANDS To Edith and Michael in gratitude CONTENTS Preface .................................................................................. :: ........... ix Introduction ....................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: A tripartite cosmos ........................................................ 39 Chapter 2: Into the world-Transcending the world Introductory remarks ................................................................. 72 A. The Locale ............................................................................ 92 B. The Mission ......................................................................... 103 C. The Experiencing ................................................................ 112 Chapter 3: Symbols (brda'): the luminous language of Being- Similes (dpe): interpretive pointers to Being Introductory remarks ............................................................... 127 A. The moral imperative: wholeness personified (bla-ma) ..... 132 B. The mystery spell (gsang-sngags) and its articulation, the symbol (brda r) •••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• 144 C. Encountering (ngo-sprod) our existential reality or the mystery-that-we-are ...................................................... 158 D. Similes/illustrative instances (dpe) ..................................... 171 Epilogue ........................................................................................ 203 Bibliography ................................................................................. 219 Subject Index ................................................................................ 223 Index of Technical Terms and Phrases Specific to the rNyingma Tradition .................................... 227 PREFACE Although in the Indo-Tibetan cultural area and among those who study it the name Padmasambhava has become a household word, little is known about this enigmatic person who goes by this cryptonym, and still less about his ideas. His so-called biographies, more properly termed hagiographies, are late compositions, cen­ turies removed from his time, as is evident from the language in which they are written, and are concerned with the miraculous feats of their hero, rather than with his visions and ideas. As expressions of a person's inner life, these are a matter of psychology and philo­ sophy in which, in addition to linguistics and literary forms, I per­ sonally am particularly interested. My fascination with the unknown (not necessarily, the obscure and occult) goes back to my student days when first I came across pictorial representations of Padmasambhava whose very physiog­ nomy was so different from other Tibetan portrait paintings and statues. But when I tried to learn something about his visions and ideas, I drew a blank. There simply was no original source material available. Another aggravating circumstance was the general intel­ lectual-academic climate that was more or less averse to the literary genre that goes by its Indian name of Tantra-literally, this word means a "loom" and, figuratively, "a weaving of one's life" (which involves the whole person). This climate did not, nor does it today, care much for spiritual realities pertaining to a higher level than the one that can be perceived by a merely rational approach. By aiming at a detached view, this approach bases itself on the metaphysical assumption that what does not fit into its narrow frame is not of great relevance. As a consequence, this arrogant assumption has had devastating effects in the cultural sphere and, in the field of Indo­ Tibetan studies, has led to the neglect of indigenous Tibetan contri­ butions. Texts of which no Sanskrit sources were available and could be consulted, were dismissed as not worth an in-depth study. My hope to find out more about Padmasambhava's ideas and vi­ sions was shattered when I went to and spent many years in India x PREFACE where under the auspices of the Indian Government I initiated Ti­ betan studies in their own right at the Varanaseya Sanskrit Univer­ sity, and attracted learned Tibetans, irrespective of their doctrinal affiliations. Although because of my impartiality all of them were most eager to share what they knew with me, whenever I tried to find out something about Padmasambhava's ideas, I drew a blank. "He was a great man, a second Buddha (sangs-rgyas gnyis-pa), a precious guru (guru rin-po-che)" was all they could tell me. Of his own works they did not know anything and, as· a matter of fact, very few among these learned Tibetans would honestly admit that they no longer understood the old language. The situation changed drastically when I acquired a complete set of the rNying-ma rgyud-' bum-still one of the best collections of the "older" (mying-ma) texts of Buddhism, among which Padma­ sambhava's own works (as attested to by his interpreter-translator­ editor, the lotsava sKa-ba-dpal-brtsegs) figure prominently. Finally I could implement Edmund Husserl's call Zuriick zu den Dingen ("back to basics"). A detailed study of Padmasambhava's writings opened up an in­ credible wealth of ideas and psychological insights on his part. They confirmed me in my contention that the works in which these im­ ages and the insights they express figure so prominently, are genu­ inely phenomenological reports of experiences that tend to become distorted the moment they are mistaken for truth-claims. By their very nature of being mere claims, they are spurious and ephemeral postulates in misplaced concreteness. The symbols or archetypal images through which the deeply moving insights of the experiencer present themselves and the allegories into which they are woven to form a kind of narrative, have an enduring appeal because they speak directly to our innermost being. However, the poetic charm of the original imagery is unfortunately lost in any translation into any Western language because Western languages, based on Aristotelian categories, are so totally different from the Tibetan language. None­ theless, as far as possible I have tried to preserve the original dic­ tion, and in order to give the reader a visual and, mediately, auditive impression I have added the original Tibetan version to the trans­ lated passages. Very few libraries and/or private persons own Tibet­ an collections. PREFACE xi I hope the reader will be as much impressed by the largely ne­ glected visionary thinker Padmasambhavaas I have been over the many years I devoted to the study of his writings in India and here in Canada. Acknowledgements Although the phenomenological-hermeneutical approach to the sub­ ject matter of this book is entirely my own, I would be remiss in not acknowledging the help I received from friends and colleagues. David Michael Levin introduced me to phenomenology and encour­ aged me in pursuing this approach by making valuable suggestions. Stanley Krippner rekindled my interest in the kind of psychology that had not yet banished the psyche from its repertoire, and encour­ aged and helped me formulate a terminology more appropriate to Padmasambhava's psychological insights. Allan Combs prodded me toward a deeper understanding of process oriented thinking that underlies much of Buddhist thinking with its insistence on experi­ ence rather than on impoverishing logical reductionism. In this context I also must express my gratitude to Sonam T. Kazi who is one of the few persons who still know the older Tibetan language. and its vocabulary that is not to be found in any of the standard dic­ tionaries. I am especially grateful to my former students and friends, Jeanette Lavigne and Mariana Neves, for carefully reading the whole manuscript. Their continual questions forced me to clarify certain points (which I deemed to be self-evident). But above all, my thanks go to my daughter Edith and her hus­ band Michael Kimbell for their literary and editorial skill, and, last but not least, to my wife Use for her patience and for her unflagging zeal in checking the translation with the original Tibetan text and preparing the indices.